← Boiling Point
Boiling Point
California’s Shapeshifting Coastline
00:44:42
Los Angeles Times environmental reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rosanna Xia joins Sammy to discuss her book, “California Against the Sea. They talk about the need to adapt to climate change as rising temperatures and a shifting coastline create a different California than the one we know and love.
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- [00:01]
Rosanna Shaw
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
- [00:08]
Sammy Roth
From the Los Angeles Times. I'm Sammy Roth. This is Boiling Point.
- [00:23]
Narrator
It wasn't so long ago that when people thought about global warming, they pictured melting ice sheets and rising seas. Back before wildfires got so destructive and droughts and storms got so intense, there was a lot of focus on polar bears and sea level rise. In retrospect, that might explain why it was so difficult to motivate people to care about the climate crisis. Rising seas are a slow moving disaster. In California, it's taken 100 years for the Pacific Ocean to rise just 8 inches. That might not sound like a lot, but here's the thing. For every inch the Pacific Ocean rises, there is much greater potential for damage during the next storm, the next flood, the next high tide. As my LA Times colleague Rosanna Shaw wrote a few years back, the coastline is eroding with every tide and storm. But everything built before we knew better. Pacific coast highway, multimillion dollar homes in Malibu. The rail line in San Diego is fixed in place with nowhere to go. The world is getting hotter. The great ice sheets still melting. The rising ocean, a slow moving disaster that has already swept past California's front door. Seaside cliffs are crumbling in Pacifica, bringing down entire buildings. From here on out, sea level rise is only going to accelerate. California and the rest of the world need to adapt. Starting yesterday, the same thing is true for all the consequences of climate change. The wildfires that devastated Los Angeles this month are a painful reminder of that fact. The Eaton and Palisades fires have burned more than 37,000 acres, killing 29 people and destroying more than 16,000 homes and other buildings. The air quality has been terrible. The cost of the damages and economic losses is likely to surpass $250 billion. To be clear, the fires weren't caused by climate change, but climate change did make them worse. And even if we do everything scientists say we should be doing to replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy, global warming isn't going away entirely. We need to find ways to survive and thrive in this ever more dangerous world created by fossil fuel pollution. My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This week's episode of Boiling Point is about sea level rise. And just so you know, we recorded it a few weeks before the Los Angeles fires. But these two topics are very much connected. What they have in common is that they signal the importance of adaptation. We need to rethink how we live and work and build our cities to deal with a changing climate Our guest this week, Our guide for this conversation is my LA Times colleague, Rosanna Shaw. I'm lucky to work with her because she is one of the country's very best environmental journalists. We sat down at the LA Times office in El Segundo to talk about her book, California against the Sea Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline, which is all about adapting to sea level rise. It was just named the 2024 winner of the PEN EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. It also received a gold medal from the California Book Award. I hope our conversation will make you want to go read Rosanna's book, but for the sake of context, one of the key takeaways is that climate adaptation is hard. People have built mansions and restaurants and scenic highways all up and down the California coastal. Everyone loves our beaches. The idea that we might have to pull back from parts of the coast, it's a tough sell. Even just talking about redesigning our houses and beachfronts can be challenging. We'll be having similar conversations here in LA county as we rebuild after the fires. There are difficult choices ahead. Here's my conversation with Rosanna.
- [04:42]
Sammy Roth
Rosanna Shah, welcome to the Boiling Point podcast.
- [04:45]
Rosanna Shaw
Hey Sammy, excited to see you turning Boiling Point into a podcast. Very cool.
- [04:49]
Sammy Roth
It's been pretty fun so far. So, Rosanna, remind me, how long have you been reporting on the coast now?
- [04:54]
Rosanna Shaw
Oh, gosh, so long that you can't even remember. Seven or eight years. I feel like my post Covid brain doesn't think of time the same way. Yeah, seven or eight years. And I've been covering general environment for 12, 13 years. 2010.
