How Your Vote Can Combat Extreme Weather and Save the Planet

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This is Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media.

I'm your host, Stacey Abrams.

Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to take a moment as this is the last episode before the election.

And I wanted to give you a quick final word for me, or as I like to do, three things.

Number one,

remember that the polls are a snapshot of what someone else thinks might be true.

What matters is what we make real by showing up.

Number two, Vice President Kamala Harris can absolutely win.

If we're in the margin of error, the mistake is not showing up.

So take no vote for granted.

Call, text, email, plead with anyone you know who knows what the right thing to do is.

Listen to their concerns, but remind them that we get one shot at this and we need them to show up.

And then three, we need to understand we can't eliminate those who wish us harm, but we can outwork them.

So do whatever you can wherever you are and then do more.

It works.

I promise.

I'm from Georgia.

We've proven it.

Just know that we can get this done.

And now let's get to the show.

Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Cricket Media.

I'm your host.

Stacey Abrams.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where in exchange for year-round access to beaches and a three-week winter, hurricanes were a part of the deal.

The first one I remember was Hurricane Frederick in 1979.

Massive, destructive, this storm became my marker for a quarter century, when Hurricane Katrina became one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever strike the United States.

By then, although much of my family remained in Mississippi, I was living here in Georgia, an area far from the warm waters of my youth, but no hurricanes.

However, climate change has altered how hot our summers are and how unpredictable the waters have become.

The frequency of extreme weather events spanning even wider areas is another marker.

From the air, the view of Hurricane Helene's toll in Augusta is staggering.

Neighborhoods left in disarray from the storm's strong winds, which toppled trees and knocked down power lines.

It's my house.

I've lived here for my daughter's entire life.

Crystal Watson has lived in this home for about a decade.

As Hurricane Helene tore through, four trees came crashing down, narrowly missing two bedrooms where people were sleeping.

Hurricane Helene hit previously untouched portions of Georgia and North Carolina, leaving nearly 100 people still missing.

Over 230 people perished, and residents are continuing to grapple with the aftermath.

Contaminated water, damaged roads and power lines, and trying to make sense of what to do now with their homes swept away almost entirely.

Then, just two weeks after Helene, Hurricane Milton landed in Florida.

3 million people lost power.

Tornadoes that formed ahead of the storm killed at least 10 people and more than 300 residents had to be rescued from the disaster zone.

Earlier this year, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, predicted one of the most active hurricane seasons we've ever seen.

And every year, it seems like we get more weather headlines with the words record-breaking.

whether it's hurricanes, flash droughts, wildfires, or heat waves.

We're talking in a year in which there are 13 straight months of record-breaking heat.

We hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over the course of a year for the first time ever.

So we are seeing kind of climate breakdown in an unprecedented way.

Meteorologists have taken note of the increasing frequency and unfathomable magnitude of extreme weather events.

For example, John Morales is a hurricane specialist for NBC6 in South Florida.

He was live on air reading new information about how strong Milton was getting in the Gulf of Mexico.

And his colleagues on NBC6 asked him about his reaction to the storms a few days later.

You have been known not to be an alarmist throughout the many years that you have worked in this market, both in English and in Spanish.

You have always been steadfast and never alarming the television audience.

Very few times.

Very few times.

Very few times.

Maybe for Irma, certainly I recall being alarmed for Andrew way back in the day I recall being alarmed for Maria and Puerto Rico that I served through social media I was alarmed but the problem is I am alarmed a lot more often nowadays than I used to be with the looming election how we address the issue of extreme weather is an existential issue and it is urgent We have two candidates who are taking very different approaches to this conversation.

Donald Trump has not only trafficked in disinformation and conspiracy theories, but we know Project 2025 will have real consequences.

They seek to cut back disaster funding and gut the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program, which will make it harder for families to rebuild.

They want to dismantle the National Weather Service and make Americans pay to receive life-saving weather alerts.

They seek to reduce FEMA's ability to support local governments, and that will hinder disaster response.

On the other hand, Kamala Harris's plans would increase attention on the need for climate action and improve disaster preparedness and response, including ongoing federal investment in weather tracking, local and state preparedness, and supporting families in the aftermath.

Now, here on Assembly Required, we know it's not hard to talk about what's going wrong, but our mission is to go a step further.

to understand what the problem is in order to find solutions and to speak with the people who might have a clue about what we need to do next.

Plus, we want to give you the language you need to talk about it with your friends and neighbors and feel smarter about it yourself.

So let's begin connecting the dots on extreme weather events, climate action, and how you can get involved.

To do that, I'm thrilled to talk to hurricane specialist John Morales, the longest tenured weathercaster in South Florida.

John is an atmospheric and environmental scientist, a member of the American Meteorological Society, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle for his work in broadcasting.

He's also active with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the CLIO Institute, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.

He'll join me after the break.

I want to welcome John Morales.

Thank you so much for being here on Assembly Required.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm so glad you invited me.

John, I'd like to start with origin stories.

So I know you grew up in Puerto Rico, where the weather is fairly idyllic until it's not.

What brought you to climate science and meteorology?

Yes, so well, first off, thanks for having me on.

In Puerto Rico, as I was growing up,

we had a few tropical threats, you know, tropical storms, hurricanes.

And I was keenly interested in them in such a way that, you know, I would keep these maps tracking the hurricane.

