The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Before It’s Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America by Jonathan Vigliotti

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

Before It's Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America by Jonathan Vigliotti https://amzn.to/4axRPme In the vein of This Changes Everything and Saving Us, a character-driven and shocking up-close look at the way climate change is affecting America, right now, and a call to action to protect the people and places we stand to lose if nothing is done to preserve our planet. Discussion of the climate crisis has always suffered from a problem of abstraction. Data points and warnings of an overheated future struggle to break through the noise of everyday life. Deniers often portray climate solutions as inconvenient, expensive, and unnecessary. And many politicians, cloistered by status and focused always on their next election, do not yet see climate as a winning issue in the short run, so they don’t take any action at all. But climate change, and its devastating consequences, has kept apace whether we want to pay attention or not. CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has seen that crisis unfold for himself, spending nearly two decades reporting across the United States (and the world) documenting the people, communities, landmarks, and traditions we’ve already surrendered. Vigliotti shares with urgency and personal touch the story of an America on the brink. Before It’s Gone traces Vigliotti’s travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, we learn that warnings of a future impacted by climate are no more; the climate catastrophe is already here. This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. There are ladies singing, that makes it official, welcome to the big show.

For 16 years we've been bringing you the Chris Voss Show, and I was just thinking about that intro, we've given enough brain bleed that shouldn't someone have died by now? But I sure always feel like I've had enough brain bleed, but you can never have enough of the Chris Voss Show. Refer your family, friends, and relatives, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisvoss, chrisvoss1, One, and TikTokity, and all those other places on the internet. As always, we have the most amazing, brilliant minds to bring their stories to the show. The CEOs, the billionaires, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the amazing authors that go through

all their different things that they do in life and bring you their concise versions of all their knowledge so that you can expand your mind and become the greatest, most smartest audience in the world. The Chris Voss Show is, we call it the Chris Voss Show Glow. You just walk around and people go, my God, you're so amazing and intelligent. You're like, I listen to the Chris Voss Show. Today, we have an amazing author on the show. His newest book just came out, is coming out actually, April 2nd, 2024. It's called Before It's Gone, Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small Town America. Jonathan Vigliotti joins us on the show today. We'll be talking to him about his insights and his journeys that he's done crisscrossing America. He's an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning CBS News national correspondent whose work has appeared on numerous platforms, including CBS Sunday Morning,

Face the Nation, 48 Hours, and more. His reporting has taken him to over 40 countries and territories across six continents. Boy, he must have some great travel miles. You can follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and et cetera, et cetera. We'll get into that. So welcome to the show, Jonathan. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me, Chris. And I look forward et cetera. We'll get into that. So welcome to the show, Jonathan. How are you? I'm good.

Thanks for having me, Chris. And I look forward to my own Chris Vosglow. There you go. You now have the glow. You've added that to your Face the Nation 48 hours list. So give us dot coms, Instagrams, TikToks, Twitters, wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs, if you would, please. Yeah, mainly Instagram for me, Jonathan Vigliotti.

And then on X, John Vigliottiotti those are the two that i mainly check out i check out and don't really contribute to x i like to kind of just stalk and gather and collect on instagram i'm much more active there you go it's lurking on x that people like to do yeah yeah i'm a lurker we have a lot of lurkers in the chris voss show so give us a 30 000 overview your new book before it's gone yeah it's it's a book that follows my time pinballing across the country covering extreme weather fueled by climate change i've had incredible access to the front lines of these storms and through my experience covering them, it's been an education and the impact climate change is having on radicalizing our weather and the impact radicalized weather is having on main streets across the country. be us to come along for this journey to these front lines hoping that in doing so and seeing it from my perspective my experience from the ground they too could connect the dots between

climate change the climate science and what that means in real time in real life for these storms that are devastating more and more communities across the country and across the world there you go and it's gotten hard to deny climate change. I think, you know, we've got like a hundred year storms of hurricanes and tornadoes coming into California that, you know, never used to, like that never used to happen. You're just like, what's going on? Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, rising tides and, you know, all sorts of craziness. I mean, it's, it's really become obvious. I, I, I think at this point you really have to try hard to be a climate denier because, you know, there's just weirdness going on everywhere. Now, you target in the title of your book and inside of it, small town America. Is there a reason you decided to talk about that instead of, you know, Miami? Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I do touch upon some big cities like New York, but you're right. Primarily, I focus on small towns. I come from a small town, so maybe I'm biased and just love small towns. But I also have found in my time reporting first, I'm oftentimes on the front lines of climate change in small towns. These are communities that don't have the kind of infrastructure and financing to survive the devastating impacts from this kind of climate

