Hey, welcome back you know we all
hear a lot about climate change,
but sometimes seeing is really
believing a new book out called Atlas
of Disappearing Places gives us a real
look at the impacts of global warming.
I spoke with author Christina Conklin.
The Atlas of disappearing places.
We go into twenty stories
from around the world.
You know, one of the issues is
sea level rise and sea levels
are going to rise from between
three and six feet this century.
At our current level of carbon pollution.
And that's going to remake every
coastline in the world. Yes,
on real. This is why you know we're seeing
what we're seeing in in Venice right now.
Let's talk about something that maybe
a lot of folks don't know about.
Which is this seaweed map?
Tell us what it is and its importance.
I illustrated the book with
maps drawn on seaweed and then
layered onto satellite maps,
and I wanted to use a product
of the ocean to illustrate the
impacts in the ocean. There.
The reason there's actually so much
seaweed in my local coastline right
now is because of excess agricultural
pollution and these are fossil
fuel based fertilizers that are
getting used and then running off
into the ocean and creating one of
the many many issues in our ocean.
Today are
so many issues.
Every time I see one of those gigantic
fishing boats come into the harbor,
I feel so sad because I know overfishing.
The oceans is causing a problem,
and the ocean really is kind of
the heart of our earth, right?
So how does what's going on
the ocean tell us about our
planet and climate change?
Well, I mean, the ocean produces
literally half or more of
all the oxygen we breathe,
so there's so much life in the ocean
that we're really not even aware of.
Scientists have only identified
a fraction of it, and.
So we need to spend a lot of time
right now understanding these
systems and also but the most urgent
need right now is to stop our
carbon fossil fuel based emissions,
because that's what's warming the ocean.
Creating ocean acidification.
Dead zones are growing all
over the world thinking
about carbon emissions is
kind of low on the list.
How do you see that
changing over the years?
And if it doesn't change,
how much trouble are we in?
Well, I've noticed.
Dramatic change in the just in
the past four years I've been
reaching this researching this book,
which gives me great hope because
the change we need to go through
now needs to be like nonlinear.
We need to in the same way that karma
levels are going up and climate
change is going to rapidly increase.
We've seen more storms,
we've seen droughts and refugees,
and this is all going to get
exponentially worse in the coming
decades if we don't act now.
If we're going to save a world
that our grandchildren.
We'll want to live in and be able to live in.
We need to be acting now
and it has to happen on not
just on a global scale or a
national scale, but locally.
I know our own governor, Governor Insley,
recently made a very strong climate
pledge at at the UN climate meeting.
How important is that?
That it happens at that level?
Well, that's where the
leadership comes from. I think.
I think it comes from local communities.
State leadership was wonderful.
I've been a big fan of Governor
Insley's for a long time, I think.
You know, sometimes you have to lead
the leaders and this needs to be a
groundswell of public knowledge and
understanding and and and pressure
to to not only this idea of net zero
is is one that's popular right now,
but people need to understand
that that only stabilizes things
where we are now and we have more
carbon in the atmosphere than we
have had for three million years.
So what we need to be doing is
driving the carbon levels back down.
Do their pre industrial levels
and that's going to take a whole
lot of technology and political
willpower and individual action
that just hasn't materialized yet.
But I believe that people you know,
I believe that change can
be nonlinear in society too.
I think I think we can do it.
There's so many amazing people
devoting their entire lives
and careers to this right now.
There's been a big sea change,
but is there anything we can do at home?
Right now? There's a lot of anxiety
surrounding climate change. What can I do?
In my home today, individually
we we can all watch what we're consuming.
We you know we there's been a
lot of awareness around plastics.
Plastics also is in our clothing.
It's also in our,
you know all the packaging we use
and we need to just really look
at our own habits and then also as
I was saying like let's learn all
we can and speak up about this.
So whether that's starting a local
book club or going to your City
Council meetings and speaking
up like I feel like we all have
something we're good at and we.
We can provide some leadership on
and we just need to step up and
and do that in our own backyard.
Interesting.