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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. Quite

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Speaker 1: a start to the year here. If you haven't already

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Speaker 1: listened to it, I recommend going back and listening to

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Speaker 1: our season on Guyana. It has a lot to do

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Speaker 1: with what's happening in Venezuela right now and in other news. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the episode that we're bringing to you today is quite timely.

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Speaker 1: Our Australia reporter Royce Kermelov's spoke with Canadian author John

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Speaker 1: Valent at the Byron Ryders Festival last year about John's

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Speaker 1: book Fire Weather. We were already planning to bring you

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Speaker 1: that conversation this week, but now the entire state of

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Speaker 1: Victoria is under an extreme fire danger warning. It's bringing

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Speaker 1: back memories of the terrible fire season in Australia just

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Speaker 1: a few years back. There are spotfires burning in New

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Speaker 1: South Wales and South Australia as well. So I can't

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Speaker 1: think of a better time to bring you this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Hope you enjoy it. Here it is.

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Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to the two pm session here at

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Speaker 3: Byron Ryers Festival. I am royce Kermelovs. I will be

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Speaker 3: your host for the session. I'm very excited to be

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Speaker 3: here today with you to talk about this wonderfully written

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Speaker 3: book that is both exquisitely written and, as one writer

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Speaker 3: for The New York Times described it, unfortunately exquisitely timed.

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Speaker 3: The book is Fireweather, a true story from a hotter world,

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Speaker 3: which you can see here I'm holding up very conveniently.

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Speaker 3: The story it tells us about a Canadian oil town

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Speaker 3: that experienced a catastrophic bushfire in twenty sixteen. And though

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Speaker 3: it describes events a world away, for many of us

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Speaker 3: here in Australia, it'll be deeply familiar and for many

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Speaker 3: people in this region.

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Speaker 4: And this.

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Speaker 3: Powerfully drawn book is about many things. It's harrowing, it's

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Speaker 3: about fire, it's about climate change, and it's about the

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Speaker 3: particular talent for self harm that we as a species

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Speaker 3: appear to show for ourselves. The author of this fine

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Speaker 3: book is John Valiant, who is here with me today.

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Speaker 3: And for those who don't know whom, John is an

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Speaker 3: author and a writer and has traveled halfway around the

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Speaker 3: world to be here. So could you please all make

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Speaker 3: him for warmly welcome Mbayron Bay. And just before we

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Speaker 3: get into it, I want to be just heads up.

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Speaker 3: We will be taking questions in this session, so in

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Speaker 3: about forty five minutes a volunteer will come around with

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Speaker 3: a microphone. So if you have your questions, hold on

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Speaker 3: to them to then we do ask that the questions

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Speaker 3: are a question and you know you're going to keep

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Speaker 3: them short so we can get as many in as

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Speaker 3: possible to kind of get as much good information as

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Speaker 3: we can out. And if you want to have more

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Speaker 3: of a conversation with John, you're more than welcome to

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Speaker 3: do so. I wrote the book, signing tent with a

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Speaker 3: copy of the book when after the show, So John,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to kind of open this conversation with you

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Speaker 3: by asking the question, I mean, there are many fires

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Speaker 3: in many places, but what drew you to this one?

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Speaker 4: Yes. First of all, I would like to say thanks

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Speaker 4: to the Tasmanian Walking Company and also to all of you.

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Speaker 4: I'm really glad to be here with you. And also

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Speaker 4: I have to say off the top, I feel rather

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Speaker 4: sheepish coming to Australia to talk about fire when Australia

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Speaker 4: has kind of written the book on fire in many ways,

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Speaker 4: and a lot of us are up north are learning

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Speaker 4: from you and watching and fascination and horror you know,

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Speaker 4: as you reach new heights of flammability. But we're keeping

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Speaker 4: pace up in Canada. We're doing our part. And Fort McMurray,

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Speaker 4: which caught on fire in May on May through twenty

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Speaker 4: sixteen and drove the largest most rapid evacuation due to

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Speaker 4: fire in modern times, caught my attention before any of

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Speaker 4: us knew that really, because it disappeared from the face

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Speaker 4: of the earth for a while, and I was I'm

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Speaker 4: not a climate journalist. I'd write about every book is

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Speaker 4: about a different subject. I've written about aman eating tiger

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Speaker 4: in Russia and a botanically unique tree in British Columbia

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Speaker 4: and other things. But so fire was not really on

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Speaker 4: my radar. And I was working on a novel and

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Speaker 4: in Italy at a very swank writer's retreat and made

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Speaker 4: the mistake of looking at Twitter and this petroleum hub

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Speaker 4: of Canada. Canada's the fourth or fifth largest petroleum producer

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Speaker 4: in the world, and the hub of that industry had

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Speaker 4: completely disappeared beneath a forty thousand foot tall pyrocumulonimbus fire cloud.

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Speaker 4: And that was on May third, twenty sixteen, and nobody

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Speaker 4: knew there were a ninety thousand people in there. You

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Speaker 4: can see the cars streaming out. There's only one road out.

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Speaker 4: They were streaming out like ants to the horizon, and

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Speaker 4: nobody knew who was left in there, and nobody knew

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Speaker 4: for days. It was really frightening. Kind of at a

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Speaker 4: national level, it's a nationally important city. It is home

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Speaker 4: to the highest wages in the whole city. I think

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Speaker 4: you have some of that here. There's you have a

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Speaker 4: great name for it, the pilberl, the uh okay and

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Speaker 4: the name for the people who make spectacular wages working there.

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Speaker 3: But oh, yes, the cashed out bogains.

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Speaker 4: I think it's yeah, yeah, the cashed out boguins. Well,

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Speaker 4: this is what Fort McMurray is famous for. And the

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Speaker 4: median household income there, even after a global downturn in

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Speaker 4: petroleum prices, was two hundred thousand dollars a year, making

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Speaker 4: it one of the wealthiest municipalities in all of North America.

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Speaker 4: And that's including you know, Marin County and Westchester, New York.

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Speaker 4: So it's a very very powerful place in the idea

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Speaker 4: that it could be wiped off the face of the

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Speaker 4: earth in an afternoon was deeply threatening and terrifying. And

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Speaker 4: I dropped the novel and started paying attention so on that.

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Speaker 3: So, just to contextualize this place a little bit more

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Speaker 3: for people in the audience who may not be familiar.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we in Australia have the coal industry, we

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Speaker 3: have the gas industry, we have centers of you know,

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Speaker 3: mining and extraction such as the Pilber other places. But

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Speaker 3: am I right that the specific industry on this place

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Speaker 3: was the tarsans? So can you just explain what they are?

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Speaker 4: The tarzans are total anomaly. There are tarzans in Venezuela

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Speaker 4: also that produce petroleum. But tarsand is bitjumin soaked sand

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Speaker 4: and bitchumen. If you don't know, it's what you seal

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Speaker 4: your driveway with. It's what you seal a house foundation with.

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Speaker 4: It's a tari liquid substance. You can't really burn it,

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Speaker 4: you know, unless you heat it way a normal combustive temperatures.

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Speaker 4: It's not oil or gas in the sense that most

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Speaker 4: of us understand it. And it has to be mined

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Speaker 4: out of the ground. And this industry has altered, basically

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Speaker 4: destroyed a thousand square miles of the northern boreal forest.