change-fueled weather, unlike their much bigger city counterparts, which do have the financing, which do rebound, and which in big cities get a lot more attention, a lot more of the spotlight. We're talking days, weeks, months, in some cases like Hurricane Sandy, years of coverage. Oftentimes in small towns, you'll be there for a week or two and you don't return. I've been very fortunate with CBS News to always be sent back when I raise my hand to go back and revisit these communities. And I think that small town America, they are each and every one of these towns, canaries in the coal mine for what other communities, small and big, will face as our climate worsens.

You know, as Mother Nature outpaces man's ability to engineer ways out of the crisis, what does that mean for bigger cities? And what can bigger cities do if they listen to what's happening in the folded creases of the maps of America? What can they learn and do to make their communities more resilient as well? There you go. You know, it's small and small towns have already been beaten up enough. I remember when the, you know, the major thoroughfares or freeways bypassed small towns to drive through as a kid.

I guess we're both old. And, you know, there's something romantic and nostalgic. When I travel, I kind of like to go cut through the small towns at one point before covid i was gonna buy me a mercedes runner so i could take my dogs with me traveling to events and stuff and and then what i was going to do was we were going to do a podcast where we'd interview people in small towns and the the van was going to have you know a place where i could crash and sleep but also i love that but it was going to have a podcast where I could crash and sleep. I love that. But it was going to have a podcast studio in it that we could pull out and just interview people.

Because I'm always curious, like, why do you live here? So you've had all the fun on that front. I'm a big fan of old greasy spoons. I love going to old diners. Me too. Me too. I'm a huge fan. There's a lot of culture in those diners.

Oh, yeah. And it's kind of like old world America. And so these towns, they got bypassed by the freeways and that killed a lot of financially. There's a lot of people moving to bigger cities, more and more people leaving the Levittown sort of experience, I guess. And they don't need this hitting them too i guess yeah so wait what happened with that podcast idea you never ended up doing it covid happened oh well there you go there you go i i you know i i love small towns americana to me i mean i love big cities as well i grew up just outside of new york city and went to school in new york city and big cities are obviously diverse but they are also a melting pot. And big city after big city, they start to resemble one another after a while. I feel like when you go to small towns scattered across the country, you get a very different vibe in each and every one, where one does not look like the other. You may not get the same kind of diversity in a small town, but each small town

is diverse when compared to one another. And to be able to go into these communities and no matter what my background is, my experiences, no matter what their background is, their politics are, I've always felt welcomed even and sometimes especially in the worst case scenarios when covering extreme weather. But these are places where you go into the diner, the greasy spoon, your presence is known, you're not deemed an outcast or treated as one. I'm oftentimes welcomed even before I'm recognized as a journalist there to do a job. I always feel welcomed and I always leave a small town with a renewed sense and understanding of the fabric of our country, which oftentimes I kind of lose sight of here in Los Angeles where I live or when I'm walking around New York City, which I did quite often and took for granted and kind of forgot the smaller stories that make up the bigger picture of that city and so many others. Most definitely. Our audience likes to get to know the author early on too as well. Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you get to, how did you grow up? What got you interested in becoming a journalist and reporting and motivated to follow that lead?

