Transcripts For CSPAN2 An 20240703

So first id like to respectfully that we here, San Francisco, are based in the alamo, which is the traditional unceded lands of the colonial people. And we pay respect to elders both past and, present. I want to thank robin as a veto Robin Mccloskey has a veto for hosting us tonight. Her grandfather, edward built this building in 1925. And weve been have had wonderful events up here that will continue this summer with a great party for the silent Film Festival which. Robin is a benefactor. Lets say that so Christina Gerhardt is with us who did this amazing book which i think some of you have already is associate professor, founder of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the university of hawaii at, manoa, former bear and professor in environment and the at the high meadows Environment Institute at Princeton University and a permanent senior at the university of california, berkeley, and where she previously professor gerhart has been awarded fellowships by the fulbright commission. The National Endowment for the humanities, the Newberry Library and the Rachel Carson center. Shes held visiting appointments at columbia university, the Free University in berlin, and also at harvard. Shes an environmental journalist covering the annual u. N. Climate negotiations, domestic Renewable Energy legislation and Sea Level Rise, all with a focus on environmental justice. Shes been published under the name tina gerhart and grist story, the guardian, the nation and sierra, among other venues. Shes editor of Climate Change, hawaii and the pacific review with Duke University press. Right now. And shes the author of change atlas of islands a rising ocean. And its so fantastic. This book has come to fruition is finally here and its beautiful. And i hope you all will be able to spend a lot of time with this important book. I want to thank you, christina, and i want to thank you press for producing this important and beautiful book. We also want to welcome our guests tonight in conversation with professor gary hart. And thats christina hill, Program Director of the institute for urban and Regional Development and associate professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the university of california, berkeley. And also ezra david romero, who reports on climate for a key news. So without further ado, tina gerhart. Thank you, patrick. Follow your model in terms the microphone, use and sitting, which is not usually how i teach my classes. Here we go. Okay. Can you hear now try again. Try it again. Try it again. Try it again. Testing. Testing. I cannot hold it closer to my mouth because of this event. Is filmed by cspan and it will not work as is the short answer to that. Yeah, but thank you for the suggestion. So im Christina Gerhardt im going to be going which is the name thats on the on the book. Im going be going by tina tonight because the name i also go by is a bunch of, you know, and im going to try to avoid confusion with Kristina Hill by having these two separate names, our usages. Thank you, patrick for the generous introduction. The honor of being your last in person event at the mcgrath ski loft. Thank Robin Mccloskey acevedo for hosting us and for hosting events for the green arcade throughout. Its such an honor to be here this evening and to have this launch for seachange change take place here. Thank you, patrick, for your support of seachange throughout. Well, im to open with a lot of thanks. Theres a lot of people to thank know its always said that books are not created in isolation if it is i mean nothing as if its ever true of a book, then its definitely sea change. Im so very grateful to so many for the uplift of sea change as todays pub date approached, but also throughout my gratitude to the entire team at the university of california. I get emotional. Thanks cspan for documenting this for their support and the excellent and im going to embarrass you here. But i mean to celebrate you, i call your name. Please stand up to be recognize too. Kim robinson editorial. To my especially niels who prefers unwavering enthusiasm for a sea from the start to across finish line. To leah chandra for her excellent design work that makes the book look so, which so many have commented on. I believe may not be able to be here because she has two young ones to attend, but its its leah that makes the book look as good as it does tonight. Asher pulliam collins for pulling everything in the final rounds. For most. Congratulations to natasha on your so welldeserved appointment as a editor of environmental studies and geography. To julie van pelt, who is also not here because shes up the coast and amy smith bell who is contracted out to work as a copy editor. Ive had a copy editor this amazing if think copy editors are not in place anymore at presses go to u. S. Press with your next book. She did the most remarkable and they caught edits both big and and this is after i with my ocd compulsion for detail and im not going to go on like this throughout whole thing you went through it and my stepmother is also thanked in the acknowledgments and she has an eye for detail and she went through the entire book to. So thank you, julie. Thank you, amy. To alex dunne. Teresa fuller, jolene tah and the entire team. Jolene, are you here. To emily grand staff. Whos these are people on the east coast . Emily grand staff who is publicity director on the east coast, javier perez, contracted out for radio and martha, whos responsible for publicity. The uk, thank you for your work. Its been amazing to work with these three people over the last month to to anyone that you see press work not yet met and whose name i have not called thank you. See change is a collaboration about which in a moment i want to thank roy for the amazing maps and sea change. A lot of people have commented the beautiful maps and see change. Molly roys incredible first cartographer and i had the good fortune work with her. She couldnt be here today because she and her wife just had their second child fairly recently, and she allowed me to share about that. And the fact that she was carrying the child this time. Thank you. Zena directs me for the fabulous scientific illustrate missions included in seachange. Thank singer. Together. The maps and the illustrations help to visualize the science thats in the book. Ill talk more about the whole approach to the book later. Thank you. Travel trevor paglen, who is not here, whos also published by u. S. Press for me to reprint some of your maps and art in seachange. Thank you to all the colleagues who invited me to give dozens of guest lectures seachange including Lisa Ruth Elliot who brought me to shaping San Francisco. And to the editors who published related environmental journalism over the years. Thank you to my Solid Community here in San Francisco to people who not be here today. And that includes girls poppy burk, roxanna dunbar, artists and rebecca solnit. And thank you to those who are here fellow uc press author rachel baranski, whose atlas of the bay area should definitely check out if you havent and and you also to laura lent Patrick Marks missy neary gents sturgeon a. C. Thompson and who also couldnt be here and michelle vickovich. Thank you to all the islanders who gave generously of their time for and shared insights and expertise use on the islands in interviews. Thank you to the islander who generously granted permission reprint poems. Its almost anthology as much as it is a book that i authored. Its such a collaboration and thank you. Lastly, not least to the ocean and to the bay, does not get in. Applause. Its just a lot of fellow bay swimmers here go south and the lesser known but but more powerful sister to the dolphin club. Okay, you know who you. Sea change is a symphony. It weaves together maps, art poems, scientific and short essays to share islanders, histories and culture as well as the impacts of and solution to Sea Level Rise, sea change centers, the voices of islanders who are predominantly but not exclusively, black and indigenous. For this reason, i asked patrick to bring some of the writers with whom i was fortunate to spend a lot of my covid time in conversation and who i was reading i was thinking about. Ive asked patrick, bring out a lot of not only sea change, which is for but a lot of the other works that were very important, my thinking and sea change. So youll see that symphony of voices reflected on the on the books for sale in the table. Im happy talk more about the book but i did bring people to be in conversation, to be here tonight and im hoping through our joint conversation is that youre going to learn about level rise and its impacts