Fighting Fire with Fire

How to Save a Planet

Gimlet

Science, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From California’s crimson skies to smoke so thick along Colorado’s front range that sent people indoors for days, wildfires in the US have becomes more and more extreme. On today’s episode, we ask, how did the wildfires get so bad – and what can we do to address them? This episode originally aired in October of 2020. Call(s) to action Help build fire adapted communities. If you're interested in learning more about the range of small, wonky, zoning-type solutions to reduce pressures driving people to the WUI (pronounced wooie!)and make managed retreat a more palatable option, check out fireadaptednetwork.org, where you can keep track of all the little policy changes that would actually help make a big difference. Prepare Your Home for Fire. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as CalFire, has a great resource to teach you how to prepare your home for wildfire. You can find it at readyforwildfire.org. Learn More about Fires from Bobbie Scopa through the audio stories she tells on her website, Bobbie on Fire Guests: Bobbie Scopa and Suzy Cagle *And one last thing, the anthology that Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson co-edited with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, All We Can Save, will be published in paperback on July 20th. So, we are using that as a chance to celebrate! On publication day, Ayana and Katharine hosting a celebration featuring a bunch of the contributors to the book – women leading on climate solutions, poets, artists. And you’re invited! Please save the date, July 20th, and head to allwecansave.earth/events to save your virtual spot.* Check out our Calls to Action archive here for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. And if you take any of the actions we recommend, tell us about it! Send us your voice message, ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. We might use it in an upcoming episode. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram. This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Kendra Pierre-Louis. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Rachel Waldholz, Anna Ladd and Felix Poon. Our senior producer is Lauren Silverman. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music by Emma Munger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to How to Save a Planet, I'm Alex Bloomberg.
0:04.1	And I'm Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson, and this is the show where we talk about what we
0:08.7	need to do to address climate change and how to make those things happen.
0:25.2	So we've all seen the news.
0:26.9	The West, which is no stranger to wildfires, has seen them reach truly catastrophic levels
0:31.6	in recent years.
0:33.0	35 people are confirmed dead from those historic wildfires.
0:36.4	Dozens of major fires are raging across the country.
0:38.5	The fires also creating thick smoke.
0:40.9	So hazardous, California's governor says it's like smoking 400 cigarettes a day after
0:47.1	day.
0:48.1	It gets a little harder, a little worse, so you know, a little bit more.
0:51.9	Oh my god, it's this ever going to end.
0:54.8	Does this ever going to end?
0:56.8	It doesn't feel like it.
0:59.2	In just the past few years, wildfires have burned down communities, claimed lives, and threatened
1:05.0	the well-being of those even miles away from the fires.
1:09.0	And these fires have gotten so big that smoke from fires in the Western United States
1:14.7	could be seen darkening the skies thousands of miles away in places as far away as Washington
1:20.9	DC.
1:22.9	And today on the show, we're diving into what is going on here, what is happening with
1:28.0	the fires out West.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Gimlet, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Gimlet and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.