Grounding Practice:

This episode begins with a reading from Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Solnit writes about the courage, mutual aid, generosity, and imagination that often emerge in the aftermath of catastrophe.

The Practice: As you listen, notice what rises in you when you hear the idea that “the possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting.” Where have you seen people become more open-hearted, resourceful, or generous in a time of crisis?

Key Themes and Conversations:

Climate Mobility and the Language of Displacement: Katie explains why people who move after climate-related disasters may not call themselves “climate refugees,” even when they understand that climate change shaped the conditions that forced them to move.

Safe, Sanitary, Secure — and Chosen: Disaster recovery often focuses on stable housing, but Katie adds an essential fourth word to describe the housing that people need: chosen. True recovery must include agency and the ability to make meaningful decisions about one’s future.

Adaptation as Faithful Practice: Katie notes that many faith communities focus on mitigation — solar panels, electric vehicle chargers, insulation — but fewer talk about adaptation. Even if emissions stopped tomorrow, the world has already changed, and communities need to adjust to that reality.

Housing as Climate Ministry: Katie argues that affordable housing is one of the most important climate actions faith communities can take. As people move away from higher-risk areas, housing pressure can increase in the places receiving them, creating cycles of climate gentrification and displacement.

Welcome Without Control: Katie invites faith communities to offer real welcome while respecting the choices displaced people make. The goal is not to persuade someone to stay, return, or move on, but to expand the menu of choices available to them.

Queer, Immigrant, and Othered Communities in Disaster Response: Katie and Autumn discuss how official disaster systems often assume a straight, married, property-owning household model. Disasters can “turn up the volume” on existing exclusion, but they can also create openings for new forms of solidarity.

Next Steps:

Autumn and Nicole remind listeners that the next steps help us bring imagination into practical reality. The change we need cannot happen alone. It has to grow in community.

Notice the actual hazards in your place.
Katie Mears invites listeners to begin close to home. What are the things that cause harm to people’s living and working conditions where you are? They may not be the dramatic disasters that make national news. They might be flooding, extreme heat, apartment fires, unsafe housing, power outages, food insecurity, wildfire smoke, or rising housing costs.

Then ask: What gifts do you, and the communities you are part of, already have that could be brought to bear in that situation? Disaster response is not only about who has a generator or who fits an official emergency checklist. It can include people who cook, organize, drive, translate, make phone calls, offer space, know the neighbors, care for children, repair things, pray, listen, or help people feel less alone.

Explore your community’s disaster preparedness.
If you belong to a faith community, ask what disaster preparedness efforts are already in place. Does your congregation have a plan? A phone tree? A communication strategy? A way to check on vulnerable members? Nicole points listeners toward the United Church of Christ’s Disaster Preparedness Guide for Local Churches: A Workbook, and encourages people to look for similar resources from their own denomination or tradition.

Resource: United Church of Christ Preparedness Resources
https://www.ucc.org/disaster_index/disaster_resources/

Listen to stories of displacement.
Autumn invites listeners, especially those who offer spiritual care, to speak with someone who has experienced uprooting. This might be someone displaced by weather, housing costs, evacuation, or the loss of stable housing. Listen without trying to fix the story or the conditions. The act of witnessing can be the beginning of rebuilding community.

Invite stories in your wider network.
If you are active on social media, consider asking people to share with you their stories of displacement or uprooting. Invite face-to-face conversation when possible. Practice accompaniment: receive the story, honor the person, and resist the urge to rush toward solutions.

Share what you discover.
Autumn and Nicole would love to hear what you are practicing, noticing, or learning.

Email: podcast@thebtscenter.org
Voice Message: 207-200-6986

People and resources mentioned:

• Rev. Katie Mears, Senior Technical Specialist for U.S. Disaster and Climate Risk at Episcopal Relief & Development
  Katie’s articles at Episcopal Relief & Development: https://www.episcopalrelief.org/?s=katie+mears
• Episcopal Relief & Development
  Website: https://www.episcopalrelief.org/
• Episcopal Relief & Development U.S. Disaster Program
  Resource: https://www.episcopalrelief.org/our-work/us-disaster-program/
• Imagining a More Just World – Disaster Response in an Age of Climate Change by Rev. Katie Mears
  Article: https://www.episcopalrelief.org/stories/disaster-response-in-an-age-of-climate-change/
• Adaptation Through Shock by Katie Mears and Sarah Labowitz, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  Article: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/adaptation-through-shock
• A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
  Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/
• United Church of Christ Preparedness Resources
  Includes Disaster Preparedness Guide for Local Churches: A Workbook: https://www.ucc.org/disaster_index/disaster_resources/
• Climate Changed Podcast
  https://climatechangedpodcast.org/
• The BTS Center
  https://thebtscenter.org/
• The BTS Center YouTube Channel
  Video episodes and bonus material: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBTSCenter

Connect with us

What stirred you in this conversation? We love to hear your voices and reflections.

• Email: podcast@thebtscenter.org
• Voice Message: 207-200-6986
• Video: Find full-length video episodes and bonus clips on The BTS Center’s YouTube channel.
• Podcast Website: Visit www.climatechangedpodcast.org for transcripts and discussion guides.
• Learn more about The BTS Center: https://thebtscenter.org/

Blessing: May you feel the wind at your back, the ocean at your feet, as the hands of your ancestors — sometimes gently, sometimes firmly — guide you into the future.

Meet Our Guest

Katie Mears is the Senior Technical Specialist for U.S. Disaster and Climate Risk at Episcopal Relief & Development. They have worked in faith-based disaster response since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, supporting communities through disaster preparation, response, recovery, and adaptation.

Katie’s current work focuses on people-prioritized, climate-adaptive disaster response. They help faith communities and local partners address housing, displacement, climate risk, and the complex choices facing people whose lives and homes are disrupted by disaster.

Meet Our Host

Autumn Brown (she/her) is an artist, facilitator, mother, and theologian. The front woman of the eponymously named soul-pop band, AUTUMN, she is a queer, mixed-race Black woman, a gifted facilitator and orator, and a freedom worker who grounds her approach to building movements for liberation in her belief in the innate capacity for healing that emanates from the human heart.

Meet Our Co-Host

Rev. Nicole Diroff (she/her) is ordained in the United Church of Christ. She holds expertise in facilitation, data management, and strategic planning. Nicole is a certified Maine Master Naturalist, serves as Chair of the Spiritual Formation Committee at Williston-Immanuel United Church and is Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee for the Scarborough Public School District.

Meet Our Producer

After spending 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to “de-gay” himself through conversion therapy, Peterson Toscano came out a quirky queer Quaker concerned with human rights. He also produces other podcasts including Citizens Climate Radio, Bubble & Squeak, and the Bible Bash Podcast. Peterson has been featured in People Magazine, The Times of London, the Trya Banks Show, and NPR Morning Edition. He lives in Pretoria, South Africa with his husband, Glen Retief.