- [05:11]
Sammy Roth
Seven or eight years on the coast. Do you ever get tired of it?
- [05:15]
Rosanna Shaw
No. I mean, it's like, you know, my, my job like as the coastal ocean reporter for the LA Times, you know, my range is like the entire California coast, so that's Oregon all the way to Mexico. That's just the outer coast. And that's like 1,290 something miles, depending on who you talk to. And then also the entire inner San Francisco Bay shoreline, which is hundreds of more miles. And then I also have like the entire ocean. And so I'm definitely not running out of story ideas. And I think actually the hardest part of my job is figuring out what stories to say no to so that I can dedicate my thousand percent energy into a few stories that can really help deepen and expand the way we think about these less tangible spaces. And every time I'm out on the beach and it's like, yeah, I have a great job, I get to go to the beach a lot. And also wetlands, I feel like, are also part of my kind of range of coverage because I truly consider wetlands as part of the coast and all these inner tidal spaces. But I mean, every time I'm out at the beach, it's different. The beach is never the same twice. And I think there's just something so incredible about that. And I. I have not lost my sense of wonder every time I go out there.
- [06:33]
Sammy Roth
No matter how many times I hear you say that 1,290 some odd mile statistic, I never get tired of it.
- [06:39]
Rosanna Shaw
I mean, it's. You should see the spreadsheets on how I try to keep track of every city council, you know, schedule. And it's interesting. It's like a couple dozen cities and counties and then also regional joint power authorities, federal agencies, fisheries, noaa. Yeah, there's just a lot of agencies I'm constantly kind of checking in on. And then just also the marine science research institutions in the state are absolutely incredible. So it's. Yeah. And then I joke with my editor every time I get too deep into something like really intensely controversial or complicated because I, like, I'm such a masochist for complicated stories. I'm like, I need to write a happy story about a jellyfish. And he said, it's time to go write a story about a sea otter or a jellyfish.
- [07:24]
Sammy Roth
Gosh, it's been more than a year now since I read your book California against the Sea, which is crazy. Cause it feels like it just came out yesterday. But what, you've got a paperback edition now and an audiobook, and you've been all over the country touring and doing book talks. And it's amazing. And you've gotten so much recognition for this book, which is incredible. I want to ask you, why do you think there has been such a strong reaction and so many people have responded so positively and so strongly to this book? I mean, what. What do you think it is that's making people so hungry to read about this topic, about sea level rise and about the consequences of climate change?
- [08:02]
Rosanna Shaw
I mean, I will say, you know, something that has really hit me while, you know, I was on the road, it was just, you know, really realizing that there are just so many people out there who have been wanting to have this conversation about climate change, about climate, about our future, and they just didn't quite know where to start. And I think, you know, you and I, like, we are living and breathing these issues all the time. We're talking to people all the time who are also living and breathing these issues. But for me, like being in these book talks, you know, at bookstores and libraries, at universities, also like art museums and kind of the art community and the filmmaking community, it just really allowed me to meet folks in a way that felt different and more expansive in some ways. You know, I love the sense of communities in particular that libraries and local bookstores, for example, inherently have already built. And so just kind of entering these spaces and just having the book as a gentle way in with a built in community that, you know, was curious and willing to talk and ask questions in a place that didn't feel like you were on blast at an intense city council or planning commission meeting, or you were kind of like at a protest, there was just like all these different. It provided a new way for folks to ask the questions that they've been wanting to ask. And I just feel like we ended up talking about these issues and getting to the heart of it just from a different way. And so that was really powerful to me, realizing just how many more people out there are ready and willing to have this conversation.
- [09:33]
Sammy Roth
What are you hearing from people? I mean, what are the questions that you're getting asked? What are the themes? What do people want to talk with you about when you're there talking about your book?
