Kind: captions
Language: en
foreign
[Music]
event in itself
I have been so surprised to see these
monsters
I'm on the air saying look at this thing
look at what this hurricane is doing
as our weather becomes more extreme the
hotter it gets the drier it gets the
drier it gets the hotter it gets the
weather is wacko this is a system shift
water becomes scarce this is one of the
main sources of drinking water there's
hardly any water in it
storms become stronger the rain now
comes a lot angrier 30 or 40 mile an
hour winds howls for days on end
homes are destroyed we had the types of
fires that humans just simply can't stop
extreme weather is taking its toll
as the storms get stronger as we lose
more land you lose a peace
of Who You Are
thank you
but across the country many are fighting
back
this is my home
we're not going anywhere
by innovating Solutions we can
substantially cool down cities without
major expenditures marshalling ancient
wisdom we're setting the landscape on a
trajectory to accept fire in a good way
it's worked for 10 000 years it can work
again
there's nothing we can't do if we use
all the technology available to us
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we know what needs to be done we just
have to have the will to act and do it
weathering the future right now on Nova
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it's all over the news
the weather is a Hot Topic the number of
extreme weather events that Force news
directors to place Us in the top of
every newscast are multiplying
Florida's chief meteorologist John
Morales John Morales has been covering
the weather for over 30 years
and he's never seen anything like it
there's more coming I mean it's crazy
the number of extreme events and just
how extreme they get I don't think
meteorologists have lived through an era
that's worse than this wildfires
floods drought
disasters that were once rare now
hitting again and again
extreme weather is the new normal in
many parts of this country
people see that it's raining with more
intensity and hurricanes are
intensifying more rapidly in the drought
and heat waves are more severe
the U.S has always been home to a wide
range of weather
our geography and physics play major
roles
the jet stream generally pushes weather
systems from west to east those systems
pick up moisture from the terrain below
like bodies of water and vegetation then
release it as rain and snow as the air
rises and cools being between two oceans
and having the Gulf of Mexico to our
South in a large dry cold continent to
the north every extreme weather event
that can be produced you can generally
find right here in the U.S
so the weather naturally varies across
the country but we've gotten used to its
predictable patterns
our whole climate how we've set up our
Springs and our summer activities and
our fall activities and what we do in
the winter is based around a certain
climate zone but now things aren't so
predictable and the outcomes are more
extreme seasonal fires are blazing year
round
snowpack in the Sierras washed away by
rain
and Midwestern Farmers facing sudden
downpours that scour their fields this
affects our health it affects the safety
of our homes it affects our water our
food our supply chains the economy it
affects every aspect of Our Lives
causing these shifts
many scientists agree that the
underlying cause of much of this strange
weather is more heat in the system
global warming
oh my gosh that was our way home the
weather is wacko this is not just
episodic this is a system shift
while people around the world work to
cut carbon pollution and protect against
future harm what can we do about impacts
from extreme weather that are already
here
Across the Nation communities are
already fighting back and finding
Solutions demonstrating resilience
resourcefulness and creativity
in the face of extreme change
thank you
July in Atlanta Georgia
excruciatingly hot muggy humid
researchers fan out across the city with
one Mission find out just how hot
Atlanta really is
temperature might seem like an easy
number to come by
but it's not most cities only utilize a
single thermometer to measure the
weather that is your basic Airport
weather station and that is a rather
ludicrous proposition we need to be
measuring temperature and humidity
extensively across cities
more temperature data could help save
lives
because when it comes to our changing
weather heat is one of the biggest
Killers I don't think people immediately
think heat waves they think hurricanes
they think wildfires but heat is the
silent killer since the 1930s average
temperatures in Atlanta have risen about
three degrees Fahrenheit but the average
isn't what matters when you shift that a
couple of degrees it puts you in a whole
different climate zone it's a bell curve
we're looking at a distribution of
temperatures a couple of degrees a
slight change in that average shifts you
into entirely new area where the hots
get put in extreme heat that's when we
have to rearrange our lifestyle extreme
heat overwhelms human bodies
muscle slow
heartbeats weaken
blood pressures Plunge
kidneys shut down
days over 90 degrees have been linked to
over a thousand deaths a year in the U.S
so what parts of Atlanta are at the
highest risk
we know that some areas in Atlanta are
hotter than others that's what nataki
jelks an environmental health scientist
at Spelman College wants to know