I think a lot of people might identify with that from especially if you live in a hurricane-prone area.

I mean I thought of everything having to do with air and space, but I think the clincher for me in terms of selecting a career

was Hurricane David in 1979 passed very close to Puerto Rico just south, but then made a sharp right turn into the Dominican Republic and killed thousands.

So I was a rising senior at the time and I think that was a clincher.

I decided that I wanted to uh to pursue meteorology um as far as climate science is concerned uh you know so i started my career in the 1980s and in the 1980s we had people such as carl sagan uh testify in front of congress we had james hansen from nasa as well talking about

what might happen down the road if we continue to inject greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Now, I'm a meteorologist.

I'm not a climate scientist.

However, climate science is a branch of atmospheric sciences, and I am an atmospheric scientist, so I could understand the papers and the science behind it.

In the 90s, however, there was an event

that really

made me start to

find ways, anyway.

to communicate on climate science.

And that was in 1997.

100 meteorologists from around the U.S.

were invited to the White House during the Clinton-Gore administration.

There were presentations from NOAA and NASA, and many scientists were in the room, including climate scientists.

Obviously, there were some speeches, and

President Clinton,

as well as Vice President Gore, presented to us.

Vice President Gore made an in-person presentation of

an inconvenient truth, if you will.

Again, this is 1997.

I left that event inspired to try to find ways to communicate on climate.

And since then, since I was already in media,

I tried to inject that as much as possible into maybe some longer format reporting.

Eventually, though, into my weather segments, I started to provide climate context.

in my weather segments.

And those opportunities multiplied as the weather became more extreme.

The weather extremes, of course, being driven by the changing climate.

So you gave a perfect segue to my next question.

So as an atmospheric scientist who watches how the weather works every day, you recognize that your average watcher, listener tends to use shorthand to describe how the world works.

But when we're using the same words to discuss different concepts, we know a misinformation creeps in.

So can you explain the difference between weather and climate?

Climate is what you expect, but weather is what you get.

Right?

So, for example, you know, if I'm living in Miami, you know, I probably don't need a parka, but that doesn't mean that every once in a blue moon, you don't get a cold weather outbreak down here where people are bundling up, right?

So, so your wardrobe is dictated by the climate, but the weather might vary on any one day.

So, that's the biggest difference, I think, between weather and climate.

Have you put that on a t-shirt anywhere?

I'm just saying.

So, you work with several institutions that focus on climate research, on education, on advocacy, and you are also a trusted voice on television news.

You have viewers who have less scientific expertise, and they may not be regularly reading your columns in the bulletin of Atomic Scientist,

but you have proven yourself to be this very effective climate communicator.

How do you hold the attention of those who think they know but don't understand, and those who

experience what they get but don't know how to reconcile it with what they expect?

As far as

my involvement with mass media and, of course, a lot of social media platforms,

I think one of the best ways for people to connect to what's going on is when you point out to them that

you see this extreme, you see this incredible heat wave, you see this massive amount of rain, you see this rapidly intensifying hurricane.

Those are all things that you would expect to happen in a warming world.

It's part of what scientists had predicted many decades ago, and here it is.

It's happening in front of your eyes because it's one of those things that when people are really seeing things happening, that's when they connect.

to potentially the climate-driven changes that we're observing.

Now,

when I'm trying to connect with people on a one-on-one basis, and this is a good recommendation, and we'll come back to this probably towards the end of the show, but when I want to talk to people about climate, first of all, I'm not apprehensive about it.

We shouldn't be apprehensive about it because the vast majority of Americans are accepting of the science of climate change.

Believe it or not, they are.

People seem to have this impression that it's a controversial subject and that you can't bring it up at the Thanksgiving table.

But no, it's not religion and politics.

It's climate.

It's changing in front of our eyes.

It's okay to talk about it because it impacts us all.

If you like cycling and you've ever been around on a really hot day, it's possible that you felt symptoms of heat exhaustion.

It's happened to me, that's for sure.

If you jog, same deal.

If you're a farmer, and you're seeing changes in the way that you have to plan for your crops, well, that's climate change too.

What I'm trying to tell you is that you meet people where they're at, because that is the way to establish

a conversation about climate without being afraid of it.

And having people relate to the subject matter through things that they care about first, because

it has to matter to them.

first.

And then you let them know what's going on and you explain what's happening and why we are where we're at and where we might be headed if we don't make the changes that we need to make.

That's a perfect way to think about it.

You have been a respected and revered, beloved, I would say, member of the climate community and the,

particularly in Miami and the greater Miami area.

Everyone knows you.

But you came to national prominence, of course,

after

or during Hurricane Helene.

And we know it continues to produce headlines and unfortunately debate.

So here in Georgia and nearby in North Carolina, we still have communities that are trying to figure out recovery because this is simply unprecedented.

And you wrote recently something that stuck with me.

You said, now I look at storms differently and I communicate differently.

I don't need to be told you've changed to know that I'm not the same.

You say something has shifted with Helene, not just the magnitude of the devastation, but specifically in the way that people responded to your warnings.

Can you share more about what you meant and what you mean, and how have people responded differently?

Well, as you mentioned, you know, here I'm very well known in Miami, have been on television in Miami for over three decades.

And I think nationally, because of some of my columns, which you alluded to in the Blue Tune of the Atomic Scientists and other platforms too,

people know me as a climate communicator, right?