- [09:43]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah, I mean, a question that I have been getting a lot is like, how do we get more people to prioritize and care about an issue like sea level rise? I get this a lot, especially when I'm on the coast in these coastal communities. And the question kind of like, how do we fit this into kind of the broader suite of competing priorities. We talk about drought a lot in California. Wildfire is ever present.
- [10:08]
Sammy Roth
Building housing too, for sure.
- [10:09]
Rosanna Shaw
And I was going to say homelessness, housing, employment, teacher shortages. There are also all these other quote, unquote. I'm using air quotes like non related climate issues that are also pressing to the state. And my first answer is it's all related, it's all connected. And climate change touches every aspect of our lives. And because it touches every aspect of our lives, solutions, climate solutions can also support and be interconnected to the way we think about the future and how we move into the future. I think I'm not running into climate deniers as much in the field in these communities. And just in kind of my day to day conversations, I really think the debate in California is not whether or not climate change is real, it's how much time we have. You know, this notion of is this something that we should have started generations ago. Some people would say, absolutely. Other people are still thinking, not in my lifetime. And some of these longer term planning decisions that we're now pushing for, that the state's trying to start conversations on that. You know, some folks are, you know, really advocating. A lot of folks are saying this is all premature. So kind of navigating this sense of time. And what's fascinating to me too as a storyteller is just realizing that we are so often forced to make decisions in time frames that at the end of the day feel pretty arbitrary when you think about what makes sense for nature. 30 year mortgages, 4 year political cycles. And so this issue of time and this theme of time really continue to reveal itself and unfold in the course of reporting for this book and also talking to folks after the book came out.
- [11:45]
Sammy Roth
Well, something you do a really good job of in your book is I think illustrating that this is not an issue that's just about the future, you know, some 2050 or 2080 or 2099 timeframe where the sea is gonna be a foot or three feet or five feet higher that the consequences of rising seas from greenhouse gas emissions. I mean, we're dealing with this right now. I mean, I remember when you and I spoke about the book the first time and what was it, September of 2023, when it had just come out. You said that you had had conversations with people along the coast, with scientists, just a few years earlier when you'd been reporting the book, talking about we're going to have a year at some point in the future when there's a real bad king tide and when there are really bad coastal storms, when there's going to be huge terrible flooding along the coast. And hey, then that happened in January of 2023 and that was even sooner than people expected. I mean, this is a problem now, right?
- [12:37]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah. And I think the term that comes up a lot in the sea level rise policy and science space is slow moving disaster. And it's not as in your face per se, on a day to day basis as a wildfire, for example. And you can't stand on the beach for one afternoon and really feel the intense urgency of sea level rise in this looming disaster. But it is present and it kind of hits you in these ways where the ocean moves in, things get flooded, then you're reminded of the immense power of the ocean and then the next day the sun comes out. And I think to keep the momentum on an issue like sea level rise is challenging because we do have these seasons, but something that is becoming more present is just this notion that we have less time than we think. Every time we think we have more time, something like the January 2023 storms in northern California, it's a humbling reminder that we aren't prepared and that there is so much that we should be better prepared for.
- [13:44]
Sammy Roth
These conversations that you've had the desire to talk about climate change and adapting and to make it more of a priority, is that just in California, or are you seeing that in other parts of the country, too?
- [13:55]
Rosanna Shaw
I'm definitely seeing it in all the spaces that I'm going to. And I think climate change, Capital C. Capital C can feel very, very overwhelming.
- [14:04]
Sammy Roth
That's part of what I was wondering, because, I mean, Right. You use those terms, and I'm sure there are places where that immediately kind of shuts people's brains off.
- [14:12]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah. And I would say that it's, you know, this is a conversation, too, about flooding. It's a conversation about our relationship to the ocean. I think that more than anything, has also resonated with folks like, everyone has a story about the first time they went to the beach or the first time they put their toes in the sand and stood on the edge of, you know, this living body of water that reminds you that we live on planet, right? A massive planet with all of these incredible dynamic wonders. And I think having the conversation start there, too, as, like, here is a book that is inviting you to rethink or to reconsider or to expand kind of your notion of what it means to live with the ocean and to live at the very edges of the sea, I think, has been also a really inspiring way to have this conversation that ultimately arrives at some of the same endpoints, but you're just starting in a different place.
