Season 4 Bonus: The Five Transformations, and What Gives Me Hope

In this special bonus episode, John Sabo looks back at the conversations with leading experts in Season 4. Each guest joined him to explore one of the five transformations reshaping the Mississippi River Basin, making it hotter, drier, stormier, saltier, and sicker.

He revisits what gave them hope, from grassroots innovation to bold new infrastructure ideas, and highlights how adaptation is already happening in cities across the country. These conversations and the ideas within them offer even more hope for the future of the heartland.

Listen now

Links to Relevant Studies and Resources

• NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters
  John referenced this data when discussing how 2024 saw nearly as many disasters as the entire decade of the 1980s—and at a similar cost.

• Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS)
  John cited this $14 billion flood protection system as an example of how infrastructure investment after Katrina helped reduce damage during Hurricane Ida.

• Marshall Shepherd’s TED Talk
  Marshall mentions this talk, where he discusses how political and cultural “marinades” shape the way people engage with climate science.

• Shift Happens (YouTube)
  John referenced this video when discussing the future of climate adaptation jobs and how today’s students are preparing for roles that don’t yet exist.

• The ByWater Institute at Tulane University
  Learn more about the institute John directs.

• John Sabo’s bio
  Host of Audacious Water and Director of the ByWater Institute at Tulane University.

This bonus episode features excerpts from:

• Jonathan Overpeck – On why adaptation alone isn’t enough

• Brian Smoliak – On investing in both adaptation and emissions reduction

• Jesse Keenan – On the opportunity to build a more equitable future

• Meredith McInturff – On cross-department collaboration to tackle challenges

• Allison Lassiter – On new and creative ways to fund water system improvements

• Tyler Antrup – On green infrastructure and grassroots leadership

• Marshall Shepherd – On the new generation being ready to tackle the threats ahead

Also discussed in this episode:

• Dawn Wesson – On innovation to combat mosquito-borne diseases

• Mary Hayden – On using technology to communicate disease risk

• Charles Allen – On stepping up to challenges

Transcript   

START (AUDACIOUS WATER SEASON 4 BONUS)

JOHN:  Welcome to Audacious Water, the podcast about how to create a world of water abundance for everyone.  I'm John Sabo with a special bonus episode for you.

[WATER]

JOHN:  The Mississippi River Basin drainage system covers 31 U.S. states in America's heartland, some 40-plus-percent of the continental U.S.  And climate change is transforming the way we interact with water and harness and protect ourselves from the largest river in North America, and the third-largest river in the world.  The transformations that are unfolding in front of our eyes could be characterized by five simple words: hot, dry, stormy, salty, and sick. 

Translated into the language of climate science, temperature is increasing and the tropics are moving north in the southern part of the basin, droughts are becoming aridification in the western half of the basin, tropical storms are intensifying rainfall in the gulf and eastern half of the basin, sea-level rise is accelerating and bringing the ocean precariously close to drinking-water systems along the Gulf south, and vectors and vector-borne disease from the tropical south are becoming more frequently observed. 

How do we adapt to these transformations and learn to thrive in the face of intensifying extremes and just plain new normal like drought, fire, flood, and land-loss to the ocean?  Part of the solution is changing the narrative of transformation from headlines about scary disasters to more well-worked stories about realistic opportunities. 

In this vein I asked each of my guests on this season's podcast a simple question: what gives you hope?  And to my surprise, most of my guests very deftly shifted from the "if it bleeds it leads" storylines that we all are used to, directly to action for adaptation. 

In this episode I review and synthesize this optimism in an effort to highlight the urgency of adaptation and also the hope that that effort can bring to the table in a world that is changing right in front of our eyes.  These aren't easy things to think about--the world getting dryer, hotter, saltier, stormier, sicker--they're heavy topics and it's hard to even fathom the scope of change coming our way.  We have our work cut out for us, and what even is that work?  That's a question that came up several times throughout the season--are we trying to stop it, or are we just trying to adapt? 

The first guest of this season, climate scientist at the University of Michigan Jonathan Overpeck, talked a little bit about this.

JONATHAN OVERPECK:  And I want to leave your listeners realizing that adaptation alone is essential, we need it, but alone it'll be overwhelmed by the climate change itself.  It will be so bad that adapting will be difficult in many cases.