Yeah. So I grew up in Mount Kisco, New York. So for anyone who knows sort of New York City and the suburbs around, if you take the Metro North, I'm about an hour north of the city. And as a kid in the 90s growing up there, my father, an Eagle Scout, my older brother, an Eagle Scout, that got me into camping and into Boy Scouts. I never graduated to Eagle Scout status, but I fell in love with nature very early on. I also learned very early on just how fragile our ecosystem is. The woodlands near my home where I spent a lot of time playing and hanging out was threatened by a housing development. And that's when I learned the power of words. And I think this is where my love for journalism began because my mother and

so many people in that community came together in protest of this development, writing letters to local leaders. And ultimately, I think those words mattered. They were concerned about a wetland nearby and the impact on nesting birds and the development was scrapped. And I learned in that moment, the power of words, and I was inspired by that. I initially focused on photography. I loved photography. I thought photography for me was a way that made most sense, I think, for my imagination, my creativity, and getting my perspective out there. I went to school at Fordham University in the Bronx, so not far from Mount Kisco. And that's when I discovered the power of radio. I started working at WFUV, an NPR affiliate there. This was

right as 9-11 happened and they needed interns to go into the field to work and help cover the aftermath. And so that's when I got into radio as my main way of communicating and sharing perspectives. And I wanted to stick with NPR and radio. I loved the intimacy. Funny enough, there's absolutely no photography involved in any of that, but I didn't get the grant that I enough, there's absolutely no photography involved in any of that. But I didn't get the grant that I wanted, the fellowship that I wanted to work at NPR in DC. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to change this whole thing and go into local news. And my first job out of college was in Grand Junction, Colorado. And then I just kind of

crisscrossed around the country for a few years before I wound up back in New York working for the WNBC, the NBC affiliate in the city. And then eventually found my way to CBS. They hired me as a foreign correspondent where I was launched to London and worked out of that bureau for four years and then moved to where I currently am as a West Coast correspondent, West Coast-based national correspondent here in LA. There you go. And so what was the proponent that made you want to talk about this? Has this been a beat that CBS has assigned you for a while and you decided to turn it into a book? What brought the book about?

I've kind of assigned myself to it. I've always covered environmental crossroads. Those stories, similar to what happened in those woods near my home, they've always been of interest to me. That conflict has been something that I've always been drawn to. I made my way into covering extreme weather almost accidentally. I was in London at the time as a foreign correspondent, but on vacation in Cape Cod. And I got a call from my bureau chief, this is in 2018, and was asked if I could leave vacation a little bit early and go out west to help cover a wildfire. And that was my first experience covering a major wildfire. I showed up in boat shoes. I didn't even have proper

wildfire gear. Borrowed some shoes, some proper boots from my producer and covered that wildfire. And I remember seeing this wildfire unfold. It was miles in the distance. And then suddenly catching even the firefighters off guard exploded into this massive blaze that devoured homes pretty close to where we were standing. And I was amazed at the impact of Mother Nature, how Mother Nature caught these men and women trained to hold her back off guard, and how, as I would later learn, these storms were worsening. And so those front lines were very interesting to me. And when I returned back to London a few days after covering this wildfire, I got a call from Lori Orlando, the head of talent management with CBS asking if I'd ever considered moving out to California based on

the reporting and coverage of that wildfire. And so I said, yes, let's do it. I moved in 2019 and quickly became the person, the go-to correspondent on the West Coast to cover wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, every kind of disaster, you name it. Wow. There you go. And you got right into it. Does the 2023 Maui fire Hawaii count as a climate disaster for a small town? It certainly does. And to me, it highlights a few things, climate change and habitat change. Before I get to those, I'll refresh your memory. I'll tell you something maybe you don't know. It's buried in the book, but we were one of the first network crews to arrive. And when we got the call, it was 4 a.m. And at the time, we just understood that there was a fire on the island of Maui in Lahaina. And in the five years that I've been covering wildfires,

and this was peak season for wildfire season in the West, we had never been launched to Hawaii for a wildfire. And so we got there on the ground and we were making our way into Lahaina, but stopped by a roadblock. Police had set up a roadblock, wouldn't let us through. They told us it was because it was too dangerous, but other survivors that were in the area that had evacuated, that were waiting to get back in to see if their home survived,

told us that the local officials didn't want us to go in to document what they described as a failed emergency response. We all know what ended up happening. 80% of the town was destroyed. More than 100 people were killed. The scenes of destruction I have likened to an environmental holocaust. And in the days and weeks that followed, we heard from leaders there on the ground who described this fire as an explosion. It was

