Podcasts about Cadillac Desert

A few months ago, I interviewed David Leonhardt, author of Ours Was the Shining Future, about the death of the American dream which, he argued, can be dated from on 5 June 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. And it's on that infamous date that I begun my conversation with Jonathan Taplin about the rebirth of the American dream. According to the Los Angeles based Taplin, who is now working on a book about an upcoming renaissance of American culture, the vehicle for a revitalized United States will come from a Sixties style explosion of cultural vitality. Bright new music, film and books will create a bright new America, Taplin predicts. I hope he's right.Jonathan Taplin is a writer, film producer and scholar. He is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016 in the field of international communication management and digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore. Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the Author's Guild Council and the Board of the American Music Association. Mr. Taplin was appointed to the California Broadband Task Force and the City of Los Angles Technology and Innovation Council. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte's Edge Institute.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

So what's exceptional about America? According to the writer, film producer and scholar Jonathan Taplin, American exceptionalism lies its uniquely global cultural influence. For Taplin - the tour manager for Bob Dylan & producer of Martin Scorcese's masterpiece Mean Streets - this reflects what he calls America's right-brain power which dominated the world in the second half of the 20th century. Today, however, he says, left-brained tech magnates like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are all powerful and, as a consequence, are triggering an existential crisis of creativity in America. In this age of the algorithm, Taplin worries, the US will be just another unimaginative player in the global race to control the digital economy. Jonathan Taplin is a writer, film producer and scholar. He is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016 in the field of international communication management and digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore. Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the Author's Guild Council and the Board of the American Music Association. Mr. Taplin was appointed to the California Broadband Task Force and the City of Los Angles Technology and Innovation Council. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte's Edge Institute.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Desalinization --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/david-nishimoto/message

Jonathan Taplin is a writer, film producer and scholar. He is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016 in the field of international communication management and digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore. Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the Author's Guild Council and the Board of the American Music Association. Mr. Taplin was appointed to the California Broadband Task Force and the City of Los Angles Technology and Innovation Council. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte's Edge Institute. HIS NEW BOOK, THE END OF REALITY: HOW 4 BILLIONAIRES ARE SELLING A FANTASY FUTURE OF THE METAVERSE, MARS AND CRYPTO

EPISODE 1685: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Jonathan Taplin, author of THE END OF REALITY, on how 4 tech billionaires - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen - are selling us a fantasy future of the metaverse, Mars, and crypto Jonathan Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore. Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the Author's Guild Council and the Board of the American Music Association. Mr. Taplin was appointed to the California Broadband Task Force and the City of Los Angles Technology and Innovation Council. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte's Edge Institute. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://darsword.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/__trashed/

Sure, dinosaurs are cool and all, but a radioactive dinosaur? Now, THAT'S something to (INSERT GODZILLA ROAR) about. This week, Bri tries to convince Cozi to watch another Ishiro Honda film: the original 1954 horror/sci-fi GODZILLA! Beyond the sometimes silly face of Godzilla lies a truly dark story with some deeply emotional human-centric scenes. Will Cozilla watch Godzilla? Find out! Recommendations: Cozi – Riley Stearns's 2022 sci-fi thriller Dual Bri – The non-fiction book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/youneedtoseethis/support