- [15:07]
Sammy Roth
Do you find that it's possible to have conversations with people that are. Who maybe don't see the world the same way that you do in terms of what we need to do to address climate change in a rapid fashion? I mean, do you have conversations that are productive with people who might see things a little bit differently?
- [15:21]
Rosanna Shaw
One thing I'll start by saying is, you know, and I really appreciate you asking this question because I think, first and foremost, we can't move forward without everyone, you know, on all sides of this issue engaged. And I think something that I have found myself reflecting on and, you know, saying to folks in different communities is like, even the angriest person in your town on this issue. You know, the person who is considered Quote, unquote, on the, like, opposing side of a very important vote or something, like, that person is engaged. And I think the engagement is key. And I think that more than anything, as I, you know, the question that I've also been getting asked a lot is like, what. What surprised you the most in the process of writing this book? And I think, you know, the first time I was ever asked that question, I was like, you know, thinking out loud live on stage. And I realized as I was searching through the recesses of my memories of, like, what actually floored me, it was kind of reaching this point of realization a couple years in that there was so much more commonality in what people were saying to me than differences. And it took layers of listening and peeling back kind of like the surface level talking points of folks. But everyone I talked to chose to live by the ocean for a reason. Everyone I talked to loves and connects deeply to what it means to be Californian. And I think that everyone cares. Again, back to the point on engagement. Everyone cares. And I think kind of getting to that point of realizing that a community is a community for all the different types of people who live there, and how do we bridge these conversations and see each other as neighbors again, I think is really, really important. Like, I remember just like, going to this town where the issue of sea level rise was so controversial and everyone, a bunch of people in town were like, oh, don't talk to that person. That person's really angry and really a denier and all these things. And then walking on the beach with this person and they're picking up trash as we're talking. You, someone else that I talked to in a different town is also, like, planting native plants in their garden and also trying to save all the animals on their street. And so it's like, I think there are just these small moments of humanity that I want to somehow re index on and help people see each other as neighbors again. And I think another thing that I'll just add here, and I might have geeked out on this with you already in the newsroom, but, you know, I heard Naomi Klein say on a podcast last year, and she's, you know, the author of so many great books on climate change and the intersections of capitalism, and her most recent book is on conspiracy theories. And she said something on a podcast that has been stuck in my mind ever since. She said, conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong and the emotions right.
- [18:08]
Sammy Roth
And that's why, oh, that's so interesting.
- [18:09]
Rosanna Shaw
And that's why so many conspiracy theories tend to take off or, like, build, like. And I think that just really floored me because it made me realize that so often the way we talk about climate change and climate policy is grounded in the facts that's so important. But also I think it's really critical to acknowledge the emotions that people are feeling. And so for me, like in the field, in the process of writing this book and in the process of sharing this book with the world in the past year, I think recognizing sometimes we need to start the conversation with the emotions. How are you feeling? Why are you angry? Why are you scared? What are you worried about? What's keeping you up at night? And validating those feelings. Feelings like whatever someone is feeling, even if it's based in facts that you that are wrong or based in an opinion that you or someone else disagrees with, doesn't negate the fact that someone is feeling this way. And so I think by starting the conversation there and then slowly building those bridges towards shared facts that we can agree on and honoring how people are feeling, I've realized is so important. And really listening first and foremost in your first few conversations with someone on just why they're feeling a certain way, I think really led to a different kind of conversation that helped me see so much commonality again between people from all sides of the issue.
