Stephen Robert Miller is an award-winning independent journalist based in Colorado. His reporting and essays have appeared in National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Sierra Magazine, and many others. He has previously worked as a magazine editor and was a Ted Scripps Fellow at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism, where he also teaches.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?
Miller: I grew up in southern Arizona and moved around the country before settling down in Longmont. A few years back, I was staring down the barrel of Colorado’s housing prices and wondering if it was time to plan a return to the desert. Tucson is cheaper than the Front Range, and the food is better. The move seemed like a good idea until I factored in the heat, which has been killing people in record numbers, and the availability of water, which is trending in the wrong direction.
But even given these obvious and dead serious risks, plenty of other people were and are still moving to desert cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. I know I’m not the only one who wondered if this was a little crazy. And it left me wondering what gives so many the confidence to invest their money and families’ futures in a place where access to the most basic needs is a constant concern.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
Then, while doing a fellowship at the University of Colorado, I learned about maladaptation, which is what climate scientists call a solution with negative unintended consequences. An early visit to Bangladesh put this somewhat complex issue in context, and then, when I discovered what had happened in coastal Japanese towns during the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, things suddenly fell into place.
SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
Miller: “Over the Seawall” investigates the stories behind three techno-infrastructural solutions that have backfired, causing harm to the very people they were intended to protect. I traveled to Japan, Bangladesh and back home to Arizona to understand how unquestioned belief in technology had led to disaster. This excerpt comes from the Japanese section, which sets up the book as well as the idea of maladaptation. For me, learning how Japan’s seawalls helped to create a false sense of security at the worst possible time was an aha! moment.
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Miller: Years ago, I asked the director of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest if he was worried that we had reached the desert’s carrying capacity, or the population that the landscape could sustainably support. He replied that it didn’t matter, because we no longer depended on the land to survive.
“Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature”
Where to find it:
- Prospector: Search the combined catalogs of 23 Colorado libraries
- Libby: E-books and audio books
- NewPages Guide: List of Colorado independent bookstores
- Bookshop.org: Searchable database of bookstores nationwide
SunLit present new excerpts from some of the best Colorado authors that not only spin engaging narratives but also illuminate who we are as a community. Read more.
That might seem like an obvious point — the Sonoran Desert does not support Arizona’s 7 million people by itself — but the casualness of the answer struck me. There’s a deep sense of apathy at work when people can look around and feel completely disconnected from their landscape. In some ways, this book began as my way of trying to understand how we can get to that point, and a big part of the answer is that a century of technological adaptation has made most of us blind to the realities of where we live.
All of this took on greater personal meaning when, nearly a year into the project, I found out that I was going to be a dad. I’m often cynical (I think it’s an important skill for journalists), but it’s hard to be cynical when you have a kid coming into the world. Before the news, I might have thought that maladaptation is an intractable problem we’re doomed to repeat ad nauseam, and I wrote out of frustration. After the news, I set out to write something that would help to shake us from the orbit of our bad habits, in the hope that it could be done, because it has to be done.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Miller: At first, I planned to write about climate science and the engineering behind hard infrastructure — copper wire, rebar, concrete and computers. All of those things appear in “Over the Seawall,” but as the work went on I found myself far more interested in the people behind the infrastructure.
I dove into their stories to understand how their unique cultures, histories, economics and politics had led them to disaster and how they were trying to rebuild. This took me into new topics like political geography and down rabbit hole investigations of corruption in global development aid. I’ll never look at any story about adaptation or climate solutions the same way again.
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Miller: The pandemic. I did most of the overseas reporting in 2021 and 2022 and had to navigate a maze of local and international restrictions and protocols, all of which were constantly changing. Japan was locked down for years, and it was only through the miraculous support of a researcher there that I was even able to get to do my reporting there.
And the language barrier. Two-thirds of the book takes place in countries where I can’t understand what people are saying most of the time. It went beyond the words, though. In Japan, for instance, I was asking people to relive the worst day of their lives for my benefit. That’s a challenge when I work in the U.S., but overseas I also had to contend with my complete ignorance of foreign customs and cultural norms.
Luckily, I had the help of many excellent translators and guides. I also discovered that many people were eager to tell their stories to an outsider. When it comes to a disaster of that scale, some felt that the only thing worse than remembering was forgetting.
SunLit: What’s the most important thing – a theme, lesson, emotion or realization – that readers should take from this book?
Miller: Sometimes I get so angry about the utter lack of action on climate change from people in positions of power and the flagrant greed of the corporations that continue to profit off it, that I forget an important point: No one set out to cause the climate crisis. It is the result of generation after generation (of certain groups) trying to make life easier for themselves by moving faster or growing more food. Over the centuries, too few of them stopped to ask how their choices would affect generations to come.
If we’re not careful, we’ll do the same thing as we now try to adapt to climate change. There is such a pressing need to act quickly that we risk making decisions we — or someone else — will later regret. “Over the Seawall” is intended to help us avoid that fate. Its message is that we won’t solve this crisis with the same thinking we used to cause it.
SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?
Miller: I wrote most of “Over the Seawall” in the dark and dingy, unfinished basement of a Longmont rental house. Lots of spiders, not much natural light. I also spent many, many hours in the Longmont Public Library, where there are fewer spiders and more light.
I started with an enormous amount of research, then field reporting, countless interviews, more research, more interviews, and finally writing. For me, writing has always been about finding a groove and not letting go once I do, so if I get into a rhythm around dinner time, I know it’s going to be a long night of writing.
SunLit: Who are we adapting for?
Miller: As we confront options for adaptations and environmental solutions in our home towns, we all need to decide for ourselves what the priority should be. Our answer depends on whether we seek to protect ourselves and maintain the lives we’re accustomed to living, or see ourselves as responsible for the wellbeing of the next generation.
A few more quick questions
SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing?
Miller: Writing.
SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?
Miller: A feature story about a Tucson man on death row for murdering his girlfriend and her two children with a toy baseball bat.
SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing?
Miller: John Steinbeck, Annie Dillard, Paul Laurence Dunbar.
SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?
Miller: A lot of Beethoven.
SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment?
Miller: Soul, Jazz, Crazy Horse and Peter Gabriel.
SunLit: Greatest writing satisfaction?
Miller: There’s a moment when I’ve been pulling on strings of ideas and they unwind, coming out as a clean, organized thought. All the puzzle pieces start to fit into place. It usually happens after hours of banging away at a complete mess, but I can always sense when I’ve found the right thread, and sometimes it feels so good that I get the jitters and have to stand up and walk circles in front of my keyboard while trying not to lose the thought.