like a bomb going off, they said so many times in press conferences. But what we learned pretty soon thereafter and started to cover almost immediately was that there was a decade-long fuse that was lit and could have been put out at any point because you had a team of scientists in 2014 who came forward with research that showed that the warming climate had warmed up the area, made it more vulnerable to fire. And they also offered some mitigation efforts, steps that could be taken to prevent a disaster, including removing dry invasive grasses, restoring the wetlands, which have been depleted because of population growth and building using fire resistant materials. And those plans were put aside. Local leaders didn't enact

them, even though there was federal funding available. And we later learned as I walked through miles worth of destruction on historic French Street, there was one home that survived, was left unscathed, the home with the red roof. And that home, the homeowners had recently updated it, and they implemented those scientific remedies, even though none of the leaders had. And across the country, there are examples of homes with the red roof. Lahaina is an example of climate change, our use of fossil fuels, putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the atmosphere, and then warming the land. And it's also an example of habitat change, how we as a growing population have altered our communities in ways that don't necessarily work with the land and

make that land more vulnerable and less resilient to the impacts of climate change. And now climate change is this abstract idea to a lot of people and understandably so because it requires the global community to buy into it, to work together as one, to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. And it's vital. We must do it. But it's daunting. Right. that it could take decades before we see a positive impact because of what's known as this delayed feedback loop, which in dummy terms for my own brain, I've likened to aspirin for a headache. A headache won't just stop once you pop aspirin. It takes about 30 minutes. The same is true for planet earth lowering its fever. In this case, we'll take decades, but habitat change and reversing

the impacts is something that we all can do immediately in the meantime to make our communities more resilient, just like the house with the red roof. And I hope that my book conveys that this isn't meant to be a book of despair, but a book of hope and solutions and solutions that we as individuals and individual communities can take that doesn't require the entire global community to come together, which it must to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But in the meantime, we have control and the power to take matters into our own hands. There you go. I'm looking at the NPR site with the miracle house with the red roof.

That is extraordinary. It's extraordinary. And, you know, and they made those they made those they, you know, enforce those remedies on their own property, including removing trees, removing brush, so that if flames lit up a tree, they wouldn't springboard right onto the house and burn it. They put a metal red roof, which prevented any flames from engulfing the home. And these are steps that not only make this house safer against fires and therefore reduce insurance costs, it also made the home safer against termite damage. So there are benefits beyond just trying to make a community resilient from climate change. These are also homes that are resilient from a whole other list of factors that could lead to a lot of destruction. There you go.

They removed five layers of asphalt that were on the roof. That one just caught fire. Immediately. And, you know, so many other homes there had similar outdated roofs. And that's why, I mean, you're talking home after home, entire neighborhoods were engulfed. And the most haunting scene I've seen anywhere in any storm that I've covered were those line of cars. I don't know if you recall the images from the backup of traffic.

When they were trying to escape. Yeah, because there were no evacuation orders issued. And many people didn't even know there was a fire burning until they saw it out their window, got into their car to try to outrun it. They were quickly surrounded, though, many of them getting caught up in this traffic jam. And as a result result you had people that taking matters into their own hands ran into the pacific ocean to save their lives truly a devastating scene especially when we later learn many of the fatalities were people in their cars trapped yeah and then in per your book you know they haven't recovered i mean it's still it's

still just i don't know it's gonna be any making any progress at all. You still have so many people living in hotels, and those are the lucky ones. Other people have been displaced living across the island about an hour, hour and a half sometimes just to get to Lionav. They still have jobs that existed there or in nearby Kanapali, which is a huge hotel tourism hub where you have a number of major hotels. It's going to take a very long time. Housing is an issue, the toxic dust and what happened to the water there, those toxic levels of chemicals still being tested and understood. And rebuilding and getting the funds to rebuild, but also rebuilding in a way that is going to make this community more resilient. That takes time too. You can't rush into a rebuilding process. Otherwise, you could find yourself down the road facing similar conditions. So there's going to be a

long way forward for these communities. It's a very resilient community. The people of Lahaina, the people of Hawaii in general, amazing people. It's why the Aloha spirit is something you hear a lot. Everyone's so warm, so welcoming, so positive. But even the most positive people in situations like this, they're tested. They're tested. And the community will probably never regain the character or nature that it had. I mean, I think other corporations coming in trying to buy up and probably take advantage of the situation. Yeah, we've heard rumors and reporting of that. I know