she equips students with portable
sensors so that they can collect
temperature data on the street
how do we identify those areas that are
most vulnerable that's really what I'm
looking at
nataki's measurements are starting to
paint a clear picture some neighborhoods
are a lot hotter than others we've seen
7 to 10 degrees difference in some
places
mapping the data reveals the reason
the data is telling us that areas that
are most laid with asphalt and concrete
and a lack of vegetation or the pot is
Temptation like trees not only provide
shade but it also absorbs heat from the
environment
but trees are often the first thing to
go when cities expand
we basically engineered cities to be hot
we come in we remove trees it gets
hotter since 2014 Atlanta has lost to
nearly 80 000 trees to development
and the materials replacing the greenery
aggravate the problem we bring in
mineral-based materials like asphalt
concrete roofing shingle that also
renders cities hotter concrete and
asphalt make cities hotter because they
absorb the sun's energy and re-radiate
it as heat even well into the night it's
the warm nighttime temperatures that
cause the health problems
human bodies can recover if they are
given a break
so warmer nights mean more heat related
illness
especially for those who don't have air
conditioning and it's the neighborhoods
that can least afford it that get hit
the hardest
there is this absolute connection we've
planted our trees in areas that have
more money and more resources compared
to areas that don't
with temperatures Rising can Atlanta and
other cities undo the damage
scientists say it is possible cities can
act today and really have control over
the most effective levers to cool
themselves down
Phoenix Arizona
with little vegetation to begin with the
city is even hotter than the desert that
surrounds it
so they must find a way to cool the city
almost every summer we have a hundred
days or more over 100 degrees and
regularly each summer we're exceeding
110 degrees
to learn how Phoenix is coping with its
heat
nataki jelks is visiting from Atlanta to
meet with David hondulla
he is charged with finding solutions to
the growing heat crisis as the Director
of Phoenix's office of heat response and
mitigation
it's the first post of its kind in the
country you ever go into any of the
cooling centers the cooler hit and like
you know I feel the heat escaping me
Phoenix hit crisis mode when in a
five-year period heat related deaths
more than doubled to over 300 in 2021
and yet David is optimistic while we
look into the future we're we're
certainly expecting it to be warmer but
that doesn't have to mean that people
are suffering at a higher rate to keep
Phoenix cooler David is pushing
something in short supply
shade
the human body absorbs energy from the
air around it
but direct sunlight can add up to 15
degrees to what the body experiences
when we're under a tree we've eliminated
a lot of the incoming solar energy that
can cause our body to heat up and
blocking that can be really impactful
shade is life-saving and I say like
Phoenix
Now Phoenix is committing over seven
million dollars to planting drought
tolerant trees over the next few years
but for these so-called cool corridors
it takes years for the trees to mature
and the shade to pay off
at the city's layout another more
immediate opportunity jumps out
about 5 000 miles of hot asphalt roads
soaking up the sun's energy
anytime we can find hot ground and make
it less hot that will produce a cooling
benefit with respect to the air
temperature
the idea is simple re-coat the roads
with a special sealant that will reflect
about 35 percent of the sun's energy
which means less energy is absorbed by
the asphalt and re-radiated as heat
in 2020 the city launched a pilot
program to cover 36 miles of roads in
eight neighborhoods
take a reading here with our infrared
thermometer and we've got but does it
work
s sensitive images taken from a
helicopter reveal a striking difference
the more reflective surface is as much
as 16 degrees cooler
and an MIT study projects that it could
lower the average temperature of some
cities by two and a half degrees
now we are seeing new approaches which
are really exciting for cities all
across the country we could wind up with
a city of the future that's cooler than
the one we have today we can
substantially cool down cities in a
relatively quick period of time without
major expenditures and so that's really
good news
the good news is welcome because it's
getting hotter everywhere not only in
already hot places
in fact models project the biggest
increases in the north and interior
regions of the country
by 2100 New York City could feel like
South Carolina Chicago like Montgomery
Alabama Denver like Northern Mexico
Rising temperatures agitate the entire
weather system dramatically impacting
the cycle of evaporation condensation
and precipitation
some areas that are already dry get
drier
and so there's this feedback as we call
it between heat and dry conditions and
dry conditions and heat the hotter it
gets the drier it gets the drier it gets
the hotter it gets that's what's
happening in a warmer world
the result
extreme drought
the American southwest is suffering its
most persistent drought in 1200 years
leaving no one untouched
the kind of drought occasional downpours
can't break
what's going on in California is we've
transitioned from a prolonged drought to