Episode Notes Episode summary Guest info and links . The guest Jason Sauer can be found on twitter @jasonrsauer. He is involved with another podcast, Future Cities, that you can find wherever you listen to podcasts. The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. You can support this show on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Margaret Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy, and I use she or their pronouns. And this week I'm talking to Jason about what is involved in building resilient cities, like not just resilient homesteads or whatever, but like what—what are the actual sort of engineering steps that cities can and usually aren't taking to mitigate the effects of climate change? And we talk a lot more about other things besides and his take on how climate change is going and what we might do about it or not do about it. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. I really enjoyed this conversation. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Hi, could you introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then a little bit of your background in what we're going to be talking about today? Jason Sure, so my name is Jason Sauer, pronouns he/him, although I'm not picky, and I—my background is in—it's like, somewhere between climate change and, like, adaptation research is how I would describe it. So most of my work is focused on adapting cities to extreme weather events, either in the present day context, or looking at the future of the climate for the region. And figuring out how—what we need to change and how best to change it in order to keep places livable. Margaret And I'm so excited to ask you about all that stuff. Because so much of what people talk about preparedness or even, like, mitigation kind of forgets this level of scale. Either people talk about, like, saving the world, like stopping climate change, which I do in the past. Or people talk about, like, how to, you know, either you have your, like, bunker mentality people who are like, oh I'm just gonna hold up the food, or you have even the people who are like, you know, well, me and my 10 friends on the farm are going to somehow ride it all out. And I think that there isn't enough that talks about this level that you're talking about on this sort of, like, community or city-wide level. And so, I guess, I think my main question is like, what do you resilient cities look like? How do we build resilient cities? Jason So, I mean, good question. It's somewhat like a temporal issue, like thinking about, are we looking for resilient cities for now, given the present conditions, which we're still not great at managing? Are we looking at it for like 20 years in the future? Are we looking at it, you know, in the more deep, uncertain—or deeply uncertain—like, you know, by 2080 2100, whatever, or even beyond, although I've never really heard anyone seriously engage anything sort of growth beyond like 2080. I don't know why that's the limit, but that is the limit. So I actually had to pull up the academic definition of resilience. That's probably that I think it's probably the most accurate version of what myself and my colleagues are kind of looking at. And since this is behind a paywall anyway, I figured it might be kind of interesting to even bring up what the academic definition is, in this context. And so this comes from a paper by one of my colleagues here at Arizona State University where I'm a PhD candidate, hopefully soon a doctor but we'll see. So one of my colleagues Sarah Miro and two other authors, Joshua Newell and Melissa Stoltz, wrote this paper on defining urban resilience in particular. So resilience in the city in urban context. And so, the specific definition they use is, like, urban resilience refers to the ability of an urban system and all its constituents socio-ecological and socio-technical networks across temporal and spatial scales to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity. There's a lot of, I don't know, generations of resilience thinking that have kind of impact into that sort of definition. But it's kind of just looking at making cities—or making it so that the people in cities and the systems in cities, once impacted by like an extreme weather event or from climate change, can respond appropriately in terms of, like, the type of response and then also, like, the amount of time it takes for that response to sort of happen. And then also to allow for sort of this concept of, like, transformative change of, like, you can build a city that is relatively resilient now, but it's not necessarily going to be resilient in the future. So you need to, when you're building these systems, allow for the possibility of the thinking to change or for climate change, you know, the effects to become more fully realized and be like, okay, so we did not plan for the sort of contingency, we need to be able to adapt to that, basically. And so every city, it looks different, you know. So I live here in Phoenix, Arizona. Most of my research isn't focused here but, I mean, this is a desert city. And we are kind of juggling the dual problems of extreme heat in the summer and, of course, like major water limitations, which are increasingly becoming a problem. And so resilience here is largely focused on basically counteracting, like, the, the extreme heats that we're facing. I mean, it gets up to like 120 degrees a couple days, a year, sometimes, and what does it—actually, I can give some quick stats on that. Margaret Yeah. Jason I think we are currently over 100 days a year where we have have a maximum temperature of above 100 degrees, and then by, like, 2050, 2060, something like that, it's gonna be 180 days a year of over 100 degrees. Which is like, I mean, we're already at 100 now, so I guess it's not like that on the thinkable. But, you know, it's really tough to imagine, like, what that's going to be like. And then of course, like, you know, average temperature is going to rise, but then also potentially the extreme temperatures are going to rise. So the city is really concerned about keeping this place viable in many different respects, given our current extreme heat, but then also the projections of extreme future heat. And so, like, you know, for example, I think the city of Phoenix is planning on increasing its tree canopy cover, you know, to like, provide increased shade, particularly in like critical areas, by which I mean, like, public transportation network—so like, you know, there's not a whole lot of structures for shade out here. And so, you know, like, a job of someone like me working in resilience would be, like, okay, so you want to increase shade, like, here's where you need to do it. And that's along like public transportation networks, things like that, where people are relatively exposed to, like, this extreme heat and sunlight during the worst months. And you can either do that through like built structures, or you can do it through tree shade. And if the city of Phoenix wants to pursue tree shade, then they also need to balance that with their, like, water needs. So more trees means more water. And so then you start getting into this discussion about, like, well, which trees provide the most shade and the least amount of water? You know, this is the sort of, like, nuanced discussion that the city and people in the academy are kind of having about this sort of issue. Margaret This is kind of an aside, but if you read The Water Knife, this novel about Phoenix? Jason It's on my shelf. Yeah, the author, what is it, Paolo Bacigalupi, I think? Margaret I don't know how to pronounce his last name, unfortunately. Yeah. So I— what was his previous one? He had this one that was like— The Wind Up Girl. Jason Yes. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, that was a dodge of saying no, I haven't read it. It's on my shelf. I haven't actually looked at it. Margaret Okay, well, there's a book in it that it references all the time. It's about Phoenix becoming unlivable due to heat. And I mean, it's also about like assassins and like water mafias and stuff, right? But it's, it's about a society collapsing because of lack of water. And the people who go around and basically, like, enforce water law and things like that. But there's a book in it that everyone references called Cadillac Desert. Jason Yes, yeah. Okay. Margaret So I don't know anything about this book. But all of the characters in this other book are obsessed with this book, Cadillac Desert, basically being like, this is the writing on the wall. This is how we all should have known that Phoenix needs to be abandoned. Jason Yeah. Margaret But your job is to make sure that people don't have to abandon Phoenix. Well, I'm—yeah, I mean, I have I have more complicated feelings on that, you know, like, there's a term in like resilience and resiliency like adjacent fields called "managed retreats." And that's like also just an accepted term in a lot of, like, disaster management and so forth. Like, I think it's mostly surrounding. I mean, I think, I don't remember exactly where the origins are. But I used to see it mostly applied to like flooding from, like, rivers that are getting, like, extremely flooded because of weird precipitation, and because of processes of development and urbanization or whatever. But you just have, like, these homes that are too close to the rivers that are like behaving pretty erratically or flooding more often than the city, you know, wants to provide aid for. And so they're just like, we got to move these people back away from the river. But I mean, it's also something that's happening in coastal areas like Miami, where you have people trying to move a little farther back onto higher elevation. But in a place like Phoenix where you just, it's hot everywhere, you know. Like, there's parts of the city that are hotter than others, and we have some controls over it. But yeah, I mean, it's tough to really figure out what the long-term plan is here. And water being, you know, correctly identified in those books as being such a major limiting factor here. I mean, what are we—what's the long-term plan? Like, I've read strategies that include canal systems from like the Mississippi, you know. Like this—which would be a scale of engineering and water delivery, that would just be, you know, enormous. We already get water from the southern Colorado River, which we shouldn't be getting water from, in terms of its natural flow. But, you know, we're doing that anyway. Right. Jason Yeah. So I guess, short-term I'm certainly focused on that. But, you know, I'm sort of agnostic as to whether or not it's going to keep people here or keep things viable. But it's just like, well, what are the problems that we have? What can we do about, you know, this situation, given our current limitations and so forth, and trying to square the circle, basically. Margaret My own, um, before I lived—I moved to a house in the mountains. But before that, I was living in a cabin in the woods. And one of the main reasons that we all moved off of the property that we were living on is that we are next to this creek. And it was 100-year floodplain. And it became a five times a year floodplain. We'd have engineers come out and they'd be like, well, it's not supposed to do this. And then we'd be like, what do we do? And they're like, well, it's just gonna get worse. Climate change is just going to make it worse. And, basically, I mean, I had one of the only houses that was physically safe from it up on the up on the hill but then, like, you know, my driveway, and, you know, my access in and out would be waist-deep and water sometimes, and all kinds of stuff coming down the creek that turns into this massive river several times a year. That's not supposed to. So I the managed retreat, that's what, you know, 10 of us just did so. Yeah, I mean, it can happen at the individual scale, it can happen at like the city planning scale, you know, there's there's a bunch of different ways. "Coerced retreat," you know, maybe another description. I don't know that that exists in like the literature but, you know, like, there's good argumentation for moving because it's physically becoming too difficult to live in this area. Yeah, I mean, to be clear, I'm not from Phoenix, I'm originally from, like, the—I'm from a suburb of Kansas City, Johnson County, which is like a, you know, wealthy, middle class neighborhood. So I'm, you know, not even from this area, I came here for graduate school. And I mostly came here for graduate school because there was an opportunity to work abroad in southern Chile. So, you know, my relationship with Phoenix is like, yeah, I don't know what you're gonna do here. I certainly wouldn't have chosen to be here under normal circumstances, I've come to like it, you know, in some ways, and can certainly, you know, empathize with my neighbors and so forth down here. But my stance on Phoenix is a little more complicated because just like, yeah, you've got some problems. And I don't know what to tell you about 120 degree weather and, like, the number of 100 degree days that are increasing, and you're—this place has already like an engineering, like, it's only possible because of extreme hydrological engineering. And now there's no additional water sources to pull from so, you know, what are you—what are you really trying to do here? Yeah, no, there's like a—there's like moral questions. I don't quite know how to untangle about like, you know, I'm not trying to judge anyone, but I don't think I would move to Phoenix. I don't think I would move to a city that probably certainly shouldn't exist at the scale that it's at currently. But I, you know, I understand that—but that's—then you get into this idea of, like, why everyone has different reasons to be different places. And it's really easy to be like, oh, you can't go do that. And you're like, well, I'm from here, or this is where the school is that I need to go access or, you know, there's a million reasons why someone may need to go somewhere, so. Yeah, I mean, the majority of people moving here is probably just because real estate in California got too expensive and cost of living in Phoenix which is also like a right to work state, you know, so there's cheap and unprotected labor here. You know, there's a lot of less noble reasons or less understandable reasons for, like, why the city is growing. And you look at how like water usage is, you know—currently, what water usage looks like here on the grounds. And there's definitely, you know, like, some movements toward like, get all the grass out of your lawn, like, plant species—it's called xeroscaping here, where you actually just like plant cacti and brittle bush and, you know, various species that are actually native to the region, or do really well with very little or no water input and can handle the heat. But, I mean, there's pools, and fountains, and golf courses, and all these other things where you're like, yeah, I mean, I don't know how long this is gonna go. And there's a lot of people who live here because they can golf, like, year round. So, you know, is that the worst thing to get rid of? No. So resiliency means get rid of the golf course. Well, you know, this—if I say yes to that I can guarantee I won't get a job here. Okay. Okay, so—but to move away from from heat stuff, some of your work has been around flooding, right, which obviously is an interest of mine, for some strange reason. It's absolutely part of why I picked a house on the top of the hill. Like, I bought a house on top of a mountain, because I'm like, no, I'm good. This is where—Maybe, I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of other problems like wind or something that I just—and there's like no soil here, it's all rock. There's a reason it was cheap, you know. But so, some of your work, let's see, you talk about how you use natural landscape features to make cities more resilient to flooding. I'm really interested in that, like, what does that look like? How do—like, what are the practical steps that communities and cities are taking to protect themselves from climate change? Jason Yeah. And I'm glad that you kind of divided that into two potential sources for that. There's, you know, like individual preparation, and then there's like city-wide, you know, or city-sponsored preparation. And so there's been a movement in the, like, engineering and urban planning spheres toward what's known as green infrastructure. And there's a bunch of different terms for it. But green infrastructure is basically, like, either designed, adapted, or incorporated natural landscape features, or natural-esque landscape features that can do many of the same jobs that more traditional, like, constructed infrastructure would do. Plus, it looks nice and provides habitat and potentially has all these other sort of, like, co-benefits to it that, you know—like, the LA canal is kind of like a good example of a traditional infrastructure sort of approach toward dealing with flooding issues. And so it's this huge canal where you can dump all this water, and it moves water through the system really quickly. But of course, it's like this giant chunk of concrete that's dry most of the year and, number one, it's not aesthetically that attractive. Number two, it's also like a major source of heat, you kind of get all this concrete in urban areas and it absorbs sunlight during the day, admits it at night, and contributes to, I mean, high heat during the day, but especially heats a major issue in cities across the country because of night temperatures in particular have increased. And it's basically because you have all this, you know, concrete infrastructure that's free radiating the heat, you know, for hours and hours and hours. So nights just become like more uncomfortable, and there's a lot of morbidity and mortality stuff associated with that. But then, like here in Phoenix, and there's a funny example, there's this area called Indian Bend Wash. And so something like Scottsdale to Tempe was having like major flooding issues, particularly during the monsoon season. Yeah, we get monsoons out here that come up from like the Sea of Cortez or the Gulf of Mexico. And so during the summer months, which is when we get the majority of our rainfall, it just comes in these like huge sheets and these, like, you know, burst events of extreme precipitation that totally overwhelm the ability of, like, soils to allow for infiltration and for the, like, drainage system at the city to deal with it. And so they were like, we got to put this water somewhere and it's kind of got to be a zone that can regularly flood or whatever. And the Scottsdale-ites, you know, who have some amount of wealth and therefore power in the city were just like, no, we're not going to build a canal like LA. It's really ugly and unattractive. And so designers came back with this idea called Indian Bend Wash which is this sort of multi-use, like, greenway, I think is how it be described. So it's like in parts it's like a golf course, but then in other parts it's just, like, straight up a park. And, like, place where you can take your dogs, do picnics or whatever. And then just, you know, for a couple of weeks out of the year, it's flooded. That's just how it is. And but at least it's like multi-use The community really likes it. And it's green, you know, which is nice in a sort of desert city. I'm holding any judgment on green versus not green out here, of course, but yeah. Margaret So it's gonna keep it watered when it's not monsoon season. Jason Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. And so that's kind of an example of more of an engineered or sort of created green infrastructure practice, but at least it provides aesthetic, you know, aspects to it that the sort of other infrastructure doesn't. I primarily work on like wetlands and other things that are—there's like a whole bunch of other structures designed to deal with flooding that also potentially increase, like, biodiversity in cities, that can remove pollutants through natural processes, provide habitats, and things like that. So the majority of my research is actually focused on wetlands in particular, and I was looking at this city in southern Chile that has just—they had an earthquake in 1960. It's the greatest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. The city is called Valdivia, if anyone wants to look it up. And so like portions of the city just sunk, like, several meters, I think like 10 meters in some portions. And so just—and, like, they're on the coast, they get like 98 inches of rain per year. They're at like the confluence of these like three rivers. So those things just filled up with water and became this wetland system. And so instead of just like paving over the wetlands and pretending like everything was going to be normal forever after that, once they rebuild, they just decided to keep the wetlands around in most cases. There's been some wetland loss, but not a whole lot. And it actually serves as a natural drainage system for the city. So a lot of just, like, the urban areas, and the suburban areas drain into these wetlands. And the wetlands have definitely been affected by it. And we're still studying, like, the effects of doing something like that to a wetland system. But they certainly provide a lot more biodiversity and kind of keep this sort of endangered habitat, a wetlands, alive in the city. So I've studied the utility of constructed and natural wetlands and modified wetlands toward increasing flood resilience and cities, basically. Margaret And it works. Jason Yeah, yeah. They're wetlands work incredibly well. I mean, probably in part because they're not engineered. So like, if you have a city that's, like, thinking about building a wetland or something like that, then they have a budget, and they—and the budget is going to require some, like, design constraints and stuff like that. But these like natural wetlands are just, you know, whatever size they were naturally. And they themselves, like, just don't really flood under even like 100-year return period storm event, which is just like a storm that's so large that you only get one of them, like, once every 100 years or something like that. And they work great. And the wetlands are like part of the urban identity as well. Like they support a lot of charismatic species, like swans and these like particular kinds of birds. Theoretically they support otters, but I've never seen an otter like that far into the city. Maybe they exist. I don't know. But, yeah, so they do all these things that like traditional infrastructure that we, you know, started doing since, like, the 1940s, just doesn't do well at all. Margaret I mean, it's funny because it's like, there's a move within scientific fictions—I have to think about everything point of view of fiction—but there's like a movement within science fiction right now to move towards, like, solar punk, and towards these ideas of—I guess, I would say that, like, in many ways, science fiction got everything backwards and wrong, right? It was imagined these, like, positive societies where we, like, control everything. Jason Yeah. Margaret But it sounds like from what you're saying, and from everything else I've, like, read across things, the secret is to instead, like, integrate the things that we make into the natural systems, rather than, like, go out and like recreate all of the systems ourselves. Jason Yeah. Margaret But then it does lead to the logical conclusion that the best way to be resilient against climate change is to not have already destroyed everything. Jason Yeah, and cities definitely struggle with that. Margaret Yeah. Because most have already destroyed everything. Jason Yeah, I mean, particularly with wetlands too. I—the estimate keeps changing, so forgive me, you know, I think it's like safe to say we've destroyed like 70% of wetlands in the US since, like, the mid-1800s. And those are industrial processes, those are agricultural processes, which are all, you know, ultimately, you know, issues of urbanization, and meeting urban needs and so forth—in a lot of cases, not necessarily all of them. But yeah, I mean, so like, you're telling like a city, hey, just have some wetlands, you know. Like, historically it's like, you mean the thing that they drained in order to, like, build the city in the first place? Like, that's? And it's just kind of silly being like, well, step one is don't do everything you've done for the past, like, 150 years and you're gonna be spending a lot of money reversing that, actually. Margaret Yeah. Jason Yeah, there's a concept in infrastructure called, like, safe to fail. And I don't want to, like, get too much into it, because I don't have the definition on hand for me, but it's basically the idea of, like, this sort of, like command to control concept of like infrastructure and, like, perfect knowledge and so forth, just doesn't work. It's not true in the present day, there's always, like, you know, freak storm events and things like that. But it's certainly not going to be true in the future where the climate is changing and models are so uncertain about it. So the best thing you can do is allow for a lot of flexibility with your design, and to figure out, you know, like, areas where, like, this sort of like quote/unquote failure, or like flooding in particular, like with Indian Bend Wash, is totally acceptable. Like society's just like, yeah, you can't use that area a couple of times a week, but like, no one's really being impacted by it in any sort of, like, major way. You're just, like, yeah, that's just, that's just how it goes. Margaret So is there, like, because this—this concept really excites me, right, because like a lot of my, you know, political understanding, a lot of my understanding philosophically and all these other ways, is based on this idea that, like, trying to have absolute control as a losing game, and probably one that we should just admit we're losing, and instead find ways to, like—I'm going to use words that have scientific meaningss that I'm not using correctly—more chaotically. Like, accept that all of this natural, organic, or chaotic processes are going to happen, and take those into account in our engineering, like, in how we build cities and things like that. For me, this also applies, like, socially. Like recognizing that we can never have a system of complete control of people, and instead—so it's not, like, let everyone go do whatever they want, therefore. But instead this, like, way of engineering, or structuring things, that takes that into account is, like, something that I'm very excited about. So I'm really excited about this the safe to fail concept, then. Jason Yeah, it's something that's definitely taking hold in engineering, and actually seems to be getting through to a lot of design people. So engineers—or at least in the world of academia—certainly get the idea of it. And you can get—you can convince cities also to adopt it, but it's sometimes an uphill struggle. And then also you just have, like, competing construction interests, like maybe there's been a design firm or something like that, that hasn't adopted it, but like gets the majority of contracts in a city or something like that, that they've already got a relationship with. So there's like some amount of inertia on that point. But it certainly has hold within academia and research, and my experience working with some cities has been, they're certainly open to it and thinking about it more. Because they're certainly paying a lot for disaster relief and disaster, like, repairs and so forth every year, and they're, frankly, you know, like desperate to lower that part of their budget. So, you know. Margaret Yeah. So besides planting trees for heat and increasing wetlands for flooding, what are other simple steps? "These five simple tricks to make your city immune to climate change!" Like, what else are people doing or thinking about to respond to crisis? Jason So like, I'm trying to think of how to answer this question. So there's—like, I could go into, like, other engineering structures and so forth that we're kind of using to do a lot of this sort of management, like, more locally and through like natural systems—like bioswales, I don't don't know if you've ever heard of it. Margaret So a swale is like a thing that moves water in a field, right? Jason Yeah. And so, like, a bioswale, like an urban area it's just, like, so you have water that's on the street or whatever, and then you just kind of like divert it to the side area, basically, that's usually like soil and some plants and maybe there's a tree in there too. And the soils and the plants and so forth filter the nutrients out of that storm water before it hits—by nutrients I mean pollutants too—I come from a background where everything is like a nutrient, not necessarily like a pollutants—but I mean, stuff like nitrogen— Margaret That's kind of awesome. Jason Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can maybe go into that in a second. But like, so you have all these things that are flowing off of yards and off streets. And if you try to treat that before it gets to the water system, or like the canals, or whatever that you're using to evacuate water from the city, that's a lot of stuff to have to filter out. And so, but if you build these things kind of around the city, these like bioswales, they do a lot of the filtering, like, on site. And so, you know, over time, they sequester a lot of like nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbons, whatever, heavy metals too also can get filtered out of that. And then, you know, like, I don't know, I don't know what the repair system is like for that. But I mean, you just swap those soils out eventually, like, because bacteria and so forth can treat some of that locally. And plants can also, you know, use some of that locally, too. But then you just have like soils or something like that, that you're kind of like swapping out because maybe they're too heavy in metal support the plant life or something like that. But that ends up being like a cheaper and sort of, like, more innovative solution then, you know, send it all to a central processing plant, and then spend all this money like filtering out through chemical and mechanical processes. Yeah. And then also, you get some like green stuff in your neighborhood. In terms of, like, things that individuals are doing, a lot of it is just, like, swapping out—I mean, like, here in Phoenix, I talked about the sort of xeroscaping process by which people are replacing, like their grass lawns, you know, which they were used to in the, you know, like, northern Michigan or something like that, you know, wherever they move to escape the cold that was, you know, the reason they left in the first place, but they still want some of, like, the feel of where they lived, they'll plant grass or whatever. And then, you know, there are now—there's movements across the city, at least in the less extremely wealthy places to do this sort of xeroscaping process where you take out your lawns and replace it with, like, either like gravel or something like that and then plants, like, naturally come up through that, or I mean, just literally leave it as the normal dirt surface here—that promotes like, infiltration locally as well, dirt ends up being, you know, or at least the natural soil here—I should use proper terms—ends up, you know, allowing a lot of infiltration that would otherwise just like go to runoff or things like that, basically, are what people are kind of doing locally. And but, I mean, a lot of these issues, like flooding in particular, is—it's like a city-wide sort of issue. And a lot of it just has to be treated kind of in a centralized way because there's, they own most of the substances—I mean, you know, there's buildings and roofs and stuff like that, that cause runoff, and, you know, houses are on top of soil. And so, because they're on top of soil, they're blocking infiltration that would naturally happen in the region. So homes are contributors to flooding in cities, but, you know, there's not much you can do about that. Margaret Are there like ways to, like, encourage infiltration into the soil? Like, I'm