 Good afternoon. My name is Alex Reich and I'm pleased to welcome you to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and to the fifth event of our monthly webinar series, Climate Conversations, Pathways to Action. The National Academies provide independent objective advice to inform policy with evidence, spark progress and innovation, and confront challenging issues for the benefit of society. In keeping with this mission, we're excited to host these conversations about issues relevant to national policy action on climate change. Our conversation today will be recorded and made available on this same webpage tomorrow. We won't be taking questions from the audience, but we would appreciate your feedback and your ideas for future conversations, which I invite you to share at the event in a survey linked just above this video. At the end of the video, you'll also find a link to register for our July 15th climate conversation on climate security, featuring Aaron Sikorsky, Deputy Director of the Center for Climate and Security, and Swathi Veera Bali, foreign affairs specialist at United States Africa Command. They'll discuss how different parts of the security community are thinking about climate risks, what implications those risks hold for policy and planning, and where there are capacity gaps or aspects of climate security that need more research. Today, we'll also talk about the risks from climate change, but focused specifically on the risks it poses to US infrastructure, including the impacts from extreme heat and drought, as those of you joining from the West can viscerally understand. We'll also delve into the engineering solutions that can play a role in building a resilient and net zero future, as well as into how to prepare the next generation of engineers for such a monumental task. We're honored to be joined by Mariette DiCristina, Dean of the College of Communication at Boston University, and former editor in chief of Scientific American, who also moderated our first climate conversation on decarbonization. Mariette will introduce our conversation lists and moderate the event. Thank you again for joining the National Academies for climate conversations. Mariette, it's all yours. Thanks so much, Alex. It's great to be here with all of you. The most of us probably don't think all that much about infrastructure, but it really supports the functioning of all of our towns and cities and need countries in many ways. Think about all the roads you drive on the bridges you go over the tunnels, electric grid, the water, railways, and more. But today's climate conversation, as Alex has pointed out, feels especially timely to me today, given the national debate about the future of our infrastructure. Because we see infrastructure is built to last for decades, sometimes even 100 years or more. So what we decide to do today will have a large effect on how things go tomorrow, including how we adapt to or mitigate climate change in the future. We learn a lot more about the important role of infrastructure from our two experts today. And now it's my great pleasure to introduce both of them to you. First, let's say hello to John L Anderson, who is president of the National Academy of Engineering, who's most recently distinguished professor of chemical engineering and president of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Before that, he was provost and executive, excuse me, for that he was provost and executive vice president at Case Western Reserve University, following 28 years at Carnegie Mellon University, eight as dean of engineering, and five years at Cornell University. Hello there to you, John. It's so lovely to have you here today. Thank you. And now let's say hello to Thomas P Bosswick, a senior executive with more than 30 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. He served as the 53rd chief of engineers and commanding general of the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he was responsible for most of the nation's civil works infrastructure and military construction. He was an expert in crisis response. He controlled the nuclear codes during the tragic events of 911, and he led the nation's recovery effort, following Hurricane Sandy. Hello there to you, Tom. Nice to have you this afternoon. Thank you, Mary. It's great to be with you and john and the rest of the team. Let's dive in both of you. Let's start with the basics. Tell us a little bit more about your backgrounds and what brought you to this space, know of thinking about climate and infrastructure. John, maybe we can start with you. Thank you, Mary. First, I want to say I appreciate the opportunity to be here and thank the organizers for allowing Tom and why to interact with you on the important topic. As a chemical engineer, I was generally more concerned with the small, that is, small things and not so much climate and larger things like that. But I think about 15 years ago I became convinced that climate change is going to be something serious. The scientific data started to become overwhelming as much as we didn't want to believe it. And then I realized that this is this is for real, I'm going to think about it. I think one thing that makes me drive drives me to try to do something about it as I believe in equity and quality of life for all our citizens and other privileged groups will suffer most from the impacts of climate change. And perhaps even from some of the methods to address climate change. And to as engineers be cognizant of that, of that problem. Thirdly, I have, I don't think this is going to impact my children, but I have five grandchildren and climate change will definitely impact their lives. And I don't want to leave them a world where we dumped all the problems that we've created onto their doorstep. So that played a role in my interest as well. Thank you, John. Over to you, Tom. Well, I'd like