I Call

Jan 16, 2025 | deceleration.news | Marisol Cortez |I Call

Editor’s Note: Jessica Witzel’s medical autopsy tells an institutional lie. It is a sleight of hand that effects a kind of double erasure. In failing to accurately codify and count heat-related deaths, local government invisibilizes the disproportionate impact of climate crisis on the sickest and poorest—unhoused people, especially those with serious mental illness or who use substances, especially methamphetamines.

Jan 9, 2025 | deceleration.news | Marisol Cortez |I Call

Last summer, Jessica Witzel collapsed, convulsed, and died in the unshaded driveway of a San Antonio gas station during one of the hottest days of 2024, itself the hottest year on record in San Antonio. Her death was reported by area media at the time, based on the accounts of first responders, as the likely consequence of the heat dome that blanketed much of the state under excessive heat warnings all that week.

Nov 13, 2024 | deceleration.news | Marisol Cortez |I Call

Editor’s Note: This article was coproduced with Truthout, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to providing independent reporting and commentary on a diverse range of social justice issues. “The hostility has always been there,” Paul told me. “But I feel like it truly began to ramp up like 2020.”A 16-year-old student at a large public high school in a large Texas city, Paul (a pseudonym to protect his safety) is a varsity athlete with aspirations to join the FBI.

Nov 12, 2024 | deceleration.news | Marisol Cortez |I Call

“This is outta hand,” fumed Jonathan Bunting of Nugreen Metals, an e-waste recycler appointed to the City’s new Auto Parts Recyclers and Metal Recycling Entities task force, as he gathered up his things to leave mid-meeting. “It’s the fourth meeting and we’re still going over the first section of code.” Not long after, Andy Castillo, another appointee to the community side of the task force table, also stormed out.

Oct 11, 2024 | deceleration.news | Marisol Cortez |Greg Harman |I Call

On Oct. 6, 2024, several dozen community members actively opposing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza gathered under a towering oak tree in San Pedro Springs Park in San Antonio. They arrived in a quiet procession, coming into the shade to share their grief and reflections on the day’s film screening of The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza, held earlier that day at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.