imagining little like, little holes you dig, like, almost like that holes or something to, like, allow more percolation or something? Jason You know, I've never actually thought about, like, local retention, you know, like, if we just built divots in everyone's like front yard for, like, you know, like a small pond that's dry most of the year, I wonder how much that would actually do it. I don't think I've ever seen a study that's even considered that. That would be interesting as like a thought experiments. And I'm sure, you know, like a modeling experiment. Margaret Well, thank me in the acknowledgments when this study— Jason Yeah yeah. Green roofs are kind of another way that this stuff is being retained and dealt with locally. And that also has impacts on, like, the amount of heat that your home absorbs from the sun. And so that's, you know, if you own your house, or if you have like a tenants association with enough power to, like, pressure your building owner to install these sorts of things, those are certainly things that will benefit the flood risk in your city and also potentially deal with heat too. But the majority of places that are contributing to, like, extreme heat and flooding, it's like parking lots, roads, all this sort of like hard infrastructure that businesses and development practices and cities themselves have to kind of manage. So the pressure ends up being with them in a lot of ways. Margaret I mean, that makes sense. Like, that's like one of—I feel like the current sort of generation of, like, people maybe under 40 or so, like, one of the things we're railing against—I say as someone who's barely under 40—is this idea that we were told we could stop climate change by like changing our lightbulbs while, you know, while being forced into car culture and while watching the US military, like, pollute more than anyone and, you know. So it—I get excited about individuals—they're not even like solutions, right—but like individual approaches to like mitigate certain effects? Jason Yeah. Margaret But I think you're right that, like, the larger infrastructure is something that needs to be controlled in a way that actually is useful for mitigating climate change. Jason Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I've also—we're probably same generation—so I, like, I just grew up with the whole idea and, like, the, like, the needs for, like, personal lifestyle change and so forth, in order to effect these sorts of, like, change. And of course, you know, like, I've been doing this for, you know, since I was like 17 or 18. And so I've got a lot of years into this sort of individual, like, behavioral change and, you know, emissions are up, like, what do you—what else am I supposed to do at this point, you know. I ride my bike most places but, like, there's got to be this sort of, like, systematic sort of change to it. And like, I say that but I'm also—so I'm also a vegan and so, like, my— Margaret Me too. Jason Oh, cool. My general thought with it is just like, I know it's not a systemic change, but like, the amount of suffering that I'm causing through my actions is less, you know, as a result of it. And ultimately that is important to me, at least for, like, living with myself, you know. Margaret Yeah, totally. Jason Like, maybe it's not having this sort of large structural change. But also, you know, theoretically I'm, you know, some extremely small decimal point of less meat consumption in the US. And that, you know, that's— Margaret Which affects water. It's not just an animal issue. Jason Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's many, many, many reasons to go vegan for—but I mean, it's the same thing with, like, carbon emissions and so forth too, where I still, even though I'm like, it's a systemic thing. I'm like, well, yes. But, I mean, if I get in my car and drive, that's carbon that's in the atmosphere. And it's going to be there, you know, as part of the collective problem to eventually have to deal with in the future. And so, like, I still feel like I got to do something, in spite of the fact that I don't—I in no way think that I'm solving the problem. Margaret No, that's such an interesting perspective towards it. Like, I think about it a lot of, like—like, I drive a giant pickup truck, and I defend it out of, well, I used to live in a cabin built myself, and, you know, I live really rurally. And like, I use my giant pickup truck for giant pickup truck stuff all the time, right? But I also get 14 miles to the gallon. And like, that doesn't feel good, right? And I mean, I would love to have an all-electric one. But you know, I also have, like, you know, don't love coal or all these other things, right? But it does, it seems like it's less about, like, beating up on people to, like, make individual changes as much as, like, maybe like everyone kind of looking at their own circumstances and saying, like, what can they pull off? Like, if you're in a good place where you can just mostly ride a bike, mostly ride a bike. If you're, like, in a place where like—like, I don't know, I spend all my time thinking about, like, whether I'm going to start DIY turning plastic into diesel fuel. Because because it can be done and recycling seems to be fake right now since COVID hit. It was always a little bit fake, but like, it seems extra fake right now. And I'm like, well that's sucks. I still want to recycle, even though I know it doesn't save the world, you know. So I guess it takes both. Jason I'm totally with you. And recycling was like another huge blow, like, you know, it was just like, I trusted that the system was like doing this well. And then, you know, probably along with a lot of people in the last like, two years or whatever there's been, you know, more writing and probably documentaries about it. And you're just like, come on, like, that was, that was the thing that I was like really good at and I made a point to, like, rinse my stuff out. And it's just a lie. You know? Like, it's in the clothes, it's getting in through, you know, like, my washing machine and my dryer, like, decomposing the plastics out of there. You know, it's just like, okay, if it's not—if it's not a systemic change, when, or how is it going to happen? You know, like, I was doing the thing that I was supposed to do, and it's still, you know. Yeah. Margaret I mean, that brings us back to the resiliency stuff, right? Because like there's—we're not going to win. Like, I mean, we should keep trying to stop the worst effects of climate change. And like, there's probably a difference—we're probably facing a tipping point between like, you know, life on earth and no life on earth at some point. Well, okay, actually—that is actually one of my main questions for you. It's actually how I first ran across you is I basically asked the internet being like, who can I ask about climate change? Like, I mean, obviously, everyone's thinking about it right now. But who can I ask who thinks about it in ways that are useful for this show in this audience? And I know you don't specifically—you're not like whole thing is not studying climate change and its effects in a grand scale. But I think you have more of a sense of the grand scale of climate change than, say, I do, or most people who are listening to this might. So, the fuck is about to happen? What's the—even if it's not your research, like what are people say? Like what? You know, is it, like—there's a version of the world that, like—I've always been a little bit doom and gloom—I see a version of the world by like 2045 where we're living underground and growing food in controlled environments because the earth is uninhabitable. And I don't think that that's, like, the thing that's going to happen. But that's like at one end, right? Then there's the, like, oh, well, just there's gonna be, you know, some coastal cities are in trouble and we'll have a little bit more hurricanes and flooding than we used to, but overall, the, you know, everything will keep on going on. Like, what do you think is about to happen? Or what do people think is gonna happen? Jason Yeah, I mean, the—so I mean, just to be clear about this, so, you know, of course, these are my views and certainly not the views of Arizona State University or any of my, like, colleagues or whatever. Because, I mean, there's a lot of variation, even within the community that, you know, does climate change studies, or that works with climate change data. And what I was going to be clear about was that I am someone who works with climate data, I'm not like a climate change expert. I don't know all the models that get used for atmospheric circulation, or oceanic circulation, or whatever. So I'm the person who like looks at the data and then, like, looks at the city, and tries to, you know, figure out what can we do to match the goals of the city with the reality of potentially what we're going to be facing. And so, I mean, but even then, you know, I'm probably less gloom and doom than I think some people that I've run into who are more lay on the subject, like, but there's so many caveats to say with this one. So my life personally, you know, like, if things probably are going to get weird in terms of how the climates going to look, and how we end up having to respond or whatever, but I perhaps, you know, incorrectly feel like I'm going to be somewhat more insulated from the effects than some other individuals or whatever, you know. Like, have money? Then you can throw it out the problem and it won't necessarily, like, fix it, but it will make your life potentially a little more comfortable than it would be for people with less money. And that's how the—that's how it works. You know, like, that's just how the country and capitalism and so forth have worked. So, like, it's really the marginalized communities that are gonna, you know, really be facing the brunt of it. So I mean, like, Phoenix is a perfect example of this where, like, extreme heat, you know, who is it a problem for? And what are we defining as problem? So in a future where we're getting like 180 days a year where it's like over 100 degrees, the majority of people in the city have AC and the majority of deaths from extreme heat and dehydration and so forth, are usually from marginalized communities, particularly homeless people. And so, like, what a city is going to look like when it's over 100 degrees for 180 days a year for, like, the homeless population is absolutely devastating. And it's already hard enough to live here. Like, the relative dryness of everything, like, you're constantly drinking water and, like, Arizona is not a kind place if you don't have—I mean, it's not kind in general, like, if you don't have money, like, and it's, I don't know, this sort of conservative ideology here, it just really promotes, I don't know, like absolute amounts of—like, if you're having a problem then you're kind of the person who has to get you out of it, or like the immediate people around you are responsible for getting you out of it. And there's not necessarily this sort of, like, societal connection. So—sorry, this is a long way of saying, like, I don't know. It's gonna be weird for a lot of people. But in terms of, like, my faith and our ability to manage it is maybe the better question, because I don't think there's gonna be, you know, in some places with, like, ocean level rise and extreme heat or whatever, it's just going to be unlivable and unsustainable for some populations of people. But like, say you're living in a place that doesn't face one of the imminent, like, climate threats, like sea level rise or whatever that's just going to physically displace you, there's a lot to manage in terms of agriculture, in terms of people's daily lives, you know. Like, if we're pushing public transportation as a way to, like, cut emissions and so forth, then here in a place like Phoenix, where it's this hot all the time, then you also need to pair that with, you know, measures to make public transportation more usable and more accessible. So a lot of my answer is just, like, how much faith do I have in the systems to get us there, as opposed to like, is the planet just going to become like poisonous and ruinous, and, you know, unlivable? Because I don't necessarily think that's what's gonna happen. I'm more just like, well, you know, is the city going to step up? Is the country going to step up? Is, you know, as an international collective, is that going to step up? Or whatever, in order to make things more manageable. And I think my answer pre-COVID would have been different than than post-COVID where— Margaret I'm guessing you're more cynical now? Jason Oh, my God. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's so cynical that, you know, me complaining about this administration. My parents are like, I didn't know you'd like Trump. And I'm like, I don't like Trump. I'm just this disappointed with like the Biden administration handling of it. Like, it's one of those things where I'm like, well, okay, like, these were the adults in the room. And like the best and brightest, this is what like the meritocratic neoliberal system has produced as, like, the people who should be running the disaster response, and who spent the Trump administration, you know, dunking on social media and whatever, and on television, and through all media accessible, and then just step up to the plate and it's like, what, what are you doing? Like, you're not even consistent with—I mean, like, it's just incredible. Like, I'm now just, like, I'm not listening to anything the CDC says ever again. Like, it's—I'm just so amazed that the CDC was, like, turned into the propaganda wing for the administration in power, you know, like, what does the administration want to do? It wants to reopen schools, it wants to get people back in the workplace, and the CDC is gonna say whatever the hell it is that's gonna, like, be necessary to get people in there. And it's not going to be scientifically informed. So like, you know— Margaret So what's the point of having this institution if it's not scientifically informed? Jason Yeah, that's—those are the professionals. Those are the public health officials, and like Fauci is being like, we got to consider the economic impact of having a 10-day quarantine. And it's like, that's not your job, that's somebody else's job on the economy side to, like, combat what you're saying about it. And so, like, you know, I can just imagine a climate person in the same position as like—you know, Miami is flooding and, like, New York City's getting battered by hurricanes or whatever—and being like, just like, you know, climate change is not a big deal and it's, like, personal responsibility, and so forth. And if you adopt—if you get your electric cars and change your personal lives and so forth, it's not going to be that bad or whatever. And, you know, it's just not. It's going to require sort of coordination and so forth. And I would say there's a lot of good research happening, and there's plenty of good stuff, you know, from academia, and from scientists and so forth coming out about, like, strategies, it's just like, are we going to pick them up? Are we actually going to follow through with them? Is there going to be money, you know, to actually, to do any of this? Margaret Have you seen—it's as pop culture thing—have you seen? Don't Look Up on Netflix? Jason It's on my list! I really want to. Margaret Well, one of the things that happens in it is you have this—because people have always used—well, you know, I mean, like Watchmen use this, a bunch of other things have used this—like, we'd all come together if we were facing this apocalyptic threat from outside, you know? Jason Yeah. Margaret That would be what finally brings everyone together is banding together for our own mutual interest or whatever, right? And then like—and what climate change and COVID show is that that's just not something we can count on reliably. And I think there would be ways to shift public discourse in ways that do have it. I mean, you have some countries where the vaccination rate is substantially higher without necessarily having, like, a higher, like, enforcement or whatever of it. To my understanding, I could be wrong with this. And yeah, I don't know, it just the sense of like, at the beginning of COVID it really felt like, oh, we're all coming together, and like, you know, mutual aid organizations are everywhere, and then instead all the sudden people decided to just become Nazis and then run around and, like, yell at everyone and—I don't know, and then it all just disintegrated from there. And then, yeah, watching the Democrats fail at the one thing that theoretically they were going to do. I mean, the main thing that they were going to do is, like, not be literal fascists, and I guess they successfully accomplished that. But the other thing that they were supposed to do is be, like, the adults in the room. Yeah, like you're talking about. Because like Trump and his are like petulant crying children and—actually, no offense to children—children have much better excuses. Jason I've known less spiteful children, certainly. Margaret Yeah. No, I don't know it. I don't know. Okay. Jason Yeah. So I haven't seen the movie. Sorry. I was gonna comment on. Yeah. And like—but I mean, I know what it's about. I read like the criticism, I follow David Sirota on Twitter, and have certainly read a lot of criticism. And I've certainly seen a lot of stuff about the presentation of the material. And like, maybe the metaphor being a little heavy-handed or whatever. But-and like maybe, yeah, it's not, it's literally like a meteor about to hit earth or comet or whatever. And, you know, it's the news being like, well, whatever, it's a bunch of different institutions coming together to tell you that it's not something you really need to worry about, or, you know, like, mobilize over, I guess, I haven't seen it, again. Margaret It's not a complex movie. You basically got it. Jason Yeah. And so, I mean, I can—certainly I won't claim, like, I'm above aesthetics of a film or whatever, a good film, you know, should accomplish that. But it's one of, like, the most wide-reaching climate change parables, you know, currently in existence. And I have to say, from what I've heard about a lot of it, it's certainly not too far off from what we're experiencing. And like, in a pre-COVID world, maybe it would have like, felt a little heavy-handed or something like that. But I, you know, I get the gist of it. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of what we're doing. Like, what do you—like, you know, they're not even telling us to turn the fountains off or like, you know, or anything like that around here into Phoenix, and we're literally in the middle of establishing water shortage measures. Like agriculture, out, you're done here in Phoenix. I think we are—we just upgraded this— Margaret No one needs that stuff. Jason Yeah, exactly. We don't need this local stuff. That's now Mexico is problem. Also, we're not delivering water to Mexico anymore. So, you know, like, there's so many things, we're just like, okay, so you're not handling this at all. And we're not supposed to be concerned about it, for some reason Margaret To go back to something you brought up at the very beginning. You know, you're talking about how climate change models don't really go past 2080 right now. Or like, you know, it's talking about what's going to happen best 2080. And you're like, I have no idea why. And I have two answers to that, and one is more cynical than the other. And one, the—I mean, the most cynical one is, like, that's because like, who knows if humanity is going to be around after 2080, certainly in a meaningful way. And then, but the other is, like, the just the, you know, everyone who's thinking about it assumes there'll be dead by 2080, even naturally. So why would we care about, like, what our children have to deal with, you know? Jason Yeah. Margaret Like, I was born in the early 80s. So I assume I'll be dead by around 2080. If I'm lucky. So, who cares about after that? I mean—actually, it's funny, one of the most cynical things my dad says on a regular basis—my dad has four kids and none of us have kids—and he's like, he actually does care about climate change—but he's like, I don't care about climate change. I don't have any skin in the game. I don't have any grandchildren. Family line's over whatever. Jason Yeah, exactly. Like, you're literally telling this to your children, being like, I'm not here. Margaret I'm gonna be dead before it's a problem. I'm like, I'm not. Actually, you're not either. Jason Yeah. Yeah, I mean, number one, he gave up already on living forever. And that's, you know, just—I'm not, I don't think I'm ever gonna do that. So, you know, I've got skin in the game, you know, as long as the planets around. Margaret Yeah, fair enough. Jason Yeah, I mean, that's literally the reason that people give on some of this investment stuff into, like, green infrastructure into, you know, dealing with climate change. It's just like, I mean, sure, that's like a theoretical thing that we, like, could have to deal with it. But like number one, I'm not even going to be here. And number two, you know, whatever goes in the other reasoning. But it's not an uncommon thing for someone to be like, mortality, I'm dead, like, what do you want me to do? So, yeah. And like, part of it is, you know, just the limits of modeling. Like, they're uncertain even as, like, 10 years ahead. And so you kind of like increase the amount of uncertainty, like, as you expand that time out. But like, honestly, I just think it's so horrifying to, like, look at it, and we're just like, okay, well, we used to think that population was going to peak, you know, by like, 2040 or 2060. I forget, like, what the actual peak date was going to be. And then like, you know, suddenly the models are just like, yeah, we don't really see a stop to that. And so it's like, okay, so we've got a changing climate, and we have a population that's going to keep increasing indefinitely, and no one's got a plan for like resource usage, for anything along those lines. And, you know, to be clear, this is not me being like, overpopulation is a problem. It's more like we need to plan, you know, like, there's not—we're not doing a good job with the number of people we have on the planet currently and, you know, management or not, people and our, you know, resource usage put major pressures on systems. And because I, you know, mostly think in terms of ecology and, like, natural systems, even though I'm in an urban area, I'm always thinking about, like, you know, regardless—I could do a million things in a given day—I'm already a vegan, I already tried to ride my bike as much as I can, I try to do all these things, but like, I'm still impacting the environments. And, you know, like, at the end of the day, me being here is impacting natural systems. And so now I'm always thinking about, like, biodiversity loss and the things that we're, you know, also contributing to just in, you know, even though I'm a relatively low hum of activity, compared to some people, but, you know, we got to really be thinking about that, because otherwise, you know, it's not going to resolve itself. It's not just going to be like, oh, it turned out to not be a problem. Margaret Right? Well, that's what I feel like some people are sitting around waiting for the, you know—I think it might almost help for them to realize that scientists at this point, engineers at this point, are less thinking, how do we stop climate change and instead how do we mitigate its effects? You know, I mean, I guess people thinking about how to, like, stop the worsening of it, right? But it's like, you know, people who are waiting around for this sort of magic bullet of, like, cold fusion power mixed with carbon capture or whatever, mixed with Mars colonization or, you know, whatever various things, like— Jason We'll mine comets. Greenly. Margaret Yeah, totally. Yeah. Jason Yeah, no. There's just a lot of things that need to be wrangled. And we need to actually, like, do planning for it. And, like, I—as someone who's done a lot of stuff in my personal life to really try to manage some of this stuff, I mean, I work on—I'm a systems thinker and I work on this as, like, a system whole. And it's like, I mean, what—how are we going to get people to, like, change behavior. Advertising, things like that? I mean, that'll get some people, but then, you know, like, it'll get perverted and politicized and whatever. So this sort of individual approach to dealing with everything is not going to be the case. And, I mean, the term "transformation" was in that definition of resilience, and I think a lot of transformation just needs to happen. And, you know, like, I'm anticapitalist and so, you know, my version of transformation is like, you know, what's a major problem for resiliency for a lot of people? It's money and not having enough of it, or not having a society that values them because they don't have enough of it. So we need to get rid of that. Because all these studies that talk about, like, who are the most vulnerable populations, all this stuff is tied to poverty. It's in poverty directly, or it's all tied to poverty. And so if I'm talking to a city person about, like, well, you know, what you can do is like add some wetlands to your city or whatever, you also have to, like, realize that's not going to be everything. Like, you've—there's going to be flooding, there's gonna be some amount of, like, unmanageability unpredictability to these systems. And the best way that you can deal with a lot of this is just deal with, like, inequality and this, you know, insane system of creating classes and things like that, and reinforcing them in subtle and less subtle ways. And until you deal with that, you know, you're—it's totally incomplete. The picture that you're, I don't know, the picture that you're seeing and that you're actually engaging with, like, you cannot leave out a lot of these issues of inequality in the way we consume things and everything. Margaret No, I really like that way of tying class and all of that into this as, like, all part of it. I don't know. One of the things that I think about, one of my better friends and engineer, whenever I talked to her about these issues, one of the things that always comes up is that I think about like—like when you talk about the concrete canal in Los Angeles, which of course makes for dramatic movie sets—I had no idea what that thing was, it's just in every movie and eventually figured it out it's a canal. But it's just bad engineering if you don't take into account all of the context that the thing that you're creating sits within. And so like, that's always been like my argument against a lot of the, like, quick fix technological stuff coming from engineers—and I say this as a lay person—but I'm like, it's just badly engineered. It does not work. It solves an immediate problem, but it doesn't work in the larger context. So it doesn't work. And the stuff that you're talking about, about like—so a resilient city is one that's, like, interfaced with nature, interfaced into its local context, and not just like assuming that the style of building that you use in the north is the style of building you should use in the south, and the style of greenery you have in Michigan should be what you have in Phoenix. But then also one that fights inequality, and that's how you build a resilient city. I like that. Jason Yeah, no. And that's a critical message that I've, like, tried to put into like book chapters and so forth, where it's like, look, we have a good idea of, like, what causes, you know, people to be vulnerable to climate change, and to extreme weather events. It's the same thing that's made them vulnerable for the last, you know, like, you know, since the 1800s, and like, you know, the major rise of capitalism and industry and so forth. Like, you have all these engineering and tech solutions to things, but, you know, at the end of the day—I mean, so I also do surveys and stuff like that, about flooding and communities too. And so I have some idea of how people are actually adapting and preparing to this sort of stuff. And, you know, it's a n- brainer. You get a wealthy person who has like flooding in their house, like, yeah, I paid a guy to pump it all out. And then I had, you know, my walls redone or whatever to deal with the flood damage. I replaced all the furniture that got damaged by the flood. Then you have like a person who doesn't even own the home that they live in, they're like a renter on top of it, and they could be facing eviction, you know, during the, the flood repairs, if it gets repaired, you know. And, like, it's—there are so many things where it's like, okay, so this person's like a temporary refugee within their own city because, you know, their home flooded, and there's like renovations or whatever. And that's not going to be solved, you know, necessarily by a tech solution. You might get statistically less flooding, either in terms of like depth or frequency. But like, it's gonna happen, like, there's just failures in these systems and people living, you know, hand to mouth, they're not going to be able to recover in the same way as, you know, wealthier people are, or people who have—who live in like a city or in a social governance system that actually cares about helping people recover, like, on an individual basis. Like, you just can't ignore that. I mean, certainly install more wetlands. I'm not going to tell you not to do that, but... Margaret Right, totally. It's like, it's good to ride your bike, it's good to eat less meat, it's good to you know, and increasing biodiversity is a very valuable thing. Like, it's a more valuable thing than riding a bike. But like, what, um—okay, well we're coming up on time. And I'm wondering if you have any final rousing thoughts or something that you wish I had asked, or any final thoughts. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's really tough, because I don't want to just be like, the problems are systemic, and the system sucks. It's not doing its job. So there's nothing you can do about it up until it happens. Jason Yeah. I mean, like, there's really good work at the community level, and, you know, tenant organizations and so forth, that have kind of like, pushed toward organizing and improving their own resiliency. And so I always, you know, try to remember those sorts of movements. And the fact that, like, academia is pretty responsive to that. Like, if nothing else, like the the push for novelty in academia, like, has kind of been like, oh, well, this is like another form of resilience. It's like understudied or whatever. And so it gets, like, proper attention and study and appreciation in academia. And then like, you know, the pipeline from there as we talk to city officials or whatever who we're partnered with, and then get them thinking about this sort of stuff. But it's like, it's kind of, it's not a definite sort of thing. It's like a tenuous relationship. It's not successful all the time. But like, it is cool that it exists sometimes and in some places, you know, like, there's work that I've done where I, you know, I can go point to an individual wetland that I'm personally responsible for, like, telling the city something about and they're like, I guess we got to protect it then. It's like, wow, cool. And, you know, I can go back and it will still be there, but it was already, like, getting zoned for housing and so forth. So like, stuff does happen, and there is good work on it. And you should do these sorts of, like, personal measures toward, like, reducing carbon footprint and all of that. But like, I don't know, I think you described it as, like, climate nihilism in a in a previous podcast episode, I think with a restoration ecologist maybe. Margaret That part's not true. Yeah, that sounds right. I have a terrible memory. But that sounds right. Jason Where, you know, it's kind of about a, you know, nihilism is a bad thing in that you're just like, everything's fucked, or whatever. But like, for me, it kind of takes the form of just, like, accepting that stuff is going to change and figuring out, like, wha

