 Yes. All right. So, Jacob, how much, what's the timing of this? So, as we announced before, said the coffee refresh in the afternoon just isn't happening, so hopefully it's going to go community-ish. So, we started a little late on this. I figure we'll go, we'll do the Q&A here for 15 or something like that, and then we'll just transition to the last panel. That seems a bit, obviously, ticked, but we won't be having a break, so that's okay. Okay. Thanks. All right. So, I'm sitting here thinking that this panel seems rather upbeat to me, which is a good thing for the mid-afternoon. And there are a lot of students in the room. Many of us are academics. I think those of us who are academics are not academics because we enjoy retreating to the ivory tower, but because we feel that somehow in the institutions in which we work, as research institutions, there is hope for the future. And you've all talked about what I'm going to ask again in a certain way, but I just, when Reinhold and Jacob contacted us, my first reaction was, oh my goodness, we've been around so many blocks in New Orleans. What are we going to talk about now? We don't want to talk here anywhere. We want to get busy. We want to do things. All of you in one way or another talk about doing things. And so I'm wondering where do you think, for these students sitting out here who also want to do things, where are the productive lines of research toward that future at every scale? Where are, what are the projects that we need to be thinking about pouring that research into at every scale, from the small to the grandiose? Could you just talk some more about that? I'd really like to go forward. I mean, I think that if you look at the Green New Deal proposal from New Consensus, which is the think tank behind AOC, there is a remarkably thin amount on the built environment. There's a lot that has been done in economic modeling, what would it look like to adjust various knobs in terms of climate change. There's been a very long debate about green jobs, understandably, and that's good. There's been a lot of debate about the principles of what the difference between climate justice and green capitalism would look like. But on the question of the built environment, I don't think there has been much. And especially about what a big egalitarian program of investment for the built environment would be. We know that investment, targeted investment in communities of color, and like in communities with a green new deal, wants to look like, and there's a bit of a model in California that one could study. But all this is to say, I do think there's a huge scope for work for designers, architects, engineers, many and other forms of applied sciences. And there's a big question. I don't think we know the answer is what is an innovative built environment program look like that is not the kind of unequal part of reinforcing catastrophe that we have now. So if we can somehow bring together some social questions and some of that built environment technical expertise, I think we can start to build something very new. And the last time the left was strong was maybe post-war, it's been like 50 years. And the models of intervening in the built environment have not really changed. So it seems to me this is the kind of biggest gap in our knowledge right now. And I think there's a time for young people to literally build a new world. I suppose one way to address that question and what I was trying to get at is if we look at models, alternative models of actual development in terms of architecture and housing in the state of Louisiana, and if we ask what has the state of Louisiana supported and encouraged, it's pretty pathetic. And my point of presentation was to say right now the most innovative work I see going on is actually in Southeast Asia. The Thai government has been funding innovations in this notion of amphibious houses that amphibious urbanism in Vietnam and Bangladesh governments have stepped up and realized that in order to move forward, some kind of innovation. And the second point of this is the same. I think it's really interesting and important to think about the difference between when large-scale planning is being placed, certain players are involved in that. But there's a difference between the small-scale moves that... What does a homeowner do? And in Louisiana, you lift your house sheet. There's a couple of moves possible. But in Asia, we're seeing these small-scale moves are incredibly interesting and very innovative. And it's not the exclusion of large-scale planning, but there are two parallel things going on. They're groping with large-scale problems, but they're actually developing innovative small-scale responses. And it's curious to me why we in Louisiana have not even started that discussion much less put forward models. I will say this, that according to FEMA, FEMA will support the lifting of houses, but they will not support the amphibious houses. So if a homeowner decides that they want to pursue the amphibious house, FEMA decides to support that. So already in place of policies that will incur certain things and disturb each other, the last thing I'll say is it's very interesting to me. The last slide I showed was title power. In 2010, apparently the Army Corps of Engineers started an experimental project late in the game compared to other places in the world. And did it just disappear? Does anyone here know what happened to the 2010 project of title power that the Army Corps of Engineers was experimenting