of some families that have sold their homes, who those buyers are not exactly clear. But you can imagine when you start to lose families whose homes represent generations of families, and this is a historic town, what are those homes then replaced with so you have you have you know middle-class families that lived in lahaina it was a beautiful quirky seaside historic town with so much polynesian culture now i can just think about some of the mega million dollar structures that go up in its place and suddenly line and hopefully this doesn't happen but i i do know that there are some small examples of it already appearing to take root where you're having new homes that are being planned that are

much bigger than the smaller ones that were there before. And who knows what the future looks like for a town as even, you know, residents struggle after a fire, in this case, this massive fire to decide if they do want to return back when so much is lost. Do you, do you return back and, and hope to hold on to those want to return back when so much is lost do you do you return back and and hope to hold on to those memories to get you through or are you forever scarred by what happened and and what destroyed the town in the first place and i think like fires in california there was the one there was one mobile home fire i think it was up in malibu or something

you know it just devastates communities and they just give up and they just never come back. Yeah. I mean, you remember the Paradise fire, the campfire that destroyed Paradise. 95% of that community was destroyed in 2018. I wasn't here. I was in London at the time when that fire happened. But when I moved here to LA and coincided with the six-month anniversary, so I went back then and I've been back ever since many times speaking with

families there that immediately moved back sometimes in trailers on the outskirts of town to help with the rebuilding process. We're talking about a new kind of American pioneer helping usher in a new era for their town. The mayor, when I spoke with him two years ago, he said it would take 15 years for half of the community to return, which is very much on pace with where we are today. It's been five,

six years, and about a quarter of the community has returned. And that's with a lot of cheerleading happening in those first few years. As time goes by, you get less cheerleaders, there's less momentum, things start to fade a little bit, less of the spotlight, less of the attention. So how many people are attracted when you're not having that constant PR push, marketing, come back to paradise. It's a beautiful community. They're rebuilding it in a way that will make it more resilient. All the power lines are underground. They've created defensible space around all of the homes that are back there now, but it also looks completely different than what it was before. You could fly over paradise and not even recognize it or see it because there were trees covering the

entire community. It was literally on the forest floor. Now you've lost most of those trees because of this fire. Wow. It's just crazy. Is there another example that you can tease out that people can find in the book that you kind of stood out to you on telling your story? Yeah. I think about Mayfield, Mayfield, Kentucky, and Dawson Springs, Kentucky, two towns close to one another that were destroyed in December of 2021 by a mega tornado, which meteorologists called the beast. This was a mile wide tornado that was on the ground for over a hundred miles, decimated these communities. And you go there now and they're in the middle of this rebuilding process. And these are historic towns that were built with brick and

mortar. And the rebuilding process is going to be difficult. It's going to be costly. Who knows how these communities look when all is said and done. And what sticks out to me about this specifically is how tornadoes are also linked to our changing climate. I've spoken with a number of researchers and there are studies out there, peer-reviewed in science publications, talking about how our warming climate has shifted the traditional tornado alley further east into high-density populated areas. It's now been nicknamed tornado fatality alley. So it just shows you this is just within the past few years. We're seeing tornadoes shift in their track. And we're also seeing these supercell tornadoes, storm systems that are capable of producing not just one tornado, but many of them. And they're happening more often.

And the science is very clear. It's due and linked to our warming climate. Yeah. I mean, it's indisputable. I'm looking at the pictures of it. 57 people killed, between 508 to 533 injured. These homes are old. It's not like they're building in, you know, some thing where you have a tornado every year. And, you know, these homes are old. I mean, some of them look maybe early 1900s. Yeah, it's very unusual.

Yeah. And so it's not like there's been tornadoes running through here. And you're right, the supercells, the superstorms, it's just become more and more obvious that things are getting crazy and just more awful. How does this impact politically? Is there an impact on the ground politically?

Is it what people see for either local leaders or how they vote nationally? What do you see that way? Today, the polling shows more than 50% of people consider climate change a major threat. So politically tackling climate change, whether you name it climate change, or just go off of what the disasters are and the impacts these growing disasters are having. This is something that politicians can't turn away from. They have to address it because people more and more see it as a major threat. But I think tackling it has been difficult. There's a lot of bureaucratic red tape. The transition of power locally, statewide, nationally leads to delays. You have infrastructure. You have President Biden's infrastructure bill, a trillion dollars, a significant amount of money of that goes towards climate resiliency. But then you have to make sure that money is in the right hands and going towards the right things. So I mentioned Lahaina earlier and talked about how there was federal funding available.

