The Choices Get Harder
Drought, Sea Level Rise and Adaptation
Swale House on Governors Island June 1. 2026 Photograph by Aviva Rahmani
My essays this month will be briefer than usual as I complete a residency at Swale House on Governors Island in New York City, for the new project, “Tidal Flushing.” This Sunday at 1: PM, I will host a casual live chat on the porch of Swale House about the project. It won’t be recorded. What I hope to discuss are some of the choices we face now that climate change is forcing upon us all. One of those choices is political but I have tried, in these essays, to stay focused on systemic implications rather than individual situations. Nonetheless, like many, events trigger big emotions: rage, terror, disappointment, and my reflex is to attach my feelings to individuals. But the reason I try to stick with systems, is that even though systems might seem more abstract, if we can correctly analyze systems, we can also correctly identify where and how to intervene and create cascades of change. That is at the heart of why I developed trigger point theory and have often referred to it in these essays.