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hurricane helene
The Forests I Love Are Threatened—But Here’s Why I Still Have Hope
Working together, we can continue to advance a better, more sustainable vision for the South.
May 06, 2025
May is one of my favorite months to go walking through the forests near my home in Cedar Mountain, North Carolina. Up here, near the mountainous border between the Carolinas, the air smells sweet and clean this time of the year, filtered by the bounty of trees. I’ve gotten to know some of them like neighbors: the cucumber magnolias, maples, sourwoods, and, of course, dogwoods.
I am a lifelong lover of forests. I am also the executive director of the Dogwood Alliance, an environmental organization dedicated to preserving Southeastern forests. As such, I make sure to pay attention to the forests and the trees.
Lately, when I visit the forests, I see scars. I see the smoldering scars of the recent fires that sent my husband and me into a panicked evacuation. Or, I see the giant holes where trees used to be before Hurricane Helene, which devastated the area and kept me stranded in New York City for days unable to get in touch with my husband or my daughter. Ironically, I was at the annual gathering known as Climate Week as everyone learned that the Asheville area is not a climate haven. Nowhere really is. My neck of the woods is beautiful, but not invincible.
We’re not only fighting what’s bad but also working toward what’s good.
Still, when it comes to climate change, our forests are our best friends and biggest protectors. They can block the wind and absorb the water before it inundates communities. They’re also among the oldest and best tools in the toolbox when it comes to climate change because nothing—and I mean nothing—stores carbon like a good, old-fashioned tree.
And as destructive as the hurricane and the fires were, the biggest threat to our forests remains the logging industry. The rate of logging in our Southern U.S. forests is four times higher than that of the South American rainforests. Despite claims to the contrary, the logging industry is the biggest tree-killer in the nation.
The wood-pellet biomass industry is a major culprit. Over the last 10 years, our region has become the largest wood-pellet exporter in the entire world. Companies receive massive subsidies to chop our forests into wood pellets that are then shipped overseas to be burned for electricity. This process is a major waste of taxpayer dollars and produces more carbon emissions than coal.
And it seems that regardless of who is in charge at the state or federal level, they consistently fail to protect forests. Most recently, President Donald Trump signed executive orders that threaten to turbocharge logging and wood production while subverting cornerstone legal protections such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The truth is that policies that increase logging and wood production will only make communities like mine even more vulnerable to climate impacts, while decreasing the likelihood of recovery. The Trump administration's efforts to ramp up logging and close environmental justice offices are especially troublesome given the disproportionate impact that the forestry industry has on disadvantaged communities.
It can be an alarming picture to look at, especially when I think about the communities that will be harmed the most: low-income communities of color. But, I’m not new to this movement. I’ve seen again and again, those same communities rise up and fight off some of the biggest multinational corporations on the planet and hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire.
We’ve successfully clawed back subsidies for the biomass industry, slowing the growth of wood-pellet plants, and sounded the alarm when these facilities violated important pollution limits. They’ve had to pay millions of dollars in fines, shut down plants, and scrap plans for expansion. This is what gives me hope for the people and forests of the South.
We’re not only fighting what’s bad but also working toward what’s good.
Just last month, Dogwood Alliance’s community partners in Gloster, Mississippi scored a major victory. The community exerted huge pressure on the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to deny a permit to expand wood-pellet production for Drax—one of the most powerful multinational biomass corporations—and won! This means that the town’s residents will not have to face increased air pollution, noise pollution, traffic, and the greater mutilation of their bucolic landscape. If Gloster, a town of less than 1,000 people, can beat a megacorporation, I know we can stand up to the Trump administration and continue to advance a better, more sustainable vision for the South.
Through my work, I have the absolute privilege of partnering with some of the most inspiring leaders in the environmental justice movement. For example, we are partnering with Reverend Leo Woodberry, a pastor in South Carolina, to create a community forest on the land where his ancestors were once enslaved. With the support of community-focused donors, soon the Britton’s Neck Community Conservation Forest will be full of hiking trails, camp sites, and an ecolodge for locals and tourists from around the world to enjoy. This rise in outdoor recreation and (literal) foot traffic will create a badly needed economic rejuvenation for the local community, thus turning standing trees into gold. After all, outdoor recreation creates five times more jobs than the forestry industry.
This is not an isolated story. Four years ago this month, the Pee Dee Indian Tribe cut the ribbon on their educational center and 100-acre community forest in McColl, South Carolina as part of their effort to create a regenerative economy that prioritizes ecological harmony. All across the South, people are protecting the forests that protect them through a new community-led Justice Conservation initiative, which prioritizes forest protection in the communities on the front lines of our nation's most heavily logged areas.
The other day, when I went for my walk, I noticed that the scars are starting to give way to shoots of new growth. This is the time of year when the trees come alive, lighting the forest with purple and pink and white blossoms. That, to me, is hope. That, to me, is a miracle.
Right now, it feels like the whole world is on edge, bracing for the next major weather event. I know how helpless it can feel to watch the communities you love experience severe damage, I’ve lived it. But we are our own best hope. Just like the trees in a forest, we’re stronger together. Whether you live here in the South or across the country, I invite you to join us in protecting our forests and supporting the types of projects we’re spearheading through the Justice Conservation initiative.
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40+ Groups: Trump Admin Push to Dismantle FEMA a 'Direct Threat' to Millions
"Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits."
Apr 14, 2025
Over 40 organizations on Monday collectively rejected the Trump administration's threats to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency and called on Congress to defend FEMA, which helps state, local, tribal, and territorial governments prepare for and recover from disasters.