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Speaker 4: And as they use gigantic shovels, much like coal mining

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Speaker 4: to dig this stuff out, and then in order to

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Speaker 4: process it, you have to melt it with billions of

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Speaker 4: cubic feet of natural gas just to render it into

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Speaker 4: a liquid form that can then be piped a thousand

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Speaker 4: miles south to an American refinery for processing, where it

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Speaker 4: needs more natural gas to refine it. So it is

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Speaker 4: probably the least efficient, most environmentally destructive, most costly petroleum

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Speaker 4: product anywhere on Earth, and the math that makes it

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Speaker 4: work is fuzzy to say the least.

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Speaker 3: How much I mean, what kind of gravity does this

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Speaker 3: place have? Because of the toss hands within Canadian politics

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Speaker 3: and society.

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Speaker 4: So Alberta is the Texas of Canada. It's a very

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Speaker 4: conservative state. It's pretty much owned by the petroleum industry.

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Speaker 4: The petroleum industry really across most of North America controls

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Speaker 4: a lot of the political discourse to an unwholesome degree.

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Speaker 4: The amount of lobbying hours and energy that goes on

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Speaker 4: in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, or in DC is

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Speaker 4: shocking to say the least, and so Alberta is kind

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Speaker 4: of a beneficiary of that. I would say it's the

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Speaker 4: way information is controlled there. It's sort of small f

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Speaker 4: fascist and you know, I'm really sorry to say that.

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Speaker 4: You know, I'm a Canadian, generally proud Canadian, but you know,

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Speaker 4: Alberta is a problematic place in complete denial about climate change,

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Speaker 4: like Texas, like Washington, d C. Now, and it's basically

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Speaker 4: in servitude to this so far very lucrative but extraordinarily

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Speaker 4: destructive petroleum industry. And it creates a very weird tension

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Speaker 4: where incredible wages can be garnered, but also the same

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Speaker 4: mostly men. It's about twenty five to one up there.

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Speaker 4: Men to women also live in enormous procarty because they

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Speaker 4: can be laid off at any time. They get on

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Speaker 4: the hook for one hundred thousand dollars f one fifty

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Speaker 4: or a house and then they can lose it all.

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Speaker 4: And it's a very kind of hyper and unstable situation

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Speaker 4: that has a lot of casualties come out of it.

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Speaker 3: And so when I want to get you to explain

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Speaker 3: what happened in a second, but just before we move

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Speaker 3: into that, what you've described means that when we talk

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Speaker 3: about this catastrophic fire and this place, there was a

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Speaker 3: kind of poetry in what happened.

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Speaker 4: Right, Well, it's strange circularity. So the bitchumin industry of Canada,

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Speaker 4: of Fort McMurray, it's to put this in perspective, Canada

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Speaker 4: is the largest foreign supplier of petroleum to the United States.

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Speaker 4: It's the biggest source of foreign exports. About four million

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Speaker 4: barrels a day of diluted bitchumen runs out of Fort

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Speaker 4: McMurray down into American refineries. It's a colossal amount of

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Speaker 4: potential energy. And so Fort McMurray is the biggest emitter

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Speaker 4: in the country of CO two. And the idea of

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Speaker 4: a climate enhanced wildfire that was behaving in ways no

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Speaker 4: one had ever seen before, the idea that this fire

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Speaker 4: would not only threaten but actually overrun the entire city

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Speaker 4: was kind of on the nose, really, and yet it happened.

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Speaker 4: And I think what was surprising is how hard it was,

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Speaker 4: even when the fire was in front of people's faces,

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Speaker 4: how hard it was for them to believe that this

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Speaker 4: was actually happening and happening to them.

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Speaker 3: And you do a very good job in the book

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Speaker 3: of describing how and when this began, that the fire

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Speaker 3: kind of began over the hill as a distant problem

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Speaker 3: not to think about. Can you talk about how this

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Speaker 3: began and what happened to this place.

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Speaker 4: So the boreal forest of Northern Canada, it runs actually

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Speaker 4: all the way around the world, so the Russian Taiga

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Speaker 4: is basically boreal forest. It continues across into North America,

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Speaker 4: across Alaska, all the way across Northern Canada. It's the

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Speaker 4: wettest biome on Earth, wetter than the tropical jungle, huge rivers,

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Speaker 4: small oceans, inland, seas of lakes, and it's terribly flammable.

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Speaker 4: So there are species there, just like here, that will

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Speaker 4: not regenerate unless they're burned. So it's normal for the

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Speaker 4: boreal forest to burn. And this city is an isolated city,

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Speaker 4: five hours driving from the nearest other major source of assistance,

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Speaker 4: which is Edmonton, terribly isolated, and so fires surround it

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Speaker 4: every summer and every spring, and so there is this

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Speaker 4: strange comfort with smoke plumes on the horizon, but also

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Speaker 4: this magical compact that they seem to have that well

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Speaker 4: the fire, Yeah, the fires burn out there, but they'll

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Speaker 4: never come into our city. And that had worked for

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Speaker 4: fifty years. And nature, you know, is not here to

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Speaker 4: make agreements with human beings or their ambitions. Nature is

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Speaker 4: here responding to the forces that influence it. And what

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Speaker 4: we had on May third, twenty sixteen was a temperature

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Speaker 4: record for that day broken by six degrees celsius, and

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Speaker 4: we had relative humidity of eleven and that, you know,

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Speaker 4: might make your eyes roll back. And it's not an

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Speaker 4: interesting subject to me until I started looking at where

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Speaker 4: eleven percent humidity is normal, and eleven percent humidity is

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Speaker 4: normal in North America in Death Valley in the month

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Speaker 4: of July, the driest hottest place on the continent. And

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Speaker 4: now those conditions have been transposed to one of the

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Speaker 4: most flammable ecosystems on Earth, and we've had two years

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Speaker 4: of drought, and so those trees didn't just catch on fire,

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Speaker 4: they exploded into flame. And at about one in the afternoon,

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Speaker 4: a ten kilometer wide wave of fire one hundred meters

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Speaker 4: tall swept into the city and it came fast and

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Speaker 4: burnt through the city day and night for a week.

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Speaker 4: And it's I think the only other fire that's lasted

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Speaker 4: that urban fire that's lasted that long as the Great

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Speaker 4: Fire of London in sixteen sixty six. And those were

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Speaker 4: some different conditions, and so how did the people respond?

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Speaker 4: First off, Well, one person I interviewed. There's this very

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Speaker 4: heavy duty, angry looking black plume on the other side

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Speaker 4: of the river from where she lives, and there had

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Speaker 4: been four other big fires around the city. People were

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Speaker 4: already being evacuated temporarily. This woman, who lived right in

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Speaker 4: the middle of town was hosting one of these evacuated couples,

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Speaker 4: and they were taking pictures of the plume across the river,

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Speaker 4: but it was a novelty to them. It was like

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Speaker 4: a rainbow. And then she went off to work in

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Speaker 4: her Porsche and it was a bluebird day, unseasonably hot,

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Speaker 4: and so she dressed for the weather. She wore a skirt,

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Speaker 4: which she hardly ever did, because it's a city of men,

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Speaker 4: and being a woman working there is a very weird,

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Speaker 4: overdetermined experience, and it's a little bit like maybe being

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Speaker 4: a female prison guard in a prison, like there's this

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Speaker 4: unwholesome energy is directed at you. And in spite of this,

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Speaker 4: she dressed it in a festive way and went off

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Speaker 4: in her Porsche. And when she came back down into

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Speaker 4: town for lunch, the city had disappeared behind this black

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Speaker 4: and red curtain, and she didn't even understand what she

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Speaker 4: was looking at It had happened so fast, it was

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Speaker 4: so huge that what a lot of people experienced was disorientation.