with? So this is interesting to me, whereas in Australia and almost any other place, title power has just become norm. So has so many other alternative sources. We have more water here than we know to do it. I look at the river and wonder why don't we have a turbine in the river. I won't get into why, but there are very specific reasons why. So all of this is to say, and I'll stop, but we would do well to keep looking at other parts of the world that are also dealing with issues of life in the Delta, the future of sea level rise and water. And we have extraordinary examples to look at to think about. And I'm going to add to that where I was going in terms of the talk of that is the assumption is that the African-American community is outside of this conversation that we'll do this for the city, meaning other people will do this for the city or to other places and then you get the benefit of it. When the reality is just the opposite, whether they, meaning people in general, are in institutions meaning in universities or not, they are always thinking, one thing I learned from a lot of students from Asia was exactly what you're talking about and it's coming from informal settlements. What is starting to happen in the United States and we haven't talked about it enough is we call it homeless encampments. They're really informal settlements and we have not come to terms with how we make sense of that. And in that sense, there are survival mechanisms and other things happening right in front of us but because of the way we've set up certain things and hierarchies and the way we have organized ourselves, we don't even ask. One of the big things that happen here is the sewage and water board has pumping stations that's moving water out constantly in crisis in the way that it's managed and everything that's happening with it. But the people who actually operate these stations, you know a hell of a lot and I never ask. The reason why I know is because I go in and ask them. And you're not supposed to go in, they brought my classes in and explained water in such dynamic ways, alright? And then they said, no photographs. Everybody agreed and we go out. The thing is that you have this knowledge but there is this hierarchy of who's supposed to know and who's not supposed to figure out the very critical issues. And one of these guys is really a totally different animal. We work with a lot of state and federal agencies and the cooperation level is just unbelievable. With this program, we have a Beneng Ola Penitentiary. It's a 1,500-hour horticultural course that's being taught by Baton Rouge Community College which we use financially to support. And these trustees as they are being released, we pay for their licensing and we find them a job. So when they walk out the door that next day they have a job to go to. And we not only pay their licensing fees but we also have money that's available for rental deposits and security deposits. And in working with some of these agencies here at the city level, they're like, well, they need to come in for an interview and we're like, well, that's not how our program works. How about like a Skype interview? And that was just unheard of. They were like, well, we just don't even do that. We haven't even ever considered that. And it's really stretching the thinking here as to how these agencies can be linked not only to the taxpayers but also to all of the residents that are here in New Orleans to propel this thing forward. Down where we are, I don't know if you all have been into Airbnb and into Shell Net, the development that's occurred there is just an astronomical. And along the St. Claude corridor we have some private properties that are owned by the city of New Orleans. They're owned by churches. They're owned by nonprofits. And to get the city to go in there and do some good enforcement and a little bit of private eradication is just unheard of. And we just had a group come in from Baylor University in Texas to pick up 500 tires a couple of weeks ago because we couldn't get the city to go down there and do it. So it's those types of things that residents here around you struggle with to make our local government more accountable. And it's a really serious problem. Yeah, I'd just like to say something about the flooding in Louisiana. I mean, I really think the innovative approaches that Anthony showed from across the world about how to live with water are really something that we can take home. And I think that in terms of Carol's point about where are the opportunities for our students? I think one of the things that we have to do, I don't want to try to say it's really complicated and it takes a specialist, but a flood is not a flood, it's not a flood, right? There's a difference between storm surge with waves and very active water. And that Mississippi flood out there, which is kind of a long rise over two months and a long decline over six weeks and the kind of rainfall flooding that we had in Baton Rouge that Tracy talked about this morning. They have different kinds of things. And so, you know, you might have sensed my frustration in my remarks about that the good news is that everybody understands there's a relationship between wetlands and storm surge. The bad news is everybody thinks there's a relationship and they think it's really simple, right? These things really are getting the right building for the right flood and the right approach. It really takes expertise and that's what we need our students to be able to help people do