on islands through the kinds of things that i will share that i put into book and through, because their expertise is really Sea Level Rise with a focus often, but not only on the bay area in california. I want to bring the voices of some of these islanders that i just mentioned. So lets hear inuit poet. I can aviana an indigenous martial. Islander. Kathy. Janelle kirshner. Share more about the impacts of glacier and land i smell in greenland, in the arctic ocean, and how it affects the Marshall Islands in the pacific ocean. I open the book with greenland because its the largest island in the smallest ocean and the land ice is melting. There is what is responsible for Sea Level Rise. Its one of two reasons for Sea Level Rise. The poem that youre going to hear follows the first chapter, which is about greenland. One of the points that im trying to make is that we are all connected and i know thats a cliche, i know it gets bandied a lot, but the melt that happens in greenland impacts the Marshall Islands. The things that we do, the global north where we are all the decisions that we make have those kinds of impacts too. So those are the kinds of threats that im hoping to bring out tonight. Patrick, im going to let you take it away with the tech. I do, too. Sister of ice and snow. Im coming to you from the land of my ancestors. From atolls sunk volcanoes, undersea descent of sleeping giants. Sister of ocean and sand. I welcome you to the land of my. To the land where they sacrificed their lives to meet my impossible to the land of survivor. Im coming to you from the land my ancestors chose by logging on Marshall Islands, a country more sea than land. I welcome to go destination greenland the biggest island on earth with me. I bring these shells that i picked from the shores of begin the atoll and bring a dome in my hand to hold rocks from the shores of the foundation of the land. I call my home. With these shells, i bring with me a story of long ago. Two sisters frozen in time on the island of william. One magically turned to stone, the other who chose that life to be rooted by her sisters. To this day, the two sisters can be seen by the edge of the reef, a lesson in permanence. With these rocks, i bring a story to countless times. A story about a swimmer and the mother of the sea who lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean. This is a story about the guardian of the sea. She sees the greed in our hearts, the disrespect act in our eyes, everywhere, every stream, every iceberg. Her children. When we disrespect them, she gives us what we deserve. A lesson. Respect. Do we deserve the melting ice . The hungry polar bears coming to our island on the colossal icebergs hitting these waters with rage. From one island to another i ask for solutions from one island to another. I ask for your problems. Let me show you the time coming for us faster than. We like to admit. Let me show you airports underwater bulldoze reefs blasted sands and plans to build a new atoll forcing land from an ancient sea, forcing us imagine turning ourselves to stone. Can you see a glacial. Screw . The weight of the worlds heat. Ill wait for you here on the land of my heart. Heavy with a continuous thirst for solutions. As it was, this land change while the world silent. Sister license. No. I come to you now. In grief, mourning landscape always wants to change. First to was inflicted understand their Nuclear Waste dumped in our waters on ice. And now this. System of ocean sand. I offer you these rocks the foundation of my home made the same Unshakable Foundation and connect us, make us stronger. These colonizing monsters distilled to this day devour our lives. The very same beast that now to say who should live and. Through ice and snow im honoring these shows and the story the two sisters as testament as that despite we are told we will not leave will choose stone we will choose be ruins in this dream forever from these we ask for solutions from. These island we ask, we demand at the wall sea beyond a cease. I see these two prepackaged convenience there slick dream for young and belief that tomorrow will never and this is merely a convenient truth. Let me bring my home to yours. Lets watch as miami, new york, shanghai absent dam london. Rio de janeiro and osaka try to breathe under. You think you have decades before your home province beneath tides we have years we have months for sacrificed us again before watch from your tv screen screens see we will still be breathing while you do nothing nothing. My sister and i also these rocks as a reminder that lives matter more than them power the life and demands the same respect we all do to make these issues will affect each. And every one of us. None of us is immune, and that each and every of us has to decide if we will rise. So a magic switcheroo is going to happen behind me, is going to be a stage shift happening here for act two. Today, im going to be joined in conversation about the impacts of Sea Level Rise by Kristina Hill and ezra romero. Kristina hill is associate of Landscape Architecture, Environmental Planning and urban design, uc berkeley and dispatch mentioned Program Director of the institute of urban and regional. Her Research Identifies unexpected impacts of Sea Level Rise in cities focusing on the impacts of rising coastal groundwater on underground infrastructure. Her research and consulting have shaped in the San Francisco bay area as well as in new orleans, denmark. In germany. Christina lectures intern nationally about Sea Level Rise adaptation and is working currently on a book that explains how to use landforms, not concrete as an urban adaptation approach. She received her ph. D. From harvard university. Ezra david romero is climate reporter for kqed news. He covers the absence and access of water in the bay area. Think sea rise, flooding and drought. For nearly a decade, hes covered how warming temperatures are altering lives of californians. His reported farmers worried that their pistachio trees arent getting enough sleep. Families desperate for water. Yeah, families desperate water. Scientists studying dying sequoias and alongside containing wildfires. His work appeared on local stations across california and nationally on public radio shows like morning edition here and now all Things Considered and science. I welcome them both to me on stage. Few. Like. So were going to start a question for the audience before we take from there. Who knows what the impact of Sea Level Rise with Sea Level Rise from like what is the source . Why do we Sea Level Rise . Anybody anybody . Shannon because the warmer water the were space. There you go. Warmer water up more space. And the other reason would be the one that was mentioned earlier right, the land ice melting on greenland right at the poles. Okay. I want to take it from there and just talk about some of the impacts of of Sea Level Rise. So on an island, tara toys which and this is discussed obviously in sea change and island territories i talk a bit about the impact of Sea Level Rise being the salinization or the saltwater content that comes the soil and also into the freshwater aquifers. So a lot of islands have subsistence and fisher folk. Theres and in the book sea change that have varying gdp is. But some of them are very wealthy but most them are really, you know, low gdp. And so instead of going to the grocery store, the people who are on these islands rely on what theyre fishing, what theyre farming. So when you have the saltwater in the salinity is upset, that means that their for their sustenance is upset they also rely on the rain falls from the sky for lot of their Drinking Water. So if you have low lying atolls, you dont have a lot of rivers linking through them, which is often a source of freshwater. And so one of the sources of their Drinking Water is the rainwater. They have rainwater catchment systems to catch that water and then they have freshwater aquifers. And again, if you have this saltwater inundation coming in that can really impact the amount of fresh Potable Water that people who live on islands have for themselves, for humans, as well as for the animals in the plants on the island. Im curious in terms of your work what some of the impacts of Sea Level Rise are in the bay area. One of the first. Oh, sure. Well, we, too, will struggle with saline, groundwater. And that could building foundations. So any of you remember the surfside condominium collapse near miami . One of the causes of that to be the corrosion of, the foundations of the building because of sunny flooding and saltier water. Once concrete gets exposed to salty water, it starts to the metal. Rebar in the concrete starts