The coalition's letter to Congress came in response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's declaration last month that "we're going to eliminate FEMA," which echoed President Donald Trump saying during a January trip to disaster zones in North Carolina and California that "I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away."
FEMA was an independent agency from its formation in 1979 until 2003, when it became part of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth co-chair a council Trump created to review FEMA, which is set to send the president recommendations by late July. The administration has already started terminating agency staff as part of a broader effort to gut the federal government.
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them."
"The administration's calls to transfer the burden of disaster preparedness and response obligations to state and local governments by gutting FEMA or eliminating the agency altogether are dangerously out of step with reality," argued the dozens of climate, consumer protection, disaster recovery, environmental justice, housing, resilience, and science groups.
"Climate-driven extreme weather is ravaging our communities," the coalition noted. "From the deadly back-to-back Hurricanes Milton and Helene last fall, to this year's devastating LA wildfires, and recent historic heavy rainfall and extensive flooding across Southern and Midwest states, American communities need resources to prepare for and recover from more frequent and severe extreme weather."
Last year—the hottest in human history—the U.S. endured 27 weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion, figures expected to rise as the Trump administration further enables the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry. The costliest event of 2024 was Helene, at $78.7 billion. The hurricane impacted several states but was particularly devastating for North Carolina.
Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said last week that "I learned that FEMA refused our request to extend its 100% reimbursement period. I got this news while I was in Newland with families who lost their homes in the storm. The need in western North Carolina remains immense—people need debris removed, homes rebuilt, and roads restored."
"I am extremely disappointed and urge the president to reconsider FEMA's bad decision," Stein added on social media. "Six months later, the people of western North Carolina are working hard to get back on their feet; they need FEMA to help them get the job done."
The coalition warned Monday that "shifting the responsibility for disaster recovery to state governments—many of which are already under-resourced—is dangerous. States, especially smaller ones or those hit repeatedly by extreme weather, don't have the capacity and resources needed to respond to today's scale of climate-related disasters on their own."
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them, helping to repair roads and bridges, clear debris, and provide direct aid like food, shelter, and emergency assistance to survivors. The toll of increasingly severe climate disasters is stark," the coalition continued. "Without a well-resourced and functioning FEMA, communities will be left without the lifesaving resources they need when a major disaster hits."
The letter highlights the importance of FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), a program that helps people "strengthen infrastructure and mitigate the impacts of disasters," and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which "is the main—and sometimes only—flood insurance option available to most homeowners in flood-prone areas."
"FEMA remains one of the few federal lifelines for communities trying to recover and rebuild from extreme weather, climate-related impacts, natural hazards, and other events," the letter concludes. "Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits. Dismantling federal emergency preparedness programs is a direct threat to the safety, stability, and recovery of millions of Americans."
Signatories include the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Consumer Federation of America, Friends of the Earth, Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, Greenpeace USA, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, New York Communities for Change, Presente.org, Public Citizen, Stand.earth, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Calls to gut FEMA in the age of climate change are not just unthinkable—they're a slap in the face to communities across the country dealing with the impacts from severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires," said Deanna Noel of Public Citizen's Climate Program in a statement. "The federal government's first responders to disasters are the employees from FEMA."
"Gutting the federal governments' emergency response essentially blindfolds officials from the suffering and frontline needs after major disasters strike," Noel added. "Our elected officials must stand up for their constituents, not bow to a dangerous agenda that abandons our communities when they are most vulnerable."
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'Never Happened Before': WMO Finds Past 10 Years Have Been 10 Hottest on Record
"While a single year above 1.5°C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call," wrote the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
Mar 19, 2025
A report released by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday found that not only was 2024 the warmest year in a 175-year observational period, reaching a global surface temperature of roughly 1.55°C above the preindustrial average for the first time, but each of the past 10 years was also individually the 10 warmest on record.
"That's never happened before," Chris Hewitt, the director of the WMO's climate services division, of the clustering of the 10 warmest years all in the most recent decade, toldThe New York Times.
All told, the agency's State of the Global Climate 2024adds new details to the public's understanding of a planet that is getting steadily warmer thanks to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
2024 clearly surpassed 2023 in terms of global surface temperature. 2023 recorded a temperature of 1.45°C above the average for the years 1850-1900, which is used to represent preindustrial conditions, according to the report.
The report from the WMO, a United Nations agency, includes "the latest science-based update" on key climate indicators, such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean heat content, and glacier mass balance. Many of these sections report grim milestones.
In 2023, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide reached the highest levels in the last 800,000 years, for example, and in 2024, ocean heat content reached the highest level recorded in the over half-century observational period, topping the previous heat record that was set in 2023.
As of 2023, two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, also reached levels unseen in the last 800,000 years.
"Over the course of 2024, our oceans continued to warm, sea levels continued to rise, and acidification increased. The frozen parts of Earth's surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded. Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world," wrote WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo in the introduction to the report, which drew its findings from data drawn from dozens of institutions around the world.
"While a single year above 1.5°C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call that we are increasing the risks to our lives, economies and the planet," wrote Saulo.
In 2015, 196 party countries signed on to the agreement to pursue efforts "to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels." According to the United Nations, going above 1.5ºC on an annual or monthly basis doesn't constitute failure to reach the agreement's goal, which refers to temperature rise over decades.
There are multiple methods that aim to measure potential breaches of 1.5°C over the long term, according to the report. The "best estimates" of current global warming based on three different approaches put global temperatures somewhere between 1.34°C and 1.41°C compared to the pre-industrial period.
The report also details the damage brought on by a number of extreme weather events last year, including Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States, and Cyclone Chido, which impacted the French territory of Mayotte.
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