really tailor these solutions to the problems that different places have. So I hope you get some good steam. Okay, thanks. Thanks all of you. How about any questions from the audience? I'll try to be sustained. I'm in my first year at UNO for the planning program and you'll have to forgive my existential crisis right now but I noticed that planning in this regard today seems a little bit more reactive and I'm noticing that no one's really talking about renewable energy at all and I'm just wondering if that plays into your work at all you mentioned tidal energy and the Green New Deal of course but I'm feeling like a lot of the issues that we're discussing are sort of reactive solutions and I'm just wondering how we can get ahead and be proactive about maybe minimizing all the damage that is going to happen from climate change and maybe talk about policy that would be helpful too. Because of time, I could have broken each and almost every one of those projects in Muhammad Reswan there's a solar panel on those floating schools if you go to Libos, there's solar panels, there's tidal it's almost all of the projects that I was showing it's a given that the renewable energy is integrated into many of those designs and again, I couldn't do everything in ten minutes but I think to try to address your question I think it's central and I think we would be undermining ourselves to not demand that they're integrated and that they should become a norm and given the last thing I'll say about that is again looking at comparative models in Medellin, Colombia and that spends some time there looking at some of the new projects and I had a great fortune of meeting the contractor who was responsible for building most of the libraries most of the new civic work there and it was astounding to me when he said just in passing, every civic building must be 100% passive and with that, you could ask the question I'm sure you could point out a list of civic buildings in the US that are 100% passive but can you name one? Can anyone here name one? So it raises questions, fundamental questions about how is it that other countries or places can not just aim but accomplish accomplish these things and when we reflect back on many of the models that we're just toying with we see this misalignment it's sort of extraordinary so I'll end here just saying I think it is really important to constantly look around at your neighbors and open up and listen and kind of learn from what other people are doing Real quick, I think in about 2005 and 2008, 2009 you would have felt the thing you were looking for it was everywhere Everybody now is restricted back you cannot do that on that building or try that experiment here and there so it's much more, I think, less spoken of but people are still Other questions in the back? Maybe we'll take a few So I wanted to ask a question about in terms of these conversations about the improvements going back to the CPRA it's a tremendous piece of policy but the original iteration was so much about the engineering of it and kind of this question of bringing in communities into the conversation so in terms of your work or excellent kind of workers you have seen in improving sustainability and improving resilience in communities what tactics or approaches or processes do you think are useful or critical for ensuring you have that your process is informed both by the community and by the technical expertise that's needed for that to be a successful project Thanks for a really interesting panel so I'll remember questions for Daniel Thanks for a very inspiring talk so my question is whether you can sort of relate the argument that you made about housing to the questions of environmental justice and sort of sort of recognizing that there is unequal exposure to environmental risk that preserves the US city what kind of political coalitions would be necessary to address both this vision of green public housing and environmental justice together whether you see kind of synergies between those two social struggles my second question is about social vulnerability and sort of whether you can talk a little bit more about the kinds of different responses by communities or particular stakeholders to some of the strategies that have been proposed like sediment diversions I read a bit about the shippers and sort of other groups responding sometimes negatively to some of the solutions that have been proposed so I'm just sort of curious to hear about those social responses Can you take two more? Sure I have a question for Tom and Daniel as someone that was here during Katrina and active in the public housing movement I'm certainly aware of common ground but a lot of people had questions about what happened to the leaders about your web page it talks about in the past tense it was found it was found by Malik Rahim and some other activists and they were summarily kind of kicked out and then you kind of popped in some people were kind of curious and others that were active in the public housing movement were kind of curious about what actually happened and as for Daniel you were kind of implicitly critical of kind of these self-help initiatives that kind of popped up that were dominant in post Katrina and the need for kind of a big, bold program to deal with inequality and climate change would play it's clearly an issue here in New Orleans and around the globe and we shared in the public housing movement we kind of shared that criticism that we had literally millions of people you count those