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  We can't just adapt our way out of this; we must also mitigate.  It's not an either/or; it's both.  Brian Smoliak, an entrepreneur and climate scientist at Two Degrees Adapt, said it best in Episode 2.

BRIAN SMOLIAK:  I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.  It's possible to make these investments in climate adaptation, to do that implementation, and to also reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

JOHN:  And really, we must.  The future is scary and the way forward is complicated.  But all is not lost; there's hope.  It's something I think about a lot, so I wanted to be sure to ask my guests about it.  There was an answer from one of my guests that I kept coming back to.  It was in episode 3 with Jesse Keenan from Tulane University.

JESSE KEENAN:  You know, people have always adapted since the dawn of humanity--you either adapt or you fail.  And for me, you know, my own research in adaptation is try(ing) to project a kind of optimism.  You know, where there's a geography of risk there's a geography of opportunity.  And in the landscape of what we leave behind and where we choose to move forward, there's an opportunity for sustainable urban development, for instance.  There's an opportunity to shed ourselves of the structures of isolation, and segregation, and carbonization, and try to rebuild in the interest of affordability, accessibility, whatever those values are that advance a more sustainable world and way of living.  So, you know, in the ashes of what we leave behind we have the opportunity to build something new.  And that's a kind of optimism that I think many people share, and without it we will be just paralyzed by fear.  So that's what I'm excited about is the opportunity to correct some mistakes that we've made along the way.

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  I agree with Jesse completely.  We have a chance to reimagine and fix the things that don't work for all of us.  This is especially true for water and the water part of climate adaptation.  There's opportunity to provide ourselves with more effective protection from intensifying extreme events, from climate change, and also create a world that's more sustainable and equitable in the process.  It's something we have to be thinking about now.  There's no time to waste, not only because things are getting worse, but because waiting will cost us.  These natural disasters are coming, and they're coming much more frequently.  There were almost as many big natural disasters in 2024 as there were in the entire decade of 1980 to 1989, and at a similar cost.  And if you add it up, all the cost of disaster response since 1980, it's in the trillions.  Investing in this now will save us a lot of money, as well as the emotional toll that natural disasters take on the survivors.  Let me give you an example.  After Katrina New Orleans put in a lot of flood protection in the form of the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk and Reduction System, with a price tag of nearly $14 billion.  Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans in 2021, and yes, there were damages, but nothing near to the extent of Katrina.  This is one reason to be hopeful.  There are already examples of how planning now can have big returns for the future.  The planning and preparation is happening everywhere you look, and it gives me many reasons for hope.  There was hope in my conversation with Meredith McInturff from the New Orleans Health Department, when she talked about how departments throughout the City of New Orleans are working together to create solutions to tough problems, like combatting extreme heat.

MEREDITH MCINTURFF:  This is one area where for a long time we have been in silos.  And I think that's not specific to New Orleans; I think a lot of cities experience this issue.  But trying to find opportunities for collaboration, whether that is between the Health Department and Safety and Permits, or between Code Enforcement or Sanitation, Parks and Parkways, all these different groups are working on heat in different ways.  But really connecting those dots and making sure that our workers have the same knowledge of the bigger picture and the goal behind what they're doing, and also having the safety materials there while they're doing it.

JOHN:  So these, like, New Orleans are showing what's possible when departments work together to tackle the threats they face.  Meredith described how working together can solve big problems, and that gives me hope.  There was hope when Allison Lassiter, from the University of Pennsylvania, talked about how public/private partnerships might be one way to get the funding needed to mitigate and adapt. 

ALLISON LASSITER:  It could be that in this moment where we possibly don't have as much money from federal administrations to adapt to climate change, that people start to get more creative in thinking about ways that we can bring more private finance into water systems.  There's a lot of people with access to private capital that want to see climate adaptation go forward, and also want to fund basic rights like water.  So I'm hopeful that we'll come up with some new ways to funding and financing over, you know, the coming years that end up being really productive and helpful in creating better water systems.

