U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright; Rep. Chuck Fleischmann; R-Chattanooga; and Open AI CEO Greg Brockman spoke with the press during a tour of Oak Ridge-area nuclear facilities.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

Visit by energy secretary doesn’t address program cuts as former fracking CEO downplays climate change threat; visit comes following diversity program cuts; full extent of Oak Ridge impacts still unknown

Hellbender Press typically avoids the use of anonymous sources. The sources in this story spoke on condition they not be identified so they could speak on a sensitive matter.

This story will be updated. The original stories continue below.

OAK RIDGE — U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright denied that climate change was a “crisis” and downplayed its threat during a visit to an international hub of scientific expertise rattled by early actions of the second Trump Administration. His visit did little to allay fears of cuts to staff and programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the most concrete signs of change have been the dismantling of diversity efforts.

Wright visited ORNL on Feb. 28, and at a press conference defended the Trump administration’s actions on climate change, energy sources and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a group headed by Elon Musk that has recommended cutting programs and staff in various government departments.

He did not announce any layoffs at the lab itself, however, and implied research related to climate there will continue. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is home to many kinds of related research, including at the Climate Change Science Institute. CCSI does modeling and gathers data on the climate, as well as working on solutions to the problem.

Wright promoted research on artificial intelligence, which he called “Manhattan Project II,” and nuclear energy, and he appeared alongside Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Rep. Chuck Fleischmann R-Chattanooga and Open AI CEO Greg Brockman, who also spoke and answered questions. 

“I don’t think you’ll see any reduction in the science that we do regarding climate change or any of these other really big questions,” said Wright in response to a reporter’s questions about how cuts at the lab might affect climate change-related research at ORNL, which his department funds through a partnership with contractor Battelle and the University of Tennessee. He said, however, he still “100 percent” believed there was no climate “crisis” and said scientific reports backed up his view. 

“We haven’t seen an increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, floods, droughts, storms. Wildfires are on an uptick because we stopped managing our forests,” he said. “Deaths from extreme weather, which is what you hear the press and politicians’ fearmongering about, it declined over 90 percent in my lifetime as the population’s grown. So climate change is a real phenomenon. It’s just not even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem.” He also said an intergovernmental climate change report also showed economists saying climate change was not as important as issues like education, free trade and “empowerment.”

These claims are a mixed bag of truth. While the frequency of hurricanes hitting the United States, for example, hasn’t increased, a recent Columbia University study showed the tropical cyclones’ intensity for the East and Gulf Coasts has. Also unmentioned by Wright was any impact the climate has on disease or health conditions apart from extreme weather, a subject on which experts at Tennessee’s own Vanderbilt University have sounded the alarm.

Wright was CEO of a hydraulic fracking company, Liberty Energy, before his appointment.

“It’s a real thing, but nothing in the science of climate change or in the economics of climate change shows it to be the world’s biggest problem,” Wright said. “When you call something a crisis, it means we don’t have time to stop and think. We’ve just got to take action. That’s exactly the opposite of what climate science is.”

During the meeting, he also defended Musk, DOGE and Trump’s actions generally while not announcing any such cuts for the civilian research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory or the weapons maintenance at Y-12, which is managed by a different contractor. A reporter at the event mentioned an earlier instance in which workers at Y-12 National Security Complex received termination letters that were then rescinded. While the reporter asked him to offer reassurance on job security, he sidestepped that question.

A student farm leader takes care  of pigs at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa. Most of the college’s pigs were recovered following fatal flooding from the Swannanoa River on Sept. 28, 2024.  Warren Wilson College

Collective action helps alleviate climate anxiety in wake of Hurricane Helene

This story was originally published by The Revelator.  

Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College.

SWANNANOA, N.C. — “We need 10 people on flush crew, five to clean out the fridges in the science building, and 15 to clear trees on the roads! We’re gonna do this together!”

This wasn’t a pep rally or a community service event. It was the morning meeting called at 9:30 a.m. each day by campus leaders in front of the cafeteria at the small college where I lived without power or water, after the climate disaster of Hurricane Helene devastated our community in Western North Carolina.