to expand rust. And so the concrete cracks and the whole thing has a positive feedback. So thats one of, i think the scariest impacts in the bay area because thats really going to happen. Were going to see the failure of conventional Development Long before the ocean actually laps at door of a building and there of course, will be extreme events where. Well see water in places. We dont expect it new, affordable in the coliseum district in, east oakland or in the canal district in rafael. So unfortunate really in the bay area. A lot of low lying land is the home of people who are being rapidly displaced, who are lower income and, you know, low income in the bay. Like 72,000 a year. So unfortunately, you cant afford a place to live if you make a lot less than that. And unfortunately weve through racist have kept of color in where theres flooding its lower elevation and had many fewer options white people had to move away. They still have many fewer options. So well see lots of different kinds of impacts. But i just to use the foundation example because thats going to affect so people and so ways of living in the bay area. So many buildings and then theres like else in the bay area, the 400 miles of the bay shore, thats natural land. Thats sfo, thats airports, highway one and one. Thats treasure island. So, so much. Then theres research that youve done that ive done a lot of reporting on around all these toxic sites that are in the bay area that decades we see water overlapping the bay shore. Were going to see water underneath and pushing up pushing up this groundwater into contaminated sites and spreading into communities and some thats already happening in places like richmond and west oakland. And so this like a sort of a precursor of whats going to happen in the future in the next 30 years. It feels like a mythical story about all these monsters underground that come up. Yeah. And yet we so focus on the high tide and. Where the high tide is, its really a lot thats going to happen before. The high tide makes in anybodys yard. Yeah. Not its not a line right. In terms of the impacts that were talking about. This is something i talked to molly roy, the cartographer for seachange about. And i think neils we also had conversations about this. Its Sea Level Rise isnt the line at the coast, but its coming towards its a zone of inundation. Its better thought of as a as a gray zone, meaning, you know, like the Marshall Islands. So the foremost risk island nations are low lying atolls. Marshall islands, tuvalu and carrabbas in the pacific and then in and then in the mouth the maldives in the indian ocean. But they are on average Marshall Islands, about six and a half feet above sea level. So, you know, i could say the science that we use predicts were going to have three feet of Sea Level Rise by 2101 foot by 2050. And that might sound like, okay, well, theres six and a half feet above sea level. Thats three of three feet isnt going to be a problem. But thats that inundation, right your your home is going to be milled away. Its going to be moldy, your kitchen, you know, everything soaked enough. And then theres that cheese of geology in florida and in bahamas. Right . Its like that water coming up from underneath. That is such an important issue. Well and here, i mean, by putting pipes in the ground, weve turned it into swiss cheese. Also there are voids, there are ways that things are going to move underground that are very complicated and also an artificial landmass right. So much of the barriers fell, which is we filled in the bay. And so this is an area already unstable to liquefaction, but also just to groundwater rise in these areas. And theres places san mateo that are already pumping water on the regular without Sea Level Rise, right . Yeah. The infill i talk a little bit in the book about like bahrain and is in the book and then singapore and i talk about infill because the word Land Reclamation gets use sometimes they have huge with that term because youre not reclaiming land. Right. I hear the laughter. You know its infill like you were saying, i think is a much better term use. I did this fun thing with mapping. I was using United States Geological Survey maps from like 1850 to look at the original coastlines and i know shipping San Francisco feel like you all have maps like this old maps and youve done this kind of work and it might be where i got the idea. In fact, a grant. So im looking at old maps from 1850 using you know you can look these online usgs has tons of maps online you look at the old outline of ive looked at San Francisco boston, new york city you can do this for islands deal islanders in the book. Its Chesapeake Bay and i looked at 1850 maps then i use to look at present day maps and then i use Climate Central has a Sea Level Rise viewer on it where you can just move the you know deliver up to three feet or five feet whatever and interestingly wherever you see Sea Level Rise heading currently it really intensely and if you compare that with an 1850 usgs map, its often going to be that of infill that, as i was just mentioning so infill is a huge issue for that reason as Sea Level Rise. Yeah, i was curious if we could talk about some of the solutions to Sea Level Rise because say, oh, this is such a bleak topic with the book, people are really impressed that i managed to smuggle it deep, dark, dark topic. Such a beautifully packaged book and make people want to engage with it. So im glad that lee as leo chen does design quality has worked, but what are some of the solutions to Sea Level Rise . Either of you are focused on . I think the main solution is Sea Level Rise is to stop burning fossil fuels globally. You know, i think thats like the cause of all of this. And so i think thats you often dont hear in media, in stories, its like somewhere a little lower down to stop it at the root. But then theres solutions to adapt or manage that range from like Natural Solutions like marshes, levees natural levees, things like that. Infrastructure like around San Francisco, seawalls, things like that. And then is managed retreat not living in these places anymore. Unfortunately. Do you want to do anything . Yeah. Well, i actually think that people dont really understand what it means to have to adapt to this. And well hear things like. Well, the government will say, well, well just retreat from this area. But that means you have to pull everything out of the ground that youve put in the ground. Otherwise you leave behind this swiss cheese of pipes and a toxic soup of contaminated soil because every gas station, every dry cleaner, every site that manufactured or handled chemicals or transport, chemicals and fuel, theyve all had spills. And the strategy over the last 50 years has been to cap those soils, but not remove the contamination and just wait for it to break down and. Now, we dont have time to wait for it to break down, so to retreat is to leave a lot of stuff behind and it wont be clean enough for good habitats to replace our urban areas. So one of the things we have to think about is what do we do if we have to dig out some of that contaminated soil. And i keep thinking that we should dig it out. Let groundwater come up and then do what the are doing and live on shared decking with, stacked prefabricated units in a floating urban neighborhood, not houseboats. Exactly, because the houseboats you have to think about anybody lived in a houseboat, you can think about which of all the bookcase on and which wall the piano is on, because otherwise you wouldnt live like this and even at low tide, people end up in a kind of funny canted position in some places. So its not houseboats its sheer decking that you can stack hundreds of units on that are prefabricated and pontoons underneath for floatation. So you dont even feel necessarily the water at all. And the dutch are already building this feel like were 40 years behind here in the bay area. We think were innovative, but were not embracing ways to live with higher water. And then you use a levee to keep out the waves or a system of wetlands and levees to keep out the waves. But weve really got to think about how were going to convert places are already developed to something valuable, all because if we dont think of a way to convert it to something valuable not only going to be not valuable, its going to be dangerous for. The fish and shellfish and that live around the area. So theres no easy way out out. And yeah, i mean, the manager retreat comes up time and, time again. People keep talking about rebranding because i keep saying that that name is yeah, americans dont retreat. Yeah. And managed retreat in the us is particularly that sounds even worse