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  Cities and states are still going to need to adapt to extremes and improve their water systems.  And in the absence of federal spending they're going to have to figure it out on their own, and that's where the innovation is going to happen.  And we have 50 experiments, 50 states to look to for that kind of information, and to learn from to improve how it's done, and stimulate new innovation.  It's a call for rolling up your sleeves in your state or your municipality and harnessing the innovation that you have to get to the finish line without a newer deal, without Uncle Sam.  Allison gave me hope by reminding me that there are a lot of smart people thinking about how to tackle the water system problem using creative financing such as public/private partnerships.  That same hope showed up in my conversation with Tyler Antrup, an urban planner and professor at Tulane School of Architecture, when he talked about city engineers who once thought green infrastructure could never work. 

TYLER ANTRUP:  When I look back to ten years ago, when we were really starting these conversations, that was a time when, you know, you'd sit at these tables with engineers from the Sewage and Water Board or from the City, or consulting engineers, and you'd talk about green stormwater infrastructure.  And their immediate response would be, "Absolutely not.  That will never work here," and they'd give you a million reasons why it would never work.  And we're at a point now where the City and the Sewage and Water Board have invested millions of dollars, and these pilot projects have really proved the concept.  And when I go to these sort of larger gatherings of professionals working in the space now, a lot of those same engineers are there now and they've become the evangelists, because they've seen it actually work. 

JOHN:  That story is not just one that we see in New Orleans, it's one that we're seeing nationally as well. 

[STORM SOUNDS]

JOHN:  In any coastal city with a flood-protection system the protected city becomes a bathtub that collects rain and stormwater during even moderate events.  Natural infrastructure can be a solution here, absorbing these rainwaters and reducing flooding from stormwater.  That kind of paradigm shift, where even city engineers go from "this will never work" to becoming evangelists for natural infrastructure, gives me hope.  People can shift their thinking based on experience, and that can compound over time.  Tyler also talked about how everyday individuals are stepping up to get jobs done, sometimes faster than cities can.

TYLER ANTRUP:  You know, these are folks who are just, like, trying to get it done.  And so they have decided, like, they're just going to build it.  They're just going to do what they need to do to impact their communities, and have been incredibly successful at attracting national and international funding and attention to build projects in their neighborhoods, largely with their own labor.  And that has, again, really led to a proof of concept for not only the ability for these solutions to work, but I think have also been eye-opening in terms of the sort of constructability, I guess I should say, of these solutions.  And that - I think a big consulting engineer might say, "Oh no, you know, that's a $30 million project, and it's going to take, you know, years," and these ladies are, like, "I can just dig a hole and, you know, and build it myself, and it will cost me, you know, $100 in materials."  And of course the scale is different, but I think the idea that green stormwater infrastructure is something that every person who can use a shovel can build, is super powerful. 

JOHN:  This is grassroots, people deciding that they can do something about it so they do.  There's momentum in this and ample evidence, at least locally here in New Orleans, that the grassroots organizations and individual households aren't going to wait around for the bigger picture to transpire from above, and they're taking action.  This story from Tyler, of communities solving their own problems, gives me hope.  There was hope in my conversation with Brian Smoliak, when he talked about the new technologies being brought forward by scientists-turned-entrepreneurs, just like him. 

BRIAN SMOLIAK:  Every week I'm hearing about new startups, or I'm hearing about, you know, new technologies.  And one thing that gets me very excited is when I look into these technologies, or hear about these startups, they're not coming out of nowhere, right?  They're - I look into it and I find that this is a technology or a concept that's been worked on for a long time in the academy and other government agencies.  And now some of those early results are coming to bear, are coming to, you know, pay dividends for society.  And that gets me really excited.

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  Scientists like Brian are taking the science and journals and turning it into tools, into businesses that solve problems and feed families at the same time.  That gives me hope.  This type of innovation is happening everywhere.  Think of how Dawn Wesson from Tulane University described her work using 3D printing to study how mosquitos feed and transmit viruses, and medical anthropologist from the University of Colorado, Mary Hayden's vision for a phone app that could help people know when mosquito-borne disease risk is high so they can take action.  Innovations like this can have real impact when we think of the changes coming to the heartland.  And there was hope when Marshall Shepherd and I talked about our kids and how they'll be part of the solution.