But here's the way that people have seen me over the many decades, particularly in communicating weather emergencies.

People have known me as the non-alarmist, just-the-facts guy, the one in the Miami market, if you're familiar with the television and the news market down here, that when every single newscast is

leading their news with some

tropical disturbance that's 3,000 miles away from Miami, I'm the guy, you know, telling my news producers, hey, you know, can we hold off on this story and put it lower in the rundown?

Because

I don't see what the urgency is when it's still 3,000 miles away.

That's the kind of weather communicator I've been.

But yes, I've changed.

What has changed me?

What's changing me is the multiplication of extreme weather events, which in turn are becoming more severe.

And because during my entire professional career, which is 40 years now, I've always been working in the tropics and subtropics, that means that I know hurricanes and tropical storms intimately.

And am I seeing alarming changes in the way that these storms and hurricanes behave?

You bet I am.

And that has me very worried, very concerned.

I think I've written

that I've reached a state of agitated

dismay is what I'm saying.

Agitated dismay.

How can I remain not alarmist, Stacey,

when there's a chance that you can have a mundane tropical storm,

say in the central Bahamas, that a day and a half later can make landfall in Miami as a category four hurricane and catch people off guard because nobody was expecting a hurricane to intensify that quickly.

Just like Helene did, just like Milton did, Otis, even Oscar, the most recent one, went from a nothing

a hurricane in a matter of a few hours.

That has me worried.

That's what has changed me.

And I've become a different communicator now, anticipating explosive development of severe weather systems that can wreck lives.

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Anyway, that's all.

Enjoy the rest of your food.

No worries.

Uh, so are you just gonna watch me eat?

Oh, sorry.

Just a little starstruck.

I'll be on my way.

If you're gonna stick around, just pull up a chair.

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Part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you is I grew up in the Gulf Coast.

I grew up in Mississippi.

And we are region prone to hurricanes.

Like you, I can name a lot of the hurricanes I remember, but for me, it's because there weren't that many.

My first memory was 1979, Hurricane Frederick.

But as you point out, that's no longer the case.

Can you tell us in layman's terms, why are storms getting more extreme?

Why?

are we more worried about Helenes and Miltons and Oscars?

Well, the reason these hurricanes are becoming more extreme, and it's almost like we're changing the speed limit on hurricanes, is because their maximum level

of winds that they can produce, that ceiling is changing and the ceiling is being raised.

And that's because the physics are changing.

Now, without getting into the weeds here, I can tell you that hurricanes feed off of warm surface water in the ocean.

The warmer the water is at the surface of the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean or the Atlantic, the warmer it is, the easier it is to evaporate that liquid water, because it's liquid in the ocean, turn it into water vapor, which then becomes buoyant, which then rises in this

center of the storm.

And when it rises, that air cools down.

And when it cools down, that vapor condenses.

And you know what?

When you get condensation, that releases energy out into the atmosphere.

And that is the energy that the hurricanes feed off from to be able to intensify so quickly.

So coming back to

the temperature of the surface of the ocean, that number around the planet has been increasing rapidly and we have seen over the last couple of years record hot oceans, not just in the Atlantic, but all over the world.

Sometimes

made that hot by conditions that according to Climate Central's Climate Shift Ocean Index, the conditions were made 400, 600, 800 times more likely to be able to reach those record temperatures due to the changing climate.

So, the attribution science of this is clear.

Oceans are warmer, and therefore hurricanes are getting stronger more frequently.

And it's those strong hurricanes, the categories four and five hurricanes, that cause the greatest catastrophes.

So, just the nerd in me asks and the warrior in me asks,

there was a brief moment where the presumption was that Hurricane Milton could turn into

a category six.

How likely is it that we're going to have to start adding categories given the speed limit changes?

Well, what's interesting about the conversation about adding a category six hurricane is that when you look at the predicted consequences of a category four or category five, the predicted consequences are essentially the same, catastrophic.

Okay, so it's funny because you know, me being from Puerto Rico

and

having covered that Hurricane Maria from 2017

for my people in Puerto Rico, including my mother who still lives, who's in Puerto Rico, and all my friends, and all my cousins, and all my family, you know, right?

So, imagine how

difficult it was for me to call for that catastrophic hurricane.

But I bring Puerto Rico up because Maria in Puerto Rico was a category four hurricane.

And Puerto Ricans are like, wait, you know, this

horrific catastrophe couldn't have been caused by just a category four.

But yes, cat fours and cat fives essentially caused the same destruction.

If we added a cat six,

it would be the same.

So

I don't think there's a need to add a category.

Just know that when we reach Cat four and higher, we're talking potentially massive devastation and serious damage to wherever it hits.

I want to get to Maria in one second.

But before I get there, one other piece that you raise, there's a tangent to the concerns about what's happening with the weather, and that is the wild conspiracy theories that are out there that are proliferating.

And part of that happens because of the misinformation and misunderstanding of the science.

And so thank you for laying that out.

And then part of it is trying to justify or at least categorize the damage in a way that absolves some and puts responsibility on others.

How do you deal with the misinformation, especially in that moment of crisis?

Because you're...

you're talking to folks, warning them what's coming,

talking about what's happening, and then helping them understand what's next.

So what is your approach?

First and foremost, this type of dis and misinformation costs lives.

Plain and simple.

It costs lives.