that came multiple times that came down as volunteers and yet it's still a disaster area for working class people we always said that people came down as part of the social movement kind of the tradition of the civil rights movement that would have been a real contribution but by coming down as volunteers it kind of played into the self-help neoliberal reconstruction model that left the state off the hook so my question is around the politics of the Green New Deal I mean it's good to have a plan to put it out a blueprint real discussion about is the politics that are going to get us there and I think any kind of plan is going to run into this huge complex philanthropic non-profit complex that emerged here I think it would be a real political obstacle trench that this kind of movement is going to have to confront the fire and all those people I don't know the Jacomet who's leading this discussion have talked about this or are planning to discuss it Hey, so I just think it's interesting that we're in Louisiana talking about brainwashing and the sort of the oil and gas industry has come up at all as the sort of historical producer of risk in this environment really interesting for those of you who are working in this space I've been working in the restoration space for a little while a few sort of fabulously wealthy global companies are profiting off of the destruction of this coast to put it in really stark terms and I'm wondering how those of you who are working this do you see that playing out how do you see it playing out or is it something in the background I don't know how to look at it well in any order Thank you Great questions, folks There was something maybe it was the first one Anyway I did want to talk about I forgot earlier about a planning effort that was recently undertaken called LAC some of you may be familiar with it which was very much designed as a grassroots planning effort the first panel this morning about the need for community engagement and totally agree with that and so the idea was to take the analysis of the future condition that was done for the state's coastal master plan and take it out into the communities and say look this is what's going to happen what do you want to do and I live down the bayou not very far from Charlton and it's happening down in our community and I will tell you that when faced with the maps of the land loss for the future and how deep the water was going to be most of the people in the communities could not process it it was too much change they could not relate to that at all and so what happened with the whole LAC process was they went through this kind of bottom up planning process they ended up with projects that solve today's problems not projects that solve tomorrow's problems and I think that is one of the challenges that we've had we're trying to do a much better job for the 2023 master plan about having regional work groups and different kinds of things and kind of getting ideas from from communities from regions not it being a Baton Rouge kind of top down plan but at the same time the idea is to really look into the future and to some extent I think that's also kind of one way of thinking about the question about the oil and gas industry which clearly are a key element of the whole Louisiana Coast story and I've spent time examining land loss processes and canals and those kinds of things and I've done a few lawsuits against the oil companies and was in the middle of being vilified during the BP oil spill and all of that kind of thing but the way I look at it personally is that most of the things that happened on the coast that caused problems were 20th century things I'm really focused on what we're going to do for the 21st century and how we're going to fix it you know why it happened is not the same as what's going to fix it and so that is also probably a little bit of a response to this will be quick the question about how do people respond to the plan and what you've seen in several of the presentations today about people complaining fishermen particularly complaining about these really large diversions of water to kind of reinvigorate this delta building process for a mention and part of the plan and it's the same I think it's the same approach is that they are very reasonably concerned about their livelihood to death they are not thinking about they grant you know two or three generations into the future and so my personal thinking at the minute is that just focusing on 50 years into the future well I think that's vitally important it's not the only thing that we need to do we need to have this came up in that was an idea that came up in a changing course competition that somebody mentioned this morning it's an idea of kind of generational plan you need to focus for the really big things they take a long time and a lot of momentum you have to build a lot of momentum to get really big things moving so you have to think decades into the future but you also have to kind of plan to transition towards that and we need like a 15 year plan a 35 year plan a 60 year plan not just 150 and that's why I think about it I'm not sure that the state folks are ready for that okay so I just sorry just be brief so when you do talk to these shrippers you do talk to these oysters and you ask them where were you fishing, where were you doing oyster 20 years ago and when you have that conversation with them they do realize that yes this diversion it's a crash, no one knows if this is actually going to work and how