exactly so like if the state is trying to you know organize this for you yeah i talk a little bit in the about two big categories the hard engineering so i talk about sea walls that you were mentioning and then carthage at location mentions this shes from the marshall shes climate envoy from the Marshall Islands and shes also a poet and she talked about raising so theres literally this conversation open now to to raise islands in in atolls out of what she she named which is the center of an atoll. So in atoll for those of you that arent familiar also knows low low lying island is basically the ring of two kinds of islands theres volcanic or high atolls are low lying and low lying island nations are. Atolls are basically the ring of a volcano that sunk down. Right. So they have which is important because they have a ring shape and whats being discussed right now is literally building fake islands out of the lagoon ans. And the reason doing that is because and this will tell you how stark the situation is is because you need a passport you need land in order to for your passport have meaning, it has to be connected to a place. Now, if that doesnt tell you everything you need to know about some of the most at risk island nations and how dire the situation is. I dont know what does, but so theyre talking about engineering, you know, these kinds of new islands out of nothing. The maldives is already this. Theres theyve built right next to the whole somalia. Theyve built an entire new island that was growing. Molly was mapping. So we were to keep up with this. Its just the whole challenge. The book that we talked about on the editorial team, how do you keep up with Climate Change when youre holding it in this medium . And i was like you dont you just you know, its you know, just going to keep changing. But they built an entirely know island out of nothing but. Then we have to think about the gdps i was mentioning of some of these island doing this kind of work has billions upon billions of dollars and these are nations that do not have the resources to do this type of work and. Then theres the climate, you know, theres the inequity terms of the emissions, right . As we mentioned. Okay, well, the easiest solution would be rightly so to turn off that, you know, youre in a tub thats flooding, you turn off the taps. So we have the climate crisis, turn off the tap right. Would be in terms of fossil fuels, that would be the easiest solution. But theres a lot of talk about the global inequity co2 emissions from islands Vantage Points in particular because they produced, you know, something, the order on average like 1 of global co2 emissions. But theyre in the front lines of experience in this climate crisis. Right. So thats huge topic of conversation. Soft engineering is the other thing i talk about which which includes things restoring coral reefs or oyster coral reefs often get called the lungs of the ocean and they are to the tropical zones. What oyster reefs are to the more temperate zones, the really important buffers on waves come toward to they buffer the waves. If you add Sea Level Rise on top of that and im thinking of very much of guam tonight and also the northern Mariana Islands with the typhoon that is passing through there. But they they buffer to some extent the water coming towards i mean, waves always erode, Sea Level Rise or not, theyre going to have that. But if you turn around 180 and you look back towards the mountains or the coast, theres a lot of filtrate that goes on as the water takes all the goo, you know, the pesticide or or whatever, the livestock is leaving their other cars and whatever they leave the roads, they filter that. I want to make them sound like magic creatures that take care of everything but do filtering work and. I also talk a bit about mangrove forests, these trees that walk stilts as i describe them. Theres some of the few trees they have these long roots and are some of the few trees that handle real high soil content that i was mentioning earlier that most things cant. So those are some of the things that and restoring wetlands which we know about in the bay area can i point one two quick things. One is the Sea Level Rise is going to happen even if we stopped emitting all co2 just so were all grounded by the same facts. And most geologists, many anyway think that were going to get to ten feet at this point because of the amount of in the atmosphere. Its a question of when, not whether. So put in the planning process. And then the other one is, no matter structures we build at the shoreline that are about blocking the waves. The groundwater is going to come up behind them. So you need both. You need something that blocks the wave and you need a way to float on the inside of whatever that coastal structure is because we could spend billions on a levee around the San Francisco bay and, still flood on the land side. That levee as the groundwater comes up. So we really in a more difficult situation that cant be addressed by just strategy no matter what it is. Mm yeah. I always say are not the way to go because so expensive again the gdp thing that i keep mentioning for good reason but, but its this theyre not keeping up with the science. So we use the data that we used sea changes based on un scientific body which is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ipcc. They put out these reports every five years, more or less. And the last one was last year the sixth assessment report and based that report, they said one foot by 2050 or three feet by 2100. But what christina said is absolutely right. This is every so often these reports get out and into in the in time theyre superseded by all sorts of reports and then on top of that the ipcc is notoriously the servant of by which you know it, means everyone has to more or less reach consensus as to the data that is in there. So they air on the conservative and which is what sea change areas that conservative in a weird meaning. Yeah where conservative is like underestimating not being super careful in the state. Yeah the state of california going to put out Sea Level Rise this year with the with the one foot by 2050 and like the three foot by 2100 number for california. But that will be the minimum a minimum scale. The states guidance and states looking at six feet by 2100 as a more likely number now and potentially feet. Christine is on that panel and yeah but when i talk to scientists, whether its christina or others, other climate scientists, they kind of like laugh at those numbers. And its somewhat hard to report on because have all these agencies and cities, counties preparing for that, all the scientists we talk to are like, its kind of not going to thats not real. Yeah, well, not all the scientists know all of that many you can always find the scientist is going to say oh yeah i dont think especially the europeans who pay more attention to ipcc, american stuff attention to the ipcc. Its like, you know, italy or the u. N. Or something dont care about. But the scientists who are watching antarctica and greenland are especially concerned. And its those folks who are giving the big numbers. If it was thermal expansion alone, to be Something Like three feet by, 20, 100 on my desk in the office, have a map that a guy named brito made in. Its if the worst happens. And san is an island and my house and, noaa valley, my apartment in the valley is beachfront property. Thats yeah, his maps are great. Yeah, yeah, thats the little shift that takes place there in terms of where one is located. All of a sudden. So each of you engage impact communities. Why do you think centering the voices of impacted frontline communities is so important from a journalist . People are the reason we do the job . People are . The reason people read and listen to our work. But people are the people who are going to be affected by the thing, by Climate Change, by level rise and in my work ive done a lot of work around nexus of reparations and Sea Level Rise. So the same people who are calling for reparations for slavery are the same people who are calling for Climate Action because theyre living in the exact places that redlining forced them to live over history and confines are still there and the reasons why cities are built the way they are is because racist policies and so all things are intertwined. And so i think thats why important to focus on people because peoples emanate history. Mm. I mean i appreciate that you looked at people so much in the book and started with somebody voice experiencing the change i actually studied glaciology biology i came from a kind of inner urban area what we used to call a tough neighborhood, not a bad