 Heck, I'm Jay Fidel. This is Keeping the World Company. And more specifically, we're talking about water today, water, water everywhere, not a drop, actually. So if you go on YouTube and just search for floods, you will find dozens and dozens of flood videos about floods that have happened in the past 24 hours. Now the world is covered with floods, not the media. I mean, in terms of the, you know, the print press or the cable news, but YouTube, they got a million floods there. We're having a lot of floods and we're having a lot of droughts. So discover that in greater detail in this show with Tim Apachello, my co-host. We're gonna talk about water, water everywhere and problems. Welcome to the show, Tim. Thank you, Jay. Glad to be here. So you were talking a minute about one implication of floods on the mainland as visited here in Hawaii. That's about flood insurance. Can you talk about that? Sure. I experienced this also in Washington state because Washington state has a lot of rivers and certainly we had many, many, many floods from those rivers of overflow. And the NFIP, the National Flood Insurance Program is the only carrier of flood insurance. And so the problem I have is properties that are completely destroyed by flooding. This flood insurance program continues to pay over and over again for recovery, for reconstruction. The problem is they're in the same location as where the flooding occurred time and time again. So what a waste of taxpayer dollars, what a waste of premium, what a waste of resources versus the requirement to relocate the property or excuse me, relocate the home, build elsewhere and not have to pay for damage in the future years. Yeah, you've got all these agencies, including insurance companies like that one, telling people, yeah, why don't you just rebuild? Nobody really recognizes the problem here. And I don't think we as a society recognize the problem. Out of every X number of stories that you hear about floods and drought, there's only a small percentage where they say, hey, this is climate change. We've got to do something. Al Gore says we have the technology, we can do something. And I guess Joe Biden says that, but we don't do anything. So it continues and it gets worse. As the climate warms, the clouds above, because they're warmer, can hold more water. And as a result, when it rains, it rains heavier and it is raining heavier all over the world now. The YouTube videos I mentioned, not just limited to the US, although they're in dozens of states there in China. Everybody's heard about that. China has had some terrible floods lately. The last couple of days and huge bridges have washed out. A lot of people have died. That's the part that troubles me. So what's happening here is this lethal mechanism of climate change is sort of taking over the world and we're not really paying attention to it. It's a test of humanity. Hey, do we really care about UFOs? And the news is filled, filled to the brim with Trump. What's more important than existential threat to our society around the world? Or Trump, what do you have for breakfast? I don't care about Trump. And the problem is no matter what happens, we aren't going to be able to pay attention to climate change and therefore floods. So here's a map of the rainfall around the world from NASA, from satellites. You can see that we have rainfall and floods everywhere and it's getting worse and worse. And this is the current map. 2023, this is what's happening just to give you. This is the current map. This is what's happening. And then here's another map about droughts in the United States from NOAA. And you can see a good part of the country is suffering droughts. And we don't have a map on heat. Don't forget heat, Tim. Heat is another one of the things that kills. So bottom line is the maps are showing the acceleration of these processes. And I don't think we have to have a map to show that it's really hot right now and people are dying as a result of the heat, not only in the United States, but everywhere. Agriculture, what about agriculture? Agriculture is like an immediate effect of a flood or a drought, but it goes further, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. In fact, speaking of bodies of water and farming, particularly in Europe, we have this effect called the conveyor belt, the Atlantic conveyor belt. It's a system of currents that transfer warm water up to Northern Europe and the cold waters of Northern Europe back down to the tropics, down to South America. And this conveyor belt is essential for the atmosphere. And what's happening is because of global warming, we know Antarctica is melting. So you have fresh water from the melt going into the ocean and that affects the salinity of the ocean, particularly in this area of the conveyor belt. So less salt water slows down this conveyor belt and the transference of warm water, cold water, starts to decrease. It's estimated that this conveyor belt is slowed down, I think 15% is what I read, over a 100 year period. But again, with the introduction of more fresh water into our oceans, if this conveyor belt slows down significantly, you can see it's estimated, I didn't do the science, but I've read enough about the estimation of three and a half Celsius decrease for Europe. Well, three and a half Celsius, I think is like 35, 38 degrees in Fahrenheit. What