It costs lives prior to the severe weather event hitting.

I'll give you an example.

Americans oftentimes are reluctant to evacuate a coastal region where they're asked to evacuate because of storm surge.

And yeah, I mean, there's some of that cultural aspect of, you know, American individualism and, you know, I'm not going to listen to the government and and so on and so forth.

But there's also now an added aspect of, no, no,

you're telling me to evacuate because

this hurricane is, you're going to steer it towards this area, but I don't think that's going to be, you know, they have all these ideas in their head and they end up staying there.

And have we seen loss of life from people drowning in storm surges just in the past few weeks?

Yes, to this day, we continue to see that and perhaps even worsened by that.

After the hurricane, after the disaster, we've also seen it.

We've seen how FEMA's mission, we've seen how first responders' missions,

emergency managers' missions are hindered by

conspiracy theories and disinformation.

And by the way, I mean, the mere fact that

anyone, you know, considered a leader is

helping spread

that type of disinformation or those type of conspiracy theories.

I mean, that's borderline criminal.

You're costing lives.

First of all, you're dishonoring the first responders who are trying to save lives and people who are not listening or not paying attention or not wanting to participate or even help because they think it's a conspiracy theory.

And second of all, I mean, again,

efforts and resources are being expended on having these emergency management agencies, including FEMA, having to

write

press releases or put a social media post that says, hey, you know what, this thing that you've heard is not true.

I mean, why waste our time on this?

It's truly sad and truly alarming.

Now, to finally answer your question, what do I do?

You know, obviously, I stick to what I know.

which is analyzing and forecasting a potentially severe weather situation and warning for it and making sure people get the message that you need to in a hurricane for example run from the water and hide from the wind

and I get that out there as often as possible hoping that you know lives will be saved and and

you know I believe they have whether it's through me or other weather communicators you know I think we did as good a job as possible with these with these last few emergencies one of my dear friends mentioned in the aftermath of Milton coming ashore that she was concerned that because it wasn't as bad as it was predicted, despite the human toll, there was a concern that people would loosen their concerns and would lower their guard and would be less likely to be responsive next time.

Do you worry about that when you were trying to calibrate how much alarm versus how much reassurance you want to offer to your audience?

The first thing I should say about Milton is that we always always knew Milton would weaken before reaching ground,

before reaching Florida specifically.

You know, what alarmed me in that viral moment was the intensification of Milton.

It was just shocking for me to see yet another hurricane going through this hyper-explosive drop in barometric pressure and increase in wind speed.

And yeah, I mean, that

angst over increasing weather extremes combined with empathy.

I was worried about the people in Mexico who could have had to face a Cat 5.

And yes, I was worried about the people in Florida because even though I knew it was going to go down from a five to potentially a four or a three, category three.

That is still a major hurricane.

And the storm surge can still, you know, cost lives.

So was I still alarmed?

Of course I was.

I'll tell you what's counterproductive though.

When you get behind a podium, right and and you categorically state without giving any additional context that the hurricane was not as bad as as as it had been played up to be

okay

and you don't provide the context which is

the track of the hurricane instead of heading into tampa or just north of tampa past just south of tampa

That's what made this a less than worst case scenario.

The intensity was plenty strong to cause potentially what I'm seeing, the experts saying, $50 billion worth of damage, which would make Milton one of the top 10 costliest disasters in the history of this country, plus the toll on human lives, which you already mentioned.

Imagine now if it had hit 20 miles further north, and the entire Tampa Bay area would have been swamped by potentially a 10-foot storm surge.

The loss of life and the damage that we would have seen instead of 50 billion, we would have been closer to $100 billion.

So, any leader standing behind a podium that wants to state that, hey, you know,

it wasn't as bad

as the forecaster said,

better explain that the reason it wasn't as bad wasn't because it was any weaker than we expected it to be.

It's because the track

missed Tampa by 10 or 20 miles.

And therefore, we escaped the worst case scenario only because of that.

So, one of the realities is that there's the preparation, there's the storm, and then there's the aftermath.

And as you mentioned earlier, you are from Puerto Rico, and in 2017, Hurricane Maria just changed our understanding of what that kind of storm could do.

Looking back now, seven years on,

what didn't we learn learn from the aftermath of Maria that you wish more people understood?

Well, first and foremost,

I think it needs to be stated that

it does not appear like most Americans know how federal aid for the disaster in Maria was delayed,

right?

Which was cruel.

And those monies have only recently started to flow down there.

So

in a place that saw three, 4,000 deaths, that saw the infrastructure be absolutely flattened, that is still to this day dealing with an electric grid that has not been properly repaired,

where there's been

an exodus of Puerto Ricans moving elsewhere to the mainland because conditions are still difficult down there, which makes things in Puerto Rico worse.

Because usually the ones that leave are the ones that can.

So, you know, if you need a doctor in Puerto Rico, now you're hard-pressed to find one because they've all left to go stateside to, you know,

find better conditions that are down there.

So

I think that's one of the

data points about Maria and Puerto Rico, which needs to be forefront in the mind of many Americans, how the aid was delayed for an island that really needed our help.

Beyond that, I think an interesting lesson has been: how do we count deaths in a hurricane?

You know, in the past, generally speaking,

only direct deaths were accounted for.

And what I mean by that is, you know, if you were directly swept away by a flood and drowned, if you had a tree fall on your mobile home and were killed by the tree, those were the deaths that were counted.

