WEBVTT - Into The Wild Orange Yonder 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:06.440 Episode two, Into the Wild Orange Yonder. For the first 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.280 three days after the shooting, you didn't talk to anyone, 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.400 and none of your friends or family seemed to know 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.200 what to say. You took off from work, cloistered yourself 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.319 away in your house, and drank. You're not sure why, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.200 but your brain wouldn't let you listen to any of 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.360 the outreach that came your way until Aaron texted you. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.440 She was a local organizer. You'd met her last year 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.920 at a protest, and she'd struck you as an unusually 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.920 outgoing person. You all barely knew each other, but when 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.560 she heard about what happened, she reached out. She offered 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.240 to put you into contact with a friend of hers, Tom, 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.640 a combat veteran who'd seen some ship overseas. She said 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:41.960 he might understand some of what you were going through. 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.920 You'd called him eventually, and talking to Tom had helped. Still, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.280 it was two weeks after the shooting when you finally 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.200 felt good enough to leave your home. You'd pretty much 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.440 disconnected yourself from social media in the interim, and upon 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.880 diving back into the world, you were surprised to see 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.960 that everyone was freaking out over a heap home destined 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.160 to settle over your city in the coming days. No 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.840 one knew quite how hot it could get. Weatherman would 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.160 only quote a range of possible temperatures, but everyone said 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.760 it might break the city's all time high heat record. 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.319 That same hyperbolic to you. The world was warming. You 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.959 didn't doubt that, but that heat record had held solid 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.760 since the nineteen nineties. You might have taken it all 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.520 more seriously if you hadn't been so overwhelmed with your 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.280 own ship. By the time you were semi functional again, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.759 temperatures had already started to crest above one fifteen. During 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.080 the heat of the day, at a hundred and eighteen degrees, 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.080 the airports started canceling certain flights. Some smaller planes, like 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.679 the Bombardier CRJ, couldn't handle those temperatures. The news assured 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.560 you that big planes, the ones made by Airbus and Boeing, 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.160 could handle up to a hundred and twenty six degrees. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.320 There was no way it would get that hot. But 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:53.680 it hit a hundred and twenty, and then the next 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.440 day it hit a hundred and twenty three, breaking the 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.720 old record for the first time in decades. More flights 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.640 were canceled, but you were doing okay. It was easy 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.280 enough to sit inside with your air conditioning and wait 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.520 out the weather. During a press conference, the city assured 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:10.720 everyone that the grid would hold up to the strain. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.960 This isn't Texas or California, the mayor assured everybody, we 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.079 can handle this. You woke up the next morning boiling 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.080 in your sheets. The power was out even in the 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.720 early morning. It was almost a hundred and ten outside. 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.960 You gulped down water, stumbled to your car, and turned 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:29.760 on the A C to see what the hell was 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:34.840 happening localized brownouts, the city, through local news assured you, 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.560 and so you decided to pass the time in your 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.160 private A C box by driving to the gas station 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.640 to fill up your car. A lot of other people 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.880 had the same idea, though there were lines around every station. 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.960 People were filling up their cars, but also jerry cans 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.320 and even bags of gasoline. You drive around for a 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.600 few minutes, looking for any place not swarmed with customers, 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.639 until you see your first out of gas sign. Then 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.280 you drive straight to the nearest station and wait twenty 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.000 minutes for a chance to fill up. You're one of 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.520 the last people at the station to top off. The 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.960 out of gas sign goes up just as you exit 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.359 the parking lot. On your way back home, you see 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.360 crowds of people outside the few stations that haven't run dry. 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.720 Several people are yelling at each other, fighting over access 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.160 to the pump. You see one man waving a rifle 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.959 while another fills an enormous plastic moving crate with gasoline. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.840 Where the hell are the cops, you wonder. The answer 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.239 to that question comes a few hours later in the day. 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.200 Without power, your office is shut down and there's little 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.880 points staying indoors where it's even hotter than outside. Aaron 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.240 reaches out and asks if you're free today. You say yes, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.280 and she pulls you into a signal loop where a 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.080 few dozen other folks have organized cooling stations for some 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.280 of the local homeless camps. Since you drive a hybrid 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.520 car with a big full tank, you agree to help 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.360 distribute cool water and electrolyte packets. The first couple hours 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.400 go well. You swing by a few little tent communities 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.160 where houseless people bake under shade structures and try to 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.240 cool off with wet towels and iced water bottles. Given 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.520 the power situation, you're impressed that so many local activists 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.720 had the presence of mind to freeze water before the 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.960 heat wave. You're also impressed by the different solar arrays 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.280 you see in encampments, often wired together from battery packs 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.239 and cast off panels. Wealthier people bought to go camping 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.000 between the fans and the ice. Most of the folks 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.080 you meet seem like they'll get through the day alive. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.160 In between stops, you keep checking the local news. They 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.000 aren't referring to the outages as rolling blackouts anymore. The 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.800 term grid failure has grown more and more common. Around 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.240 two p m, as temperatures crack a hundred and twenty 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.360 nine degrees, you get a notification that the airport has 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.000 canceled all flights due to a heat emergency. Earlier in 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.560 the day, you saw several older cars pull off to 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.560 the side of the road, smoke billowing from their engines. 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.200 When you pull into your last encampment of the day, 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.200 located beneath an overpass, you see an old SOB and 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.760 two old Fords parked nearby. Their drivers and passengers are 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.600 huddled under the shade of the encampment, wet towels over 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.719 their faces, and next most of the passengers looked to 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.000 be middle class. They're well dressed, clearly uncomfortable with the 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.680 homeless people handing them water to ward off heat stroke. 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.839 As you walk up, you hear one older woman chattering 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:15.960 at one of the encampment dwellers while he wets a 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.680 towel for her. I'm sorry to intrude. We went to 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.520 the store to see if we could pick up some fans, 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.480 and we just ran out of gas on the way back. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.440 No one has fuel. We couldn't even run a generator 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.320 to get the fans going if we were back home. 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.680 Best to wait it out here, anyways. The man next 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.280 to her says, the freeways a parking lot. Everyone who 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.000 can is bolting out of town, heading somewhere higher and cooler. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.640 Radio says, a bunch of people diet already when their 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.520 cars broke down and they cooked by the side of 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.600 the road. You hand out the last of your supplies 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.680 to the encampment's grateful residence. Before you turn back to 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.840 your car, you check your phone to see if your 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.400 neighbor texted you that the power was back on. No news. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:54.880 You aren't sure if you really want to head back 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:56.880 to your house in the middle of all this. The 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.279 overpass might be more comfortable. Someone set up too large 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.200 kiddie pools filled with water. There's music and solar charged 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.360 batteries to keep your phone topped off. All things considered, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.560 it's one of the more comfortable places you could weigh 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.320 out the heat wave. As you pull this over, you 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.240 notice flashing lights as a half dozen police cars and 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.280 a riot van pulled up by the overpass. It all 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.320 happened so quickly that you stand there stunned for a moment. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.880 As officers begin to form ranks on the far side 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.800 of the encampment. You look behind you, just in time 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.720 to see more cars pull up, including one large cruiser 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.080 with an l RT on its back. This is the 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.000 police department. They say this encampment is a fire hazard. 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.279 The mayor has declared a state of emergency. You all 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.719 need to disperse now. All around you, encampment residents and 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.200 activists begin to pick up shields, pipes, and bottles. They 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.080 form crude lines to face off against the riot officers 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.320 marching in from both sides. Your heart starts to pound. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.560 You see the normies. The one is not too sick 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.279 with heat stroke to stand start glancing around in the 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.640 same way you are trying to weigh the best of 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.960 their options. Most of them are stuck here. But you 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.880 still have a nearly full tank of gas. You can 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:15.760 get away for now, at least. In two thousand eleven, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.560 exactly a decade ago. As I typed this, my partner 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.920 and I drove eleven or so hours south from our 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.800 home in Dallas to the border town of Marfa, Texas. 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.960 Back then, Marfa had a population of about hundred. It's 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.800 a beautiful place, surrounded by the kind of wild scrub 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.680 brush desert that outsiders assume most Texans live in. Marfa 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.440 is famous as the former home of artist Donald Judd, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.080 and as a result, the whole place has a strange vibe, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.160 a mix of rural South Texas grit and woo woo 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.920 artsy flair. We'd chosen to visit in April, traditionally one 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.560 of the mildest months for Texan weather, but it was 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.400 unreasonably warm when we arrived, and the whole state had 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.840 suffered through a bizarrely dry spring. As we drove into town, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.560 we saw smoke on the far horizon. We didn't know 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.480 it then, but an electric short in an abandoned building 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.560 had sparked what would eventually grow into the rock House fire. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.080 We lived out of my prius and motels at that point, 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.440 and we spent most of the day driving or staggering 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.080 from bar to bar to a rad grilled cheese restaurant, 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.880 talking to locals while we watched the flames burn across 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.480 the horizon. We saw the fire eat Mount Marathon, and 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.200 we sat on the deck of a bar talking to 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.800 locals who had driven what possessions they could into town 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.240 and then abandoned their homes to the blaze. There goes 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.640 my house, someone would say, pointing to local news coverage 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.120 and ordering another round. What we drank and gawked. Nearby 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.920 ranchers were cutting their fences. There was no time to 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.200 evacuate the herds, so the best they could do was 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.720 cut holes in the barbed wire and give the animals 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.760 a slim chance of fleeing to safety. By the time 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.480 night fell, the whole horizon burned. Every government building in 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.559 Marfa was empty. There were no cops. Everyone was a firefighter. 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.520 That night, we eventually headed to a nearby motel. The 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.880 door to the office was empty and the lights were on. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.640 On the desk was a bucket of keys and a 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.280 sign informing us that the owners were both volunteer firefighters 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.360 and that we should just take a key and pay 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.480 in the morning. The rock House fire would eventually burn 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.000 more than three hundred and fourteen thousand acres in two counties. 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.080 It marked the beginning of a historic wildfire season in Texas. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.319 Over the next six months, more than thirty one thousand, 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.679 four hundred and fifty three fires would burn a total 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.880 of four million acres or sixteen thousand square miles, an 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:31.000 area larger than Switzerland. Ten years later, almost to the month, 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.160 my new home state of Oregon was hit by an 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.920 unprecedented heat dome. Temperatures in the state capital neared a 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.080 hundred and nineteen degrees, seven degrees hotter than it has 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.240 ever been in Dallas. Crops died, along with more than 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.760 a billion sea creatures. Along the northwest coast, the verdant 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.120 woods of the Pacific Northwest dried out and caught fire. 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.760 As i type this, the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.559 is the largest in state history. It is burnt over 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.400 three hundred thousand acres, and it is still not contained. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.560 It's started less than a year after an unprecedented series 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.200 of wildfires blanketed much of northern Oregon in orange clouds 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.320 of smoke that choked every living creature for weeks. For 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.840 a brief span of time, a tree filled Portland had 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:25.840 lower air quality than New Delhi, India. The heat dome 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.640 that just hit us landed alongside articles telling us it 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.400 was a once in a thousand years weather event. I 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.040 read similar articles earlier this year when I was with 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.680 my family back in Dallas watching an unprecedented blizzard drop 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.840 temperatures below zero for the first time in Texas history. 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.320 One man too, once in a millennia weather events in 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:49.320 the same six months span. Texas is infamously idiosyncratic power 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.959 grid buckled under the strain of so many homes putting 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.120 their heaters on full blast. The state only narrowly avoided 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.320 a complete grid collapse that would have left much of 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.760 it powerless for months. Between four d seventy six and 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.360 nine hundred and seventy eight Texans died in a single 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.640 week from a mix of carbon monoxide poisoning, exposure, and 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.800 ice related crashes. In Oregon during the heat dome, northwestern 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.240 asphalt roads buckled and power cables to street cars frayed. 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.839 Portland was forced to shut down its max light rail line, 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.760 stranding many poor and elderly citizens inside their overheated homes. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.000 At least a hundred and sixteen people died in Oregon, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.200 nearly five hundred people died in British Columbia during the 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.800 worst of the heat wave. Oregon Governor Kate Brown and 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.840 Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler were nowhere to be found. Like 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.000 most wealthy people, they fled to more comfortable climbs or 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.679 at least air conditioning, while those who could not escape 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.040 suffered or died. The same story played out in Canada, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.240 where the Vancouver City Planning Commission issued a scathing report 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.600 about the other lack of preparation on behalf of the 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.440 city government quote failing to act and create policy that 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.160 reflects the reality of people's lives can and will cause 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.680 people who would otherwise be alive to die. Where arement failed, 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.400 normal people were forced to take matters into their own hands. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.720 Mutual aid cooling stations were organized and set up across Portland, Eugene, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.920 and Salem, providing people with wet towels, frozen water bottles, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.960 and shade. One homeless man set up an above ground 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.120 swimming pool beneath an overpass. In Salem, police repeatedly destroyed 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.880 cooling stations under the guise of breaking up homeless encampments. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.040 These gestures were, in the grand scale of the calamity, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.319 fairly minor, but they illustrate an important point. When disaster strikes, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.720 communities nearly always respond more effectively than governments. This is 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.480 a well documented phenomenon in the field of disaster response studies. 