effective it's going to be but it's the only plan that we all have well it is every year but it is it's a huge experiment that we're all undertaking but I mean a lot of these communities a lot of the coast that they now that are you know one of the three problems we've had are people being able to get flood insurance people being able to get mortgages and people being able to stay in place in these communities what you don't want to have down in Montague where you have a public school teachers can't afford to buy houses and they get tired of a 100 mile commute to go teach every day and you have small industry that leaves and you have the retail support that leaves and all of a sudden these communities you know will cease to exist over time so you know those are the types of things of working with these communities you're within this levee system now and you can go ahead and begin moving forward with trees and plant materials and doing some of the restoration effort in conjunction with these state and federal programming that's in place and very quickly I would say that part of what we're talking about the reason I brought up the whole thing about codes of memory is that in fact I think people do think generationally what's going to happen in 50, 60 years these codes of memory are meant to actually be a way a counter against history where you're written out of history alright and that's what I'm saying there's such a wealth of knowledge of improvisation brought into the table with our hard sciences that would not come all out of the park but we're like you can't talk you can't come to the table you can't be here and that I'm like it's not like people stop thinking they think about other things in other ways and if we could pull that energy together whoa so to respond to something Denise just said that we need a 60 year plan actually we need a 50 year plan I would add to that we need a 1 year plan, a 2 year plan and a 5 year plan we need ideas right now and the reason I say that is because right now what's on the table if we use digital shells as a model that's more or less the position to say it's just you retreat to higher ground and acquire higher ground 50 miles but to remain where you are is not an option that's what's being held and I think we should at least recently test alternative strategies that if a community insists on staying it's either the status quo at the moment or nothing and I think when I say we need a 1 year plan a 5 year plan what are alternatives we need to be investigating immediately at least to test the viability of these things but that's not to say of course we should be thinking of very very long term plans I don't think it can be either or I think they both need to be at work in order to come up with a reasonable proposition thanks last word then okay two things there are a lot of shitty non-profits but they are a symptom not the cause the cause of the problem is the financial industry that's clear and the position of my part of this Green New Deal series of dark events is that the fossil fuel industry needs to be nationalized and reasonized that the executives should be tried for crimes against humanity the international criminal court that's going to be difficult to deal with you know we have the smoking ads that have been published and then just very briefly the coalitions that have achieved the great justice gains in the US like the Mountain World auction in New Jersey which forces every single community in a state to affirmatively zone for affordable housing these victories are won by coalitions of labor organizers, racial justice organizers, environmentalists progressive politicians and often left-going lawyers who suffered many years of boredom otherwise to try to make things better for the rest of us and the only thing I would just ask that and we've talked about this at John & Coven enough for the need for a serious political strategy to defeat massive financial wealthy industries but the last thing I want to add is the United States private sector union density is 7% so the labor movement as it stands is not strong enough on its own and the electoral infrastructure of the primary system is something that can put millions of people into the streets and if you look at geopolitics right now and you think what would it mean for the United States to have a president in 2021 who advocates climate investment which would mean that then the US Europe and China over half the economy over half global emissions we're all racing to have the most aggressive climate investment instead of two or three of those people being opposed to it that is a huge transformation and what's going to happen in the next year and a half in terms of the primaries are massively important for the climate so I think yes there's a huge amount we can do with the built environments and all the things we talked about but also there's no dating out that passes where the democratic primaries aren't happening and the potential for the planet and then ultimately for cities like New Orleans to either really benefit from or really suffer from a series of defeats or victories in these primary elections is huge, it's huge so this is really an insane moment where Americans for better or worse have a massive influence on what's going to happen for decades in the atmosphere and therefore in the streets and the country and the fields that they live in so I think this is a huge turning point moment over the next couple of years and I hope that we all find a way to seize that moment