But

what Puerto Rico taught us was that there is a long tail

beyond the day the hurricane hits, because of power outages, because of lack of sanitation and clean water,

even the stress and the PTSD.

All that has consequences long term.

And that's how we ended up with a count of thousands of dead in Puerto Rico because of the hurricane, because it wasn't just the ones that died that day.

It was the ones that died afterwards, probably exacerbated by the slow response of the federal government in Puerto Rico.

So I think that way that we count fatalities is

another one of the items that has not received a lot of attention after the hurricane.

Thank you.

I want to shift gears just a little bit.

Most of the discussion, especially right now around extreme weather, focuses on hurricanes.

But we're seeing examples of this new reality across the country.

There are reports of, as you point out, the human toll of extreme weather, like heat waves, which have caused a 117% increase in heat-related deaths in just the past 24 years.

And nearly half of those are happening in the southwest.

You've got heavy downpours in the Midwest that have become more frequent and deadly.

And you can probably add more.

And so can you give us some insights into the other effects?

When we talk about extreme weather,

it's hurricanes, but it's and.

and

what are those other effects?

What are those other events?

And, you know, scare us and tell us where we're headed.

So when you think of beyond stronger hurricanes, what are some of the other impacts or other symptoms of global warming?

Well, the first most obvious one is more severe and more extended heat waves.

Heat is the silent killer.

Oftentimes, people don't realize that they're succumbing to the heat

before it's too late and they haven't taken enough action to save their own or their families' lives.

There's a book by Jeff Goodell, The Heat Will Kill You First.

That's the name of the book, The Heat Will Kill You First.

And the stories in there are just

very memorable of folks that

were just out and about on a hike.

And

before they know it, they've got heat exhaustion and that leads to heat stroke.

And then them and their family are dead.

And, you know, this happens more often than you can imagine.

And you know who it hits actually oftentimes the hardest?

It's not the hikers.

It's people in frontline communities, right?

The heat is felt especially strongly in places that have fewer trees and less foliage.

And, you know, I can give you examples right here in South Florida.

You know,

where do we find less foliage?

Well,

in Hialeah,

in Liberty City.

Right?

Some of these frontline communities that

were

industrial centers where they didn't care to protect the trees.

And then, of course, you have communities that are rich communities like Coral Gables and Pinecrest, which have an incredible foliage.

Trees matter.

Trees cool down everything around you.

So the heat waves are exacerbated in frontline communities around this country and it costs more lives there than elsewhere, especially when you think that sometimes there's a choice to be made in that family between turning on an air conditioning, air conditioner and

feeding your family and putting food on the table because air conditioning costs so much.

So if they even have one, let's start with that.

But when they do have an air conditioning unit in the house, they don't dare turn it on because they're not going to be able to pay the electric bill at the end of the month.

So those are just some of the aspects related to heat, which are so very important.

And heat waves are only getting more severe

and longer lasting.

Some other aspects of the climate crisis that are manifesting across the U.S.

include the risk of flash floods.

When it rains, it rains harder.

And that's because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor in it.

And just like if you absorb

more instead of less water with a sponge, then later you can squeeze out more water from that sponge.

Same thing with the atmosphere.

If it can absorb more water, you're going to be able to squeeze more out of it later on.

So these flash floods,

a good example is the flash floods produced by Hurricane Helene in the Appalachians, particularly in western North Carolina, that was boosted by the fact that the air mass above us can hold more moisture.

On the flip side of that, speaking about the hydrologic cycle, which you all recalled your

middle school science classes, the flip side of that is that when there is a risk of drought, when we've got just the inklings of a drought, because it hasn't rained in a long time, but temperatures are hotter than they've ever been, because yes, it's hotter than it's ever been.

That means the evaporating moisture off the soil and off the plants and evapotranspiration is accelerated.

Droughts happen now faster.

They're flash droughts.

Just like flash floods, now we have flash droughts developing because of this acceleration of the hydrologic cycle.

And, you know, the sea level rise, and I don't want to go into that too much, but I'll just say that the Gulf states, the state of Florida, and the eastern seaboard are seeing particularly rapid rise in sea level.

That's in part because the Gulf Stream is slowing down, and that's a whole other rabbit hole that we can go into.

But let me just say that in Miami,

the sea today is eight inches higher than where it was just 30 years ago.

Right?

So when you hear that overall around the planet, a sea level has risen an average of anywhere from eight inches to a foot over the last century,

know that that is not even around the world.

And parts of the U.S.

are being severely impacted by sea level rise that's accelerating to the magnitude of eight inches in 30 years.

Does that matter in terms of a storm surge?

Yeah, an eight inch deeper storm surge means that suddenly we're going to surpass some thresholds, some barriers, barriers, physical barriers that would have kept the water out, but can no longer do so because it's eight inches higher than where it used to be in the past.

So,

you know, there's just a multiplicity of

impacts of the climate crisis that are affecting the United States and obviously the entire planet.

Let's listen in on a live, unscripted Challenger School class.

They're reviewing the American Revolution.

The British were initiating force, and the Americans were retaliating.

Okay.

Where did they initiate force?

It started in their taxation without representation.

Why is that wrong?

The purpose of a government is to protect individual rights, and by encroaching on individual rights, they cannot protect them.

Welcome to eighth grade at Challenger School.