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Speaker 4: They simply didn't have the space in their head to

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Speaker 4: understand what was happening. So and that was really interesting

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Speaker 4: because you know, I have my feelings about the petroleum

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Speaker 4: industry and people who work in it, and there's a

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Speaker 4: policy of climate denial in Alberta. And this wasn't denial.

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Speaker 4: This wasn't people being obtuse. This was something so enormous

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Speaker 4: side their experience that they simply didn't have the cognitive

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Speaker 4: capacity to process it in a rational way. It was

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Speaker 4: just not computing. It just yeah, it basically kind of

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Speaker 4: created more of a short circuit. And so and then

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Speaker 4: you know, ash was falling. Sky was completely orange. By

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Speaker 4: two or three in the afternoon. You could only function

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Speaker 4: in the city with headlights because it had turned black.

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Speaker 4: It was so dark from the except for things that

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Speaker 4: were burning. And everybody realized, you know, not from the authorities,

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Speaker 4: but from their neighbors saying, you know, my house is

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Speaker 4: on fire, you should probably leave. Then this very hirky jerky,

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Speaker 4: disorganized evacuation began, and with a miraculous outcome which we

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Speaker 4: can get into But.

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Speaker 3: I want to talk about the evacuation a second, but

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Speaker 3: we'll take a step back, because one of the things

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Speaker 3: you do so well through the book is you draw

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Speaker 3: out these moments of absurdity, almost this kind of sense

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Speaker 3: where the reality people have faced does not compute with

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Speaker 3: the expectation of the wall as it should be. And

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Speaker 3: I think one of the scenes that and I want

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Speaker 3: to ask you about the authorities reaction a second, but

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Speaker 3: one of the scenes in particular I'm thinking about involves

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Speaker 3: the authorities, and that was when I think it was.

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Speaker 3: Was it the fire chief when the radio station.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the he's he's in the radio station and

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Speaker 4: he's being this is this at eleven am on May third,

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Speaker 4: massive fire outside of town, and the fire chief and

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Speaker 4: the head of the wildfire service are on the air.

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Speaker 4: Who's listening. Everyone's gone to work, you know, everyone's in

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Speaker 4: school or so to whoever's listening, they're saying, go to school,

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Speaker 4: go to work. We've got we think we've got a

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Speaker 4: grip on this. All is good. And then right after that,

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Speaker 4: around noon, a journalist brought the wildfire guy into the

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Speaker 4: radio station and it had a plate glass window that

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Speaker 4: happened to look in the direction where the fire was,

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Speaker 4: and you know, it was a distant you could barely

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Speaker 4: see it, you know, at ten in the morning. But

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Speaker 4: by twelve thirty it had achieved crossover, which is basically

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Speaker 4: where the humidity and the temperature divide in a particular

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Speaker 4: way that really energizes fire. You have that here in

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Speaker 4: Australia too, for sure, And so that was happening and

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Speaker 4: it changed the quality of the smoke coming up behind

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Speaker 4: these neighborhoods. And so we see the interviewer who described

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Speaker 4: this to me in detail. You hear this guy, the

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Speaker 4: wildfire manager, just repeating by wrote these almost kind of platitude,

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Speaker 4: like anodyne directives about what people should do, which was

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Speaker 4: don't do anything, rash, go to work, do your thing.

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Speaker 4: And we've got this in hand. But he's watching with

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Speaker 4: his eyes as the smoke changes, and he knows, he understands,

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Speaker 4: because he's a wildfire prison he understands what's happening. And

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Speaker 4: then he kind of cuts the inner and hustles out

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Speaker 4: of there. And that's when the first evacuation notices is issued.

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Speaker 4: And so we see people, even the experts, even the

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Speaker 4: people in charge, who understand the gravity of the fire conditions,

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Speaker 4: how dry it is, how hot it is, two years

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Speaker 4: of drought, all of that things that people in Australia

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Speaker 4: and are very familiar with. And imagine the fire authority

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Speaker 4: who understood that intellectually but still couldn't make the leap.

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Speaker 4: My god, this is energy that could take over the city.

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Speaker 4: And that's what you see kind of in real time

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Speaker 4: as they start to put it together. And it's very

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Speaker 4: hard to look at in retrospect. How could you not

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Speaker 4: understand this when all the fire codes, the drought, moisture code,

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Speaker 4: the temperature, the wind, everything was pointing to firestorm conditions.

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Speaker 4: How could you not get it? And I think intellectually

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Speaker 4: they got it, but they didn' get it existentially. And

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Speaker 4: so that's what we see in this kind of tortured

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Speaker 4: way as this city, you know, one of the wealthiest

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Speaker 4: in North America, where people have enormous agency and enormous

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Speaker 4: confidence in their ability to meet challenges, are overwhelmed by

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Speaker 4: an energy they've never encountered and have no equipment to

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Speaker 4: respond to.

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Speaker 3: And I want to ask you about the evacuation because

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Speaker 3: there's a concept in sociology called elite panic, and it's

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Speaker 3: where decision makers. You know, in decision making roles across

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Speaker 3: the board, assume that when bad news gets broken, the

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Speaker 3: average person will freak out and behave very badly and

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Speaker 3: you know, and break the rules and chaos will rain.

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Speaker 3: But and you have your description of the evacuation of

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Speaker 3: these places is vivid and haunting and in some ways

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Speaker 3: beautiful despite the awful circumstances you are describing. Could you

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Speaker 3: talk about what happened as people evacuated from these neighborhoods,

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Speaker 3: as they evacuated from the city.

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Speaker 4: So it's a Patrolilliam town. So everybody is there to

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Speaker 4: do one thing. They might have different jobs, but it's

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Speaker 4: all to serve the industry. It's a one industry town.

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Speaker 4: It's a young town and a lot of them are

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Speaker 4: living in very new developments. Some of these houses are

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Speaker 4: only a year old because it's a supercharged, superheated economy.

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Speaker 4: These houses are you know, start at half a million

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Speaker 4: and go up from there again with these new developments.

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Speaker 4: You probably have this in Australia too. There's only one

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Speaker 4: road in people haven't really thought about, well, we should

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Speaker 4: probably have an alternate exit road in case that one

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Speaker 4: is blocked by fire. This is a really serious issue

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Speaker 4: across a lot of the Western world and places in general,

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Speaker 4: especially where there's new rapid development going in and so,

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Speaker 4: and they are realizing that their community is on fire

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Speaker 4: in a very uneven way. And again a lot of

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Speaker 4: it is word of mouth. And what's extraordinary is somehow

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Speaker 4: everybody did the right thing, and that statistically impossible. This

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Speaker 4: is a city of eighty or ninety thousand people where

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Speaker 4: you know, there are drug problems there, there are people

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Speaker 4: who have worked, you know, pulled two or three twelve

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Speaker 4: hour shifts. People are sleeping at odd hours. This industry

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Speaker 4: runs around the clock, so you have people sleeping in

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Speaker 4: the daytime, and you also have many different languages and

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Speaker 4: ethnicities there, and it's kind of a melting pot. And

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Speaker 4: so what to cut to make a long story short,

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Speaker 4: there was a one hundred percent success rate with the evacuation.