- [19:30]
Sammy Roth
So everything you're saying really resonates with me this month with the inauguration, with Donald Trump taking office, because as someone who writes about climate change and writes about energy, who very badly wants to see progress on this stuff, that's why I write about it. The idea that there's space for us all to really come together and find common ground. I mean, one, it just makes sense. I mean, I think you're right that across party lines, across ideologies, that deep down people really do care and want a planet that's healthy, that's safe, that we can live on in harmony, right?
- [20:05]
Rosanna Shaw
And no one wants to see their children hurt. No one wants to see their children unhealthy. And those are all common values, for sure.
- [20:14]
Sammy Roth
And I think on a practical level, just watching how things have played out politically, the idea that going back and forth between four years of whether they're perfect or not, of Congress passing climate and clean energy laws, and then four years of the next administration doing everything they can to reverse them, and then going back and forth between that, that's not a sustainable system for building a healthy climate and reversing sea level rise and worsening wildfires and heat waves and droughts, I mean, that so the idea of everyone managing to find common ground and build sustainable success together, that seems like a lot better recipe for success and sort of mirrors, I think, a lot of the conversations that are happening within the Democratic Party about what could they do to sort of stop this from happening again. So that's interesting to me. I guess the part where I struggle is from a practical standpoint. One, the sort of timelines we're dealing with with climate change, where there's a really strong need based on the science, to reduce emissions very, very quickly and building consensus and bringing people together takes a lot of time. And two, it just. I wonder what happens when you need to actually start making hard decisions. I mean, thinking about sea level rise, what happens when you need to get to the point of, okay, do we build a wall here or do we need to retreat from this spot with an election? Do we elect a politician who's a climate denier, who we might like for other reasons, or do we elect a politician who wants to pass really aggressive climate and clean energy policies? So I'd like to think that you're onto something here with what you've seen doing the talks for this book and hearing from people that we can get to that point eventually. But I do kind of. This is me pushing back a little bit, I guess I just wonder, do you feel hopeful that we can get to a point where the folks who are living along the coast where they could ultimately reach an agreement and say, okay, fine, we might not see eye to eye, but I get it, I need to pull back from this spot. Or someone else might say, okay, maybe this isn't the right spot to defend. Maybe from a rational standpoint, we shouldn't be defending this spot, but someone cares about it, so we'll build a seawall and give up on the beach here.
- [22:32]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah. And I've always loved how much you're a realist. And I think if I had put myself on the spectrum of things, I feel like I'm more of a optimist, or I guess maybe I'm not an optimist, but I think that a few thoughts here, and my mind is going a mile a minute, and I know.
- [22:48]
Sammy Roth
That I just kind of went all over the map with that, but I tried to ground it back into a practical question.
- [22:54]
Rosanna Shaw
I love this. I think, you know, one thing that I found really powerful is kind of reframing this conversation about sea level rise. And I'll kind of stick to, like, the world of sea level rise adaptation, but just reframing kind of this this conversation of adapting, like, what do we do about sea level rise? As not a conversation about centered around what it is that we have to give up in order to survive or to be quote, unquote, resilient as a community. Can we frame this conversation instead as an opportunity to think about what it is that we can build towards? And, you know, kind of. I've been to a number of communities that have been more effective in starting these planning conversations where it's not starting the conversation with, here's the scary flood map and here is the problem, and here is all of the solutions that we need to vote on now in order to, like, not have this scary blue line cross into this neighborhood, right? And so there's that form of that conversation versus, hey, let's get together and, like, figure out what the problem is together. And then I've heard, like, literally, I saw a planning, a city planner once start a conversation with, what? What do you want your community to look like 30, 40, 50 years from now? Like, starting there, rather than, you know, should we build a seawall or not? Should we restore this neighborhood or not? You know, should we clean this up or not, at the expense of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, like, just kind of blanket conceptual question of, like, what do you value as a community? What do you want to have? What does a thriving community look like to you a few decades from now? And I thought that was really interesting, I think. And Sami, like, your pieces have. Every time I read something that you write, it makes me think about the need for compromise, right? And I think that is. And the power and importance of compromise in a world where compromise has felt increasingly less achievable. And I think what's interesting, like, I'm. I tell this story a lot to journalism students. But, you know, like, years ago, the night before my first, like, big, big story, I couldn't sleep. I called my editor. Thank goodness you picked up at 11pm and. And I was just like, all nerves. And my editor was like, rosanna, tomorrow, when your story runs, if every single person you quoted in that story chews you out just a little bit, hates you just a little bit, nitpicks something like, thank you for my quote, but why did you have to talk to this person? He was like, that means you are fair. That means that you didn't follow a single person's agenda and that you listened to all sides and you compromised. And I shared the story with a planner once, too. And coastal planners are all like, yep, that's exactly what the planning process is. But, you know, reached a good plan when everyone hates you. And I'm like, why did we sign up for this job?