Learn more at challengerschool.com.

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When life brings the blah, add more Yabba Dabba-doo with some tasty fruity pebbles.

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Someone brought the pebbles, Yabba Dabba Doo.

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So you are not a politician.

Congratulations.

But

your life's work, especially what you've just described, it all implicates how political decisions are made.

And as you pointed out in the aftermath of Maria, the criminally slow delivery of resources in communities that are, as you pointed out, they're on the front lines and are

underfunded and are

traditionally low to moderate income.

There are political implications, not in terms of partisanship, but in terms of how people are making choices.

I used to work for the city of Atlanta as deputy city attorney, and one of my beats was watershed.

And I remember learning about the idea of a 100-year flood and all of the policy decisions we made based on that term of art.

I also was there when we started to see more 100-year floods happening in one to two years.

I'm like, I don't think this number means what you think it means.

You know, I grew up with the idea that wildfires were

rare or containable.

And we know in Colorado, 20 of the 20 largest wildfires in Colorado have occurred in the last 20 years.

And so, you know, one of the other writings that you had, you wrote about the fact that, you know, in the last five years, it's the longest consecutive number of years in which a major hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

And I say all of this to say, you know, your work and that of your peers, it means our language has to start to change.

You very rightly pointed out how we count fatalities, what we consider a weather-related fatality has to change.

And yet, shockingly, making good public policy in the wake of crises doesn't always work out the way we think it should.

So, having uplifted us both with that background, as a scientist and as someone who is so often the touch point for those who are grappling with these consequences, what should policymakers be thinking about that they're not?

They should be thinking about a lot.

First, let's talk about adaptation,

which is a word, a favorite word of,

well, it should be a favorite word of everybody, as long as it's mixed with mitigation there's a lot of talk and even investment in adapting to the changes that we're seeing but there's no talk about

mitigating the root cause of that which is the burning of fossil fuels and the injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere so i'm going to talk about those two things but i'm going to start with adaptation the adaptation aspect of it has many policy implications so we'll start off with that the 21st century climate is nothing like the 20th century climate in which all of our cities and infrastructure were based upon.

These things you talk about, the 100-year floods, those are important numbers for city planners.

And, you know, as far as how your drainage system is going to be designed, how are the streets going to be paved?

You know, is it going to be permeable or not?

You know, what do we do about communities in terms of making sure that there's good foliage there and keeping them cooler instead of hotter in a warming world?

The implications are numerous as far as policy and adaptation.

Now,

and we could go on and on about that, but I'm going to keep it short and I'm going to add one more thing.

When you hear leaders talk about adapting and investing in adaptation, one thing that

Another word that they always use is, because we have to be more resilient.

We're going to make our communities more resilient.

But you know what, Stacey, resiliency has its limits.

You can only make a community so resilient.

I mean, if you've got a category five hurricane bearing down, you know,

the cost of being able to build, to design for a category five hurricane, whether it's surge, wind,

flash, floods, or tornadoes,

is very, very high.

And I would argue that it's very difficult for any community to be able to design for that level of intensity.

And if you're going to get Cat VIs happening now at the drop of a hat,

I think resiliency does have its limits, especially, you know what?

Where is this money going to come from for the local communities to be able to

do that?

All right.

So the second part that policymakers need to address,

and this is where many are failing,

is

in the fact that we need to cut down our emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because that's what's going to

slow the faucet and hopefully eventually turn it off.

If we don't, we're just continuing, you know, we're bailing out the bathtub, but at the same time, the faucet is still on, continuing to lead us down this path of more extreme and dangerous weather, which is costing lives and costing damage to properties.

So policies need to be designed so that governments are finding the most efficient way

to head towards net zero, net zero consumption of fossil fuels, right?

So their carbon footprint becomes as close to zero as possible.

That's at the government level.

But then they need to incentivize communities

to do the same.

So

let's install some policies which are going to reward people

for trying to reduce their carbon footprint footprint too.

That's going to be important.

Then you start talking about collaboration and the importance, not just of regional,

state, but also national and international collaboration between countries, just like the 2015 Paris Agreement, which happened only because during the second term of the Obama administration, not the first, The second term of the Obama administration, climate was finally being addressed.

And we saw the U.S.

take a leadership role, sit down with China behind the scenes, hammer out an agreement between those two heavy greenhouse gas emitters.

And once that was hammered out, you go back to the Conference of Parties, the entire United Nations, and you show how these two

fossil fuel emitting gas-emitting countries have reached an agreement.

Now we're going to lead the world.

And that led to the Paris Agreement, which may have many flaws, but it's the one agreement we have in terms of curtailing greenhouse gases around the world.

So that was a big step.

This type of international collaboration needs to continue.

There are dangers

because we know that, you know, certain administrations would have certain policies at the international level in terms of that level of collaboration versus others.

So this is a perilous moment here in terms of what's going to happen with, well, the planet as a whole,

depending on how the U.S.

election goes.

I think that's a very important aspect, making sure that we collaborate nationally, regionally, internationally to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

I really appreciate the way you frame that.

And I want to just point out for our listeners in the context of those two very important points.

We are going to have a show about the greenhouse gas reduction fund, which looks at how do we incentivize individuals to take action.

But it also talks about how do we help people mitigate the decision between buying food and turning on the air conditioning.

And so just stay tuned and look for that to come up.