neighborhood. And i went to college and studied geology to get away from all that. And then worked on biodiversity in. Coastal areas in cities like seattle salmon were listed as a federally threatened species. And i was trying to help work on that and i did not want to work people. I wanted to away from people. But when Hurricane Katrina happened, i realized if youre going to work on coastal flooding, youre going to be working on people. So i dont work on salmon anymore. And now i look at people and i wonder whats going to happen to that six year old in east oakland or that 12 year old who lives in richmond on the south shore. Right. Yeah. I mean, its i its not only that. Yeah, i definitely center the people and its its not the people. Its also the flora. Fauna. But i definitely center islanders voices in this book. Theres all the interviews i conducted, the essays that i wrote, and then voices are included by that. Theres 49 islands and sea change it a global span and after every single chapter theres pretty but not always a poem or a text an islander and so was really important for me to include islanders. One of the i talk about this in the introduction one of the ways that i came to that approach is that i was i was reading a ridiculous amount of westerns civ literature that has the island in the imagination. So of course theres tourism, right . But then theres all the other ways that the island of islands up here in the imagination, right. You can like think everything from Robinson Crusoe intellectuals, verne, to like william goldings, lord of the flies but like the long story short is since had white guy goes to island to establish a cult things go awry. He goes to an island just explore it. Things go awry. He goes to an island to establish a harem. Things go awry. He goes to an island and everyone is a bunch of carnival. I mean, just the images that i was getting were just they were and meanwhile, i had taken up this position that patrick mentioned, as intro at the university of hawaii and im in the middle of the pacific, right . They are the islands that are the most removed from any landmass. And theyre also a Gathering Place from from other parts of the pacific. And one of the first things i did the first weekend, i was there was i went to a bookstore, of course i used to work in bookstores. For those of you here who dont know me well so a great fan of bookstores. So i went to a bookstore, i went to a reading and there were these three queer islander women and their poetry was amazing singing. And i was like, what place of i on . They were talking about the mythology, were talking about the land, the flora, fauna. They were i mean, my mind was blown. And so the kinds of ways that islands figure in the imaginary of some people does not at all mesh with the way that it is imagined by people who live in the islands. And so was a huge part of me for sea change, bringing in the voices of the islanders. But theyre also most impacted right . And so that was why i wanted hear the story from their Vantage Point was to hear about those impacts, to hear about not only the impacts, the solutions that islanders are often putting forward because no money forthcoming from anywhere else or solutions are not forthcoming from anywhere else. And that was an important part of the story in terms of focusing on solutions, too. Theres a woman named Violet Santana in city of east palo alto, and shes from samoa. She was like samoas first u. N. Climate ambassador to the u. N. And shes actually leading the charge there to ready east palo alto, that area for Sea Level Rise. Its the second time this community, these people have dealt with it, moving from samoa to california and San Mateo County is like the most risk accounting to Sea Level Rise in the state. So theyre living this for the second time, but theyre also the ones like spearheading solutions because no one else will, huh . Yeah. That multiple relocation comes up in sea change a couple of times too. Theres the republic of Marshall Islands was used, as were a number of island nations for the u. S. Nuclear testing in the late forties in the fifties, there was about 50 different Nuclear Tests conducted in the pacific. And then there were also tests that were done in the pacific by france. But im just focusing the us ones and so these were conducted on bikini atoll which yes, this is where the word bikini comes from in terms of swim attire. And the people on bikini atoll were relocated and more recently they had relocate again because the place they were relocated from their home because of the the the kinds of effects of the nuclear radiation. Then they had to move more recently because of Sea Level Rise. So this having to move a couple times comes up as a refrain sea change. The president of kiribati, one of the foremost at risk island nations i mentioned, he has bought land on fiji in case hes the head of state or not that time, in case his people need to relocate. So he bought island and fiji. But fiji also has many islands in its archipelago nation that themselves are at risk Sea Level Rise. So this you know, this comes up again and again and imagine the of somebody from the Pacific Island where Nuclear Tests are done moves to hunters. Oh yeah yeah also contaminated by that same navy that was transporting that same material because everything humans use we spill right yeah renew it down is is where a lot of the contamination was parked in the Marshall Islands the Nuclear Waste and that is also at risk of Sea Level Rise they thought if they put it under this concrete dome, everything would be fine. L. A. Times did a great series, i want to say, in 2009, 2000, 19, about Sea Level Rise now impacting that nuclear there. What could go wrong . Yeah cover it with concrete might be fine. Itll be fine. Its also the story. The bay area. Right. Theres all these theres Something Like your Research Says theres nearly 5000 of these sites around the bay. You know, on the map. She was showing me the other day and theres theres so many little black dots in San Francisco all around the bay. And so i think its its so pertinent to our life here. Were not an island nation somewhere with as many palm trees, but we have the same issues. Right. Weve really been shaped by war two. And everything that happened in World War Two here in the bay area. A lot of our contamination comes from the military use of our shorelines. That war. Yeah, the military is a huge node of sea change. Its like a thread that runs through it theres a paragraph that i kept thinking about taking out. Then i put it back in, then i took it out that i put back in. The reason i was thinking of taking it out was because its a list and any good writer will tell you that a paragraph thats just a list totally bad writing stylistically. But then i ended up putting it back in and i remember we were talking about this just because i realized not everybody, its a list of the military bases around the world that the u. S. Has that are located on islands. And i realized that not everybody is aware of how many there where theyre located all of their names so islands are really important we think of them in the tourism perhaps, but theyre really important. The military, those are the two main economic motors for island economies. I know that coming from hawaii, but thats true for puerto rico. Thats true for guam thats true for the Marshall Islands. Maybe not the tourism for the Marshall Islands, but certainly for puerto rico and for hawaii. The military and tourism is true. And then entities can probably share similar story there. And the reason important so so so that centering humans is also really important like as as the histories of colonial are right i was giving presentation on this patrick mentioned that i had a visiting professorship at princeton for year and a half so i gave a presentation on sea change as i was still working it to graduate students and their faculty mentor. This older gentleman asked me at the very end of the presentation. He said, well, you go on on about colonialism. Why are you mentioning so much . And so i took the question to my undergrad its the next day where i was teaching a class on Sea Level Rise and islands and one of my students as the young black woman from cancer alley in houston, her hand shot up right away. And she was really nonplused by the question because. She thought it was pretty obvious why one would do this. She said, so you dont retraumatize already traumatized people, which is to say to come up solutions and to design that undo some of this redlining, that undo some of you know the problems and that got us to this situation in terms where we are today. So i my students at they were they