“We know the Swannanoa Valley has been hit especially hard,” the college president told the group of students and employees. “And we are here for this college and for the greater community. This is our work together.”

That day I joined my neighbor Tom Lam chain-sawing his way across campus with a crew of students clearing brush along the way.

“Now gather ‘round so you can see how to sharpen this chainsaw,” Tom said in his booming Jersey voice, pulling on his suspenders after we’d cleared trees that crushed a neighbor’s car.

I’ve spent 25 years teaching environmental education, raising two daughters, and living at this 1,000-acre campus where all students work in jobs in places like the farm, garden, forests, and even fiber arts. And I think this might be one model of how to live in community in a climate emergency.

Clint Carroll, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, will talk Feb. 27 at McClung Museum about the Cherokee philosophy of the ‘Middle Way.’

KNOXVILLE — A central aspect of Cherokee worldview is ᎠᏰᎵ ᎦᏙᎬ (ayehli gadogv), or “Standing in the Middle,” a philosophy that humans occupy a role in a web of complex interactions between mutually dependent organisms. Standing in the Middle emphasizes the importance of balance and reciprocity in persisting relationships.

A lecture at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 27 at McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park, Knoxville, will feature Dr. Clint Carroll, who will explore how Standing in the Middle informs ecology, conservation, management practices, epistemology and science communication in the face of unprecedented anthropogenic (human-caused) change.

Light refreshments will be available before the lecture.

Clint Carroll is associate professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he works closely with Cherokee people in Oklahoma on issues of land conservation and the perpetuation of land-based knowledge and ways of life.

Renowned poet, educator and civil rights activist Nikki Giovanni died Dec. 9 at 81.  Jeanine Fuller/Social media

“Knoxville, Tennessee”

I always like summer

best

you can eat fresh corn

from daddy's garden

and okra

and greens

and cabbage

and lots of

barbecue

and buttermilk

and homemade ice-cream

at the church picnic

and listen to

gospel music

outside

at the church

homecoming

and you go to the mountains with

your grandmother

and go barefooted

and be warm

all the time

not only when you go to bed

and sleep

— Nikki Giovanni

BLACKSBURG — Knoxville native Nikki Giovanni, a poet, civil rights legend and educator who empowered generations with her fearless words and unwavering advocacy for Black America, died on Dec. 9 at the age of 81 after her third cancer diagnosis.

“The acclaimed poet, Black Arts Movement icon whose poems of wit, wonder and wisdom were celebrated in children’s books, on keynote stages and television shows, and in more than two dozen bestselling poetry collections, died peacefully on December 9, 2024, with her life-long partner, Virginia [Ginney] Fowler, by her side,” said friend and  author Renee Watson in a statement. 

In 2023, Knoxville’s Beck Cultural Exchange Center unveiled an exhibit dedicated to Giovanni, featuring her complete book collection and personal memorabilia. The center, a cherished space for Giovanni, was a must-visit whenever she returned to her hometown.

“Nikki was a gift to the world, generously sharing her talents with everyone around her,” said Rev. Reneé Kesler, President of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center. She loved deeply and expressed that love in countless ways.”

Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni was born on June 7, 1943, in the “Negro Wing” of Knoxville General Hospital to parents Yolande Cornelia Sr. and Jones “Gus” Giovanni. She graduated from Austin High School in 1961.

She enrolled at the historically Black Fisk University in Nashville in 1960. At Fisk, she joined the Writer’s Workshop, a space that fostered her creativity and connected her with other aspiring Black writers who later went on to become prominent Black literary figures such as Dudley Randall, Margaret Walker and Amiri Baraka. 

“At Fisk, she found her voice — a voice that would go on to inspire the world to dream with courage, to fight with purpose and to love without constraint. Through her poetry, she wove stories of Black resilience, beauty and liberation. Her spirit is forever etched into the soul at Fisk, an eternal light guiding us toward justice, creativity and authenticity,” Fisk officials said in a statement. 

Conservation groups have cautioned against the zombie roadway between Wears Valley and Gatlinburg; EIS-level study uncertain

This story will be updated.