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Speaker 4: No one knew this for days. They kept as they

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Speaker 4: you know, eventually started sifting through these burnt basements, of

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Speaker 4: which there were thousands. They were expecting to find bones

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Speaker 4: or something. They never found any. And they've they've you know,

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Speaker 4: they've realized we had a one hundred percent successful evacuation.

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Speaker 4: And of course, you know, that's because it was Canadians

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Speaker 4: who and.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 4: But here's the thing, and so I could feel really

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Speaker 4: really good about that until I found out what a

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Speaker 4: Canadian was, which made me feel even better about it.

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Speaker 4: Because in twenty sixteen, the year of the fire, there

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Speaker 4: was that census that revealed the median household income of

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Speaker 4: two hundred thousand dollars a year. Also, the other thing

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Speaker 4: that that census revealed was that there were eighty eight

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Speaker 4: zero first languages spoken in Fort McMurray in twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 4: So it's like Toronto or Sydney in terms of its

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Speaker 4: international nature. And so you have the languages, the ethnicities,

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Speaker 4: the religions, the different concepts of what risk is, the

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Speaker 4: different concepts of what community is. And yet somehow, between police,

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Speaker 4: firefighters and citizens going door to door, every single person

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Speaker 4: got out. And it's amazing. And this does not have

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Speaker 4: This is not happening in Turkey right now, where we

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Speaker 4: have a lot of fatalities. Didn't happen in la where

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Speaker 4: thirty people were killed, didn't happen in Paradise where nearly

382
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Speaker 4: one hundred were killed. Didn't happen in Valparaiso last spring

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Speaker 4: where two hundred people were killed. People generally die in conflagrations,

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Speaker 4: and there's been a lot of them over the past decade,

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Speaker 4: and so Fort McMurray had this strange mercy visited upon it.

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Speaker 4: And a lot of people work in the petroleum industry,

387
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Speaker 4: so there have fire consciousness. But that doesn't explain a

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Speaker 4: one hundred percent success rate. And I'm kind of hoping

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Speaker 4: a sociologist will go up there and analyze the escape,

390
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Speaker 4: because it's never been repeated and probably never will be.

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Speaker 4: And so Canada got a pass. And their response to that, though,

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Speaker 4: was to rebuild the city exactly as it was and

393
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Speaker 4: to increased petroleum production and to be in complete denial

394
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Speaker 4: about what happened on the evacuation.

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Speaker 3: There are some incredible scenes, for instance, the people waiting

396
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Speaker 3: in line in the car as the fire burned on

397
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Speaker 3: both sides of the highway, and what you described was

398
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Speaker 3: this incredible sense of solidarity and mutual aid. When the

399
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 3: chips were down, people stepped up. For instance, the journalists

400
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Speaker 3: you spoke of. I think he stayed until the very

401
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Speaker 3: bitter end to evacuate to make sure the word got out.

402
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Speaker 3: As Max, the guy in the radio station, was broadcasting

403
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Speaker 3: to the last to make sure word got out. And

404
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Speaker 3: the other thing I wanted to ask before I wanted

405
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Speaker 3: to kind of pull the camera back and ask some

406
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 3: bigger picture questions in the second. But the final thing

407
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Speaker 3: is the response the firefighters, the people on the front

408
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Speaker 3: line who were responding to this thing. You had an

409
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Speaker 3: incredibly respectful, incredibly incredible stories that you spoke to these

410
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Speaker 3: people about. Can you talk about some of how they responded,

411
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Speaker 3: how they had to learn on the fly in response

412
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Speaker 3: to what was.

413
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Speaker 4: So no firefighter there had ever seen a fire like this,

414
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Speaker 4: because there really has never been a fire like that

415
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 4: we are burning in Canada before through a community that

416
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 4: was generating the energy. And so the very quickly radiant

417
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 4: heat is the invisible heat that tells you not to

418
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Speaker 4: touch the candle. And when you have a wall of

419
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Speaker 4: flame one hundred meters tall and ten kilometers wide sweeping in,

420
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Speaker 4: it's projecting radiant heat of about five hundred celsius into

421
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Speaker 4: the community. So it's desiccating everything. And if you have

422
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Speaker 4: vinyl siding on your house, of course that's melting off.

423
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Speaker 4: And because the modern house here in Australia too is

424
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Speaker 4: composed heavily of petrochemicals, at that temperature, all those petrochemicals

425
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Speaker 4: start to vaporize, and so what you have is a

426
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Speaker 4: gigantic gas can full of flammable vapor. Except that's your house,

427
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Speaker 4: that's your neighborhood, that's your city. And so the other

428
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Speaker 4: thing that's happening with that kind of heat is it's

429
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 4: generating ferocious wind, and so you have ember showers, you know,

430
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Speaker 4: sort of fifty thousand embers per acre, landing on these

431
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Speaker 4: unburned houses, and instead of the house catching on fire

432
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 4: because of all the vapor, the house explodes into flame.

433
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 4: And so I got through to some firefighters finally. You know,

434
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 4: that's a sort of a closed environment and it's kind

435
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 4: of hard to break in there, and I managed to

436
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 4: do it with the help of another forest fire fighter

437
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 4: and talking with these guys and I said, yeah, the

438
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 4: houses were burning down in five minutes. And I was

439
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 4: sure that this guy was exaggerating or you know, like

440
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 4: five minutes, and I pressed him and I said five minutes,

441
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 4: Like what do you mean from no fire on the

442
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 4: house to fire in the basement with nothing standing in

443
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 4: five minutes. And these are you know, half million dollar

444
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 4: houses that weigh fifty tons, you know, these are proper homes,

445
00:27:55,680 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 4: and they began to modify their firefighting technique. By there's

446
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 4: no way they could get to a house quickly enough

447
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 4: when it's burning five minutes, so they would basically figure

448
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 4: out which way the fire was going and then count

449
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 4: down the houses. And it takes twenty minutes to set

450
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 4: up at a hydrant, and so they would count down

451
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 4: four houses and start on that house, and the previous

452
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 4: four would burn. And in many cases the heat was

453
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 4: so intense that they simply had to issue a may

454
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 4: day and just evacuate the fire trucks in everything, and

455
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 4: to the point that they were leaving hoses in the hydrants,

456
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 4: and which is something you never do. You know, It's

457
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 4: like a soldier leaving their gun behind. You know, there's

458
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 4: certain things that are just ingrained into your behavior and

459
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 4: you do not leave any equipment behind or obviously any

460
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 4: of your firefighting crew. And all they could manage to

461
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 4: do was to get out with their trucks and they

462
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 4: managed to, you know, bring the civilians. And this is

463
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 4: something I think that you know, we hadn't hit yet,

464
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 4: but Australians have where the firefighting operation turns into a

465
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 4: life saving operation where all you can do is try

466
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 4: to get as many people out as you can, and

467
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 4: you can't. The structures are so involved with fire that

468
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 4: there's nothing water can meaningfully do.

469
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 3: And in describing some of those responses and that learning

470
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 3: on the fly, you also talk with great respect about

471
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 3: kind of working class knowledge and experience. You talk about

472
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 3: guys from trades who are on these fire crews, you know,

473
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 3: using like responding in real time to what was in

474
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 3: front of them effectively, can you like?

475
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 4: Where does like? And a lot of people would miss that.