a dramatic dip in temperature that would bring. And what would that do to farming to get to your original point? It would impact it severely. And of course we have food shortage issues. Yeah, I want to mention, there was an article I saw yesterday about Antarctica, how the ice in Antarctica was melting at a rapid rate. And that's new news. The old news is the ice in Arctic has been melting at a rapid rate. This is going to have global effect. And we can sit here in Hawaii and say, oh, that's not gonna affect us. Oh, yes, it will. Because extreme weather is linked to all of that and we are going to get some of that. But let's talk about food. Because if you can't grow crops and if people like Putin are destroying dams, so though destroying agriculture in the fertile areas of Ukraine and stopping the passage of ships with grain in them that could go to feed starving people in Africa, you have all kinds of implications. People are starving and they will starve more as climate change proceeds. You want to talk about that? Well, we talked about it actually a couple of shows ago and this sort of area of food shortage causes migration patterns. And migration patterns, whether it be legal or illegal creates burden on those countries where the migration is heading to. And then on a political basis, dictators seem to like to use illegal migration issues as a wedge to put themselves in power. And then they have political problems with the would be dictators of the world and I won't say Donald Trump, but I just did. Well, you know, the thing about the autocrats is that it happens at both ends. I mean, what happens at the end, for example, Sudan where they are starving, and it's not just because of climate change although climate change is one factor. It's because they think it's more important to shoot each other up. The two armies shooting everybody in the middle. Well, people are starving. So, you know, you have the deterioration of civil society. And so food and deterioration of civil society are related. That's at the starvation end. Okay, at the migration end, you have the same thing. You have a deterioration of civil society. And you're right, I totally agree that, you know, autocrats take advantage of both ends. The guys fighting each other and killing everybody in the middle in Sudan in part are taking advantage of, you know, of starvation. And the people in Europe are irritated with the migrants in part because the migrants disrupt their society. So what happens is climate change is disrupting human flow to take Ai Weiwei's term for it, human flow all over the world. And we could go through YouTube and otherwise and find videos of all the disruption that is happening right now. We're not talking about a year ago or six months ago. We're talking about right now. And yet that's not raw meat enough to get to the top of the headline stack. What gets to the top of the headline stack is your unmentionable friend sitting in court right now in Washington. So let's go to, let's go to- I know this is an official meeting or anything but a point of order here. Would you please tell the stenographer to remove the word friend, please? Okay, thank you. So we just don't, we just don't respect mother nature. I mean, those dams that are being built in Ethiopia, the dam that exists in Egypt are huge. They're the biggest dams in Africa. And what's troubling about it is that, yes, they're useful for hydroelectric power, for agriculture, I arguably, but at the same time, they're so big that they're gonna create problems for water supply and for a civil society. It is likely there's gonna be a big fight between Ethiopia and Egypt over the blue Nile and the Nile. So when you see these organizations or states building huge dams and changing water flow, it only adds to the problem. And I don't think there's a comprehensive on how we collectively, globally deal with all that. Ethiopia wants to build a dam, who's gonna stop it? Egypt can't stop it. Jay, you're talking about fights in Ethiopia and, you know, Sub-Sahara Africa, you know, around the world, I think we should talk about the fights that are gonna occur, the water wars between Phoenix, LA and Palm Springs. You know, the Southwest is drying up. Look at Lake Mead, goodness sakes. That is going to develop into quite the bitter warfare, both politically and just, you know, generally. Yeah, you see how it's stretching government already. There was a 60 minutes piece on it. This is not the first time 60 minutes has covered that issue about the Colorado River, which is pretty much dried up. And it's a source of water for agriculture all over the West in, you know, six or seven or eight states. And the problem there is that there is really no good consensus mechanism to distribute the water. And so what happens is it gets more and more tense. This tests our federalist, our federal system. Sorry. This tests our system, it tests our rule of law, if you will. If we don't have a system that equitably distributes the water, or better yet, if we don't have a system that prevents the lack of the water, that right now it's heading in a very bad direction for the rule of law, for water, for drinking water, for irrigation water, for agriculture. And, you know, you can't run a city without water. And what's happening is the water is drying up at the source. Indian, you're right, in the