to thank the organizers for this event as well. I think it's a very important topic and I feel honored to be here with john and you marry it to discussing. When I left high school I thought it was going to be a carpenter and my dad was an enlisted soldier and my mom and dad had high school. I had five children. I didn't see a way to go to college and I worked three jobs in order for my brother to go and my oldest brother. And I didn't want to put that on my siblings and fortunately I was accepted to West Point, and I, and everybody there at the time was an engineer. I was four elective so whether you liked it or not you're studying civil mechanical electrical and you studied the liberal arts as well but I, I gravitated towards engineering and then later taught mechanical and civil courses at West Point. And then later in life earned a systems degree. I've done these different types of engineering. But in the end I think it's really about systems and not individual projects and, and climate is a big part of that system that infrastructure is a part of in, and I've seen it up close and personal when, when climate change as an impact on society and whether it's after Katrina or the work that we did after Sandy and saying that the types of projects and infrastructure projects we had to build. You can only build them so big and so strong and you go down to New Orleans for example you'll see some of the best projects in the world. I mean there's nothing like the water pumping station down there that could empty an Olympic swimming pool in three seconds. I don't like it in the world, or the inner harbor barrier. These types of projects are one of a kind and thanks to our great engineers and other teammates both public and private sector, they've been able to respond to the needs. But again, you can only build them so big and so strong in the next bigger hurricane is on the way in. What that's done may is that we really need to build resilient systems. And we can talk about that a bit more but those are a couple of points that I'll focus on during our discussion today. Thanks so much, Tom. Let's stick with you just for a minute there. And, and continue with the basics let's talk about people people use the word infrastructure to mean a lot of things. It turns out there are a lot of definitions out there how do both of you see infrastructure. Well, when I'm, would you like me to start man. Yes, please. You know one of my colleagues in the core major general Michael Walsh, he was the head of our civil works and he often spoke about the four hours, and one of those ours was always forgotten, but he talked about the roads, the runways, the rail and the fourth and so far as rivers. And we live in a maritime nation to give you an idea there are 12,000 miles of navigable waterways within the United States, about 9,000 of that is inside the Mississippi River and tributary system but 12,000 miles of navigable waterways in the United States. And to put that in perspective, that is more navigable waterways than the rest of the world combined. So we're a maritime nation, whether we realize it or not we have an West Coast and East Coast, we've got the Gulf Coast, we got the Gulf of Mexico, we've got the Great Lakes, $4 billion in revenue a year. And you tie those ports to the inland waterways in about $1.7 trillion. It moves along of our economy moves along that water system that the core manages. So this is real part of our economy in in to not focus on the river infrastructure would be very a very big challenge for the United States and we've done that we haven't managed the infrastructure the rivers. And on that the traditional built environment is certainly part of the infrastructure, everything that's constructed in the built environment is important but I think equally important are those nature based environmental type of infrastructure, whether it's living shorelines that's part of our infrastructure and it's an important part of our ecosystem that we have to focus on as we as we look at climate change. I think beyond that traditional infrastructure we ought to think about things like broadband in the requirements to build that broadband in order for the infrastructure of the country to be sustainable. But those are some of the highlights what I think about when I think about infrastructure. Thank you Tom, Tom's Tom's definitions are really helpful john. I wonder if in addressing this question you might just give us a few highlights about how climate change affects these different areas of infrastructure. For instance, if you have an extreme drought or heat wave. Well, I just wanted to add to the word resilience because infrastructure. We should be looking at the resilience defined as the ability to withstand and recover from disruptions and adapt to changes. I like what Tom said at the end there with the digital and physical I look at the two together. And I think the problems in Texas indicated how the physical and the digital relate to each other, and both, both have to be integrated and robust connectivity. Finally, I think now human beings are kind of being integrated into infrastructure through artificial intelligence and I'm wondering if that's going to be a third leg of infrastructure in some way that will help us hopefully help us. It's done properly, maintain our infrastructure. There are a lot of examples as you pointed out of things that can happen permafrost is one where in the built environment is that Tom alluded to is on frozen grounds, which is supposed to be frozen 12 months a year and now isn't. So there's some articles about about what to do about that and being more diligent about preparing for changes. There's water management areas of course, people in the Southwest are very much aware of that but even on the East Coast with flooding too much water and wind of course and salemization of soils near coastal