476
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 4: Where does that come from? That? One of the more

477
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 4: interesting interviews I had was with heavy equipment operators who

478
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 4: so that the fire burn't meant as for many days

479
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 4: and nights. This is exhausting for firefighters. A lot of

480
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 4: these guys didn't sleep for forty eight hours, fifty six hours,

481
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 4: seventy two hours, So you're you're hallucinating by them. But

482
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 4: they're fighting for their city. There is no help coming.

483
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 4: They're on their own in there. In many cases they're superiors,

484
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 4: don't even know where they are. They're kind of caught

485
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,959
Speaker 4: behind enemy lines trying to save a school or you know,

486
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 4: some piece of a neighborhood, or maybe the airport and

487
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 4: At one point, the fire was moving so quickly through

488
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 4: this one housing development that they just realize the only

489
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 4: way they're going to stop it, so basically, plow a

490
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 4: fire break through the neighborhood, in other words, tear all

491
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 4: the standing houses down to keep it from going into

492
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 4: the next neighborhood. So this is day three or four.

493
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 4: It's you know, four in the morning, pitch dark except

494
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 4: for the fire, and these bulldozer and backo operators are

495
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 4: brought in and told to plow every car they see

496
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 4: in the street through the wall and into the basement

497
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 4: of the nearest house and then plow the house down

498
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 4: on top of it. And these are again six hundred

499
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 4: thousand dollars houses that are literally brand new, finished that year.

500
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 4: And so these guys are just kind of doing what

501
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 4: they're told, and they don't have protective gear on the

502
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 4: fire as they're raging, and their solidarity for each other,

503
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 4: their concern for each other, and their bravery and their

504
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 4: incredible expertise under pressure was kind of unmistakable and fascinating.

505
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 4: And these are you know, these guys had never been

506
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 4: interviewed by anybody before, and they're humble, working guys paid

507
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 4: extraordinarily well but pretty low key people. And it's just

508
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 4: a fascinating section of the book hearing these guys who

509
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 4: are experts with heavy equipment talk about the subtleties of

510
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 4: heavy equipment under the most kind of terrifying and dangerous

511
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 4: circumstances that they've ever operated in. And so that just

512
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 4: gave me a sense of who these people really were.

513
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 4: And again, I live in Vancouver. It's kind of a

514
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 4: lefty liberal viro scene that I come out of, and

515
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 4: so I have a lot of baggage, you know, around

516
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 4: the petroleum industry, and I quickly learned that that's not

517
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 4: going to help me in my reporting, and so I

518
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 4: really tried to leave as much of that behind as

519
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 4: I could and just kind of approach these folks as

520
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 4: human beings with a very specific kind of expertise. And

521
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 4: that paid off handsomely because we get to meet people

522
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 4: who normally nobody ever bothers to interview, and they helped

523
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 4: save that city and it was heroic what they did,

524
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 4: and so I feel really proud of them and lucky

525
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 4: to have had the opportunity to interview them.

526
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 3: There's almost a sense as well for people that when

527
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 3: you give them a chance to be noble. Some people

528
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 3: will take that opportunity under the most trying circumstances.

529
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 4: Oh, I think most people will. You know, they have

530
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,959
Speaker 4: pride in their town. And ultimately, I think, and you

531
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 4: hear this from soldiers all the time, I'm just trying

532
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 4: to save my guys. And that kind of solidarity is

533
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 4: what kept the fire department together and kept these support

534
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 4: teams who are working with them, heavy equipment operators, water

535
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 4: truck drivers and cops who are all trying to manage

536
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 4: this absolutely chaotic and also, by the way, lethally toxic situation.

537
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 4: So there's really few things more toxic than the cumulative

538
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 4: smoke from a burning house. You know, there's a bazillion

539
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 4: chemicals in there and one thing that's quite poignant. These

540
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 4: firefighters who spent a week NonStop trying to fight this

541
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 4: fire are all pretty clear that their lives have been

542
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 4: shortened the same way the people who did who were

543
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 4: clearing away the Twin Towers after nine to eleven, people

544
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 4: who are clearing up after Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans,

545
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 4: just the soup of poisons that are ambient and released

546
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 4: from normally able and inert objects is overwhelming, and these

547
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 4: guys who saved the city are going to pay the

548
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 4: ultimate price for them.

549
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 3: And this is probably a very good point where I

550
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 3: want to kind of pull the camera back a little bit,

551
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 3: because you do a great job throughout the book of

552
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 3: talking about fire and humanity's relationship to fire, and I'm

553
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 3: curious if you could talk a little about about how

554
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 3: you see that relationship.

555
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 4: So as I was writing along, I got more curious

556
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 4: about the nature of fire because speaking with these firefighters,

557
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 4: they ascribed a kind of personality to this fire. This

558
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 4: fire was named the Beast while it was burning. It's

559
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 4: really the only fire anywhere in the world that has

560
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 4: been named in that way that I'm aware of. And so,

561
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 4: you know, the Beast is up again. You know, I was,

562
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 4: you know, battling with the beast over in this neighborhood.

563
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:01,320
Speaker 4: I was battling with it over there. And I started

564
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 4: kind of pressing. And these guys are not poets, and

565
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 4: they're not scientists. They're firefighters. But they had this relationship

566
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 4: with this entity that clearly had agency and a kind

567
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 4: of ambition. And so I asked a very unscientific question,

568
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 4: just rhetorically, which was is fire alive? And the second

569
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 4: question was do humans and fire have a common ancestor,

570
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 4: and these are questions no scientists would ask, and you know,

571
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 4: firefighters don't ask that question either, and that's why we

572
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 4: have journalists to ask kind of unprofessional, improbable questions. But

573
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 4: it led me to a much more nuanced understanding of fire,

574
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 4: which has almost all the characteristics of a living thing

575
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 4: except for sentience. So in terms of its power to reproduce,

576
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 4: its versatility of diet, its ability to weight and to smolder,

577
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 4: to be dormant and then to reawaken, I made a

578
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 4: whole list of those qualities. And then that led me

579
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 4: into you know, what's driving it and which is oxygen,

580
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 4: And that's kind of our common ancestor. You know, we

581
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 4: are burning events. Also, we just take eighty years to

582
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 4: burn up and fires burn much more quickly, but we're

583
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 4: all oxidizing. Fire is a rapid oxidation event and you

584
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 4: are a slow oxidation event. But we're both we're all oxidizing.

585
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 4: So that made me think about petroleum in a different way,

586
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 4: and our kinship with fire, which accompanies us everywhere we

587
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 4: go to the point that we don't even realize it.

588
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 4: And so you know, when I turn on the hot

589
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 4: water I'm activating fire, but to me, all I'm feeling

590
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 4: is a nice, warm shower. When I get in the car,

591
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 4: I get to go where I want to go, but

592
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of combustions are taking me there. And

593
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,760
Speaker 4: so I counted the number of fires that human beings

594
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 4: make daily, and including internal combustions, it's on the order

595
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 4: of tens of trillions. So if you could see all

596
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 4: the fires that we make just going about our daily lives,

597
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 4: it would be like galaxies, galaxies of fire, none of

598
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 4: which would burn, and circumstances like this, My god, this

599
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 4: is a very very impressive rain you've got here.

600
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 3: It is very ironical. But so just and to focus

601
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 3: in there. You mentioned petroleum, and one of the things

602
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 3: you talk about is the way in which fossil fuels, coal,

603
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:40,440
Speaker 3: oil gas can be thought of as fire in a bottle.