were all like, ooh, this im going to out of this class easy. I said they were like designing drones to track methane around the world this princeton right. They were designing drones to track methane around the world. They were doing computer modeling. Maybe students are doing this at berkeley. Im teaching at modesty, which they were designing computer modeling to track Sea Level Rise action along the coastline. I said one of your projects, the students that were natural scientists or Civil Engineers Public Policy people in humanities, people i said, take one of your projects for one of your other classes and tell me how youre going to redesign it based on something youve learned in this class. And thats where the colonialism imperialism thread came through. Thats why the history and sea change or the poems are so important. They humanize, but they tell that history and, you know, hopefully inspire people to think about ways to do things differently. If thinking about the on the ground we colonialists the thinking goes back to like thinking of people as not as and so like doing work whether its journalism that centers people is re humanizing people and think thats hugely important especially in climate because its all centered in that. Mm. Yeah, i have, i mean you know sea level has been rising since last glacial period. Right. This is a. 22,000 year process and it was down 400 feet from where is today at one point. So this has been going on a while and i know probably most of you if youre from california, you had to read beowulf at some point in your life. Theres a river referenced beowulf called fearful door. This is in, you know, the original anglosaxon and it it means door of monsters. And thats the region where the people came, the angles, the , the saxons in whats now denmark, germany, the north west coast of germany, and of monsters is a very telling name for a river, right . That means its going to flood. Like down at watsonville. We have a little river called saul, say poetess what is also a poet mean . Leave a few can right . So the name of the river a fearful door tells you that that was a flooding river and the people who left there moved to the british isles. These are the anglo saxon speaking people and enslaved between 15 and 30 of the native population of the british isles. And the fact that we have an english language is the result part of this elite group leaving one continent and traveling an island to colonize it and enslave its native people. Sound like a familiar story. This is just happening and over again. Oh yeah. Just breaking out of the definitely. Yeah. So to end a positive note, if people are here and they want to know, they can do locally to, take action to address this issue, what are some of the things that are going that you know about where people can get involved . I think one of the largest things right now is this group called bcd. See the bay Conservation Development commission, and theyre putting together a regional to address Sea Level Rise over the next year and a quarter. So so theres going to be all these opportune cities to get involved in that, whether its like going to a Community Meeting where. The weather is saying this thing needs to have more teeth and they should like be not be based on volunteerism, which is all these kind of things. And then the other is to like go to your local representatives. I know its kind of like the age old thing, but thats how things change, right . You know, its being noisy behalf of the people who are going to be most affected, directing attention, giving them the mic because we more privilege people have had the mic need to share it so we need to direct elected officials attention. The canal district in san rafael east palo alto, east oakland. West oakland south richmond. Those are the places that are most at risk and if somebody is proposing spending money, berkeley, im going to propose that they spend that money in south richmond. So keeping in mind where, are those other places that your neighbors live where theyre more at risk, what theyre worried about those neighbors is that investment wont come until for someone else that theyll be displaced as a process of investing in protecting that area. So we have to figure out how land trusts can be part of adaptation to protect peoples ability to stay the same place that theyre in now. Displacement is happening every day, and if we dont figure out how Land Ownership and tenure membership in communities based in land can be part of our approach to real estate. Then our adaptation really will be for the wealthy. Yeah, i would say in terms of our actions here people ask me, you know, ive been doing radio interviews like 2 to 3 a day for the last month and people on the right and a lot of land locked areas of the us. And so i have get this question of well what can listeners, you know, why is this important to our listeners here in kansas and so one of the things that i say is that that we in this country collectively produce emissions are responsible. We are the historically the Worlds Largest emitters. Chinas is you know currently the largest emitter. But a lot of people argue that and the reason for the us china standoff and the focus on that at the u. N. Climate negotiations but lot of people argue that chinas leaders should really be on ours because. A lot of the co2 emissions from china are goods that are produced there but that are consumed by people in the us. And then theres the shipping of over, but i would just remind people of so we may feel small as individual, but collectively, you know, we have a lot of power, you know, choose your route if you love getting involved politics great. If you love you cant stand that fine i understand if you want to get with local organizations, thats another way to do it there is you know it is the subsidies for the fossil fuel it is the fossil fuel industry. Its the subsidies for there are politicians who are working to ensure those subsidies are in place. So all manners of action people can take whether its cutting off the tab, addressing the impacts. Yeah, the other things you can do are your sumi tax. Anybody pay there shouldnt be tax to the cigaret tail land trust . I pay mine every you can also join eastbay Permanent Real Estate company which allows Community Members to buy in and then buys land as part of a land trust for. People in oakland who are being displaced, usually people of color. So those are two really good organizations to support with any amount of money. Right . I think something larger too is weve been talking in an little Journalism Group is like because of Climate Change the impossible is no longer impossible like were in this situation that we thought was impossible and now were in it. So the have to be impossible so like push for those like the things that you think arent going to work but like the big solution like living, you know, these rafts type thing shared on shared dont call it a river two decades the decade or so just some huge things. I think that ingenuity is where what we need and i think that comes from regular people who have idea lots of ideas here i want to thank you i want to invite you all to continue the conversation theres a lot of amazing people here. I want to thank you all again for coming out there. Copies of sea change are available for purchase as long as they last on that table. If they run out there, you can definitely talk to patrick about ordering a book through the bookstore. The other option is u. S. Press does have a sale going on through the end of the month. So you can to u. S. Press dot edu and get your 40 off there with may 40th checkout. But theres still copies there. I see them and then check out some of the other books that see changes in conversation with sort of q a. Lets have a q a. Thank you for. Lets letter and there has a hand up patiently. Thank you, patrick. Okay re and were queuing up at the microphone and we hope to let us have a nice round of thank you. And if you have a question itd be nice if you could come up the microphone and ask here please as can recorded. Well you must come to the microphone. Thank you all. Hi. Thanks for the conversation. Yeah, i have a question i read in the chronicle recently that the state of california running a deficit. Of 31. 