But John, I want to bring us close to the end and I've got two more questions for you.

So this is the fun question that I like to ask.

The mission of this podcast is to give our listeners the tools they need to not only understand the problem, which you have done exceptionally well and I want to invest in your t-shirt company,

but to offer them the practical steps we can take to start to solve the issues.

And climate change is a broad and unwieldy concept for many.

As you pointed out, people believe in it, but they're often overwhelmed by what to do about it.

And despite misinformation, controlling our weather is definitely not within our purview.

So

what are the one, two, or three actions that you think an individual listening to this podcast could take that would make a significant difference?

First, I want people, I want us all to normalize talking about climate change.

Goodness sakes, it's here.

It's not a polar bear issue in the year 2100.

We are seeing these things happen right here and now.

The changes that climate change has brought us are already occurring.

And in some cases, they're wrecking lives.

And they're costing the United States of America, not to mention developing countries around the world, trillions of dollars in damage, right?

So let's talk about this.

Let's not be afraid to discuss the changes that you are observing with the weather.

Meet people where they're at.

Find a subject matter that you have in common or that you know your friend or your family member or your neighbor might relate with.

And then,

talk about it.

Give you an example.

Man,

it's been so hot.

You notice how hot it's been lately?

And gosh, here it is,

late October, and it's still 80 degrees.

We didn't used to see that as often.

Do you think we used to see that as often?

That just kind of breaks the ice, and you can start talking a little bit about it.

So let's normalize having conversations about climate.

If we do that, that subject matter is going to start ranking higher in people's concerns about how they choose their leaders.

Because that's the next point I want to make here.

Vote.

And vote, yes, according to your concerns and your beliefs, but you know what needs to be one important belief amongst your rankings of, you know, the way you think is that the climate crisis is costing us all.

It's, again, it's wrecking lives.

It's costing us taxpayer money.

And we need to find the solutions, which, by the way, let's not say find the solutions because we've already found a lot of solutions.

What we need to do is implement them and have the political will to implement those solutions that are out there.

Because if we invest in the climate solutions that are present already today,

our return on investment for us taxpayers is going to be tremendous.

It costs a lot more to taxpayers to see costlier and costlier and more frequent billion, multi-billion dollar disasters, which the U.S.

government has to bail people out from, often because through insurance and other measures, that costs a lot more money than investing in the solutions that are already out there.

So, vote for the leaders that have climate as one of their priorities, that would like to find ways to slow down the injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

That would be a very important

aspect.

And then,

you know,

if you want to contribute on your own to reducing your carbon footprint, I'll urge you or

advocate for that, certainly, but with one caveat.

There's a lot more power in getting collective action, which elected leaders can help implement, right?

Because they represent us all and then collectively can move us in a certain direction versus the individual actions.

So, you know, I'm proud to drive an electric vehicle in a state where

the way we generate power is not as dirty as some other states, because that's always an important consideration.

I mean, if I live in Kentucky, where your power comes from coal, or Wyoming, where your power comes from coal, maybe I don't want an electric car because they're burning coal to be able to power my electric car.

But

at least in the state where I live in, that's not as big as an issue.

So I'm proud to have an electric car.

I have solar panels on my roof.

I compost of all things, you know, try to keep methane emissions down.

I do a lot of things on a personal level, and a few of my neighbors do too.

But it's much more important, the things that you can do collectively.

And that's why the elected leaders is so important.

The last question I have for you is a deeply personal one.

Can we be friends?

Because you're kind of awesome.

Stacey,

I would love that.

You know, obviously, I followed you for a long time.

And,

you know, you're a very kind human being,

one that obviously cares about very many important issues, which matter to so many communities, which, may I add, are often left behind.

That makes me proud to be here today.

Thank you, John Morales, atmospheric scientist, meteorologist, wordsmith, for spending time with us here on Assembly Required.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Each week, we want to leave the audience with a new way to tackle what can feel inevitable or overwhelming.

An opportunity to make a difference, a way to get involved, or just to get started on working on a solution in a segment we like to call our toolkit.

At Assembly Required, we encourage the audience to be curious, solve problems, and do good.

So, if based on listening to John Morales, you want to learn more about extreme weather events, check out the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions at c2es.org.

That's c the number two ES.org.

Search extreme weather and climate change for tips and for more information on how we got here and where we're going.

To take action, share your story of climate resilience and find support in both English and Spanish.

Check out extremeweather survivors.org, a support group that is also galvanizing survivors into a movement.

They also have a lot of links to resources on their website.

You can also invest in your local mutual aid organization.

As we learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, neighbors are often the first line of recovery, and they need to be able to help each other and themselves.

Issues like refrigeration for insulin or finding sterile baby bottles occur in the aftermath.

Help prepare for the next weather event near you by getting involved in your neighborhood now.

At mutualaidhub.org, you can search the U.S.

map for food pantries and other mutual aid organizations near you.

All of us can do some good by getting the facts straight.

In an earlier episode, we discussed the dangers of disinformation, and I encourage you to check out my conversation with ASOSA OSA again as more lies swirl around us.

As always, be diligent about your social media use and what you click on and share.

We all have to be vigilant about spreading misinformation or disinformation, especially when it's formulated in a way to make us think we're helping our loved ones, when in fact, it's inaccurate and dangerous.