There was federal funding available to implement those changes. Again, specifically for reducing grass, those invasive grasses, for restoring wetlands. But what we are hearing is that the funding that the town that the community did take went to other projects, went to wind turbines and solar, which while wonderful in combating climate change, did not have immediate impact on the habitat change issue. And that habitat change issue would have helped significantly with this fire. Elsewhere in California, LA voters voted and passed a measure called Measure W, a water capture program that set aside taxpayer dollars, $280 million a year. Every year, it continues. But an investigation here locally found after

four years with what was more than a billion dollars now basically sitting in a bank only 30 acres of land had been purchased in all that time for these water capture projects and that's not nearly enough acreage 30 acres that's not nearly enough if you need to save a ton of water for a not so rainy day and i live here in la i'm in hollywood we are in a desert state we we need as much water as we can get and sometimes we get too much the atmospheric river is an example of too much and they're also fueled by climate change but all that water doesn't just sit around and stay in the soil it depletes right out and empties right out like a drain into the Pacific. So water capture projects, critically important. Voters here in LA know it. They passed a measure. They put faith in local leaders. And so far,

the program hasn't kicked off as fast enough as it is needed to. There you go. I've lived in Vegas for 20, 25 years. And I remember back in the 90s, they started offering people $4,000 to tear up their lawns and put them in. And they continue to do that. Yeah. Did you do it when you were there? When I was there, the homes that I stayed in

were usually xeriscaped already. And I love xeriscaping because I don't know lawns and I don't like paying for it. Isn't that great? You save money and you protect your investment i mean so many people have 30-year mortgages they're not expecting this investment to disappear in in less than that time i mean they would like to think they could pass this thing on to their their family onto their kids or grandkids but the world this thing was

is i i moved to californ California for three years. I missed it because I grew up in California and I wanted to go home and I love the beach. And I I'm a person that I've worked from home since 2004. So I can, I can, I don't have to go on traffic much. And I've always, I hate the traffic in LA. I mean, I love LA i love california the one thing we just cannot agree on is traffic i mean just sitting two hours to go 30 miles or yeah it's just i just want to put a gun on my mouth i can't i can't deal with it and so what what killed me though i think i still have videos of this was i would walk around my neighborhood with my dogs in california in the couple places i lived and

it just astounded me how much water runoff would come from lawns like I would see people you know in the hills of California or you know rolling like this and you'd be walking your dogs you're like holy crap there's a whole freaking river coming down the sidewalk here and you walk up and you know it'd be some beautiful home and of course they have beautiful bushes and stuff and in california but it there'd just be this river of water coming out and i'm just like you know in vegas the guy shows up with a ticketing system and yeah incites you for this they threaten that here but you know it never happened and i god bless my neighbor who i love dearly i yeah for a while there was a broken irrigation system next door and a heavy flow of water. And this was during a period two years ago where enforcement was threatened because of the persistent drought.

And we never saw anybody walk by with tickets, issuing tickets or enforcing this new regulation. So, yeah, I always cringe when I see a lawn that is incredibly green in an area where it shouldn't be so green because you know exactly why it is green and it's usually artificially through a lot of water. And I love xeriscaping. I think xeriscaping is actually beautiful. It is part of the landscape here. It's a natural look and it's cheap. It's cheaper. It saves you a shitload of money in your water bill yeah that's for sure a ton of money on you know paying people to mow your lawn and doing all that edging and crap and you know my mom does it up in utah and and and so i'm like how much did you pay

these guys this month to do this stuff i don't do any of that i just i just go out and you know every now and then check and make sure those dripper things are working yeah and lucky you that's great yeah it's i i think everyone should do it everywhere like i there's no reason to have a lawn like i tell my mom i just tear yours up just get rid of it it's just it's just so much better and and i think i don't know there's probably a whole lot of things we could talk about so what things but i i'm glad your book is out because it can educate people on the dangers get them politically motivated to call their leaders their local leaders and say hey what are we doing about this that and the other you know maybe updating their homes or updating other things in the city to make sure these things survive because you know

