Trouble #7 – No Permission Needed: Mutual Aid in an Age of Climate Catastrophe

It’s now been twelve years since Hurricane Katrina smashed through the levees of New Orleans, completely inundating the Lower Ninth Ward and validating scientists’ dire warnings of climate change’s destructive effects on weather patterns. In the long years of government inaction that have followed, early warning signs have given way to a sinking realization that climate change is no longer a nightmare future scenario humanity needs to avoid – it’s a present-day reality that we need to adapt to. From record-setting wildfires and famine-inducing droughts, to mass flooding and a punishing string of unprecedented mega-storms, 2017 has been a watershed year for climate catastrophe.

While liberal environmentalists wring their hands over the Trump cabal’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, Indigenous land-defenders, anarchists and other radicals are taking matters into their own hands. For some, this has assumed the form of direct action campaigns waged against pipelines and other infrastructure tied to extractive industries. For others, it has manifested in grassroots mutual aid efforts aimed at supporting and empowering communities most affected by natural disasters. In this month’s episode of Trouble, anarchist media collective subMedia focuses on the latter, highlighting the voices and experiences of individuals actively providing mutual aid disaster relief in front-line communities.