604
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's and I think it took me seven

605
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 4: years to understand. It took me seven years to write

606
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:50,280
Speaker 4: this book, and it took me seven years to figure

607
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 4: out that the petroleum industry is a wholly owned subsidiary

608
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 4: of fire. You know, that's its principal utility to us

609
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 4: is its flat ability. And so we've devoted this a

610
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 4: global infrastructure. A third of all international shipping is devoted

611
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 4: to transporting fire energy. And that's what drives us, that's

612
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 4: what empowers our economy, that's what it has enabled us

613
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 4: to be together right now, That's what enabled me to

614
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 4: join you from Vancouver. That's what has enabled most of

615
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 4: us to achieve the wealth we have. You know, however

616
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 4: humble that might be. Most of that is due to

617
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,879
Speaker 4: thanks to petroleum. So we owe an enormous debt to petroleum,

618
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 4: even as its externalities, which have not been factored in,

619
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 4: which CO two and methane are now actively taking those

620
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 4: gains away from us town by town, city by city,

621
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 4: forest by forest. And so we're in this very early

622
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 4: stage of understanding both are the debt we owe petroleum

623
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 4: and at the same time, I'm the collection process that

624
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 4: a superheated climate is costing us. So where it's you know,

625
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 4: we've never been here before, folks, and it's new, and.

626
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 3: I think you have the word for is the piracy,

627
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 3: and you describe it as it's right.

628
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a really one kind of the The eminos Grease,

629
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 4: the og of fire writing and science, is a guy

630
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,240
Speaker 4: named Stephen Pine who came out of Arizona State University,

631
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 4: but started as a wildfirefighter in his teens. You know,

632
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 4: in the Grand Canyon, which is now has one of

633
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 4: the worst fires in Arizona history burning in it as

634
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 4: I speak to you right now, the Dragon Bravo fire.

635
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 4: So that's where he cut his teeth, and he after

636
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 4: the Fort McMurray fire. In twenty sixteen, he wrote an

637
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 4: article for Slate magazine and he coined the term the

638
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,319
Speaker 4: pyro scene and he basically said, that is the era

639
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 4: we're in. So last twelve thousand years was the Holy

640
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 4: Scene epic. It's what enabled it was the kind of

641
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 4: relatively stable climate conditions that allowed us to build the

642
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 4: civilization that we've come to know and enjoy. The piraccene

643
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 4: what I call twenty first century fire. We're also seeing

644
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 4: it in flooding in terms of drought and temperature peaks.

645
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 4: Is a new world. It's a post hole a scene,

646
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 4: and that's what we're entering now and having to come

647
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 4: to grips with.

648
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 3: Another dimension of this that I forgot to mention is

649
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 3: you had a great I mean, your description of the

650
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 3: relationship between humanity and fire was excellent, but you also

651
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 3: use it as a metaphor to describe the way in

652
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 3: which economic and financial systems operate. So not only does

653
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 3: fire kind of emulate a living thing, we emulate fire

654
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 3: in the way that we go about our process of extraction.

655
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,720
Speaker 4: Is that right? I think so? I think capitalism follows

656
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 4: the model of fire. And so when a fire reaches

657
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 4: a certain size, and this is something you're painfully familiar with,

658
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 4: it is unstoppable and it's able to build end any

659
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 4: situation to its advantage. You know, So if it's coming

660
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 4: out of the forest and into a tent full of

661
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 4: plastic chairs, it is going to rage just as hot

662
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 4: because it can make those chairs off gas and combust

663
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 4: and then it can move on, you know, to the houses,

664
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 4: move on to the cars. It can it can manipulate

665
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 4: any situation to its benefit. And this is what large

666
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 4: corporations are also able to do. And again, the goal

667
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 4: is growth and growth at any cost. And fire has

668
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 4: no conscience and it has, you know, one job, which

669
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,959
Speaker 4: is to combust as broadly and charismatically as it possibly can.

670
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:45,399
Speaker 4: That's what oxygen compels it to do. But it's very

671
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 4: interesting to watch a standard oil the under the leadership

672
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 4: of John D. Rockefeller or Amazon under the leadership of

673
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 4: Jeff Bezos, watch how they move across a landscape and

674
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 4: it's really quite similar. And it really got me thinking

675
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 4: as sort of a probably something for another book and

676
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 4: maybe probably a finer mind, but looking at the connection

677
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 4: between capitalism and oxygen, and I think the urgency of oxygen.

678
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 4: You know, we're all calm now breathing, but if we

679
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,760
Speaker 4: were not to breathe for sixty seconds and then couldn't

680
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 4: get a breath, our behavior would change radically and we

681
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 4: would have some sense of the urgency of fire. And

682
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 4: that's you know, fire is trying to keep the party going,

683
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 4: to keep the combustion happening. And we see that with

684
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 4: our current economic system, which is keeping this party going.

685
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 4: And we see that the petroleum industry is a powerful

686
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 4: driver of that in even flying in the face of

687
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 4: really basic, well accepted climate science. It wants to keep

688
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 4: the growth and keep the speed, and it's disastrous. And

689
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 4: see what happened with the fire at The fire will

690
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 4: eventually burn out, exhaust itself, leaving a wasteland behind it.

691
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 4: And there are analogies to be seen there in terms

692
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,280
Speaker 4: of the impacts of capitalism on a landscape.

693
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 3: Just before we go on in about five minutes, we're

694
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 3: going to go to questions. So just while you think

695
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 3: of some pressing questions to ask our guests, I want

696
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 3: to ask you one final question before we kind of

697
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 3: move to that, which is and this is something that

698
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 3: I picked up on through the book and I have

699
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 3: also found on my own work as a reporter and

700
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 3: a journalist, is that you spent so much time talking

701
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 3: to people who had, in some cases been close to death,

702
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 3: who would experienced something terribly traumatic, who had been through

703
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 3: incredibly scary moments. But in the process of doing that,

704
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 3: you then recorded those conversations, and then you have to

705
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 3: process those conversations and then write those conversations and wondering

706
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,480
Speaker 3: how you dealt with the kind of vicarious trauma of

707
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 3: piecing that together and laying it out next to each other.

708
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad you are. That's a real thing for

709
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 4: people who are working in climate we're seeing terrible things,

710
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 4: and the people who went through that fire, some of

711
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 4: you may have gone through these fires. You've seen terrible things.

712
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 4: And ten years ago, if you'd asked people in Canada

713
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 4: if they knew anybody who'd been evacuated due to fire,

714
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 4: it would be very spotty. And now I think you

715
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 4: could ask any Canadian the entire country of forty four

716
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 4: million people, and everybody knows somebody who's been evacuated, or

717
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 4: else they've been evacuated themselves. So I would say that

718
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 4: PTSD is now an epidemic in Canada. And if you're

719
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 4: an empathic person, and you kind of have to be

720
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 4: to be a journalist, that's part of how you get

721
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 4: people to trust you and share the worst days of

722
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 4: their lives with you. It's a perverse thing to want

723
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 4: to do professionally, but I'm compelled to do it. I

724
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 4: know Royce is too, and we have a role to play.

725
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,720
Speaker 4: But you're also taking in that trauma too and going

726
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 4: to these places and seeing the totality of the destruction.

727
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 4: What a modern fire can do. There was one in

728
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 4: Redd in California two years after for McMurray that generated

729
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 4: an e F three tornado. And I walked that landscape

730
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 4: right after the fire, and it looked like photos i'd

731
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 4: seen of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was. It was complete

732
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 4: and total destruction on a vast scale, and nothing was left.