what's known as a mega drought
one that lasts numerous years
that have created critical shortages of
a basic need
drinking water
so these aren't rain clouds it hasn't
rained here in over two months
mehul Patel is executive director of
operations for the Orange County Water
District
two and a half million people in Orange
County California depend on him for Safe
Drinking Water
one might expect him to be extremely
worried is C2 going to go into a
backwash the pressure's super high
that's what we're always worried about
that's as much as we're going to get
exactly because Orange County has turned
to an abundant nearly drought proof
Source that's a good sign you know but
one that's only mildly disgusting
waste water Wastewater is anything that
you generate in the home that ends up in
a drain that includes the toilet the
washing machine the sinks
the yuck factor is difficult to overcome
but I think we need to be practical
because the solutions are harder and
harder to come by
so why waste water
in many ways they didn't have a choice
the first thing to understand about this
area is that two and a half million
people rely on groundwater
groundwater is mostly rainfall and snow
melt captured in spaces below ground
and Wells can tap it for drinking water
but by the late 1990s Orange County's
rapidly growing population was straining
its Supply
if the county didn't act fast it could
mean disaster
this groundwater aquifer actually is
physically connected to the ocean
and as the water level drops sea water
tends to take its place meaning it'll
infiltrate right into the groundwater
Basin and make it so salty that it's not
potable
the county was running low on water and
time
we only had probably 5 10 15 years
before the point where we really got to
find another source of water the
inability to have drinking water in an
area with two and a half million people
is just not something that we could let
happen we had to get more water into the
aquifer as quick as possible
three minutes okay and then see but the
challenge was where do we get that water
from
one possibility was to take water from
the ocean itself you can actually
extract salt from the ocean water you
can turn it into drinking water but it
takes lots and lots of energy and so
that's done in really arid areas of the
world where energy is more abundant and
is not as costly as it is in Southern
California
they also considered pumping more water
from elsewhere
water is today's
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preserved for future use
moving water from areas of abundance to
areas of scarcity was the kind of Mega
engineering that made the modern State
of California possible
over 1500 dams and about 4 000 miles of
canals had been rerouting water across
the state for decades
but the population had exploded
more than tripling since the 1950s
with the system nearing a breaking point
one thing was clear the old engineering
Solutions of the past just weren't going
to sustain us going forward
so they focused on a source flowing
right under their noses
200 million gallons of Wastewater
literally going down the drain every day
but how do you turn the County's dirty
water into something people can actually
drink
it starts at the Orange County sewage
treatment plant
here the largest solids are separated
from the raw sewage
and smaller particles are allowed to
settle to the bottom of enormous tanks
aerating the remaining Wastewater
provides oxygen to pollutant eating
bacteria which processed the water to be
clean enough to release into the
environment
for decades that meant all of the
treated water was pumped several miles
out into the Pacific Ocean
literally tens of millions of gallons a
day just going out to the ocean being
lost essentially could those millions of
gallons be the solution to Orange
County's dwindling aquifer and also make
their system essentially drought proof
we knew that people had done water
recycling they just hadn't done it to a
point where that water could be really
efficiently reintroduced into a
groundwater Basin but we knew it was
possible
today nahal's plant finishes the job
it's a computer operated system of
airtight tubes and underground pipes
at the heart of the operation is a
process called reverse osmosis where
1000 horsepower engines push the water
through tightly wrapped membranes
filtering out impurities like
Pharmaceuticals viruses and salts so
this is the end of the process we can
see how the Water started out you can
see everything that was removed
and then you can see the purified water
here that's safe enough to drink
but we'll still go through a couple more
steps after this
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replenishing the aquifer
Orange County's waste water recycling
operation is the largest of its kind in
the world
processing up to 130 million gallons a
day
and it is serving as a model for other
California communities
including San Francisco Los Angeles and
San Diego all facing their own dry
future
I'm very convinced that a solution
similar to this can be done in other
places
you can follow the recipe in a lot of
places where the same infrastructure
exists there's nothing we can't do today
if we just put our mind to it and use
all the technology available to us
but drought is not only impacting
drinking water
about 700 miles north of Orange County
the coastal forests are also thirsty
the rugged Klamath River Region of