regions. So there are a lot of things to worry about and with this, and I think it differs from region to region so there's no one answer for the United States that has to be geographically targeted, and many different disciplines have to come into play. I think the important point is we have to worry about it and we have to do something about it and design for it. Okay, John, I'd like to come back to Tom maybe and to you as well. So thinking about infrastructure, what is, you know, what is the overall condition of the US infrastructure and what do you think are the key challenges and responding to climate change you've mentioned a couple of them permafrost and some others but maybe there are some others you'd like to mention. I love the report card I used it in almost all my congressional hearings and testify 33 times that none of them were voluntary. This is the report card that gave us a C as was it a C minus from the American Society of Civil Engineers is that the one. That's it. But I love the report card. I think it gives us a base from which we can all operate from and understand. I think before you can fix a problem you have to understand you have one. And that gives us all a common understanding of where the challenges are. You know, you know, much of the course infrastructure, I would say is more than 50 years old in its lack the operations and maintenance budgets that it needs in order to be maintained. So that's a big part of the challenge it's old infrastructure and it's infrastructure that hasn't been maintained in some of it is crumbling. That's a big problem. I think the, the other major factors. How do you pay for it. Remember, during one of my testimonies. And one of the members of Congress asked your boss to come. You guys are really slow and the core takes too long to finish these projects. You need to finish the projects you're currently working on. And I said, 23 billion. And he said, how much money did we give you this year. And I said one and a half billion. And he said, so you're right. That's about 15 years, we are slow, and some are going to go faster some are going to go slower. But the problem is we've got on any given day over 3000 projects. And we need money we spread it out like peanut butter over these projects, and we take a long time to finish. I came back from that meeting and I was talking to our leaders and, and, and a big part of it is we, we weren't going to receive that money we shouldn't expect to receive that money given everything that the, that the Congress has to resources to, and a big part of how we pay for it in the future I think has to consider public private partnership so we've worked hard on that in the core of engineers. And the other thing I would say is that whenever something bad happens. A lot of folks say we're reactive we're not proactive. But to a sense to a degree that's true, but, but the real issue here is we cannot set priorities. And when we set priorities we do really well, but the challenge is setting those priorities in a government where you know I grew up in California and Senator Feinstein, it's hard for her to vote for something in Louisiana, unless it's a crisis. Things like war and I'm not picking on Senator Feinstein she's a great, great Congress one who's done wonderful things for our country, and I'm just using her as an example California as an example. It's hard to put money in projects in New Orleans, for example, if there's not a crisis. And so, if you look at war, that's the ultimate kind of crisis and everybody comes together and says we're going to fund that as a priority. I've seen this happen once on the inland waterways where the it was Senator Feinstein and Senator Lamar Alexander working together to say hey, instead of piecemealing these projects and taking forever to get all of these done. And so we're going to prioritize the first one, and let's focus on that and that was instead lock and Dan, and we'll get that one done and then we'll move to the next Kentucky lock chick lock. And that's that's worked very well so I think setting priorities is the other really important part of moving forward, regardless of climate change. I'd like to ask John one other question before we kind of talk more about the engineering solutions that we might be applying. John March last year you wrote an article called climate change, called to arms to the NAE, the National Academy of Engineering. Can you explain why you see it that way, and what exactly you meant by that. I was surprised when I went around the country right before COVID I was visiting various regions and talking with any members. And I asked them what's in their mind and I thought I get a lot of other things not on the budget for research and so on. And everyone, every group listed the number one concern is climate change. I think if I had done this four or five years earlier I wouldn't have heard that. I think that's a very good sign. And these are members from both the academic and industry. And they wanted to talk all about this and and what we should be doing and add ideas and so on. I think that that was. I think that that's what the coffer action came from that those particular visits. I think another interesting now is, we're finding that private industry is now on board, and realizing that there is a problem for all of us. We're on the same boat called the planet Earth, and we got to do something about it. I think engineering is engineers are well suited for for this because of our view of systems we tend to look at things as systems and interacting parts and climate climate impact of climate change is certainly a systems problem. And actually the cause of climate change system problem so I think that engineering has a lot to offer and there are a lot of opportunities for innovation and engineers like to innovate so I think that that's that's another, another piece of this. I