As we publish, scientists are announcing that the last dozen years are the driest in more than a millennium. With the desert's cities ever more dependent on water from the Colorado River, how will southwestern society meet the challenge of hyper-aridity? Chris and Alicia get water wonky with Kyle Roerink of the Great Basin Water Network. Support the show: https://90milesfromneedles/patreon See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A version of this essay was published by swarajyamag.com at https://swarajyamag.com/politics/was-it-a-plot-to-assassinate-the-prime-ministerThe events on January 5th were shocking: the PM’s motorcade was stopped for 15 to 20 minutes on a highway overpass, blocked by a group of ‘protesters’. His car, the only black car in the row of white cars, was completely exposed to a possible drone attack, a Stinger missile, a rocket-propelled grenade, or even an IED that could have demolished the structure. The enormity of this situation, and the implications for India’s national security, are astonishing. Here was the Prime Minister of the country with the world’s 5th largest economy and 3rd largest armed forces, a sitting duck, at a location only a few miles away from the Pakistani border. Thank you for reading Shadow Warrior. This post is public so feel free to share it.It cannot be seen as an attack on Narendra Modi, the man, but on the institution of the Prime Minister, and by extension on the Government of India. This, in a country where two Prime Ministers were earlier assassinated. It is almost an existential question. What would happen if Modi were to be killed? I hasten to add that I am certainly not advocating it, as he is the PM, and I have been a fan of his for long. But we have to think of what happens in that eventuality. The same question was asked earlier: what would happen if Modi were to lose the elections? Well, not much. Modi would take his small suitcase, and, as in the famous painting, alight from the train in his hometown in Gujarat and walk home alone, in the rain, with his umbrella. It is not "Après moi, le déluge" as in the Nehruvian vanity: somebody will rule. But the nation will be the loser, just when it is at the cusp of inflection.There have been other dramatic moments in Indian history where one man made a difference. The stray arrow that pierced the eye of Hemachandra Vikramaditya at the second battle of Panipat doomed North India to centuries of Gurkaniya Timurid rule. The beheading of Rama Raya of Vijayanagar by his own renegade troops at the battle of Talikota caused the disastrous end of that bulwark that had protected South India against invaders from the North. It may not be that bad this time if there were to be, in Karan Thapar’s immortal words in 2007, “the sudden removal of Modi”. There are others that could step in. But surely, momentum will be lost, and all those malign forces urging ‘regime change’, especially the Deep State and China and their psy-warfare organs, such as the New York Times and Global Times, will smell blood.Thanks for reading Shadow Warrior! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.I also personally do not think it was an assassination attempt. If it were, it would have succeeded because there was nothing to prevent it. It was more a signal to Narendra Modi that if he dared enter Punjab again, he would be executed. The real question is, what will happen next?We have seen this movie before. In West Bengal, there was massive election-related violence and the wanton killing of BJP and RSS people by TMC cadres. In Kerala, there have been dozens of murders of BJP/RSS people by Communists or Islamists. There were at least two earlier attempts on Modi himself: the first when Ishrat Jehan, Javed (born Pranesh Pillai) and a Pakistani were intercepted driving to Gujarat to eliminate him. The second was the bomb that went off minutes before Modi was to speak in Bihar during election campaigning some time ago. If I were to extrapolate, the federal structure of the Indian Union is itself under strain: opposition-ruled states are acting as little personal fiefdoms that are, in effect, independent nations with only a tenuous link to the Union Government. For instance, just last week, the President of India was apparently humiliated when he had to cool his heels in the Kerala Raj Bhavan after an honorary D Litt to him was denied, allegedly under pressure from the state government (which, however, cleared D Litts for an actress, Shobhana, and a musician, T M Krishna). Opposition-ruled states also did not reduce excise taxes on petrol and diesel, while at the same time opposing bringing those under GST. In Bengal, a Chief Secretary was removed by the GoI, but was re-hired by the state government. In Punjab, the DGP was just installed, hand-picked by an Indian National Congress leader. There are many more instances that we all know of.So there are under-currents of anarchy being implemented nationwide. The bottom line is that a lot of people do not want the BJP to be in power: among them, the urban chatterati who keep pointing out that the BJP only got some 36% of the total vote, while quietly omitting the fact that the sainted Jawaharlal also did not get a clear majority, only a plurality, of the vote while ruling like an arbitrary, absolute monarch for 17 long years. There are several groups hurt by various measures taken by the GoI. Among them is the ‘Chandigarh Lobby’, a group of ex-military middlemen whose handsome commissions earned from foreign arms merchants have evaporated. This explains their schadenfreude when General Bipin Rawat was killed last month, and some of the very same group showed their dismissive contempt for the PM as well.Then of course there are the arhatiyas, or middlemen, who have profited from the aftermath of the Green Revolution. Let us ignore the fact that excessive rice cultivation has led to water tables falling precipitously and groundwater poisoning through pesticide and fertilizer runoff. This is not sustainable: I am reminded of Californians cultivating rice in the desert (see my old column “Water Wars: Cauvery, Chinatown, and Cadillac Desert”). Presumably, these were the ‘protesters’ who stopped the PM’s motorcade. So exactly what are they protesting against? Their demand has already been conceded: the farm bills are withdrawn. No, they have become protesters-for-rent; they are now determined to cause trouble.Proximate, preponderant and root causesAnd that is the proximate cause of the problem. The Indian State, various anarchists have concluded, is a soft state, and they can keep escalating their demands without consequences. These ‘farmer’ protesters (including during their Republic Day 2021 shenanigans), and earlier the Shaheen Bagh protesters, realized that they could, with impunity, hold the GoI hostage. And so they will. What can be done? Clearly, large-scale force against them would boomerang. But doesn’t the GoI know who the street thugs are, as well as their shadowy handlers in India and elsewhere? If the GoI doesn’t know, why doesn’t it know? Where is the humint as well as the reams of surveillance camera video? How about tracking their bank accounts, money transactions and vehicle movements via Aadhar, PAN, UPI and Fastag? Savitri Mumukshu quoted Chanakya on twitter: “A nation has 4 threats. First, from external enemies. Next, from internal enemies helped by foreigners. Third, from external enemies helped by insiders. But most dangerous is when internal enemies are helped by internal spies, like a hidden snake lurking in the home.” As usual, he was right.The intelligence agencies, assuming they are not riddled with moles, must identify, track, and then pick off the ring-leaders one by one, quietly. You know, the 2am knock on the door. Enough already with the kadi ninda! The State must show it will impose discipline: it has a monopoly on violence. A little bit of “iron fist in the velvet glove” is salutary and a deterrent.The preponderant cause, though, is the ridiculous fact that there are elections all the time in India. Yes, ALL THE GODDAMN TIME! This is a serious distraction from the job of governing the country, and politicians must figure out what will win elections, not what is good for the country. It is high time that elections were rationalized, perhaps as follows: every five years there are national elections to Parliament. Half the states must synchronize their elections with these. In between, 2.5 years later there will be elections to the other half of the states (so that their legislatures also have a life of 5 years). If there are problems in any state and the legislatures are dismissed for some reason, President’s Rule will be imposed until the next time their elections are due. In other words, no unnecessary and frequent elections, but only to a timetable. The root cause of the problem, however, is the Indian Constitution, which has mandated the current system of continuous elections. In general, not only for this but for other reasons as well, the Constitution needs to be rewritten because it is a prolix document, largely a cut and paste of the imperial Government of India Act of 1935, with tidbits thrown in from the US and Irish constitutions. Both the constitution and the increasingly bizarre interpretations of it, especially of Articles 25-30 that render Hindus second-class citizens, are problems. A Constituent Assembly should be set up and work should begin on a simple, 10-page document rather than a 500+ page behemoth. It will be the job of the Supreme Court to handle nothing but constitutional cases, which requires judicial reforms, with Regional Courts of Appeal set up to hear inter-state disputes and non-constitutional matters elevated from High Courts. And the National Judicial Appointments Commission needs to be revived as well, with a clear mandate for the legislature to approve the appointment of judges. So there are larger problems that need to be solved. But at the moment, the attack on the Prime Minister needs to be taken as an affront to the dignity of the Indian Union, and whoever instigated or participated in it needs to be taught a lesson. Some heads must roll. Otherwise the impression that India is a Soft State, especially after the mysterious death of the Chief of Defense Staff, will gain currency. We simply cannot afford that. 1600 words, 6 Jan 2022 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