Northern California is an outdoor
Paradise
I love living here I don't know if I
could live anywhere else and be as happy
as I am here
these idyllic mountain valleys are home
to tens of thousands including
indigenous tribes like the karuk
but people here know that danger lurks
in these Woods
we have to have our most precious things
packed because you don't know how much
time you're going to have to get out
on September 8 2020 residents of the
town of Happy Camp get the order to
leave
fast
the mountains are on fire
Fierce winds and unusually dry
conditions fuel the Flames those are the
types of fires that that humans simply
can't stop
fire ravages the town
destroying more than 200 homes
a lot of native peoples homes burnt and
a lot of them had to move out
a lot of them were scared to live in
Happy Camp again
as bad as this is
not an aberration
in fact between 2012 and 2021 over 24
percent of forest land in California
burned
the intensity of wildfires that we have
now is just on a scale never known to
indigenous people it would never be
possible to have this type of fire on
the landscape
because for thousands of years
indigenous peoples in North America had
been using fire to shape and protect the
landscape
fire is not inherently bad
this landscape evolved with fire the
species on this landscape are fire
dependent species
you can't take fire out of this
landscape
fire clears out brush to make way for
fire resistant edible plants like Acorn
producing oak trees
underground bulbs and onions and berry
bushes that can Sprout back after a fire
and it creates a diverse Patchwork of
forest and grasslands
a setup ideal for hunting wild game and
Gathering food from the forest
but starting in the 1800s white settlers
to the region saw these trees as a
commercial resource
and felt New Towns had to be protected
fire suppression became a U.S government
policy for over a century
and it became a crime to conduct
intentional Burns in this part of the
country
there really wasn't a lot of burning
going on when I was growing up because
it had been criminalized particularly
for Indian people
you could get shot if you were Native
for starting a fire you go to jail
but now the frequency and severity of
fires in the west is increasing decade
by decade
Rising temperatures and cycles of
drought play A Part
but an aggravating factor is how the
forests themselves have been managed
we've removed fire from the system for
so long there's all that much fuel that
builds up and now with an additional
stressor added like climate change it
really causes problems
without regular low-intensity fires to
thin them out Western forests are now
twice as dense as they were 200 years
ago
and without the patchwork of already
burnt land to stop their progression
they can spread across a thousand square
miles
destroying towns in their path
fortunately there's a solution to this
problem
move it
now the karuk and other indigenous
peoples are securing burn permits and
bringing back their ancient practice
literally fighting fire with fire just
to start this is a ceremonial ground so
it's important to take it really slow
today tribal members are planning a
series of fires they'll be setting Down
River from Happy Camp
near the community of Orleans
so we're going to create a little bit of
a black line right in here the fire is
to protect the town and get that grassy
area burned off
starting and controlling fires in this
landscape close to an inhabited area
takes skill
to specialize expertise to know when the
wind's going to be right winds zero to
two
gusts to six when the humidity is going
to be right when we should burn for
something and when we shouldn't they
wait until dusk when it is cooler less
windy and more humid to start burning
first they carefully torch and then
extinguish a patch of grass to create
what's called a black line a barrier to
keep the fire from burning out of
control
that area won't burn so you have a
safety zone in between the places that
you're not wanting to burn
then they light fires across the field
careful to keep water hoses nearby to
handle any Flames that jump beyond the
black line or threaten trees we're
setting the landscape on a trajectory to
accept fire in a good way
and we're going to be way more set up
for when we get to do larger scale fires
the two-day burn goes off without a
hitch
what we're doing and what we're
advocating for isn't an experiment at
all we know it works
it's worked for 10 000 years in this
place and
um it can work again
we're taking that next step in bringing
fire back to the people this idea of
cultural burning it actually made its
way into the secretary's executive order
this past week
now federal and state governments in the
west see the wisdom of this approach in
2021 the U.S forest Service use
prescribed fire more than ever burning
nearly 2 million Acres of federal land
and over the next 10 years it is vowed
to manage more than 50 million Acres
with fire
Fighters were trying to prevent is
exactly what they are now facing but in
2022 the U.S forest Service made
headlines one of the two fires was
purposely set as a prescribed burn
when a planned burn in New Mexico got
out of control
high profile escapes like this are a
setback for proponents of prescribed
burning
the resulting outcry can halt the
practice for months
leaving the stage set for the next
uncontrolled wildfire
but in fact escapes rarely happen
there's inherent risk in any way of