- [25:29]
Sammy Roth
My metric is usually either everyone's unhappy or everyone's happy. It's gotta be one of those, right?
- [25:34]
Rosanna Shaw
And so, like, you know, and then the thing I kind of tell journalism students in this story is like, the flip side of this. You know, many years later, as I, like, started to, like, learn my own style of reporting is just like, you know, your story comes out, and everyone quoting the story somehow feels heard. You know, thank you for talking to me and listening to me. I didn't really agree. I don't know why you had to talk to that person. But thank you for getting my section right. And I think that's really important. What is fairness? What is compromise? And ultimately, did everyone feel heard? And kind of going back to the coastal planners that I also talked to, it's interesting. I do feel like there's a lot of funny, interesting parallels between people who are in kind of city planning and state planning and just kind of like the idea of planning a landscape and a community for the future and also journalism. But this planner told me, planning moves at the speed of trust. And I think I've also been thinking about that statement quite a bit as it applies to journalism. I think we do need to build trust with the people that we're having conversations with. And I also think that a community has a better shot at moving forward at planning together if we actually trust the people that we're working with and the people who are being presented to us as experts. And I think that trust building takes time. And going back to, like, one of the first points in our discussion today. Like, we're running out of time. And so I think that all of the points that you're raising are really, really important. And I don't have a clear answer. And I think that also, like, Sami, I feel like you are also really curious to hear, like, more of your thinking along the lines of compromise. Because, like, you've definitely, Sami, given folks some pretty tough love in the past. You know, one of your columns that just popped into mind is the one that got selected recently for the best American Science in Nature Nature Writing series. But just like, I'm curious how you navigate this idea of, like, how people have to think about things as we really get to the end of the road on a really tough decision.
- [27:29]
Sammy Roth
Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, it's like you were saying earlier, the way the world works these days, it just kind of drives polarization and drives a desire to not compromise, unfortunately. I mean, the way social media works, the way politics has devolved, I mean, the lack of trust in media, the lack of trust in us, it just, it drives a desire to not compromise, to just be pushed towards the more extreme positions. I mean, I feel it myself sometimes I have to fight against my own instinct to see comments on my Twitter X feed and to be pushed towards the pole rather than towards the. Not the center necessarily, but towards the maybe more practical or compromised position that I would like to sort of maintain. So, yeah, no, I do try in my writing, when I'm. The column you were referring to, I think had to do with solar development on public lands in the desert and sort of needing to be able to accept that some amount of this is going to be necessary to build the amount of renewable energy that we need to get rid of fossil fuels and slow down the climate crisis to the extent necessary. And there's a lot of people who don't want to hear that, who understandably live in the desert, care about the desert, care about public lands, and want to protect them to the fullest extent possible. Even though there's a lot of science and research showing that from a practical standpoint and getting greenhouse gas emissions down to the levels we need to get them to fast enough, it's just probably not going to happen any other way except with a very large amount of large scale solar development. And that one of the best ways to do that, economically speaking, within the capitalist system that we have involves building on public lands near transmission lines, which in a lot of cases is in the desert where the solar resource is best, where you can get it to cities like Los Angeles. So it's, yeah, this is what I focus on in my writing. And so it's, you know, I grapple with the same things that you're grappling with, which is, you know, thinking ahead to what is the best version of society that we can have and then sort of backtracking towards the present day and thinking, okay, what are the choices that we need to make today that might get us there? And I don't know, is the way that I write about it, am I taking too firm a hand? Should I be gentler? Should I be trying to sort of ease people along towards that point, rather than maybe saying like, you guys need to just, just wrap your heads around this and go along with it now? Because you're right, sometimes there's a pretty strong backlash to that. But also I frequently will get people who nod along and Say, yeah, you're right. Thank you for saying that. I'm not sure what the right answer is.