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.160 In nineteen sixty two, when nine point two magnitude earthquake 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:46.079 hit the Alaskan Coast, Anchorage was utterly devastated. Whole neighborhoods 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.199 fell off of cliffs. The first thing the police did 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.160 was deputize a crowd of half drunk volunteers to stop 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.760 people from looting, even though no looting had been observed. 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.520 The police chief was so worried about disorder that he 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.800 almost instantly suspended the search for survivors. Thankfully, the people 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.920 of Anchorage were not so easily scared. Spontaneously organized groups 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.520 of civilians pulled every survivor from the rebel By the 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.960 next day, volunteers had organized, with no input from the government, 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.200 a man power control team where people with skills, carpenters plumbers, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.880 electricians in the like were matched up with jobs that 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.160 needed doing. As it happened, a team of social scientists 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.920 from Ohio State University were in town studying disaster response 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.719 under a grant from the U. S. Military. Based on 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.040 the science of the time, they expected sheer panic. Here's 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.640 what they found instead, From a write up by James 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.560 Meags in Commentary magazine Quote. The team stayed for a 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.240 week and interviewed nearly five hundred people. Enrico Quarantelli, the 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.400 leader of the study, was particularly interested in Anchorage's small 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.280 Civil Defense office. It should have been in charge of 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.960 search and rescue, but Quarantelli noted, had quickly become bogged 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.320 down of her questions of bureaucratic protocol. Of course, Bill 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.800 Davis's amateur mountaineers had taken over that function on most immediately. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.640 Quarantilly used the term emergent groups to describe the teams 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.360 of self organized volunteers like Davis's searchers. He didn't miss 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.319 the irony that the agency created to protect civilians soon 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.560 became an obstacle that this emergent group of rescuers had 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.920 to work around. We are standing all of us on 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.680 the cusp of an age of the unprecedented, a time 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.440 when most people are likely to experience once in a 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.400 millennium disasters on a near annual basis. The only thing 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.600 we can truly know about our unknowable future is that 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.880 this is a problem our present governments cannot and will 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.120 not fix. We will cover that idea in more depth later, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.600 but for now, it's important to accept that help is 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:44.000 not coming. When the wildfires blanketed Oregon in smoke last year, 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.160 the state responded by handing out lucrative logging contracts to 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.000 their political donors. This was done under the guise of 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.600 wildfire preparedness. All it really did was released more carbon 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:58.080 into the atmosphere. The fire still came. When Texas's power 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.400 grid failed in February, the company that administers at Aircot 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:05.440 made two point four billion dollars. Conservative politicians took to 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.680 social media to defend Texan independence. Lawmakers turn their efforts 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:14.080 to legalizing permitless concealed kerry and restricting voting rights. Aircot 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.440 donated one million dollars to Governor Abbott, and he refused 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.000 to call for grid reforms during a special session of 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.320 the state legislature. Nothing was done to fix the grid, 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.200 and when the first summer heat waves hit, AIRCOT asked 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.400 citizens to keep their thermostats at eighty degrees while they slept. 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.240 When some people with health conditions attempted to cool their 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.840 homes further, they found that their new connected thermostats raised 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.680 the temperature without their consent. The failure of our elites 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.280 to handle the disasters wrought by climate change is not 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.480 the result of a grand conspiracy. More than anything, it 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.640 is the result of selfishness and confusion. Most of these 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.520 people are just as blindsided by the disasters racking our 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.080 world as anyone else, because they're the kind of people 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.440 who are capable of taking power. They look out for 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.000 themselves first, and in chaotic and dangerous times, they default 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.960 to what they know best, leaning on culture war bullshit, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.440 and hiding from scrutiny. There are a couple of military 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.680 concepts that I find helpful for analyzing times like these. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.760 One is VUCA vu C, a an acronym that identifies 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:21.120 situations of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. VUCA situations are 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.520 obviously dangerous, but the sheer amount of information coming in 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.800 can be blinding, and the best course of action is 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.480 generally unclear. Leads are actually more likely to be blinded 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.000 in these situations than the rest of us. A mayor, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.400 or a police chief or a president has much more 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.440 information incoming, and his concern in a heat wave is 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.320 always more complex than what needs to be done to 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.800 protect people, because what is politically safe, what do my 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.240 donors want, and how will what I do be spun 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.920 by the media are also on his mind. Ultimately, people 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.480 like us worry will my community and I survive? And 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.120 people like them worry will I lose power. This tug 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.720 of war between this aster and political expediency, between preparing 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.359 for the inevitable and protecting your ass leads to a 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.760 phenomenon called turbo paralysis. This was first coined back in 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.320 two thousand twelve by a fellow named Mark Lynde, and 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.960 he described it as quote combination of vigorous and dramatic 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.680 motion with the absence of steady movement in any particular direction. 