managing fire on this landscape we want
the one that makes that risk the
smallest possible
less than 0.5 percent of prescribed
fires Escape we don't see those same
odds with containing wildfires
and what we know is that the relative
risk of being organized ahead of time of
choosing your burn window is Night and
Day from the situation in a wildfire the
current Mega fire crisis has opened up a
chance for the kuruk to finally bring
more good fire back to these mountains
and reclaim some of their Traditions
while protecting the land
our place in the world is to manage the
world you know at least our piece of the
world that's part of the reciprocity
that allowed us to live here for so long
on this landscape
foreign
as the planet warms many dry areas like
much of the West get even drier as more
water evaporates into the atmosphere
in fact for every degree Fahrenheit that
the air temperature rises the atmosphere
can hold up to four percent more water
but it can also release the added
moisture often in shorter bursts
epic storms
historic floods
when you finally get a trigger for
rainfall the rain falls harder the rain
rate is just so insanely high that you
start to get runoff you start to get
erosion you start to have crops being
damaged by just the actual raindrops
that's what's been happening in the
fertile farmlands of Eastern Iowa
on her family's Thousand Acre Farm Elisa
McFarland raises corn and soybeans
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she is the sixth generation in her
family to work this land
and now she's taking over while I tell
you where I didn't plan from her father
Tom exactly where we're at
but she's confronting conditions very
different from those her family
contended with in the past
temperatures are higher in the spring it
was 93 degrees the second day corn
planting which is entirely too warm it's
normally in the 60s
winds are stronger it used to be once in
a while you get a 30 or 40 mile an hour
wind now it's we'll get it for days on
end it's how's night day 24 hours a day
and rainstorms are different too
the rain now it comes a lot angrier
instead of having a storm roll through
in a day and you have you know an inch
of rain we had a storm roll through in
an afternoon and we got six inches of
rain and things wash away and you look
at it and it's it's so sad because
that's your land that's your livelihood
and it's it's washing away
the strongest storms in this region are
dropping over 40 percent more rain now
than in the 1950s causing historic
floods
and sweeping away the topsoil that makes
this region the breadbasket of America
soil erosion I think is an abstract
concept for a lot of folks they might
not know what it means be like how did
we lose soil where did it go
for a farmer it's our livelihood it
matters where that soil goes
farms in Iowa are losing on average more
than five tons of soil per acre per year
but surprisingly elise's Farm isn't
washing away that's because the way she
Farms her Fields preserves the soil
most farms in Iowa use a method that
arose in the 1800s with the development
of the steel plow
with these new plows farmers were able
to repeatedly turn over or till the soil
after the Harvest
this buried the leftover crop material
and killed weeds looser dirt also made
it easier to plant seeds at an optimal
depth
and tilt soil tends to warm faster
promoting germination
the plow was a game changer that helped
feed a growing Nation
but now as the weather grows more
extreme the downsides of tilling become
more apparent
if we see a bare soil like that what
happens if the wind comes well those
little dried out particles on the
surface are going to be subject to wind
erosion what happens if an intense
rainfall event happens we'll get run off
Spain soil scientist Deanne Presley
studies how different kinds of dirt
withstand today's extreme weather
she's here to see elise's approach
so this is kind of the
border between the two sections of this
field it's kind of like a crime scene
right and you can go look at that soil
and understand things about it Elisa's
soil looks different from the dirt on
conventionally farmed fields
that's because she leaves her plow in
the barn and lets the crop residue stay
right where it is
we're trying to minimize the amount of
disturbance that we're doing in that
soil we're only disturbing the part that
we really have to to put the seeds in
the ground
Elisa is going back to the ancient
method of plow free farming with a
modern twist she uses a high-tech
planter to push aside crop residue and
apply the precise pressure needed to
push seeds into the soil
in Winter Elisa grows cereal Rye in
these same Fields not to sell but to
Shield the topsoil from the elements
we have to put more stuff on the
landscape to keep that soil protected
so that really big really heavy wind
blown raindrop doesn't hit the soil
surface
but how exactly does leaving the ground
until to fight erosion
it comes down to a soil's structure
the stronger the structure the better
structure is the way sand silt and Clay
particles get organized together into
units
a soil with strong structure has a mix
of these different sized particles
creating lots of air pockets or pores
this gives room for roots to extend
gases to nourish the plants and a home
for other living things that add
nutrients to the soil
all interwoven in a matrix that holds
itself together
left undisturbed the soil builds