United States. So it won't be war between, I don't know, Arizona and California, you know, but it'll be a fight in court. It'll be a fight in Congress. And as we know, that's not gonna get resolved very easily when the Republicans don't believe in climate change. They don't care. It'll work itself out. It'll be a competition between water for agriculture versus water for residential commercial purposes. Yep, exactly. Okay, at the same time, you know, my review of the YouTube videos, which is shocking to me, I did not expect to find all the videos of all the floods all over the country. Water is being distributed through those warm clouds. So in one place, you have a drought where people can't grow crops anymore. And in another place, you know, you have the whole city, like in Montpellier, Montpellier, Vermont, you know, where the city is being destroyed, as we speak, by these really awful floods that have killed people. And that's not the only one. I mean, just don't count them on YouTube, all over the country. I don't know why anybody doesn't, you know, rise to this and say, wait a minute, you guys, we are in crisis. Why are we not rising to the occasion? You know, my thoughts are, you know, actually people are responding, many coastal areas of Florida, Miami specifically, is literally trying to raise its elevation away from the flooding zoning. So I mean, it is happening, is it getting national attention? Not much, but it's not just the flash floods which you described, but you know, it's the river flooding and certainly the coastal flooding, which is increasing its elevation. So there's three areas of flooding that's gonna impact basically the interior of the nation, the coastal regions of the nation. And then again, where you describe where accumulation of humidity is in the form of flash flooding. So I don't think anyone spared when it comes to lots of water, but nothing to drink. Yeah, water, water everywhere, yeah. And I say Vermont, you know, but it's like all over the country. Every point on the country has a fair share of this. Even places where you didn't think they had enough water to have a flood, they have floods and the floods are really mean and destroying things. Talk about insurance, who's gonna pay for all the damage to the roads and the buildings and the public institutions and facilities. When we settle down over this, if we ever do, we're gonna have a huge bill to pay for all this damage. And who's doing anything about dealing with climate change? You know, we really aren't doing anything about it. I'm sorry. And it's not only the United States and obviously China who should get a lesson out of this enormous flood they're having right now. And the United Nations, what is the United Nations doing? It's like humanity is stuck in the headlights. You know, you mentioned property damage, but I'm looking at the cost to the population. I mean, we looked, we saw UK being flooded. We saw Germany being flooded. We saw our East Coast being flooded. A lot of it's through river overflow. Think of the health effects of standing water day in and day out. I'll just go through a quick list of diseases that's associated with standing water. Obviously standing water in a city environment, you have the mix of sewage water with the flood water. So here comes a whole host of nasty diseases, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, tetanus, hepatitis A. Let's not forget necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacteria that resides in bacteria in standing floodwaters. Let's not talk about the vector-borne diseases if the water is constant and doesn't recede. West Nile disease, even parts of our southern parts of the United States of malaria, things of that nature. And then let's talk about mold, the continuation of standing mold, black mold, called Stachybotrys. Stachybotrys, horrible effects on your respiratory system. And sometimes once you contract it, you can't rid yourself of it. So there's a human cost, there's a health cost that at this point is not describable of the cost to resolve it. You mean aside from drowning and aside from starvation, there's all these diseases, including diseases you can't even figure out yet because they could come from the new viruses, just like COVID. Another COVID comes from the mutation of this COVID or some other COVID. And then you have delivery systems that didn't exist before. The water itself is a delivery system that carries all these pathogens around with it, the places that it didn't carry before. And mosquitoes and other bugs and small animals become the delivery system. So world health is jeopardized by water issues like this. And I don't know if anybody's really doing anything about that, the science knows. We know, we made a movie about it. We made a movie about the relationship of climate change and COVID. We found by talking to a dozen scientists that indeed that was a true connection. It still exists and it could be worse because climate change is worse. We should make another movie, Tim. Oh, G.J., a movie, it's great idea, but you know what we really need. And you asked me this question, I think, that was the last show, two shows ago. And you said, what would you do, Tim? And so let's go to the heart of the matter. It's climate change as a result of CO2 emissions. What is the CO2? It's fossil fuels. Who controls the fossil