one of the other things we didn't talk about is I watched Main Street get its ass kicked from the 80s by the stock market, from Main Street to Wall Street, and it just destroyed so much culture, so much people, small towns. It was just kind of sad to me to watch them die. And sadly, I don't know that new generations have that same appreciation because they never used to drive through there you know when i grew up you had to drive through those small towns yeah that was the state road that you had to do and i remember watching the freeways get built and i'm like wow that some of those cities are like way over there like they're not even close enough like you stop you stop in there for gas but you know you're not hitting the greasy diner you're not hitting the little hardware store.

But I love those little cities. If you ever think about it, I was going to do that podcast where we would sit down and interview people, maybe at the greasy diner. And I would just talk to them about, why do you stay here? Why do you live here? What motivates you to do this? And why haven't you done the Levittown thing and moved out to the big cities and just kind of marinate in the culture of those people? Because they're like the people of the heartland. They're the earth of America, really, when it comes down to it.

And we call them the flyover cities, I guess, nowadays. Yeah, they get a lot of attention during political campaigning and political seasons but these are but you have a sensitive soul if if for you chris to to want to go and sit down in these diners because you have a heightened awareness i think of what makes some of these places tick and makes them unique in the landscape of our nation there there's so many characters and wonderful wonderful people who who don't think from a pr perspective or a branding perspective or watching every little thing they say there's just something so honest and and in that honesty inspiring to me at least when you're in one of those communities i've never connected more with people than people from small towns. And they're not small-minded people because they're from small towns, very far from it. They give some of the best conversations and chats that I at least have had over my years covering all kinds of stories.

Obviously, Extreme Weather, the primary source of my reporting these days, but you name it, I've done it as a story and some of the best ones happen in, in small towns. Now, you know, unfortunately some small towns, there's only an Applebee's these days. And, and I,

but even then, you know, I love a good Applebee's and an olive garden and you'll still meet some really great people at those locations too. There you go. Yeah. And, and the other thing I love about old towns is cause I'm a photographer too, is I love old buildings.

Like, even in L.A., like, I love the old Art Deco downtown city hall. There's places there with the old, that old, I don't know, what is it, 1920s Art Deco sort of look. Yeah, yeah. I love that sort of stuff. I love going to old buildings in old towns and seeing those old buildings that have been there for 200 years. Oh, you must love the Keys. If you like Art Deco, well, Miami Beach primarily, but the Florida Keys has that vibe too. One of the coolest small towns.

I got to go out there for the key lime pie too. Yeah, the key lime pie, one of my favorite. There you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on. Give us a final pitch out to people to order up your book, where they could find you on the interwebs, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So Before It's Gone makes its debut in bookstores or wherever you find books April 2nd.

So is that Tuesday? It's Tuesday. You can get on Amazon, too, if you don't want to leave your home. And if you're in the LA area, I'm going to be at Barnes & Noble on April 3rd at The Grove at 7 p.m. for a Q&A and a book signing. And I hope you'll read it, even if you don't really think about climate change. I think this book offers just unique perspectives, interesting, inspiring people. And I think ultimately, it's hope-driven, not fear-based.

And it took three years of my life, and I'd love to share that with all of you. There you go. And hopefully it will invoke some change. Maybe some political leaders will read it, both federal and local, and realize the dangers. And then people will get, you know, you get the government, you deserve people. So make sure you vote right and make sure you lobby your local leaders to make sure that they're holding up the code. You know, there's so many of these. Anytime I see these old buildings that get burned down or get destroyed by one of these events, it just kind of breaks my heart.

I mean, it's just some of these old buildings just have so much character. Yeah. Just like, wow. So thank you very much, Jonathan, for coming on the show. Thank you for having me, Chris. Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Order up the book wherever fine books are sold. Stay away from these alleyway bookstores.

I had to get a tetanus shot after I went into one. Order it up before it's gone. Stories from the Frontlines of Climate Change in Small Town America. Out April 2, 2024. Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Fossuss and all those crazy places on the internet be good to each other stay safe

and we'll see you guys next time