Donna Attanasio is the Senior Advisor for Energy Law Programs at George Washington University Law School. She was previously a partner at White & Case LLP, in its Energy, Infrastructure, Project and Asset Finance practice, serving as chair of its renewable energy task force and co-chair of the DC Office's Women's Initiative. Prior to that, Donna was with the firms of Dewey Ballantine LLP and Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan. Before attending law school, she supervised load management programs and worked on conservation and customer service projects at Potomac Electric Power Company.In this conversation, Mosby and Donna discuss transmission, microgrids, free markets and regulations.  Donna explains the challenge of having a transmission system designed for reliability and low costs evolving into a system that must also support a new generation mixed aimed at lowering emissions.  We talk about energy as a holistic problem cutting across disciplines and we define and discuss energy equity—who gets to decide who decides?  Donna walks through some of the great work her program at George Washington Law School is doing with communities and energy. We talk about the book Cadillac Desert and gifts from your kids, and Donna shares insights from her many decades of practicing law at high powered firms in DC. 

We are running out of WATER! In today's book club discussion, we talked about a book called "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water" by Marc Reisner. Water issue relates to real estate development, infrastructure, urban planning, architecture and landscaping design, economic development, and politics. All of these topics and stakeholders heavily tie to commercial real estate. So even though this book talks about water issue and dam development in west part of the United States, we think it's very important to talk about it in our book club. We hope you will like today's episode!  Subscribe to our email newsletter: https://cre-media.com/subscribe Social Media LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cre-media Instagram: https://instagram/cre_mediagroup YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxhFD4yDokHv6u3UxhjYtGA Please contact us here: https://www.cre-media.com/contact Disclaimer: This commercial real estate podcast is intended for commercial real estate professionals, institutions, and investors only. The views expressed in this show are for informational, entertainment, and educational purposes only, and do not imply suitability. Views and opinions expressed are those of the presenters only and do not reflect the views of their employers, institutions, and associations. The information is not intended as investment advice, is not a recommendation about investing, and the presenters and their companies are not acting as your fiduciary.