MARSHALL SHEPHERD:  They're not stuck in the marinades that weigh us down.  Our generation and older are stuck in political, cultural, religious, regional and other types of marinades that blind their consumption of science.  I spoke all about this in a TED Talk that I gave.  For the most part this generation, our kids' generation, whether they're politically left or right or whatever, or middle, they understand this (inaudible) and they understand that we don't have a "planet B."  We were talking about "plan Bs" earlier.  And so I think they do get it, and that gives me optimism.

JOHN:  The fact that we only have one planet is powerful, not just because we can't afford to mess it up, but from a science perspective we don't really have the liberty to experiment with it because we don't have a control and we don't have another planet to go to.  But we are experimenting with it.  But the next generation isn't weighed down by our old beliefs and ideas--they understand the threat we face, and they're stepping up to take action.  Like Charles Allen's gram said, "Don't be afraid.  Step in."  That's what this moment calls for.

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  One of the most salient take-home messages from my guests is that many of them see change as a good thing, and more importantly they see a younger generation that is ready to adapt to that change and move the ball down the field on adaptation.  As the owner of two private-sector businesses--one in adaptation and one in mitigation--my perspective is that there is a tremendous business opportunity to make this change real and make a living at doing it.  This is important for two reasons.  The first is that we will never succeed at making change unless the change itself brings us personal good.  Business is an excellent way to align change for the planet and personal gain, plain and simple.  If you can make a living and put food on the table for your family in climate adaptation, it becomes a core life pursuit, and we need more people doing this.  Second, the students of today are more collaborative, more globally-connected, and more flexible to new opportunities that the students of generations past did not have.  Why do I say this?  Most of it comes from a lovely YouTube production from Indiana called "Shift Happens."  One of the key upshots from this project is that the jobs of tomorrow are not necessarily the same as the jobs of today.  We are training students for jobs that don't exist, and I think climate adaptation, writ large, is a big space that will provide jobs and opportunity in the future.  What those jobs are we really don't know yet, because change is happening so fast.  This is a huge opportunity, and many of our guests point out that the students of today are prepared for that challenge.  Rather than try to predict what those jobs are, I leave that to the new generation of innovators. 

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  But to close, I would like to bring that innovation in focus in America's heartland.  In today's U.S. landscape we have a glimpse of these opportunities, but many of them are happening along the western and eastern seaboards of the country where they're needed, but importantly, where the business is preaching to the choir.  California has drought and fire, New York had Hurricane Sandy--there are lots of ears to listen to pay for adaptation services, because adaptation is proactive disaster management.  The challenge is developing a market for adaptation in America's heartland, the 31 states that drain the Mississippi River Basin.  Creating this market takes some work and a combination of skillsets that frankly a narrowly-trained engineer is not fit to tackle.  First, it needs marketing.  This podcast season is a small step towards a new narrative that uncovers and underscores the urgency of action in a region of the U.S. that's typically ignored, flown over between coastlines where adaptation resources may be more readily available and deployed in our current world.  This marketing is not just about capital, it's also about creating a narrative that motivates communities to want to support adaptation business opportunity.  The second piece of this puzzle is finding the right scale for action.  Is it local community?  Is it state?  Is it interstate?  Or is it the whole basin?  Strategy and business strategy can help here. 

JOHN:  The final piece is, not surprisingly, capital.  How do we generate the capital?  We know we are not going to get a newer deal to create natural infrastructure alternatives and support to existing built infrastructure anytime soon, if ever at all.  Will that money come from the states?  Are the states the best, most efficient actors to do the buildout and the management and evaluation of adaptation services?

[MUSIC]

JOHN:  I think the private sector is better suited for this task, but with state support and federal oversight.  I have a recent Substack piece that articulates this in more detail.  These are decentralized public/private partnerships operated by the states, but where interstate coordination, the basin piece, happens at the federal level.  The bottom line: we can't have a triple bottom line without a dollar bottom line, and we need to grow entrepreneurs that know how to get this done. 

JOHN:  That's it for this episode of Audacious Water.  If you liked the show please rate and review us, and tell your colleagues and friends.  For more information about Audacious Water, and to find in-depth show notes from this episode, visit our website at AudaciousWater.org.  Until next time I'm John Sabo.

[0:20:24]

END (AUDACIOUS WATER SEASON 4 BONUS)