wonder if I could make a comment to about what Tom was talking about. I think it's a lot of crumbling infrastructure if you go to Asia you go to airports, you're amazed at how nice the airports are in Asia. In China, I think that's four or five different airports and Korea, and whatever and I just was Japan, I just, you know, it was amazing. I went home and I go to some war airports and it just really kind of sad to see what's happening. Now they're newer and they were able to do things, but there's always this tension between maintenance and innovation. You need both. And if you've ever been a university president trying to raise money it's very difficult to raise money for sustaining what you have. You need to raise money for doing something new. But somehow, as Tom was alluding to you have to get the money the funds to keep up with you have in addition to modernizing and introducing innovative ideas into infrastructure into the system so I think that's really an important point. And, and it reminds me of Churchill's famous expression that Americans always do the right thing after the exhausted or possibilities and I think with infrastructure that's really true. So I'd like to now bridge over to talk about some of those those innovative solutions, but before that just a quick recap for folks who might have joined a bit late. We've heard about infrastructure in terms of it being parts of roads, runways, rail and rivers so water infrastructure very important, as well as the traditional built environment and nature based are living shorelines and how they help us deal with climate changes, things shift, and how important resiliency is to all of these systems. And, you know, as, as things begin to happen in the climate, how that's changing our need to to adapt to that. There was the example of permafrost which is supposed to remain permanently frozen melting and the impacts that it has when you've built things into it. We talked about the nation's report card so we're we're not maybe excelling we got a rate of C minus on on our current infrastructure and that it's, it's, it's hard to get this efficient budgets necessarily to to maintain over time and how setting priorities is going to be deeply important, and how climate itself is a rising priority, john was just giving the example about surveying, you know, any engineers and that not climate was their number one priority and now that private industry is on board, and engineers are, you know, ready to to apply their systems thinking to forward change where we're at an excellent opportunity to look at what building solutions could be. So let's let's move to that topic. The next section of our discussion gentlemen. Um, you know how does the either one of you might like to start how does the engineering community think about climate resilient infrastructure, and how's that thinking changed over the years. Given that we're seeing more, you know whether disasters and so on. Yeah, I've been happy to start. Good Tom good. Yeah, with increasing sea level rise and storms with greater intensity and greater frequency. I think we have to think much more about resilience in in concert with risk. And I've got a small chart here and I'll put it up and see if you can see it. Can you see that Mariette. Yeah, just a tiny bit higher so we can see time on the bottom. There we are. So it's time but what it says is that that if you think about functionality on the y axis and time on the x axis, you plan to be resilient and and then at a certain point in time, you're going to have a disruption and that disruption is going to push you down. And what risk does risk tries to fight against that disruption. It tries to build a structure that doesn't Ben. And what we're saying with resilience you want to Ben, but don't break. And then you want to recover. And that last part is really important you want to adapt. So that you're stronger so that your next cycle, you're actually you have a higher level of functionality. So, with that as an example I think the best example I think of is the Mississippi River and tributary system. And a little story here I went to China and I met with Minister Chen Li, the Minister of Water Resources for the country, and he said to me you know general Bostic the flood of 1927 was a really big flood. The flood of 1994 was a bad flood and the flood of 2011 was a bad flood. Which one was the biggest which one was the worst for America. And I chuckled and I said, you know, Mr gently, you know, most Americans would know those floods. But, but the biggest in terms of water flow down the Mississippi was 2011. But most people don't know that because few people died. And what happened was that in the flood of 1927, we had near 1000 people died we had 800,000 refugees we had millions of acres of land that was flooded. And the core was told to build the Mississippi rivers and tributary system. And this was a systems of locks and dams and floodways. And when we got to the choke point just south of St. Louis, there's a point there where the Ohio the Mississippi come together, and it causes a huge amount of water, more water than you can build anything that can resist it. So we had to absorb it somehow. And what the great engineers that started building this in 1928 said was we need a floodway that we can open up the floodway, five miles wide and 65 miles long and allow that to flood on purpose. So if anyone remembers the 2011 flood they remember. Again my colleague, Major General, Mike Walsh. He was blowing up the levy. So right at that choke point we, we don't say we blew up the levy we say we operated the floodway, but we opened up this levy and let it relieve itself. So we didn't try to fight and design a risk based levy that could fight against everything. To me that's what resilience is all about. And, and we have to think about that in each of our systems because there's going to