733
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 4: And I did not have gray hair when I started

734
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 4: this book and now I do, and it's and you

735
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 4: take it in and people, you know, these you know,

736
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 4: tough oil dudes are crying in front of me describing

737
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 4: how scared they were and how scared they were for

738
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 4: their family, and it's impossible not to shed a tear. Also,

739
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,399
Speaker 4: you know, you're being you're you're living this experience through them,

740
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,320
Speaker 4: and you might be the first person they've told the

741
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 4: whole thing to. And sometimes these stories would take three

742
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 4: or four hours to unfold as they described their evacuation process,

743
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 4: which was grindingly slow because tens of thousands of other

744
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 4: cars were also trying to leave at the same time

745
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 4: and everything was on fire. I mean, it is an

746
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 4: absolute bona fide miracle that nobody was killed because everyone's

747
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,879
Speaker 4: driving like at a Starbucks drive through lineup speed, trying

748
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 4: to get out, and yet they kept it together. Did

749
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 4: it change it absolutely? You know in that sense. I

750
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 4: don't know if you're familiar with the rhyme of the

751
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 4: Ancient Mariner, but that famous poem. It begins with this

752
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 4: crazy old guy sitting outside of a church and he

753
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 4: accosts this young man on the way into a wedding

754
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 4: and says, I gotta tell you, And that's kind of

755
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 4: I've been doing this for two years around the world,

756
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 4: and I feel compelled to tell people because it's really

757
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 4: bad and it can happen to us, and it feels

758
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,399
Speaker 4: incredibly urgent to me, and I honestly don't want other

759
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 4: people to suffer the way the people I met and

760
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:11,760
Speaker 4: interviewed suffered.

761
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,879
Speaker 3: So yeah, it did change me. And with that, we're

762
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 3: going to take a few questions now. So we have one,

763
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 3: but we have many questions. Where shore again the volunteer.

764
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 3: I think there's a mic. Do we have a roving mic? Oh,

765
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 3: this one doesn't work. Okay, We're gonna get a substitute.

766
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 3: Mike will be back. Okay, we're good. Apologies, we're live.

767
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 3: So questions, got some in the front here. I'll let

768
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 3: you do the honors you can choose.

769
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 4: Okay, right here, there's a fellow front and center. Thank you, John.

770
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 5: Your book is a warning to us all many of

771
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 5: us were in twenty nineteen, and I was personally evacuated

772
00:47:55,239 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 5: just fifteen minutes from Yeah, wow, I'm in twenty nineteen.

773
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 5: Greg Mullins also warned our government and wrote a book

774
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:09,760
Speaker 5: called Firestorm Australian Condition you're calling it out. It happened

775
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,919
Speaker 5: again in Jasper last year. Our government just to proved

776
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 5: the biggest carbon bomb in history. What is the Canadian

777
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 5: government doing? Because we're not learning here.

778
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 4: I really I'm living your reality too. And Canada is

779
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 4: very heavily influenced, not quite owned, but pretty close to

780
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:38,720
Speaker 4: it by the petroleum lobby. The anxiety around the United States,

781
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:44,239
Speaker 4: driven by Trump's aggressive language about annexing Canada, has made

782
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 4: it imperative for Canada to become more self sufficient energy.

783
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 4: Petroleum is what they have to sell, and so they're

784
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 4: actively seeking new pipeline permits and new markets for their

785
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 4: fossil fuels as a of national survival strategy. And so

786
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 4: we have a very probably the smartest, one of the

787
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 4: smartest Prime ministers Canada has ever had, this guy, Mark Carney,

788
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 4: very sophisticated guy, fully understands the climate risk that we

789
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 4: find ourselves in. But he's also beholden to the petroleum

790
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 4: industry that helped him get elected and to what Canada

791
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 4: has that's fungible right now, which is petroleum product. And

792
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 4: so we are really behind in the energy transition, which,

793
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 4: by the way, folks, is happening and Australia is actually

794
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 4: making great progress on renewable energy. Texas again, you could say,

795
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 4: the Alberta of the United States, conservative climate denying oil

796
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 4: state is producing more wind and solar and adding to

797
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 4: that more rapidly than any other date in North America.

798
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 4: And you'd think California would be the leader or New

799
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:07,280
Speaker 4: York would be the leader. Well, Texas is the leader,

800
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 4: and so we find progress in some strange and unlikely places,

801
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 4: which means I think we don't need to agree with

802
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 4: everybody on everything in order to move in the right direction.

803
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 4: But Canada right now is woefully behind. And I follow

804
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 4: Australia and energy and climate issues kind of off the

805
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 4: side of my desk. Australia gets a lot of attention

806
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 4: in Part three of Fire Weather because you are so

807
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:41,760
Speaker 4: important to the fire story and the energy and climate

808
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 4: change story, and we have a lot to learn from Australians.

809
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 4: With that study, revealed to me is how similar Canada's

810
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 4: and Australia's policies and lack of policy are. I think

811
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 4: though honestly, I think Australia, believe it or not, is

812
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 4: a little ahead of Canada, and I would have objectively

813
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 4: assumed it might be the opposite, but it isn't.

814
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 3: So we're struggling to kick our carbon addiction. I think

815
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 3: is the yeah, the issue here, So one of the

816
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 3: questions we're going to go pink, lady and pink.

817
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:21,440
Speaker 6: So just going on from the last question, have you

818
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 6: noticed you mentioned that the fire was something that people

819
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 6: had never experienced before, never had anything like it in

820
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 6: Fort mc murray. Now, can you can you see any different,

821
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 6: any change either in attitudes around that area, So not

822
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 6: so much on Canada as the whole country, but has

823
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:43,959
Speaker 6: that triggered people a change and whatever change you can see.

824
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 4: It's it's very spotty, but there's definitely action at the

825
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 4: community level. And for example, Steamboat Springs, Colorado has a

826
00:51:54,640 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 4: very proactive urban fire group who is really trying to

827
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 4: improve evacuation policy, improve defensive space. I don't know if

828
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 4: you use the same language here in Australia about this

829
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 4: notion of defensible space around a house, around a neighborhood,

830
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 4: around a community. And so we're seeing but I so

831
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 4: far haven't seen provincial policy or national policy. And yet

832
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 4: at the same time, we in Canada have a program

833
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 4: called fire Wise, which is sorry fire smart, it's fire

834
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 4: wise in the US fire smart where members of the

835
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 4: fire departments will come into your cul de sac or

836
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:44,839
Speaker 4: backyard or community meeting and talk to you about how

837
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 4: you can basically harden your community against wildfire impacts, and

838
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 4: so that part is definitely happening. I think also what

839
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 4: we're seeing because there have been so much fire in

840
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 4: Canada over the past few years, that there's a lot

841
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:05,800
Speaker 4: more preemptive of evacuation. Because Fort McMurray was an absolute

842
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,240
Speaker 4: gong show, and again, it is a miracle that nobody

843
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,279
Speaker 4: died there, and a death toll of hundreds would have

844
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 4: been totally plausible under the circumstances, and that would have

845
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 4: been a national catastrophe that we would still be reeling from.