5 billion and they are looking for ways to trim the budget. So my question to panel would be, do you know any engineers in the government of california who are working on plan like you were talking about to control the groundwater water surge to build marsh lands. Is there anything like that in the in the pipeline. Oh yeah. And wheres money going to come from . Theres tons of it going on. Theres Something Like one or turbo. I mean he he always has. Theres like 10,000 engineers working on Sea Level Rise stuff across california or the bay area. So theres a lot of people working on this that at universities and agencies cities ive worked with, like in my two years at kqed, probably like 30 city workers across the bay area all working on this. So, yes. And the wetlands, San Francisco bay is worlds biggest experiment in wetland. We have the san bay restoration authority, a Government Agency dedicated solely to restoring wetlands, which help us reduce energy at the shoreline of the bay. So theres a whole Government Agency working on our bay edge with environmental billion dollars. Sorry, we need to have people up to the mike because this is being taped, otherwise that wont be heard. So if has a question, feel free to come up to the mic. I think the other part of his question like about the the budget and if im not sure. Thank you other questions. Okay okay. Could it could any of you talk a little bit from a scientific standpoint about some of the other feedback loops and mechanisms theyre going to that are going to turn with Sea Level Rise . Im sure there are. And i mean, i didnt even know that groundwater infiltration was an issue so its the problem is even more worrisome and devastating than i thought but besides waves at our doors and groundwater up, i mean whats going to happen naturally to the oceans, to the to the fauna, to whether as a result of Sea Level Rise i think therell be more impacts. Were going to squeak. I think therell be more impacts. Fauna, the ocean and positive loops in terms of generating or co2 from the warming the ocean, as i understand maybe somebody else here is more of an expert. I am. But i was just reading about how fish and mammals in the ocean are going to have a hard time finding to eat because a lot of the things that they eat in the ocean, the really tiny plants and animals, plankton are moving north away from the equator. Yeah. So thats a big issue. The fact theres going to be more rain is interesting because thats going to send the temperature can help us out with the sound were getting some feedback why dont you take it if you can think something . But i think too close. Well, even. I think its micro position. Go ahead. Yeah. So the warming of the ocean and the acidification of the is a big part of what were seeing at the same as Sea Level Rise as the warming is causing the ocean expand and its changing the distribution of life in the ocean. So were going to see acidification that makes coral reefs much harder sustain, makes oyster reefs harder to sustain. So the chemistry and biology of the ocean, its going to have a big impact on us in terms of Food Supplies and ways we try to keep our coastal habitats here, even changes in temperature in the have big ramifications elsewhere. I think if like el nino as we enter this new season of potential nino that comes from like one degree fahrenheit change in the ocean off of the coast of latin america. Right and that provides the jet stream moving and then storms heading us here so like Little Things out in the ocean have a big deal and were talking about larger changes. It comes to Climate Change and there are lots of feedback loops like in hawaii. Theres a lot of petroleum under the airport in around pearl harbor, left over the military and from other of spills. And when the ocean comes up through that petroleum, under the runways it releases methane. So if thats happening in hawaii and, its happening at oakland airport. Thats probably at San Francisco airport. Thats source of methane that nobody would have ever thought of that degrading that spilled Petroleum Product is going cause some methane. So i would just add to to to what what youve already mentioned just this el nino year that as mentioned that were heading into a number of people have written this in the last week. You know, the the closet is stuffed as i the headline that i saw meaning the ocean has been absorbing all this heat and the ocean is stuffed and it cannot absorb any more heat. So if were heading into an el nino year and it cant the ocean cant absorb anymore, it means that it will. You know, us air much more intensely and then have other kinds of knock on. Ive also been tracking the way that the shift in the sea has been impact the ocean currents, the Atlantic Meridian ocean, current amoc, which i think is that its called amok because its run amok. So you know, i track these ocean currents and how thats impacting them. I come from a family of people who love to sail. I was going to say sailors. I was like that doesnt sound right. My uncle was a professor of era and currents and we always joked that was an excuse to be able to sail all the time. Hes like, oh, im doing all these. I found water and air currents, but i theres theres a sense of how currents work in oceans, like globally i track and that kind of an impact think is also going to be really huge but really concerned about the ocean being stuffed. And what ezra mentioned. But i also think this kind of you know, all the everything thats under the airport that christina mentioned is troubling to you know, were new at this. So are looking at the antarctic sheet and saying well as the ice melts, maybe the will rise. So there might be so happy news in the story too its not necessarily all bad, but we dont know enough it yet to really know what all the knock on effects will. Im sure therell be a few happy stories, but overall its very challenging and the nino thing, i write of a story coming out tomorrow that and the scientists i talked to today were like yeah, we see all those headlines, but we also dont know enough about this. So like those are still hypothetical big question mark, just percentages of like what could happen. And so its it comes back to like we dont know what we dont know at this moment in time. Id say the big ten that christina mentioned earlier is really important. Right. Even if we turn the taps right now on fossil fuels, you know, theres a certain amount thats just already in and then, yeah, the negligible amounts being huge. I have a question actually, i just have to, uh, three words i want to ask you guys about. One of them is paro, and the other one is to lowry lake. You want to talk about the flooding, your specific questions them . I just want to talk about them in general, just kind curious about these inundation. Yeah. I mean, we ive done reporting in both of those places in the past weeks, both places have been inundated with water one by amazfit water from atmospheric rivers, the other from snowmelt that originally atmospheric rivers, you know, engorged rivers. And then filled this area where im from, actually in the central valley. And then now its being or are still filling up with an article in the San Francisco chronicle. Its larger than san fran, then lake tahoe the tillery lake lake. But the that i have as a reporter by going to these places are that this is sort of like mother getting back at us. You know have like straightened rivers. We put levees. We put a bunch of people who live in these places, put agriculture, and then we add in climate in the salt, in the in the dish. This is what happens, right . Like it takes over. Theres more extreme variation that were going to see. And its kind of the end of modernism in engineering, of being able say that the history is a way to predict future statistically speaking. That wont be true anymore. It isnt so well see a lot bigger fluctuations, whether its the Great Salt Lake or whether its tillery lake or paro in the salt surpoids creek in the tillery lake basin. That corcoran levee there, that levee doesnt even have a rating so like they dont really know what its supposed to do in many ways. And then one in a parable so we have like this moderate rating by the u. S. Army corps of engineers, but these are things that are like updated every six years and. Its very dependent on where youre on this thing and that porro levees situation where the levee failed. Everyone that was going to fail and still allowed it to fail. So this is another thing we can do with our voices directed to the places that we know are going to fail sacramento in the delta are one of the places listed first in where are going to fail in the United States. So were likely to see more levee failures. Yeah, yeah. I have lots questions, but ill just stick with one, which was the video at the beginning was a beautiful moment of between Indigenous Peoples and i wanted to thank you for sharing that and as and i was curious if you feel like in work youre gathering voices together in this way and i wanted just ask for more of that of sharing what your what solidarity is and