be a bigger Katrina there's going to be a bigger Sandy. There's going to be a bigger Hurricane Maria, and they're going to be right around the corner. The other thing I'd say about that visit with Chen Li he looked at me says General Boston, you know the Chinese are pretty far behind the United States and in water resource management infrastructure. For seven years we're going to spend $670 billion and we're going to build 170 projects across China. And he looked at me, and he said, What is the US strategy for infrastructure. And I knew he knew the answer. I had none. We have no strategy. We have projects out there but but a strategy going out seven or 10 years. And that's why I'm really looking forward to an infrastructure bill that will will look into the future and say this is what the country is going to do in the areas that John and I have been talking about. John anything you would like. Yeah, I totally agree with Tom that's very good words and, and I hope Congress will come up with some focused opportunities and investment. One area that Tom, I think was learning to was adaptable structures things that Ben but don't break and can recover. And this has to be built into the design criteria for for anything. The question was why recent years. Our engineers are more interested in this and I think it's because we see opportunities for innovation and addressing climate change and these opportunities are going to excite scientists and engineers in terms of mitigating and adapting to what's happening. One example would be when we as we build new structures and new physical structures, we think about the digital part of it. For example, building and sensors that tell you something about the current state of the structure. And it might give you information or warning if something's going to fail. And people are working on this problem today versus in bridges and worried about corrosion putting in corrosion sensors chloride detectors within the structures. One thing also is that when you look at what happened in Texas this year, the loss of power that got the attention of a lot of people. Whether it's climate change or not, climate change is statistical you can't say one event caused it, but clearly events like this are going to cause more of such problems. And it was a, it was a loss not only of physical infrastructure but also the digital part of it as well. So things have to come together. And I got, I think that gets the attention of engineers as well. So I think the investment. I remember this whole commercial that used to be about changing the oil in your car and said pay me now or pay me later you know if it was like, you do preventive maintenance and invest in infrastructure. You're going to save money in the long run. But that's a hard sell sometimes we're going to make that sell that investment will save us money in the long run. John sticking with you for just a minute talking and talking about opportunities. The Academy's recently published a number of reports about the future of energy. One of the roles of different types of energy sources for providing resilient net zero energy to meet the nation's needs and how do we create an integrated plan with those. Well it's. Of course want to move towards minimizing or eliminating the very long term, our greenhouse gases and even removing them from the atmosphere as well. The near the zero net zero carbon goals we have will require many creative engineering achievements and I think this is a great. This is a great inspiration, especially the young engineers students as well as young professional engineers who want to make a contribution. We're looking at things like carbon sequestration from combustion products direct capture me a photosynthesis and other means when the solar feeds. And I think we've got to revisit nuclear energy and fission at least in the interim to get to zero net zero carbon situations. I guess I'll have to talk much more about the grid. It's something that the nation has to worry about. We have to we have national issues regional issues and micro grid issues. And if we're going to introduce energy from renewables and other sources. We have to develop technologies that allow that energy to be introduced into the grid and in a metered and and in a safe way robust way. And in the long term, there's interest in fusion energy. And I don't know how that's been the people we've been talking about that for decades, but I do think someday, maybe maybe not in my lifetime and someday fusion energy will be there. And it is no silver bullet. And we have to look at all these options as well. But I make that makes the problem interesting and there's a lot of room here for creative people from various backgrounds to to contribute and I think this would be just a great great activity for all of us. So, Tom, how, how is the army core working to better address infrastructure problems and while you're answering that we need to speak a little bit to the different roles for us federal policy versus state and versus local or tribal. Sure. I think one of the key challenges that we face in trying to solve any problem out there is to really take the time to understand the problem in depth and after Sandy, the Congress awarded the core $20 million as part of the 60 or so billion dollars that went post Sandy about 20 million in the core got about six, six billion of that the 20 million was to look out 50 to 100 years, consider climate change, and think about resilience for cities along the road. We looked at about 31,000 miles of the Easter East coast of the United States. And we created with the help of industry and academia and the public private sector working together in the north Atlantic coast comprehensive study. We didn't mean anything like quite like that, where we came together and really dug deep into how do we build resilient communities. And, and then the communities