Complaining about a mild winter on the Gulf of Mexico is like being upset about winning the lottery — it just doesn’t happen. Down here in the Deep South, the mere whisper of snow sends folks into a frenzy, clutching their pearls as if frost was the start of the apocalypse. Then there are the urban cowboys, eyeing their spotless and unnecessarily oversized trucks with pride and doubt, as if those gas-guzzling beasts might betray them at the first hint of a snowflake on the road.

Not this year!

The reasons behind our mild winter weather are plenty: record global temperatures, greenhouse gases, and rising sea levels. Meanwhile, Antarctic ice is disappearing faster than reasonable home insurance rates. Then there’s the El Niño, a naturally occurring weather phenomenon that alters the course of the jet stream further south and east. That’s part of why I’m typing this in shorts and a T-shirt.

Last week in the Meltdown, I mentioned that 2022 and 2023 broke numerous disaster records. Those can be easily forgotten about when the weather is so comfortable. But it’s a bit like seeing a smiling clown in a horror movie — something’s not quite right.

These extreme weather oddities, which are becoming more common, are a tiny part of the more significant and wilder stories we at Reckon reported on this past year. The stories that really got us talking and broadened our perspectives weren’t about whether we needed to wear one sweater or two. They ranged from how our rapidly changing climate affects the lives of people nationwide, including the demise of Gulf Coast shrimpers, the troubled lives of West Coast wildfire firefighters, and how the descendants of Atlantic coast Gullah Geechee people are fighting to keep developers and rising sea levels away from the islands they still call home.

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1. As Native Americans contend with more extreme weather, some die waiting for help

In the brutal winter storm on Pine Ridge Reservation, Alice Phelps’ harrowing journey through whiteouts underscores the dire challenges Native American communities face amid climate change and limited resources. Stranded and often struggling with harsh winter storms, these communities confront severe weather with resilience and innovation yet remain largely cut off from outside help.

2. Meet the company making record-breaking profits off of egg-mageddon

As egg prices soared earlier this year due to avian flu and inflation, accusations of corporate greed surfaced against major producers like Cal-Maine. Despite market factors, record profits led to allegations of “greedflation” and calls for a federal investigation into potential price gouging and collusion. These scenarios could become more common as climate change places stress on animals while increased temperatures allow disease to spread more freely.

3. Meet the man trying to save the dwindling Gullah Geechee island community, settled by his enslaved ancestors

Maurice Bailey buried his father in Sapelo Island’s ancestral cemetery in 2023, marking another loss for the shrinking Gullah-Geechee community on Georgia’s Atlantic Coast, which is struggling to preserve their unique culture and history from creeping developers and climate change.

4. Native Women’s voices are rising up for Land Back and seed-keeping for future generations

Native women like Jessika Greendeer lead the rematriation movement, striving to reclaim ancestral lands and preserve indigenous seed heritage for future generations.

5. Climate change is erasing Black Cemeteries in the South In Mobile’s Oaklawn Memorial Cemetery, African American graves, including those of notable heroes, face neglect and climate threats — a small insight into the broader struggle to preserve Black burial sites nationwide.

6. The end of plastic may be near. But what happens to water crisis areas like Flint, MI, that depend on it?

In Jackson, Mississippi, residents like Brad Franklin have long relied on bottled water due to distrust of the city’s tap water. These fears reflect a broader issue of aging infrastructure and environmental injustice in underserved communities.

7. The national emergency no one’s talking about: Firefighters are quitting in droves. Here’s why. Wildland firefighters throughout the country are not just fighting forest fires. Against the growing dangers associated with drought, they are in a relentless fight with the government for better pay, living conditions, and benefits. But beneath the public feud to obtain these basic concessions, high levels of suicide, homelessness, and cancer weigh heavy on this tight-knit community.

8. What you should know about The Shrimpocalypse, the wipeout of a time-honored US industry

Phillip Dyson, a shrimp fisherman in Louisiana, may be the last in his family to trawl coastal Louisiana’s once-abundant inland channels and coastline. Amid environmental changes, towering natural gas terminals, and competition from cheap overseas imports, the once charming Gulf Coast fishing towns and the unique people living there are vanishing.

9. Florida kids will now be taught PragerU’s climate denialism amid record heat After Hurricane Ian, 2.5 million Florida children missed school, with some losing 100 days. Yet, as climate impacts worsen, they’re about to be taught that climate change isn’t real, a dangerous contradiction enforced by PragerU and state policies, undermining scientific facts and environmental education.

10. Fires scar Maui, but land grabs pose a new threat to healing

After the devastating fires in Lāhainā, Maui, locals like Archie Kalepa fear that land owned by indigenous Hawaiians will be bought by outsiders, threatening the native community who are struggling to preserve their cultural heritage amid high levels of tourism, soaring real estate prices and the how the scars of colonialism continue to bring environmental devastation to their lives.

If that’s in any way depressing or overwhelming, take a look at any of the past Meltdown newsletters. They contain ways to calm your mind and body or completely alter your mind. They are helpful, I promise.

Thanks for reading The Meltdown. Please sign up, share, and have a super cool and peaceful New Year. We’ll be back to normal next Thursday. Send tips to: [email protected]

See you next week.