structure
tilling breaks down the soil structure
weakening it
scientifically we have many studies that
show that there is a huge decrease in
erosion when we use no-till that is a
definite benefit
in a hard rain poor space in soil gives
excess water a place to go much like a
sponge
so rather than running off and taking
dirt with it the water stays put within
the soil
you can just see how many pores are in
here
as a farmer When I See This the the big
pores are nice because it gets the water
in but then also seeing all those
smaller pores that's what holds the rain
water for a drought so that when we have
those big
big rains that come through as much as
we can get that into the soil that's
what's going to tide us over when it
dries out and we have drought conditions
again
leaving nutrients undisturbed means less
money spent on fertilizers and fewer
trips across the field in a tractor
saves on fuel
across the U.S more farmers are adopting
no-till techniques while Nationwide
no-till makes up about 20 percent of
total Acres
in Iowa that number is closer to 30
percent but the necessary Precision
planting equipment is pricey
making any radical change in a farmer's
approach costly
flipping a switch and entirely changing
things on a farm it's a pretty risky
thing to do and for some Farmers it
takes a couple of years to really see
the benefits of doing no-till
these extreme weather events might cause
more people to look at no-tilla as a
serious option if they haven't already
because of the fact that they don't want
to have intense rainfall carrying their
soil away or losing that opportunity to
catch water
I think that there's a huge opportunity
for farmers
it just takes time and a shift in
perspective
and a community of people that bring
others along
warmer wetter air creates intense
rainstorms across the Midwest
for 100 million Americans living in
coastal communities more destructive
storms are also an increasing worry
hurricanes are my forte it's what I'm an
expert at and I myself have been so
surprised over the years to see the
number of Rapid intensification cycles
that hurricanes are going through
hurricanes are fueled by energy from the
ocean
today during Hurricane Season the Gulf
of Mexico is about one to two degrees
warmer than it was in the 1980s
and that warmer water
supercharges storms on on the air saying
look at this thing look at what this
hurricane is doing so a historic event
in itself recent hurricanes Blow Away
previous records for Destruction
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costing over a trillion dollars in 20
years and counting
we're not necessarily seeing more
hurricanes but we're seeing that a
greater proportion of them are indeed
becoming these monsters
one place especially hard hit
the coast of Louisiana where the
Mississippi River meets the Gulf of
Mexico
creating about six thousand square miles
of River delta Wetlands here the sea is
swallowing the land
we are on Grand Bayou in Grand Bayou
Village
this is my home
and this is the home of my people and
we've been here for a little more than
400 years
Rosina Felipe is an elder of the atacapa
eshak chawasha tribe a lot of the places
where you see water it was landed not
just land Highland Hills hard dirt but
now no more none of that anymore
the land has washed away
one study found sea level here rising at
a rate four times the global average
Elder Chief shirelle parfae dardar a
member of a nearby community the grand
Caillou dulack band of the Biloxi
chitimacha Choctaw tribe is also seeing
her home threatened by land loss
we call these skeleton trees
when you look out and you see these
trees you know that land was there at
one time right but all that's left is
the submerged tree and water holding on
for as long as it can
the impacts of more intense storms and
Rising seas are felt here now
in large part because the land has
already been eroded by human activity
fed by rivers and streams across much of
the continent the Mississippi River
picks up sediment
and would naturally deposit it in the
Delta constantly replenishing the
wetlands
but starting in the 1900s a series of
federal construction projects began to
interfere with that natural system
levees to prevent flooding dams to
improve navigation
the result less flooding in some
communities and More River trade but
also less sediment reaching the wetlands
and then starting in the 1930s oil and
gas companies cut 10 000 miles of canals
through the wetlands to reach their
Wells
speeding erosion even more
and so all of this is coming together in
a way that we used to have this really
strong protective barrier along the Gulf
Coast that just is not there anymore
then you add rising sea levels to all of
that
and it's eating away even more so it are
natural barriers that we have
since 1935 a quarter of Louisiana's
coastline has vanished
that's an area about the size of
Delaware
and every hundred minutes water claims
on average another football fields worth
of land
as we lose land we lose storm
protections right so the community has
become much more vulnerable over time
they can only take so many hits
one of the most destructive hits arrived
in 2021 16 years to the day after
Katrina
a category 4 hurricane named Ida
hurricane Idol was a very strong storm
I had never seen anything like that in
my life Ida's wind speed nearly doubled
as it approached the coast from 85 miles
per hour to a hundred and fifty pushing