have taken off and they've done a wonderful job with with this throughout several major cities, Norfolk is a good example of that and there's several others along the coastline that have used that report and focused on climate change that do 200 years from now and what needs to be done in a focus on resilience so a lot of this work is at the state level in fact I've worked with the team and in Norfolk to look at resilient communities and in that area and it's really important not only for the community but from a national security perspective because of all the military bases that are located in that area. So I think first understand the problem, study it and map out a strategy for resolving it, and then it's going to take, it's going to take funding, and it's going to take priorities like I spoke about before. And it's going to take a focus on not just the hard infrastructure that some relate to the core but but also the ecosystem restoration which is another main mission of the core to look at ecosystems and how do we consider the environment as we build infrastructure. I think about the Savannah River, Savannah Harbor project. And that was about a $700 million project but over 400 million of that project was dedicated towards ecosystem restoration, which really shows a change in how the Congress, the states and the local communities are looking at balancing the importance of maintaining our environment as we do things that are more on the traditional infrastructure scope and size of projects. Thank you so I'd like to take us in a slightly different direction talking about setting up for the future for the sort of last section of our conversation today. We've heard about resilience this principle of bending not breaking and adaptable structures. We talked about, you know, preparing for the bigger Katrina the bigger Sandy that's coming our way, and the need to have an infrastructure strategy Tom was just talking about, you know the principle of taking the time to really understand the problem and map out solutions and then spend the money that it that it takes and we also talked about different technology including energy solutions for net zero as well. Let's take a look ahead at some of the people challenges perhaps and ways to prepare the next generation of engineers for such monumental tasks and I'd like to start by asking both of you so you're both engineers and and both, you know, different specialty types. Now what do you see the roles of different kinds of engineers in addressing mitigation and sustainability through infrastructure. I could take a shot at that when I went to school a long time ago. You know needs were not part of any engineering curriculum you had to take general education electives, but they were never connected to the courses in engineering that you were in science science and engineering was all very technical. And we've moved I think over the past four decades or so to try to introduce more of societal responsibility into engineering curriculum. The NEs worked with universities engineering colleges to sponsor the grand challenges scholars program which is based on the 14 grand challenges that the NE defined. And these were global grand challenges they were not just us grand challenges and programs like that have just interested students into looking and faculty as well into looking beyond. What is the impact of this on people and the earth and sustainability and so on. So I think making in terms of education students, faculty and students aware of what they think the implications of their work. And what they have to consider is just crucial for want to improve, improve our ability to engineer things properly as we talked about today. Thank you john you've you've written about the importance of addressing cultural ethical social responsibility and I'm so delighted to hear this, this discuss in the context of any future planning course. I would like to see actually engineering faculty work with social science faculty on the curriculum, I mean, I think that integrated rather than taking a course of social sciences and of course in engineering have some courses that are truly interdisciplinary to combine those things in any project you're doing. Thank you. I wonder just a quick follow up on that so we mentioned earlier in the conversation that if we're not mindful of equitability different, you know certain people are are differentially affected by infrastructure and could we make that real by by giving just some a few examples of the ways that happens. And like I think of a highway going through a poor neighborhood, for instance, that's my example of Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago is a great example of how it basically destroyed neighborhoods and segregated the city. I'm sure Tom has a lot of other examples as well. I agree with this point and I was fortunate to work on congressional report that was sponsored by it was sponsored for FEMA and it was looking at urban flooding. In about two years we went to some major cities around the country. And we had a great team that put this report together, but one of the telling facts that came out of that was that, you know, the people of color and elderly, the poor disadvantage. They were affected a lot more by where they lived in the urban flooding that was occurring across America. And this was a real problem for a lot of people for a long time. It wasn't the hurricane Sandy or the Katrina or the Maria, but, but these were real problem affecting everyday people, and it was affecting people of color in greater, greater numbers and people that were disadvantaged economically. So, so I do think we have to do it, take a special look at this, and we have to focus on it. And the, the other thing we noticed in these sessions that we had that we'd go around the country is that a lot of folks from those areas would not participate