846
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 4: And we got to pass that time. And a number

847
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 4: of municipal leaders now and fire chiefs understand how lucky

848
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 4: Fort McMurray was in terms of loss of life that

849
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 4: there was none, and so now people are a bit

850
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 4: more conservative in terms of getting people out sooner. That

851
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 4: feels like progress to me. In terms of actually fighting fire,

852
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 4: we don't really have the means. Water doesn't work against

853
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 4: fires of this intensity, and you can lay down fire retardant,

854
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 4: but the Dixie Fire in California a couple of years ago.

855
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:03,839
Speaker 4: It cast viablemer is ten miles They started fires ten

856
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 4: miles away. There's no way you can build a fire

857
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 4: break against that. Likewise, with pyrocumulonimbus fire clouds which occur here,

858
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 4: which occur in places where they've never occurred before. Now

859
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 4: they generate lightning same way volcanoes do, and so they

860
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 4: can start a fire thirty or forty miles away from

861
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 4: the center of the fire action. And again there's no firebreak.

862
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 4: No amount of water is going to stop that. So

863
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 4: we're entering this, you know, a truly different reality in

864
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 4: terms of what fire is capable of doing, and we

865
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 4: are catching up to that very very slowly. But there

866
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:47,399
Speaker 4: are individuals in different communities. I find them everywhere I go,

867
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 4: where people have either taken the message of fire weather

868
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 4: to heart or had their own experiences, you know, really

869
00:54:56,560 --> 00:55:00,919
Speaker 4: hard one lessons learned, and you know, I think that's

870
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:04,280
Speaker 4: another place. So where I think Australia is probably ahead

871
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 4: of the game, ahead of the rest of us, and

872
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:08,759
Speaker 4: where we have a lot to learn. I think Australia,

873
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 4: and in terms of larger entities, I feel like Australia

874
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:15,440
Speaker 4: and California. That would be the two most progressive places

875
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 4: and southern sorry, Southern Australia and California. And but it's

876
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:24,319
Speaker 4: it's a big question, but it's very erratic, very sporadic.

877
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 3: Right now, I think we have time for one more

878
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 3: quick question. Are we doing town?

879
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,320
Speaker 4: Yes? So, I if I have at the side of

880
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 4: the ruello right there eagerly waving in a blue jacket

881
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 4: directly in front of you, Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.

882
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 7: And while we hate using North americanisms in Australia, I

883
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 7: think perhaps we need to start calling them wildfires as

884
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 7: opposed to bush fires, because they are ferocious. I just

885
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,800
Speaker 7: wanted to ask you, with your work, how much do

886
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 7: you believe that heating is so baked into the system,

887
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 7: whatever we do in the short term, that we're going

888
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 7: to see many more horrific fires of this nature in

889
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 7: unexpected places.

890
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I have to be pretty sanguine about that. Uh.

891
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 4: You know, when you look at CO two, when you

892
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 4: look at methane, when you look at temperature, uh, when

893
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 4: you look at the US debt, Uh, they're all going

894
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:31,360
Speaker 4: in one direction and pretty steeply. And so when you

895
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 4: look at what's happening in the south of France right now,

896
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:36,880
Speaker 4: pretty much the worst fire in their history literally right now,

897
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 4: and you look at across the Eastern Mediterranean, lethal and

898
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 4: catastrophic fire is burning in several different countries, and we

899
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:50,399
Speaker 4: got a ways to go this summer, so I think

900
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 4: we can expect a lot more of it, And in

901
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 4: terms of it being baked in, you know there there

902
00:56:56,160 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 4: there's a lot of anxiety around, justified anxiety around on

903
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 4: the state of permafrost in the far north in the

904
00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 4: and the amount of methane that is trapped there and

905
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 4: that is released as it melts, and methane is a

906
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 4: really potent greenhouse gas. So on the good news, it's

907
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 4: looking like China's CO two emissions are plateauing and are

908
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 4: probably going to go into decline as they catch up

909
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 4: with renewable energy, which they've been leaning into harder than

910
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 4: anybody else combined. And so you know a lot of

911
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 4: naysayers will say, yeah, but look at all the coal

912
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:39,640
Speaker 4: plants they're building. They are building a lot of coal plants,

913
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 4: but increasingly those are backups for the wind and solar,

914
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 4: and the wind and solar is now finally catching up

915
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 4: so that their emissions are are plateauing and are probably

916
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:53,479
Speaker 4: going to decrease, and whether that's you know, so that's

917
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 4: that is historic planetary change given the size of their

918
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 4: economy and energy needs. But then you have you know,

919
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 4: the US, you know, going into regression, but the rest

920
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 4: of the world is dialing into this energy transition that

921
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 4: is on that is own root that I would say

922
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 4: is inevitable. It's not going to happen as fast as

923
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:22,800
Speaker 4: the smartphone happened, but it's absolutely happening. The solar is

924
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 4: the cheapest energy ever conceived, and it's being laid on

925
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 4: at a rate that we've never seen before. So but

926
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 4: we're going to see more fire too, and we have

927
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 4: to get ready for it.

928
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 3: We should also say as well that every ounce of

929
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 3: common prevented fromentoring in the atmosphere does have a positive

930
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 3: effect as well. So things are changing.

931
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 4: So the last thing I would want to end on

932
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 4: is Planet Earth's default mode is abundance and flourishing, and

933
00:58:55,800 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 4: that's what it always returns to. After every fire, after

934
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 4: every flood, after every drought, things grow back. It may

935
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 4: not be the same things, but this is a ferocious

936
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 4: growing engine that we are lucky enough to live on.

937
00:59:13,680 --> 00:59:16,479
Speaker 4: It's extraordinarily powerful. And one of the things I learned

938
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 4: from a book I wrote called The Tiger is as

939
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 4: soon as you stop killing tigers, they breed like cats.

940
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:26,640
Speaker 4: They come back ferociously. You know, as long as there

941
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 4: is a prey base, they will they will just expand

942
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 4: and h and flourish. So and we've seen that when

943
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 4: we've we've taken dams out of rivers in the United States,

944
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 4: how quickly the fish come back and the birds come back.

945
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of very good and potent energy

946
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 4: out there that we're part of and that we can

947
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 4: participate in and enable.

948
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:50,400
Speaker 3: So with that, we're going to wrap the session. Before

949
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 3: you go, don't just don't rush off. I want to

950
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 3: say thank you to the volunteers today. Thank you to

951
00:59:56,040 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 3: you guys for being here. And please, for those of

952
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 3: us who work with words, this is our life, a heart,

953
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 3: are living in our art. Thank you for being here

954
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:09,479
Speaker 3: to support this. Thank you for being here to support John.

955
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 3: Please go buy the book. Queue out the door to

956
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 3: get this, to get it signed, ask him all your questions.

957
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 4: Be here for an hour.

958
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 3: We appreciate you being here under these circumstances, and please

959
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 3: make John feel very welcome.

960
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 8: This time of year. Everyone talks about going dry, but

961
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 8: at Athletic Brewing Company, we're skipping that because we prefer

962
01:00:58,240 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 8: going athletic, which isn't dry at all. From crisp goldens

963
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:05,600
Speaker 8: to hoppyipas and limited releases in between, you'll find something

964
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:08,520
Speaker 8: that fits your style. Every single non alcoholic brew is

965
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 8: packed with flavor and the same craft experience you love.

966
01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 8: So yeah, you could call it dry, but there's really

967
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:16,960
Speaker 8: nothing dry about it. Find your new favorite near beer

968
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:20,959
Speaker 8: at Athleticbrewing dot com. Athletic Brewing Company Fit for all

969
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:21,440
Speaker 8: times