Dani has water and Doug is making snow angels to his heart's content. This week we attempt to discuss the book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner, a sweeping history of water in America, including exploration, conservation, and reclamation. Play a game to lose, get used to it, this is America, and Shatner seems nice. Buy the book: https://www.villagebooks.com/book/9780140178241 Watch the movie: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PR2BSGQt2DU Join us on Patreon for bonus episodes, videos, and more! https://www.patreon.com/ALifeOutside We've merch! https://teespring.com/stores/a-life-outside-podcast Find out more about us and access our stories and episodes: https://www.alifeoutsidepod.com/ Follow us: TikTok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeApskrU/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8azr4noqQqB164qOh3MAoA Twitter http://Twitter.com/alifeoutsidepod Instagram http://Instagram.com/alifeoutsidepod Theme song performed by Jasmine Emery: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/7dCRpW27znCU3nEU6

Southern California is home for 19 million people and imports the majority of its municipal water from the Colorado and Sacramento Rivers, moving that water hundreds of miles through humanmade aqueducts.  Both rivers have decreased flows meaning less water for So Cal.  This episode looks at how So Cal gained water, how they are changing their water profile, and how rivers may continue to be impacted by their extractions.  COMPANION EPISODE: "Recycling (river) Water in Southern California" GUESTSMETROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAREGIONAL RECYCLED WATER ADVANCED PURIFICATION CENTER PEOPLE, POLICY, INFORMATIONWILLIAM MULHOLLANDST FRANCIS DAM COLLAPSECALIFORNIA WATER WARSCOLORADO COMPACT BOOKSCADILLAC DESERTSCIENCE BE DAMMED ARTICLES (just a few, there is a lot of media on water in the Southwest this year)LA Times:  ‘Unrecognizable.' Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisisCBS This MorningKUNC:  Colorado River Basin Reservoirs Begin Emergency Releases To Prop Up A Troubled Lake PowellCBS This Morning:  Mega Drought in the West RIVER RADIUS PODCASTLink to episodes here"Mile 0 Sacramento River Source to Sea""The Returning Rapids of Cataract Canyon 2021""The Silty Byproduct of Lake Powell"email  

For many decades water has been recycled after it runs through sewage treatment plants in cities large and small in many states and countries.  That recycled water is used for landscaping and industrial cleaning.  Today with decreasing access to imported river water, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has built a test facility to further clean treated waste water to the standards of drinking water.  The plan is to learn how to do this so the water looks great and is completely safe, then return it to the drinking water system.  Essentially by reusing water, they are creating a new water source for their customers.  With decreasing flows in the rivers that deliver water to Southern California, this project is lining up to offset these losses, and can provide data and models for other cities to engage in the similar practices.  Metropolitan Water provides water to 19 million humans through their 26 partner agencies, the cities and counties of Southern California.  Join us for an onsite tour of the plant.  WEBSITESMetropolitan Water District of Southern CaliforniaRegional Recycled Water Advanced Purification Center INFORMATION ON PLACES, INFRASTRUCTURE, ACTIONS AND POLICYSouthern CaliforniaColorado RIverSacramento RiverSacramento Source to Sea river expeditionState Water ProjectColorado River AqueductOwens ValleyColorado River CompactBOOKSCadillac DesertScience Be Dammed ARTICLES (just a few, there is a lot of media on water in the Southwest this year)LA Times:  ‘Unrecognizable.' Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisisCBS This MorningKUNC:  Colorado River Basin Reservoirs Begin Emergency Releases To Prop Up A Troubled Lake PowellCBS This Morning:  Mega Drought in the West RIVER RADIUS PODCASTRelated Episodes, link here"Mile 0 Sacramento River Source to Sea""The Returning Rapids of Cataract Canyon 2021""The Silty Byproduct of Lake Powell"email 

In this episode, we chat with Jonathan Taplin regarding his career working with Bob Dylan, along with The Band (Dylan's back-up band, along with their solo career), his time with George Harrison putting together the legendary Concert For Bangladesh, what it was like to be a part of Woodstock (yes, he was actually there), and how he and Martin Scorsese came to working together on not only on the now legendary documentary "The Last Waltz" but also on a major feature film. This in addition to the 120 concerts he produced over the years. Jonathan is the author of the book “Move Fast and Break Things” and a new memoir called “The Magic Years - Scenes From A Rock And Roll Life.” Taplin helped organize the Concert for Bangladesh with George Harrison and the film “The Last Waltz,” also directed by Scorcese. The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country's name, was originally spelt) was a pair of benefit concerts organized by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City to raise international awareness of and fund refugees from East Pakistan following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide. The concerts were followed by a best-selling live album, a boxed three-record set, and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972. The event was the first-ever benefit of such a magnitude. It featured a supergroup of performers, including Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and the band Badfinger. Jonathan Taplin is a writer, film producer, and scholar. He is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016 in international communication management and digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire, and To Die. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. The Business Side of Music ™ © 2021 Lotta Dogs Productions LLC Co-Produced and Hosted (by the guy who has a face for podcasting):  Bob Bender Co-Producer, Creator, and Technical Advisor (the man behind the curtain):  Tom Sabella Director of Video and Continuity (the brains of the entire operation): Deborah Halle Audio/Video Editor Mark Sabella Midnight Express Studio  Olian, NY Marketing and Social Media: Kaitlin Fritts Executive Assistant to Bob and Tom (the one who keeps us on track and our schedules straight) Tammy Kowalski All Around Problem Solver: Connie Ribas Recorded inside an old Airstream Trailer on Music Row in Nashville, TN (cause that's about all that's left these days) Mixed and Mastered at Music Dog Studios in Donelson, TN Production Sound Design: Keith Stark Voice Over and Promo: Lisa Fuson Special Thanks to Tom Sabella and Traci Snow for producing and hosting over 100 episodes of the original “Business Side of Music” podcast and trusting us to carry on their legacy. Website: Sponsorship information   Interview submission   

Pour yourself a whisky, grab a seat and listen to the best voice in dark fiction tell you some stories. Our guest is Joe Lansdale author of so many books I can't even begin to list them. Oh, ok, I will. Edge of Dark Water, Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, The Thicket, Fender Lizard … “Bubba Ho Tep”, Cold in July … the entire Hap and Leonard series. And he joins me to talk about his newest, Moon Lake. A tale of dark nostalgia, small town politics and murder set on the banks of a drowned village. It's a sun-soaked, shadow-tinged summer read of the best, and most twisted kind. As much as Joe is nominally on the show to talk about Moon Lake, he's a hard man to pin down to mere self-promotion. He has tales to tell and opinions to offer and you'd better goddamn LISTEN!! We discuss blue collar youth, Texas attitude, and whether having some hardship in life makes you a better writer. He tells me how he comes up with his unique metaphors, and why he defended Stephen King when twitter turned against him.All in all, it's a friendly conversation about the perils of tribalism, why we should all be a little bit more tolerant, and why choosing stupidity is scary as hell.This is a bucket-list interview for me.Enjoy! Moon Lake is published by Mulholland Books on June 22nd.Other books discussed in this episode include:Edge of Dark Water (2012), by Joe R. LansdaleThe Thicket (2013), by Joe R. LansdaleParadise Sky (2015), by Joe R. Lansdale“Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Mans Back,” in High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe. R. Lansdale“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks”, in The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010)“The Night They Missed the Horror Show”, by Joe R. Lansdale – originally published in Silver Scream, (1988) ed. By David SchowGreat Expectations, (1860), by Charles DickensThe Only Good Indians (2020), by Stephen Graham JonesMongrels (2016), by Stephen Graham Jones Support the show on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com.Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

This week we are talking about two award winning books we've been dying to read. Amie read The Overstory by Richard Powers and Tami read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.    Interested in learning more about the Pulitzer Prize and how it is awarded? Here's their website https://www.pulitzer.org    The Atlantic Magazine reviewed The Overstory by Richard Powers here. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/richard-powers-the-overstory/559106/    Don’t forget to check out our patreon site this month.  We're giving all our listeners a free glimpse of all the good stuff we offer to supporters. Biggest Little Library Patreon Link   Books Mentioned   Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner Horizon by Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez  A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson Walking to Listen by Andrew Forsthoeful Evicted by Mathew Desmond Less by Andrew Sean Greer 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Vern  The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel and Brit Witter  Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr Humble Pi by Matt Parker There There by Tommy Orange     Tami and Amie's Combined List of Pulitzer Prize Winners Read   To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry March by Geraldine Brooks Gilead by Marilynne Robinson The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt   We have a delightful, free newsletter, so don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.  Click this link.   See you in the stacks!  

Matt Spencer is living a life full of adventure.  On this episode we chat about how he got into river guiding, first in Colorado and then in Africa on the Zambezi River (even though he was initially scared of water) and then talk about his other adventures in the developing world, working for Americorps and moving to New Zealand.  We also have a conversation on dams and whether or not they belong on certain rivers that once ran wild and discuss how people can overcome imposter syndrome in the outdoors.   Links from the Episode: Matt’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattspencer94/ Down River, A Novel: https://www.amazon.com/Down-River-Novel-John-Hart/dp/0312677383 Cadillac Desert: https://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244 Zambezi River: https://www.zambiatourism.com/destinations/rivers/zambezi/ Victoria Falls: https://www.zambiatourism.com/destinations/waterfalls/victoria-falls/ Batoka Gorge Dam Project: https://www.zambezi.com/blog/2017/batoka-dam-update/   Adventures in National Parks, Forests & Wild Places Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/adventureboundgroup/ YouTube Channel - Rob Roy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcjzeMrZA91DwlXSsYFM64A?view_as=subscriber YouTube Channel - Adventure Bound: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb5NgUwp0rZaU9dJxjitCrw?view_as=subscriber

Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. He was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin's areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he helped re-engineer the media landscape on transactions such as the leveraged buyout of Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and has served as its Chairman and CEO since June 1996. Intertainer was the pioneer video-on-demand company for both cable and broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two patents for video on demand technologies. Professor Taplin has provided consulting services on Broadband technology to the President of Portugal and the Parliament of the Spanish state of Catalonia and the Government of Singapore. Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University. He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Singapore Media Authority and is a fellow at the Center for Public Diplomacy. Mr. Taplin was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Broadband Task Force in January of 2007. He was named one of the 50 most social media savvy professors in America by Online College and one of the 100 American Digerati by Deloitte’s Edge Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Ellen Gilinsky about Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, which refers to the 2015 Clean Water Rule that defined the scope of federal water protection, particularly for streams and wetlands that share a hydrologic system with "navigable waters." Gilinsky was the associate deputy assistant administrator for water at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); she is an expert on all things WOTUS. Raimi and Gilinsky discuss why WOTUS is so important for federal regulation of surface waters; why the waters that fall under regulation are so tricky to define; and how the Trump administration has sought to change the definitions, with implications that reduce regulation. Just last week, EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers published their Navigable Waters Protection Rule to change the definition of WOTUS and "navigable waters," demarcating four categories for waters under jurisdiction. The new rule becomes effective on June 22 this year, although lawsuits already are challenging it. References and recommendations: "Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity" by Sandra Postel; https://islandpress.org/books/replenish "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567281/where-the-crawdads-sing-deluxe-edition-by-delia-owens/ "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/323685/cadillac-desert-by-marc-reisner/

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with RFF senior fellow Margaret Walls. Along with coauthors Patrick Lee and Matthew Ashenfarb, Walls published a study last week on the economic impacts that result from the establishment of national monuments. The study looks at how the designation of a national monument affects businesses and employment in the surrounding area. While some have argued that monuments stifle economic activity by making land off-limits to extractive activities like oil and gas drilling, others argue that national monuments generate growth in other industries, such as tourism. In their new study, Walls and colleagues provide answers. References and recommendations: "National monuments and economic growth in the American West" by Margaret Walls, Patrick Lee, and Matthew Ashenfarb; https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/12/eaay8523 "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/323685/cadillac-desert-by-marc-reisner/ "The Source" by Martin Doyle; https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Source "Nuclear explained: Where our uranium comes from" by the US Energy Information Administration; https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php

In this episode of the podcast, John Papola and Jon Taplin discuss philosophy, literature, and life lessons learned throughout Taplin's extensive and varied career. Taplin has done everything from going on the road as a tour manager with Bob Dylan, to producing movies (including once being a key part of a massive Disney deal), to being one of the entrepreneurs behind the first video on-demand service: Intertainer. He then took these experiences into his career as an educator and author. More from our guest: Personal Website Amazon Author Page Wikipedia Page Annenberg Bio Twitter Page Medium Blog IMDb Page References from this episode: Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg "Ideological Dorks" with Jonah Goldberg on Libertarianism.org's podcast Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin The Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko Mean Streets (movie) Under Fire (movie) Wings of Desire (movie) Paris, Texas (movie) To Die For (movie) Cadillac Desert (series) Shine (movie)

Episode 2-03: Misty Water-Colored Memories Wherein I review: 6 - Ex-Purgatory (Ex-Heroes #4) by Peter Clines 7 - No Sunscreen for the Dead (Serge Storms #22) by Tim Dorsey 8 - Treason's Harbour (Aubrey & Maturin #9) by Patrick O'Brian 9 - Ex-Isle (Ex-Heroes #5) by Peter Clines 10 - Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner

Today we have a special episode of Sustainable Nation. We're talking sustainability in sports and the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference. Consistent with its reputation as the conference of champions, the PAC-12 is the first collegiate sports conference to convene a high level symposium focused entirely on integrating sustainability into college athletics and across college campuses. All of the PAC-12 athletic departments have committed to measuring their environmental performance, developing strategies and goals to reduce their impact and monitoring their progress in engaging fans and communities in greener practices. The PAC-12 sustainability conference signals in elevated approach to enhancing sustainability efforts within collegiate athletics departments, designing new collective initiatives and sharing best practices to transform college sports into a platform for environmental progress. Today we're interviewing two members of the PAC-12 sustainability conference committee, Dave Newport and Jamie Zaninovich. Jamie Zaninovich - Jamie joined the PAC-12 Conference as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer in July of 2014. He's responsible for all aspects of the PAC-12's administrative operations, including television administration, sports management, championships, football bowl relationships, PAC-12 global, compliance and officiating. During his first two years at the PAC-12, Jamie helped guide the conference through unprecedented governance changes, major increases in its international efforts, and continued high level success of its 23 sponsored sports. Dave Newport - Dave launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with corporate partnership for the Florida Gators when he was the University of Florida's director of sustainability in 2002. Later he became director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center and founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program, Ralphie's Green Stampede. Dave is also secretary of the Green Sports Alliance board of directors, former board secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, an award winning publisher and editor and a former elected county commission board chairman. Jamie Zaninovich Jamie Zaninovich. Welcome to Sustainable Nation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Josh. Looking forward to it. I gave the listeners some background on your professional life but tell us a little bit about your personal life and what led you to be doing the work you're doing today. College sports has been a passion of mine since my early days in Eugene, Oregon where I was a faculty brat, son of a faculty member who played basketball in college back in the day and used to take me to all the games at the old historic Matt Court and Autzen Stadium in Eugene as a kid. So that's really where my passion for collegiate athletics started, and I was not a good enough to be a collegiate student athlete, so of course, decided to be an administrator instead. That's how it works. I've spent the last 25 years working both on campus and in college athletic conferences starting at Stanford and then Princeton University, and now here at the PAC-12 for the past four years. Like I said, it's a passion of mine as is sustainability, so we're really excited that we're at least making some progress in putting those two things together here at the PAC-12. And now the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference coming up in July. Really the first sustainability focused conference put on by a collegiate sports conference, the PAC-12. Tell us a little bit about how that came about and what people can expect at this year's PAC-12 Sustainability Conference. It's really a reflection of our 12 schools who have taken a leadership position in sustainability, and sports sustainability more specifically, in the collegiate space. So when I came to the PAC-12 four years ago, Dave Newport is the sustainability director at Colorado, showed up on our doorstep and said, "Hey, I'm not sure if you knew this, but all 12 of our PAC-12 schools are members of the Green Sports Alliance. That's the only conference in the country that that's the case and you guys should really look at doing something in this space." So, we said, "Yeah, this is interesting." Myself and Gloria Nevarez, who formerly worked at the PAC-12, both have a passion for sustainability having grown up on the west coast. We sort of took Dave's lead. The PAC-12 at that point joined the Green Sports Alliance and started looking at what a plan could be for us to take a leadership position, really reflecting what our schools have already done. So we created an informal working group within our schools of sustainability officers and athletics department reps. They suggested having a first of its kind conference, so we did that last year in Sacramento at the LEED platinum Golden One Arena just ahead of the GSA annual conference, and that went very well. From there we started thinking about do we do this again and what could come next? So we'll have our second event this year in Boulder, July 12th. It's going to be a great group of on campus athletics reps, sustainability professionals and industry folks. We have some really great panels lined up including two former NBA players, in Jason Richardson and Earl Watson, two former gold medalists, in Arielle Gold who just won gold in snowboarding at the Olympics - he's a Colorado grad. And Mary Harvey, who's a former goalkeeper for the University of California, who's an Olympic gold medalist for the USA. She has also headed up, which is now a successful, 2026 World Cup North America endeavor, and she's heading up their sustainability areas. So, we're going to have some awesome panels. The folks that I mentioned will be augmented by programmers on our campuses that have submitted proposals in the areas of fan engagement, student athlete engagement in sustainability, and it's going to be a full day of great best practice sharing, networking and hopefully a lot of learning to move forward what is an important initiative. That's very exciting. Jamie, this is bringing together my two greatest passions in life, the environment and sports. So, I love what you guys are doing and really excited to be there on July 12th. Why have these professional athletes and gold medalists speak? What do you think that sustainability professionals or campus leaders can learn from these accomplished athletes? I think the philosophy of purpose plus sport, and the power of that, has never been more relevant than today with some of the societal challenges that we face. I think those in the sports industry, college or professional, understand that with privilege comes responsibility, right? And if you have the opportunity to make a positive difference, such as those that have had made their living in doing something like sports, then there is a kind of an obligation to find a way to give back. And I think the environment is very front and center. In a lot of respects, it's almost a bulletproof cause and those are sort of hard to find these days. It's one of those causes were there may be some people on the other side, but in general everybody's for a sustainable future. So I think those are the elements that sort of have gotten this into it and I think are there reasons why we're getting at least some attention, still very early days for us, but some attention from folks that want to be involved in it as an endeavor. At last year's conference you had basketball legend, Bill Walton, speaking at the event. If anybody has seen him speak, Bill is very passionate person. At the conference last year, Bill said, "Sustainability is good policy, good economics, and it's good for all of us." From a chief operating officer perspective, can you tell us why sustainability is good for business in the PAC-12? I'm very much a believer in this notion of both doing good and doing well. I think for a long time, issues of social based programs, whether it's sustainability or otherwise, have sort of been perceived as cost centers. Right? Here's something you spend money on and you measure it in the value of maybe the positive PR you get. But what I'm learning, and I think we'll have some interesting news around this at our conference, just to tease that a little bit, is the commercial value around this space in sustainability and purpose based sponsorship and engagement more broadly is robust. And so if you could find the right partners that align with your values, you can drive great commercial value to them and to you, whether that's endemic partners that might be specifically involved in sustainability, or just the DNA of some larger corporations that understand that this is important for the future. I think this has never been more relevant. And what we're seeing in our campuses is this is really market driven. There are students coming to our campuses are not saying, "Oh great, there's a recycling banner. Oh cool, we have solar panels." They are saying, "Hey, where are the solar panels? Where are the recycling bins. We expect this. This is our generation speaking." So part of this is really serving that market as well and aligning interest that way. Absolutely great points. And I think you can kind of see that happening in professional sports. Some of these leagues like the NHL a NASCAR are really stepping out and leading in sustainability. It's pretty clear that they understand the long-term business benefits of sustainability and visible sustainability programs. Is the PAC-12 conference looking towards those professional sports leagues and learning from what they're doing? I think certainly. I think they've taken the lead with their green platforms. I think we want to learn from what they've done and put it in the appropriate context for collegiate, which is similar yet different. But I think one of the advantages we have, honestly, is we have these great institutions that are leaders in research and thought leadership. And it's really about leveraging the power of our campuses around this because they tend to be where great ideas start. In our case we happen to have 12 elite research institutions all in the western part of the United States, in centers of innovation. We want to align what we do with their DNA. So we see that as a real opportunity, If anyone is interested in learning more or attending the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, where can they go check that out? So just go a PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com or put it in Google and the website will come up. You'll get the full program there. You can register online. We have hotel partnerships in Boulder that are available and we hope to see everybody there. I think this is a really unique space and it's going to be another great conversation. Last year we had an oversubscribed room and Bill wowed them last year. He's a great ambassador. Bill won't be there this year, we're giving them a year off. But we do have some exciting speakers as I mentioned before, and look for a reasonably big announcement in the sustainability space at the conference as well. So I'll tease that up. That's exciting. Jamie, we like to end the interview with a final five questions. What is one piece of advice you would give sustainability leaders? Think big and expand who your partners could be. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think this notion that we can create a commercially viable platforms that bring together sustainability partners and athletics leagues and teams and schools. How about a book recommendation? Do you have one book you could recommend for sustainability professionals or other professionals? Well, this is a little bit off the radar and it's probably been read by most, but Cadillac Desert is one of my favorite books related to sustainability and the history of water in the western US. So that's a must read. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that you use that really help you in your work? I think it's just people. I'll go back to finding the right partners. Our best resources are our best thinkers and our best people, and that's why our campuses are so valuable to us. Whether it's student athletes, sustainability professionals, university athletic directors etc. And finally, we mentioned where people can go to learn about the conference, anywhere else you'd like to send people where they can learn more about you and the work that you're leading the PAC-12, We have a PAC-12.com website and I'd also encourage people to tune into our PAC-12 networks, which is linked from there. We have a lot of great stuff in terms of what we're involved in, including soon, a link to our sustainability platform. Jamie, I'm very much looking forward to the conference in July and that big announcement. I think everyone's excited about that now. It's so great to hear about the wonderful things the PAC-12 Conference is leading in sustainability. It's just so important to have that top-level support when committing to sustainability, so it's great to hear from you and hear about your passion. Thank you for making the world a better place, Jamie. Well, thank you. And thanks to people like yourself and Sustainable Nation for making this publicly available. We really need that contagion to catch on in this area even more to do well this way. Dave Newport Our next guest is Dave Newport. Dave launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with corporate partnership for the Florida Gators when he was the University of Florida's director of sustainability in 2002. Later he became director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center and founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program, Ralphie's Green Stampede. Dave is also secretary of the Green Sports Alliance board of directors, former board secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, an award winning publisher and editor and a former elected county commission board chairman. Dave Newport, thank you for joining us. It's great to have you on to chat about the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, which we'll get to in a second, but first tell us a little bit about you. I gave an introduction on your professional life but tell us a little bit about your personal life and what led you to be doing the work you're doing today. Well, I guess most people in sustainability come from very diverse backgrounds in terms of their career and their interests, and I'm certainly no exception. I've been a little bit in the environmental arena, one way, shape or form, for a long time. I think personally, what led me to sports sustainability is the inevitable search for leverage. That is, what's the multiplier effect of the work you do? How many people does it affect? How many people can it potentially effect? And of course, sports, there's no bigger platform on the planet then sports. So moving into sustainability in sports was natural from that analytical point of view for me personally and professionally, but like yourself, Josh, I grew up playing sports. I love sports and love sustainability, so let's combine fun with work and boom, here we are. That's what got me here. That's great. And I understand it all kind of started down in Florida when you were at the University of Florida, director of sustainability, you launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with a corporate partnership for the Florida Gators. Tell us how that came about and how it all started for you. Yeah, that was cool. It was 2002, and I was getting the sustainability program running on the giant University of Florida campus. Had lot of support and a great president to work with, and one day said, "Hey, let's see what we can do in The Swamp, the Florida field. I mean, there's no bigger icon of American College football, then Florida Field and Florida Gators, and we can make a statement that would be great." I went to see the athletic director, Jeremy Foley, a legendary AD for Florida, and he liked it. He didn't see any downside to it, but what we'll do is due diligence as smart guys do. And so he pulled a lot of people and talked it all through. He said, "Yep, let’s go with it and we're going to reach out to our fanbase well in advance and let them know what's going on." So he put in place a great communications effort. The corporate partner at the time was a petroleum marketer. So talk about our odd bedfellows, but it was a petroleum marketing company that has a series of stores across the Southeast and the Midwest, and as far as Texas, called Kangaroo stores. They had a very progressive CEO who was trying to move basically out of the oil business and into the renewable energy business, believe it or not. So they wanted to do build some stores in the Gainesville area that were the first LEED certified convenience stores in the United States. They put in bio diesel, and things like that. They were promoting their greenness so it was a good fit. We pitched them and they liked it. We did a pilot on homecoming, at the homecoming banquet, which was huge, and then in the clubs and suites of Florida Field during the homecoming game. I walked around with the AD there and we just visited with the fans, alumni of the Gators, and asked them how they felt about all this stuff. We got 500 comments back and 499 of them were like, this is really cool. The grumpiest comment we got back was from this one old alumni gentlemen who said, "Yeah this is great. How come we haven't been doing this all along?" So that was the worst comment we got back, and after that everything was golden because athletics figured out, hey, there's no downside of this. People intuitively like it and once you get past the inevitable startup problems in implementation and all the operational stuff, which we solved, the fans like it. And so fan engagement is key and has been part of why we've done this right along, is that fan engagement element is very strong. Sure, that's great. Especially the college level it's mostly young folks and these are the people that are really passionate about the environment and that's great. And then eventually you left and now you're the director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center. And you founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program - Ralphie's Green Stampede. Tell us a little bit about that program. So, at Florida we started the first zero waste program in the NCAA, and then when we got to Colorado we came first comprehensive one. So we do it in all sports, and it's not just a zero waste, it's zero carbon, zero water, zero net energy in new buildings, no pesticides, local food and a few other things I can't remember. We've got four LEED Platinum athletics facilities, which is half of the number of LEED platinum buildings on the entire campus. And we've got the lion's share, like 90 plus percent, of all of the installed solar on athletics facilities. So, the University of Colorado Athletic Department is the most sustainable department on campus, a fact that bugs the heck out of the environmental science people, but it is what it is. When I got to Colorado and told them both to the Florida story, it got me a meeting with the AD at the time, Mike Bohn.  He listened to what I had to say and he said, "Okay, we can do that here." It was about that easy. So I said, "Hey, you know, this was awful easy. How come you said yes so fast." And this I will carry with me the rest of my career. His response to me was, "Dave, what you don't understand is people don't come here on Saturday for football. They come here for community. And sustainability is all about community. So this will work." I will tell you that that is a lesson in how to engage fans and what is really going on in sports, that I now see everywhere. I checked it out, I worked on it and we've done research on it. And indeed, sports is a bonding moment for our fans. That's why you come. That's why everybody's singing the same songs, wear's the same shirts, looks at the same environments and all that kind of stuff. Because we are communal species and we want to be part of the community. So, that added to my repertoire of ways to approach this thing and leverage that fan engagement we were speaking of. That's great. And so now we have the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference coming up July 12th and that's going to be at the University of Colorado Boulder, is that right? Correct, and come on down. Absolutely. So, tell us about that conference. How did it come about and what can we expect? From the time when I started working at Florida and then Colorado in sports, many sports organizations have moved into this space, especially at the pro level and increasingly at the college level. I'm seeing the value of: A) Saving money through operational sustainability and B) Engaging your fans through this leadership. However, no athletic conference or sports network has moved into the space of promoting it as sort of a behavior and a lifestyle, as a conference and as a league, until the PAC-12 showed up. And Jamie's great leadership with PAC-12, and Larry Scott the commissioner, I've met with both of them, and Larry is 100 percent behind this because they get everything I just said. They get the savings, they get the leadership and the fan engagement. And so, they're now talking about this in game. They're talking about it as a conference. They're talking about it as a leadership position, as consistent with the Conference of Champions and other people have taken notice now. So, their leadership is really a game changer in terms of taking it to the next level and using the sports platform to engage fans to be more sustainable at home, work and play. That is the mission. Running a recycling system in your stadium is great. Using that as an influencer to influence those fans that show up for that community every Saturday, as part of being a good fan of their favorite team, to live the life and to embody that as part of their fandom. That's the strategy. That's what the sustainability conference is all about - How do we do our operational stuff better and how do we use it to influence fans? You guys have some famous accomplished athletes who are going to be there speaking as well. Professional athletes and Olympic athletes. Tell us a little bit about who will be there. It's a really good group. We have Arielle Gold, a professional snowboarder and one of our students AT UC Boulder, and part of our Protect Our Winters, and is touring the hallways of Capitol Hill and other places to talk about climate change and how it affects our lives and our sports. So she's obviously our millennial target athlete. Mary Harvey, who I have the pleasure of working alongside of the board of the Green Sports Alliance. She is just fabulous in terms of her overall acumen. She's won gold medals, World Cups, she played with Mia Hamm, she's worked for FIFA back in the day and now she's working with the World Cup, a group here for the United States that successfully landed the World Cup bid for North America in 2026. There's some other great athletes as well. Obviously Steve Lavin, a fabulous coach, ESPN commentator and a spokesman for UCLA. Jason Richardson, another NCAA Championship basketball player and retired from the NBA. Last year you may recall we had Bill Walton show up and give us a keynote and some life lessons, and that was entertaining. I think I've missed a couple, but there's obviously more detail at the PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com. And Jason Richardson retired and left the Golden State Warriors a little bit too early. He kind of missed out on all the fun. Oh boy, those guys are something else. So, Dave, some people may not see the connection, but I actually think there's a strong parallel between sports and leading sustainability, having passion and perseverance, cooperation, teamwork, team building and strategy. What do you think sustainability professionals who were leading sustainability can learn from these accomplished professional athletes? Yeah, I think you said it well, Josh. I think that's exactly right. One of the things that sustainability professionals do is basically giving credit away for everything, and being all about teamwork and not really trying to be a showboat or anything. They're much like hockey players. Where do you hear of an arrogant hockey player? Most of them were like, "Oh man, my team is so great," and all this stuff because they know it's all about teamwork. I think likewise, as you said, in sustainability it's the same thing. We want everyone to be part of it. And so when you do it inclusively and you bring people together to have a conversation about moving forward sustainably, then you bring in people that wouldn't normally be part of that team, and that's the key. That's how you grow the scope of what you're doing, by getting beyond the usual suspects and getting into folks where this may not be what they get out of bed thinking about every morning. But it's important to them when they have the opportunity to be influential in it. And so allowing for that influence, allowing for people who are doing other things, to be part of this and really bringing them in and getting those ideas, that's how you grow the team. That's how you move towards sustainability. And that is all a process. It is not an end game. Sustainability is not an end game. It's a process. The process is the product. And the process is inclusion and teamwork. Very well said, Dave. For any of our listeners who would like to attend the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, where can they go to find out more and to sign up. So, PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com, or just Google it and it'll take you there. The website is up and running and accepting your reservations. Come on down. We've got all kinds of fun things to do in Boulder on the 11th and 12th of July. And then that weekend, the Grateful Dead are going to be in our stadium playing. So, come for a conference and stay for the concert. Sounds great. Dave, before we let you go we're going to end on our Final Five Questions. Are you ready? Five Questions. Who used to do that? It was the original Daily Show guy. Craig Kilborn. Funny thing about Craig Kilborn, who was actually a great athlete himself and played some college basketball. He's from Hastings, Minnesota, which is the same small town that I'm from. His mom was my middle school English teacher. I remember the first day of class I had with her, she had a picture of Craig on the back of the classroom and said, "That's my son. He's in radio and learn from him. He's a great communicator." Then about a year later I saw him on Sports Center for the first time and I was like, "I know that name somewhere." And it was him, Craig Kilborn. So, he's one of the few famous people to come out of my small town. He's funny and he was really good at it too. And when he left I thought, "he's going to be a hard act to follow." Yeah, he was great. So, what is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Don't think of anything. Have other people think about it and have it be their idea. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? How fast it's growing. I'm old, so I've observed the beginning and there was nobody. There was five of us doing this job when I started at Florida back in the nineties, and now I've lost count. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? If you don't read any other book in your entire life? You have to read Natural Capitalism. Excellent. And we had Hunter Lovins on as a guest a few weeks ago, so everyone can check out that episode of Sustainable Nation. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? Being a member of AASHE and using their website and their member community is a daily thing. I'm looking at their email right now. I think AASHE, again, didn't exist when we started. Now it's booming and all the many people that I've never even heard of are now offering information and gaining information through their website, aashe.org. And finally, where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the University of Colorado Boulder, Green Sports Alliance and/or the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference? I'm on LinkedIn. Let's just go with LinkedIn. They will find you on LinkedIn. Excellent. Dave, it's so great to learn about all the work you've been doing and how this sustainability in sports movement really got started all the way back in 2002. I very much look forward to seeing you in Boulder in July. Thank you so much for joining and thank you for making the world a better place. And thank you for hosting us today, Josh. Look forward to seeing you in boulder.  

Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. he was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin's areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. (via jontaplin.com) Today, Jon talks about his new book, Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. It tells the story of how the Internet took a wrong turn from its early days as a source for innovation and wealth for individual creators and entrepreneurs, becoming a highly centralized set of monopolies and oligopolies that suck $50 billion a year in income away from content creators. This has hollowed out whole industries, leaving both producers and consumers less well off both economically and artistically. We discuss some of the history of the Net that led to this point, and some of the possible remedies for the problems we face.  

Nathan has two recommendations this week: Cadillac Desert, a thorough history of the American West’s pursuit of fresh water by Marc Reisner, and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a cooperative […]

42 Minutes 240: 240: Claire Vaye Watkins - Gold Fame Citrus - 08.29.2016 The program considers the allure and propaganda of the West as well as its harsh realities with Guggenheim fellow, Claire Vaye Watkins, author of the recent Gold Fame Citrus published in 2015 by Riverhead Books. Topics Include: Mojave Desert, Dune, Frank & Brian Herbert, Victorians, Cli-Fy, Corrections, Erotica, Geological Time, White Whale, Kidnapper, Dowser, Cults, Kunzru, Gods Without Men, Benevolent Sexism, Chivalry, Liars, Conmen, Belief, Story Powell, Muir, Melville, Wasteland, Yuca Mountain, Lawns, Water, Cadillac Desert, Stegner, Angel of Repose, Domination. http://clairevayewatkins.com

Alden Griffith reads from Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner, published by Penguin Books. "As is the case with most western states, California's very existence is premised on epic liberties taken with water -- mostly water that fell as rain on the north and was diverted to the south…"

Grind Pulp Podcast Episode 07 – The Re-Animated Corpse of Sheila E. in the Cadillac Desert Let the Crazy begin!    Stories  1. Cold As He Wishes - C.M. Shelvin - The Undead: Zombie Anthology - Permuted Press 2. On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks - Joe R. Landsdale 3. Herbert West: Re-Animator - 1922 Movie  1. Re-Animator — 1985 — Stuart Gordon Re-Animator is currently streaming on Netflix. These show notes will be updated.

It's been 40 years since the clean water act was signed into law. The goal was to assure safe water quality for the environment, humans and wildlife. But with new contaminants, population growth, and climate change, the landscape of our water supply has been transformed.  Meanwhile, regulation is being framed by some as an enemy of progress. On this edition; a look at how we manage our water in the twenty-first century. Are we doing too little…or are we trying to control too much?   Featuring: Alex Prud'Homme, Journalist and Author of The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century; Jon Rosenfield, Bay Institute Conservation Biologist; Richard Nixon, President of the United States; William Ruckelshaus, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator; Tom Ries, Ecosphere Restoration Institute President; Sonny Vergara; former Southwest Florida Water Management District Executive Director; Robin Felix, Southwest Florida Water Management District media relations manager; Mary Jean Yon, Audubon Florida lobbyist; Bob Buckhorn, Mayor of the City of Tampa   For More Information: The Pacific Institute http://www.pacinst.org/   The Bay Institute http://www.bay.org/   Food and Water Watch http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org   Clean Water Action http://www.cleanwateraction.org/   Alex Prud'Homme http://www.alexprudhomme.com/   Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/   Ecosphere Restoration Institute http://www.ecosphererestoration.org/   SWFWMD Matters http://swfwmdmatters.blogspot.com/   Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/cockroach/   Audubon of Florida http://fl.audubon.org/   City of Tampa Wastewater Department http://www.tampagov.net/dept_wastewater/   The Blue Planet Project http://www.blueplanetproject.net/   Steven Solomon's The Water Blog http://thewaterblog.wordpress.com/   Public Policy Institute of California: Water http://www.ppic.org/main/policyarea.asp?i=15   Salmon Aid http://www.salmonaid.org   Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov/   Articles:   Gone With the Flow: How the Alteration in Freshwater Flow is Killing the Bay Delta http://www.bay.org/publications/gone-with-the-flow   The Growing Battle for the Right to Water by Maude Barlow http://www.alternet.org/water/76819   Water and the War on Terror by Steven Solomon http://grist.org/politics/2010-03-02-water-and-the-war-on-terror/ ­ Film:   Flow http://www.flowthefilm.com/   The Last Call at the Oasis, the documentary: http://www.participantmedia.com/films/coming_soon/last_call_at_the_oasis.php   Books:   Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter Gleick http://islandpress.org/bottledandsold/9781610911627.html   Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1022   The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century by Alex Prud'Homme http://books.simonandschuster.com/Ripple-Effect/Alex-Prud%27homme/9781416535454   WATER: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/?authorid=26031   Cadillac Desert, The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140178241,00.html The post Making Contact – Drips of Change: Preserving Our Freshwater appeared first on KPFA.