in the discussions. So we had to really work hard to encourage them to have a voice in these sessions. And one of the things I commend john for starting the racial justice and equity committee in the National Academy of Engineering and one of the areas that he has led the team to focus on is stem education for people of color. And this is a long term effort and in my mind we have to start in elementary school and we have to develop folks that are from the ninth ward or from the south side of Chicago and other areas that are affected by some of these challenges to to grow up and be part of the discussion and part of the solution, and to be in the forum where these, these, these decisions are being made and it'll take us a while but in the interim we need committees that are focused in this area and one that I'm happy to work on is the kind of research program and you know we have leaders like Senator Mary Landrieu is very very interested. She's on the committee and is very interested in how do we, how do we help those that are disadvantaged in certain locations but we're looking at other places but this is a very very important point I'm glad. Mariette that you brought it up. Tom did you have anything else you look like you're about to add something or, if not all, well I think Tom brought up two things this committee racial justice and equity came about after the incidence last summer and Tom is on that committee, along with 13 other individuals and we're trying to do in terms of equity and justice that are, you know, that are unique engineering how we can make some kind of special contribution so that that committee is probably the most active committee we have in the, in the nae also I'm glad Tom brought up the golf research program it's a wonderful activity in the National Academies, it's funded by settlement with BP, and it's got great leadership, and they are looking at restoring not only restoring but sustaining the golf and the word it's people oriented as well as environmentally oriented Tom's right this is a very important part and looking at things like offshore safety, environmental contamination so on so on over golf. So, it's really good to see any in the National Academies in general, very proactive in action, and trying to do something about non equity and injustice. You know, they, the other point I would just that the john made I just like to also footstomp is, you know, it's not only engineers and these are very, very challenging issues that we're wrestling with and you want the engineers there but I think about the sociologist, the psychologist, some of these leaders and other disciplines. It's a dis interdisciplinary team that has to address these sorts of issues that there are people who are good at communications and being able to reach out and marketing and advertising and educators and so I just, although we talk about stem and we talk about engineering and this is the National Institute of Engineering. This is a challenge is an interdisciplinary type effort where we need a lot of hands on deck. Tom I would add public health as well. Exactly, which you said. I love this discussion of interdisciplinarity and especially of equity because surely if we're more equitable and our thinking, more of us will, you know, be happy over time and healthy and prosperous as the country indeed promises and its constitution. Let's let's talk about a segment of these interdisciplinary groups. So we've had the broad picture now let zero in a little bit on engineers. So they, you know, set set code and necessarily often have to be a bit risk averse, because roads bridges houses dams all that has to be very reliable. So how do you help with that sort of shift of thinking, or promote the new application of technology and materials when when engineers have a public duty to make sure that those projects are safe and sound. So how do you balance those. I mean, personal safety safety is, of course, top priority on anything and Tom Tom's a civil engineer so he can comment on it but they a lot of safety factors are put in for very good reason. When I drive over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge I'm glad they're there. I wouldn't say risk averse I say just the number one priority safety, and you have to make sure and you know, science and engineering are fairly precise but not totally precise and there are some things that can happen so you have to put in safety factors, margins of error and so on. Tom could probably make a better statement about it than I can. Yeah I'm thinking Tom balancing safety and you know so this traditional factors that we have to have, as john rightly says, but against that you know the need for innovation trying new materials let's say new new ways of erecting things. Yeah, you know, both of these can occur together. We do have to plan for some, some give some bending but not breaking and that can be designed within an engineering project. I think there are standards that are set. And I think as long as you meet those standards but design resilience within within the project. That can be done. And as an example, the, there's a NIST study that was done in in 2021 and one that was done in 2019 that looked at earthquakes and the ability to design for earthquakes and to be resilient. It really applies to all types of natural hazards whether you're talking earthquakes or hurricanes and in those sorts of things and, and I think as Congress builds the infrastructure bill. One point I would make is to look at the NIST study this is the National Institute of Standards and Technology that NIST and FEMA worked on, and ensure that those standards are incorporated in the infrastructure bill. And, and it's that's that sort of standard which will will provide us the resilience that we need, but also be risk based. You know I spent, like I said I spent a lot of time in, in elementary schools