a storm surge of water up to 12 feet
high across the land you can still see
blue roof tops right and those are tarps
that are still on the roofs all these
months after Hurricane Ida
it's estimated that Ida wiped out more
than 75 square miles of wetlands
and destroyed about 13 000 homes in the
area
including Elder Chief Shirelles
for many Ida was the last straw
if you ever got up in an airplane and
flew over this place it would break your
heart yeah really
I remember it was my first time looking
at it you know from a bird's eye view
and I couldn't hold back the tears I
cried seeing what has happened you know
to my home
as the storms get stronger as we lose
more land people move away
people can't stay where they're not safe
and as they move away you lose a piece
of Who You Are
those who live in these wetlands are
starting to confront the possibility of
losing their land entirely
if we want to remain as a people we need
to look into resettling somewhere
together and trying to rebuild our lives
there
still shirelle and many others are
fighting to preserve their ancestral
land
we that are here we're not going
anywhere and we have to not only protect
but still here but work to see what can
be built back
Louisiana is working on several massive
projects to protect its Coast
releasing sediment into endangered
wetlands
upgrading levees and sea walls
installing new floodgates
but such Mega projects can take years to
approve and complete
so locals are taking matters into their
own hands
with some Innovative low-cost solutions
to buy more time
you know we still live on the Water by
the water and we try to make sure that
we can maintain a presence here
one idea begins with a local delicacy
oysters
a local organization gathers empty
shells by the ton from restaurant
kitchens they are bagged
and loaded into boats to create a new
break water Reef
Rosina travels to check out one such
oyster Reef near a strip of land her
tribe calls lemon tree Mound
lemon trees were found to be growing
there
it was a gift to the people from The
Creator so that site is a particular
importance to my people to protect this
sacred site volunteers carefully layered
200 tons of bagged oyster shells just a
few feet offshore and then let the
oysters natural life cycle do the work
these artificial reefs become a breeding
ground for new oysters
after birth oyster larvae attach
themselves to the older oyster shells
and begin creating their own shells
as the oyster beds grow in size and
height they weaken the waves before they
reach the shore
that slows down erosion
as you can see behind the break of the
sacks the water is more still so it
stops the wave action
these oyster shell reefs can reduce the
rate of erosion by up to 60 percent
according to one study
and in the last 10 years 8 000 feet of
oyster reefs have been created in the
region by recycling more than 10 million
pounds of shells
the oceans being bivalves they help to
filter water it's promoting the marine
life in the area so it's just a win-win
from the waters
to the table you know and back into the
waters we're completing a cycle and just
continues to pay forward
and Louisiana isn't the only place where
oyster reefs have caught on
since 2010 San Diego San Francisco
Galveston the Chesapeake Bay and New
York City have also embraced oysters in
an effort to hold back the waves
but in none of these places is the need
for a solution more immediate than here
in Louisiana
there are so many things that need to
happen to combat the critical losses
that we're facing here in coastal
Louisiana in conjunction with other
larger projects that will take the next
10 20 years to implement these type of
projects can go into the environment in
a year's time two years really quick so
you will see the benefits of having them
in place and I think we all win because
of that
extreme weather is changing lives all
across America
climate change is load ing these weather
dice
more dangerous
[Music]
making our heavy rainfall more intense
making our drought stronger and longer
lasting are hurricanes to intensify
faster and dump a lot more rain on us
people are waking up to the fact that
adapting to these extremes is something
we're all going to have to do some
sooner than others we are on the front
line in many places could benefit from
paying attention to the challenges that
we're going through so that maybe they
can start to address those challenges a
lot sooner
search for Creative Solutions is on and
forging new collaborations
not only do we have this Western fire
science that we're using we also have
indigenous knowledge that goes back for
thousands of years
we know that there are things that we
can be doing better and we work together
to make those changes and I think that
that's what that's what gives me hope
for the future
the solutions might start small but they
all have the potential to make a
difference we need Solutions across the
board we need the big systems changes
but at the same time
our individual actions and our smaller
scale Solutions the really cool projects
that are happening all around the
country right now are so important
I'm in all hands on deck type person so
let's do all of those the local scale
actions and the large policy as well
we know what needs to be done we just
have to have the will to act and do it
[Music]
thank you
[Music]
[Applause]
foreign
[Music]
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