So remember, anything that elicits an emotional reaction when you read it, double-click it before you click and share it.

Scan through factcheck.org or PolitiFact for recent pieces of investigation so you know what to be aware of.

And if you want to tell us what you've learned and solved or what you want to learn more about, send us an email at assemblyrequired at crooked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod.

Our number is 213-293-9509.

That wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.

Meet you here next week.

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a crooked media production.

Our lead show producer is Stephen Roberts and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco.

Kira Polaviev is our video producer.

Our theme song is by Vasilis Potopoulos.

Thank you to Matt DeGroat, Kyle Seglund, Tyler Boozer, and Samantha Slossberg for production support.

Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Haringer, and me, Stacey Abrams.

From time to time, we like to recommend a new podcast you may like.

From the award-winning journalist at Vanity Fair, Inside the Hive gives listeners fresh takes and exclusive insights into the week's news in politics, media, and entertainment.

Join Brian Stettler, Vanity Fair special correspondent, as he interviews marquee guests like myself earlier this year, while providing well-informed and intelligent conversations, granting listeners a valuable understanding of what's new in the world.

New episodes of Inside the Hive premiere every Thursday.

Make sure you're following Inside the Hive available now, wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's Lovett.

Before we go, check out my interview with climate activist and environmentalist Bill McKibben, one of the smartest people talking about climate change.

This is part of Crooked's Anti-Doom Initiative from Crooked Ideas.

We are talking about climate change, not only about the threats we face, but of the people and organizations and companies and policies that are actually having an impact and proving that we can win this fight.

Check it out.

It was a great conversation.

Joining us today is Writer Activist, founder of climate action nonprofit350.org and one of the world's leading environmentalists, Bill McGibbon.

Welcome to the show.

Hey, what a pleasure to be with you, man.

Let's start with this.

The Inflation Reduction Act.

Terrible name.

I mean, it's fine.

I'm glad we called it that.

But many thought climate action on this scale was a political impossibility.

Can you talk about what its passage represents, both in terms of the policy and in terms of how the politics have shifted?

Well, let's talk about the politics that got us there, which is completely fascinating.

Young people in the Sunrise Movement set up this amazing thing and brought us the Green New Deal, and it kind of changed the politics for a moment around all this, such that in the 2020 Democratic primaries, climate was, in many polls, the number one issue for voters.

And that meant that Joe Biden needed to consolidate support with the Bernie wing of things, and he did so by making, above all, a real pledge to take that Green New Deal and start translating it into something.

And he kept that pledge.

The first big slug of money that the U.S.

government has ever spent on trying to fight the single biggest problem the world has ever faced.

And the largest investment any country on earth has ever made in addressing climate change.

Based on the passage of the IRA, the pledges we've seen around the world, the shifts we've seen in politics and policy, a lot more to do.

But where are we now in your mind on the doom-hope continuum?

Well, look, the things that we were warning about 40 years ago are now coming true, and they are scary and real.

On the other hand, we're also seeing a rapid spike in the implementation of renewable energy, which is the one thing big enough to have some hope.

We finally are starting to build out those solar panels and wind turbines, and it's starting to make a difference.

You know, June 2023 had the hottest temperatures ever recorded on this planet, but June 2023 was also the month when human beings started past the point of putting up a gigawatt of solar panels every day.

That's the equivalent of a nuclear power plant in solar panels every single day.

We've got cheap wind, cheap sun, cheap batteries.

They're on the shelf.

We can deploy them at speed and we must.

The other day day I saw an article on, I think it was the New York Times or some other elite publication that said, top 10 climate-friendly recipes when you're cooking at home.

And what I honestly wanted to say is like, hey, why don't you do me a favor and go fuck yourself?

Because for a long time, the oil industry and sort of right-wing.

media has been trying to make this about individual responsibilities and individual pain, right?

You're going to, you lose your hamburgers.

You're going to lose your straws.

No one's taking my straws, Bill.

But what we've seen with the Biden administration with their political attack is it's much more about what we're going to gain.

We're going to gain clean energy.

We're going to get new jobs, new industries.

How do you feel about that distinction?

Do you think it's a little bit of a cop-out to try to not talk about individual responsibility, or do you think that that's the right move politically?

Look, I'm glad that my house is covered with solar panels, and I'm glad that they connect to an EV in the garage.

But we are past the point where we're going to solve this one Tesla at a time, one vegan vegan dinner at a time.

The most important thing an individual can do is be a little less of an individual and join together with others in movements and campaigns large enough to change the basic economic and political ground rules here.

Bill McGibbon, thank you so much.

Thank you, man.

What a pleasure.

And thanks for all the work you guys do all the time.

We're really grateful for it.

Thank you to Bill McKibben.

Learn more about the Anti-Doom Initiative at crookedideas.org.

And to make sure your voice is heard on everything you care about, you know what you have to do.

You have to vote and you have to get everybody that you've ever met to vote.

When life brings the blah, add more Yabba-dabba-doo with some tasty fruity pebbles.

Early morning meeting, blah.

Someone brought the pebbles, Yabba Daba-doo.

Run errands, blah.

Head to the store for pebbles, Yabba-dabba-doo.

Fruity pebbles, less blah.

More Yabba-dabba-doo.

Pick up Pebble Cereal today.

Yaba Daba Doo and the Flintstones and all related characters and elements.

Copyright and trademark, Hanna-Barbera.