and linkages youre seeing strengthened in response to this crisis. So thank you for for for going full circle back to the poem at the beginning i do appreciate way the poem is bringing different geographies together. I start with greenland because like i said its you know the source of this of of Sea Level Rise in terms of its melt and. Its the largest island its 85 indigenous. The Marshall Islands also 85 indigenous. The figures terms of the population counts for both countries are remarkably similar. Despite their stark disparity, size and those were those were some of the other things that i thought were remarkably about seeing, you know, canadian, the inuit, you know, greenland poet and conversation with kathy kirshner kathy journal kirschner, a book of poems out which is here on the table for sale its about notes from a marshallese daughter and its its an absolutely remarkable collection of poems. She has a poem in it History Lesson which is about a Family Member that she lost a cousin at a very young age due to the impacts of the Nuclear Testing that i was talking about earlier. Yeah History Lesson is is a really poem. Theres a different one thats about her cousin. But History Lessons, really remarkable poem that she did in order to document or to about research. And then, you the history and then document the Nuclear Testing that was conducted. And its she always has a bit of an edge to her and to how she herself. Thats the kind of edge that keeps you in check that i appreciate very much so yeah including including their voices but just voices was so important to to to the kind of tone that i wanted to see to have at the very, you know as at the end meaning there is no end really. But, you know, in terms of the kind of book that it eventually became it a very its a symphony but it has very webby structure, by which i mean that its meant to be browsed. You do not have to read it in a linear way from beginning to end. And theres a bunch of things on with that. Its it is Coffee Table Book thats trying to smuggle a deep know dark topic into everyones homes and have people engage with it and the visual is you know the beauty of it the esthetic is supposed to you know help do that but its webby and that its not intended to be read from beginning to end has you know it caters panders to the modern day span but its also very island ish in that structure. Right. So gleason in writing about the caribbean talks about until the janitor, which is, you know, pulled off of the antilles. Hes talking about the structure of the islands, their geography and how theres relationships that islanders have among one another. Hes back. For those of you who want to hear more, this and some previous theories of from cesar negritude going back to the colonizer, hes like, no, we dont go back to the colonizer. Negritude was going back to africa. Hes like, we do neither. We look to one another for direction. And i was struck gleason writing that and thinking about that through this term of until the young essay because in the pacific especially how often talks about our in our sea of islands is very well known essay about how may look remote to People Living a continental landmass but People Living in an ocean reading the as their point of relationship view themselves as very much connected. I was like, wow, these two guys writing in these radically different did they even know of one anothers writings . But so the book is is structured that way for for that reason too its island structure there terms that i highlight. You know as were mentioned of them, infrastructure was really impacted by level rise. So, you know, airports and power plants and waterways, treatment facilities, yada, yada theres things that come up in the book that are repeated enough to have repeated. And this i talked about with my niels, i have often theres enough repetition that you get it at some point or you get it if just read a chapter, but hopefully not so much repetition that you feel like youre getting too much repetition. Yeah. So thank for asking about the poetry thats included there. Its woven in throughout. Yeah. First of all, congratulations, tina and i think williamsburg for a long time. So great to see it finally out in the world. I have a question about when this question is for all of you. I was wondering when, you think developers might start taking this issue a bit more seriously because . You know, im hearing you talk about all these very grim reports and predictions about Sea Level Rise, the bay area, for example, and at the same time, some of the biggest developments happening right now are in the last couple of years are right on the shoreline. You know, the bay redevelopment Chiefs Center in Oakland Brooklyn basin is the biggest new Development Half a century. A giant excuse me, giant new Logistics Hub was just built at the point at port of oakland, which is essentially sea. And so is a disconnect here between like the people financing things that are spending tens, hundreds of, millions of dollars on these projects that could be underwater in 20 or 30 years. That doesnt seem a very good return on invest ment. So yeah. When do you when do you see developers taking this threat more seriously. Id say some are and many are not. San mateo county put out a guidance last month trying to get developers to take seriously so they its sort theyre like soft launch into them saying like you need to prepare for like 4. 9 feet. So san mateo like county theyre preparing for ten feet of inundation of sea rise, which is the most of anywhere in california. And so they are taking this seriously and thats just one example. But there are places just across the bay, like in newark, where environmental laws like siegler are failing when it comes to Climate Change. And like stopping some of these places, in some ways its happening. Also, it was quite i think in my own like retrospective is that i think its going to take like a higher level of law to actually enforce this that is not in place right now. And that is not mandated at any level. I the Real Estate Program at university of california in my unit at the university. And so i am trying to make sure that the new Real Estate Developers out are thinking about this. But unfortunately, they typically are building to not building to rent out the spaces and even theyre building to rent. Theyre picturing how many years itll be before they sell its all liquid assets to them. Thats kind of a funny by itself but its to take somebody stepping in to tell local governments who have control over land use that its time to stop and we already are going to have our hands full with the structures that we already have unless doing it in an unconventional way like floating on a shared decking. Its all going to be something that falls apart. Its normal time. I can only say i know hawaii. My colleague maxine, who is at uah, teaches environmental law. She did degree at boalt of berkeley and shes working for the Biden Administration right now. She we were talking once we were meeting lunch and i said, i dont understand why these developers literally build in an area that uah, a school of, ocean, earth, science, technology so as they do all of our Sea Level Rise mapping, theyre putting out maps i can show you the map. I can show you akaka echo this warehouse gentrifying know the usual whole foods gentrifying you know the former Warehouse District its kind of similar to where the the the stadium is for the warriors now like down by chase so i look at this map and i can say see Sea Level Rise is going to be here and yet this is the area were developing intensely totally like the chase. Right. I was like, wheres the left . Not talking to the right hand here. And there were conversations that were eventually had and i forget the name of the mayor mayor, but but eventually laws were the left hand does have to talk to hand in honolulu. But this was important of solving this problem. They put in place some sort of a law. You know, you cant develop zones that are, you know, within a flat. I dont know. They handled this somehow by implementing, but it had been a free for all for so long. So thank for the question. Liam. Im getting the sense that maybe like one last question or if somebody has one, otherwise i would just invite us all to continue the conversation. I want to thank very much my co panelists Kristina Hill romero. And thank you all for coming out. Enjoy mingling, enjoy seachange. Thank you thanks, henry grabar. I think i got that right. Drama as a writer and journalist and urban analyst. He is also terrific writer with an to distill complex urban issues into accessible narratives which shed light on the intricate dynamics that