trying to teach engineering. And I teach it at a level that the youngsters can understand and one of the things we talk about as an I-beam. And, and, and the kids say, you know why, why do you design an I-beam like that why don't you just have a rectangle. You know wouldn't that be stronger and I said sure it'd be stronger. And I said okay, and I look at the person to ask the question I said you have to pay for it, and we're going to build that rectangle in gold. I don't want to build a rectangle anymore okay. You're going to build an I-beam but but as an engineer you need to make sure that I-beam will bend but not break. And the way you do that is you follow the code. And the code has been developed over many years and tested. We can meet these kind of standards and I, and I think this new NIST report is going to be very helpful to not only engineers but to the Congress and our infrastructure planning. Yeah. Marietta I wonder if I can make one more comment about infrastructure that we haven't really touched on and that is if you look at the vaccine development for COVID-19 that was possible because of infrastructure that platforms were developed over two decades with a new technique, this mRNA technique and then the adenovirus technique is in dental over time. I would consider health platforms as well as part of our infrastructure that when we have to address something we need to be able to respond. And so it's not just about roads bridges whatever we're just about coaxial cable or whatever. It also includes things that keep us healthy and that's part of the infrastructure. Thank you. Those are excellent points. I wonder so we only have about maybe three minutes left. And we talked about a lot of quite a range of things over our conversation today. I wonder if, you know, as a final question, you both might think about you know what is one thing we really like today's audience to take away from the conversation we've just been having. John, do you want to start off maybe. I would emphasize is that as engineers, we must have constant focus on serving all segments of society and be aware of unintended consequences and disparate negative results on certain parts of society we have a, we have a responsibility to do that. That's what I would and infrastructure is a good example. Thank you. Tom, what are you, what are you thinking about. I agree with john and I would, I would add that we, we need to take action now. This is not something that can wait. Another year, we have an opportunity. And we really need to move out now. I think as we move out we have to include many voices in the discussion. As I just mentioned and we've mentioned earlier about the poor, the disadvantaged and the elderly and making sure we're doing the right thing by including many voices in the discussion. I've always been big on a systems approach and designing for resilience and I think our engineers in our communities are moving toward that. And we have to think for the long haul. We're not going to fix this overnight in a big part of what we fix it far into the future will depend on the young men and women boys and girls that are in school today, that are going to grow up and hopefully live in a better climate in a better resilient type of infrastructure and communities. And some of that will depend on some of them deciding to go into STEM careers, but but it's an interdisciplinary approach to solving these challenges, but encouraging some to go into stem is something that I think we're committed to. Thank you, John. And I hope everybody is joining me now and mentally applauding you so we've heard about societal needs in this last section of our conversation, in particular about how we must take a more equitable approach across our community and a more interdisciplinary one as well with the idea of racial justice and equity behind everything that's done and how we balance safety versus new innovations. And John just and and Thomas left us with the thoughts around a constant focus on serving all segments of society and being aware of unintended consequences and in other words learning from the past. And Thomas left us with the idea of really it'd be really important to take action now. And, you know, and strongly so to make sure that we're doing so and being inclusive with all voices so that we make better decisions. And we'll end up with, you know, better more resilient response to climate with our infrastructure so I now thank you all so much, and turn it over to Alex for the close. Thank you. Thank you again for joining the national national academies of sciences, engineering and medicine for our fifth climate conversation. I want to thank Tom and john for sharing their perspectives and to give a special thanks to Mary at for her skillful moderation, including her excellent recap just now. So the conversation was recorded and should be available for viewing on the same web page starting tomorrow. Again there's a link above to register for our July 15 climate conversation, which you can also access by going to climate dash security dot event right dot com at the event we'll talk about the connections between climate change and security again that's climate dash security dot event right calm. We'll also share this information through our climate at the national academies newsletter which you can also sign up for above. And a reminder to share your feedback on today's event or your ideas for future events, please see the survey linked above. Thanks to all of you for joining us again, and thanks to Mary at Tom and john for sharing their time and expertise with us and their leadership in this area. Lastly, thank you to the climate communications team at the national academies and to everyone behind the scenes who supported today's event. We're excited to continue the conversation through future events like this. Stay cool everyone and have a great day.