Audacious Water Podcast: The Five Transformations, and What Gives Me Hope
How climate change will change the US Midwest by 2050, and how we must adapt.
In season four of my podcast, Audacious Water, I spoke with ten diverse experts who intersect with how climate change is transforming America’s Heartland. Each conversation centered on five simple words that summarize the way the region, and much of the planet, is changing: Hot, Dry, Stormy, Salty and Sick.
I ended the season with some new understandings—and some new thinking on key issues. I captured some of my reflections in a bonus episode. Here are some highlights:
Because it’s in the episode title, I won’t make you wait: is there any reason for hope?
As a scientist, a professor, a father, I think a lot about how to represent where we are and what the future is likely to look like. I don’t have a crystal ball, but as Tulane University colleague Jesse Keenan said, “In the ashes of what we leave behind, we have the opportunity to build something new…to correct some mistakes we’ve made along the way.”
That hope, that we can not only abate harm, but also build a better tomorrow, is what keeps me going.
Okay, how do we begin?
My guests shared many answers to that question. One that sticks with me is from Meredith McInturff, manager of the Public Health Emergencies and Environmental Health Unit at the New Orleans Health Department.
“For a long time we have been in silos. And I think that's not specific to New Orleans; I think a lot of cities experience this issue. But trying to find opportunities for collaboration, whether that is between the Health Department and Safety and Permits, or between Code Enforcement or Sanitation, Parks and Parkways, all these different groups are working on heat in different ways. But really connecting those dots and making sure that our workers have the same knowledge of the bigger picture and the goal behind what they're doing.”
Improving collaboration and communications is something that needs to happen at local, state and national levels, and swift progress is possible. The return on those investments could be significant.
Which is a bigger priority: Climate mitigation or adaptation?
Make no mistake: we have our work cut out for us. The experts I spoke with debated the balance between stopping the causes of climate change and adapting to it. In the end, I think we’d all agree with climate scientist Brian Smoliak of Two Degrees Adapt when he said, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
I’ll raise him: We must.
So far, we have grossly underinvested in adaptation. That has to change, fast. I’m ready to get to work on that—and I hope you are, too.