fuels production? Well, the fossil fuel companies. Who lets them continue to do this? The politicians, because they're stymied in Congress. Who causes the Congress to be stymied? Guess what? The fossil fuel companies, how do they do that? In the form of political action campaign donations. Money stops Congress from solving this problem. The voting public stops the solution of this problem because they keep not taking their politicians to task because they're being bought and paid for by the fossil fuel companies. We only get to this problem one way, and that is to reduce CO2 emissions. I'm sorry, I'm sorry the GOP doesn't like to hear that. I'm sorry that their precious Joe Manchin approach to coal companies and fossil fuel companies don't like to hear that, but that's the gospel truth. Well, you're talking about a kind of flaw in our society. It's a flaw in the way we do government, the flaw in the way we allow self-interest to rule policy. And I think it's getting worse and more memorable. And it's partly, it's the media. What we should be hearing is what Al Gore was saying 20, 25 years ago, hey, this is existential. We have to do something about this right now today. And we have it, COP 21, COP 22, COP 23. And people really aren't excited about it. Instead, we're excited about UFOs. We're excited about Hunter Biden. We're excited about all the stupid issues that are raised by the Republicans mostly in Congress and who block efforts to do anything about climate change. The result is our government is stuck and it doesn't do anything. And we're the leader on this. So if we don't do anything, nobody else does anything. And that also goes for Ukraine. You talked about the bureaucrats and the like. It's not in their interest to deal with climate change. They'd rather have crises. They'd rather not deal with climate change. So what's happening is under the hood, we're building up our own destruction. And this is really tragic because the US probably more than anyone contributes. And the US more than anyone knows the risks. And yet, we're spending all our time on political issues. We're going to be sucked into... There won't be any oxygen left after the Trump trial, trials I should say. And why are we spending all our time on that? We should be spending our time saving ourselves. So this is the biggest problem. It's the story of our, the biggest story of our lifetimes. I always refer to the communications department at UH where the journalists up there who teach journalism say, there's no question. This is the biggest story of our lifetime, climate change. And yet we seem to be ignoring it. And yet it gets worse while we watch. So I don't understand the madness. Well, I do actually because in the hands of a few politicians, they've been successful to mock the notion that CO2 emissions is a direct correlation to our climate change. They've made it a mockery and therefore it's a laughing stock issue. So now the Democrats go, well, I can't touch it because I'll be laughed at. I won't be taken seriously if I try to seriously address it. Ever since 2000 and the inconvenient truth from Al Gore, it's been the social wedges you of mockery. Politicians aren't stopping policy. What they're doing is they're encouraging the destruction of this planet. So if I wanted to get on board with semantics, I'll stop using the word of politics or excuse me, policy. It is a green light to go ahead and destroy this planet. And the media has a hand in it because they're scared to touch it. Yeah, what they should be doing is hammering on it every single day and telling us that people are dying and we'll die in great numbers if we don't do that. I mean, there's a raw meat story, but- Yeah, I don't think people care about that anymore. I'm more interested in my 401K and the fact that I could fill my GM 150 up with gasoline. I don't care about people dying. That's a new story. It happens every day. So what? I hate to say, but we've become as a society desensitized to the death of our fellow citizens. And I'll cite another example, mass shootings. I'm sorry, but no one reacts to mass shootings anymore. Our fellow citizens are being shot down in cold blood and it's ho-hum, another new story. You know, it's like that great scene in one of Sylvester Stallone's movies where he's in a supermarket and these guys are threatening everybody in the market. And they say to him, if you don't listen to us, we're gonna blow the place up. And his response is, that's okay, I don't shop here. And I keep hearing that. I actually remember that when we was a really bad movie, but I do recall the line. And so I think there's something from that movie and what you say, I don't shop here. It doesn't affect my interest. It doesn't affect my daily life. It doesn't affect, you don't think. But it does. They just can't see it underneath the multiple layers of impact. Yeah, well, the thing is that it's again, like that story about the guy who refuses to take a vaccine and he's dying in the hospital. And the doctor says, you're dying. And he says, okay, okay, I get your point. I'll take the vaccine, doctor. Sorry, buddy, too late for you. You can't take the vaccine, won't help. So the same thing here. I mean, when people finally get the idea when they see their communities being destroyed, their health, when they find themselves starving, when they're