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.840 You may recognize this as an apt description of how 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.040 our nation has handled climate change for the last several decades. 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.080 I want to quote here from a very useful document 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:34.479 titled the Gonzo Futurist Manifesto. Quote in this reading, a 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.360 sudden spike of VUKA dynamics causes big actors, big business, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.600 Nation States organizations to flail wildly, muddying the waters with 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.199 U turns and knee jerk cargo cult behavior as the 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.640 old certainties are swept away. For cyberpunk Archdeacon Bruce Sterling, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.960 this is the transition to nowhere. There's neither progress nor 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.879 conservatism because there's nothing left to conserve and no direction 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.840 in which to progress. From the U. S. Republican Party 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.879 to occupy Wall Street, from Benghazi to Wukan. Wheels are 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.320 spinning furiously and engines are being gunned to no effect. 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.480 Now politicians can afford to spin their wheels indefinitely, or 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.640 at least as long as the political system they thrive 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.280 and continues to exist. Many powerful actors like fossil fuel 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.879 companies and defense contractors thrive so long as the rest 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.439 of us stay locked in this place. But you and 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.760 I cannot survive in a state of turbo paralysis. As 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.479 I noted earlier, it's easy to avoid that in the 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.359 moment of a disaster if you're a regular person looking 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.120 at a problem and finding ways to mitigate the damage. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.439 Mutual Aid in response to calamity is the norm. But 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:41.480 when it comes to the bigger question, how are we 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.000 going to survive in this world? How can my community 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.760 adapt to be less vulnerable? How can we stop things 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.679 from spinning out of control? Well that's when turbo paralysis 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.679 kicks in again, because we don't have the luxury of 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.000 just dealing with climate change and its consequences. We've got 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.600 gangs of fascists marching through city streets every powerful and 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.440 violent cops murdering people and gassing descent children in cages 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.199 on the border. And my god, when you start to 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.159 list it all or try to take it all in 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.760 on Twitter, you're liable to have a panic attack. As 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.040 much positive as I've said about mutual aid, I want 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.840 to acknowledge here that it alone is not enough. It 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.720 can't be a good example of why comes just this 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.840 year from India. Their right wing central governments so thoroughly 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.320 botched the COVID nineteen response that corpse fires were burning 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.800 in the streets of almost every major city. Hospitals took 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.320 to Twitter to beg for oxygen. The government suddenly adopted 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.960 a liberalized vaccine policy that put the onus for vaccine 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.600 procurement on individual states, which led to nine corporate hospital 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.359 chains acquiring half the available vaccine doses. Rather than go 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.840 door to door handing out vaccines, which is how India 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.399 wiped out polio doses cost about sixteen dollars in a 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.959 country where a hundred and thirty four million people make 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.560 less than two dollars a day. In response to the 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.240 utter failure of its elites, the Indian p a Bowl 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.720 took matters into their own hands. And I want to 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.160 quote now from a wonderful write up in The Baffler 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.800 titled how it Feels Confronted by the complete breakdown of 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.160 the state's health care infrastructure, Ordinary civilians did that most 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.120 Indian thing jow god, a commonly used Hindi word referring 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.040 to a stop gap solution or using limited resources. Innovatively, 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.600 volunteers mobilized on WhatsApp, discord, Twitter, Instagram, and any number 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.960 of social media platforms to connect COVID nineteen patients and 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.679 their families somehow to some form of medical care. Civil 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:37.520 society groups, nonprofits, students, journalists, and lawyers started fielding distress 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.760 messages posted online. Informal coalitions formed based on hashtags like 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.480 s OS city name or hashtag COVID emergency volunteers scrambled 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.240 to procure drugs they knew little about and couldn't pronounce 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.720 bar siddonip, toxl zoom. App Lists were compiled of hospitals 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.000 with available beds, chemists who had rim disavere in plasma, 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.080 hospitals admitting patients in the I c U. Every what 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.120 I knew was glued to their phones. We will probably 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.320 never know how many people survived because of stopgap efforts, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.320 and people like Ritty dested Are who wrote the article 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.240 I just quoted. These folks were heroes, but between one 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.239 point six million and four point two million Indians are 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.640 still likely to have died of COVID, most just this year, 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.280 the official government count hovers it just over four hundred thousand. 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.680 And while mutual aid did save untold lives, the trauma 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.479 of responding to such a calamity on the fly has 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.159 left permanent marks on Ready and their peers. Quote. We 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.280 have tried to fill in the blank where the government's 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.240