four, okay, doesn't mean anything at all, then they say, oh, I'll take the vaccine. What can we do to slow down climate change or stop it? And the answer is too late, buddy. We're gonna lose billions of people around the world. Lose means they're gonna die. And in our society, our quality of life is not gonna be the same. And if you survive good for you, but life will not be the way it was, there is no new normal. So I think we're living in it. I actually think that COVID was a part of all of this, what we've been talking about. And so, well, where do we end here? We're almost out of time. Where do we end here? Well, we've taken 29 minutes to paint a horrible picture of where we're at. Perhaps it's another show to say, what are the solutions? And I keep going back to following the money trail. And the money trail is the political action campaigns that stuff the money in the pockets of our politicians to do nothing, on purpose, do nothing. And so, how do you stop that? Our own Congressman, he's doing something about it. He's trying to do campaign reform, political action campaign reform, but you will have a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United that says, more money the better, dark money the better. And until we get a handle on that portion of the money to stop greasing the palms of our politicians, we could have 100,000 of these shows and it won't make a difference. Yeah, and we could have 100,000 young people all joining cause organizations, but that isn't making a difference. I mean, Greta in Scandinavia, she's a great hero, but I'm sorry, it's not enough. We have to change the way we live and function under government and in a society. This is an emergency, a climate emergency. Many people have called it that, but the world is not treating it that way and there's nobody in power actually calling for that. So I think we're gonna have to ride this thing right down until we find out, I mean, in a very unpleasant way. Humans, we learn the hard way, unfortunately. We bring ourselves to the brink of extinction before we do anything about it. Yeah, so okay, if I made you president of the world and I gave you the authority and I gave you the money, no limitation, what could you, would you do to save the planet and the people? I'll say it again, you have to go attack how and why our governments, other governments in the world are doing nothing about this problem, seriously doing nothing about it. And that is the direct influence of money and politics and the bought and paid politicians that know they have a duty, an ethical moral duty for future generations, yet they ignore it because they've been paid, bought and sold. So you would have to go after how campaign contributions, are made in this country and put severe limitations on it. Yeah, and it's about caring for your neighbor, including your neighbor around the world. I mean, I have a certain amount of sympathy, although the Chinese are aggressively trying to get all our national security, I have a certain amount of sympathy for the ordinary people who are dying in the flood right now. I think we all have to care, everybody has to care about his co-human being, wherever that person is. And we really have to care about the people in Vermont and Louisiana and see every state you can think of, because we can't let them linger, we can't abandon them. We have to find a path for them, if that means another neighborhood, another house, another life, another job, we have to do that. We have to have the smartest policy we've ever had and we don't, I'm sorry. So it really means a collaborative effort in the full sense of collaboration, collaboration in the country, collaboration in Europe and Asia, collaboration in the world. And the question I put to you, Tim, is, is the species capable of that? Of course. Yes, the species is intelligent when it wants to be. The species is intelligence when it's free of abuse of power of leadership. The species can survive if they can see fit to figure out what is stymying their progress. The answer is a qualified yes. All right, well, I hope we all survive the current process, not only the insidious process around Donald Trump, but the existential threats of climate change, all of this being visited upon us at the same time. We've lived a nice life since World War II, mostly, but now it's judgment day, that's what I think. And we had really better learn from what our experience has been. Your final thoughts? Just to go back to the species is up to it. The species was up to it after the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were at the brink of nuclear destruction for the entire world, the entire planet. Cool minds prevailed. We started putting in systems to prevent a sudden accidental nuclear war amongst nations. This is no different as far as the scale of importance. It's possible, and I think we can do the job, we're up to it. And I'll go back to something I've said many times to you before, it's about leadership. One good moral leader can change the world and a group of moral leaders can change the world and it's time they stepped up. We need the best leadership we can possibly have now. We cannot tolerate some of the abuses and the moral crises that we have on our plate right now. So let's keep talking about this, Tim. Okay, thank you, Jay. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.