- [30:01]
Rosanna Shaw
I point to that essay of yours as your tough love column that I share with folks. And I think it's interesting you have one line, if I remember correctly from that column. In an ideal universe, this, this and this would. In an ideal universe, we can kind of make these decisions that have such clean costs and trade offs and stuff. But we don't live in an ideal universe. You're like, we live in a universe where, reality check, we use a ton of energy and that's not changing in the foreseeable future.
- [30:34]
Sammy Roth
In your case, we live in a universe where there's been a ton of development up and down the coast and where people very much would like to stay there, I imagine. And I mean, there's a lot of hard choices.
- [30:42]
Rosanna Shaw
We live in a universe where we have, have settled a shoreline, the California coast, one of the most iconic shorelines in the world, arguably. And we have, you know, the California identity is now inseparable from our coastal lifestyle, our coastal, like our connection to the coast. And I think one of the most, and we talked about this last year too, one of the most fundamental, like, mind shifts for me in the process of writing this book is realizing that the coast is not a place. It's, it's a process, right? And so many people today still think of the coast as static, as this place that, you know, you build something on you, you, you build a community, a road, anything. And it's supposed to be there. And the beach is supposed to be there every time you go back to said place along the coast. But you know, earlier I was saying you can stand on a beach for one afternoon and not really feel the urgency of sea level rise. You can stand on a beach for one afternoon and look at that tideline. And that tideline, that line in the sand is different every time the waves crash ashore. And then you turn around and you look at Pacific coast highway, you look at all of the built infrastructure in our built environment. We have tried to fix a line in the sand, so to speak, along a dynamic zone that is actually supposed to be constantly in motion with each other. There's this constant give and take between land and ocean that we've become blinded to based on the way we've built the California coast. And you're right, in some ways the beach is so important to the California identity, but also kind of the coastal living aspects. And I think there's a lot of harmony in those shared needs and wants. But there's also tension. And I think that recognizing kind of the big picture and then being able to dive back into the parcel by parcel, city by city, landscape by landscape, ecosystem by ecosystem kind of approach is really, really important.
- [32:41]
Sammy Roth
It just finally occurred to me after 10 years of writing about climate change. But just the word change is right there in the name. And it's not just that the environment that we live in is changing, and that's hard to accept, but our own ability to change with it, that's very hard to do. And it seems fundamental because it's right there in the name. But the ability to keep up with the changes that are happening around us. I mean, humans don't like to change, especially at the speed at which things are changing around us. I mean, that's just fundamentally going to be difficult, especially on top of fossil fuel industry obstructionism, et cetera. But that seems to be at the heart of what's going on, I think.
- [33:19]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah. And how do we help people not be afraid of change or to at least see change as is not something to resist, but perhaps an opportunity. And something I find myself saying a lot nowadays is just like change or like our fear of change means that we are accepting the status quo. Right. And I keep hearing people say, like, oh my God, I wish things went back to normal. And this sense of wanting normalcy as a form of stability, but who does normal serve? And by maintaining the status quo, that's kind of implying that this is. You think that this world that we live in now is the best version that we can get. And I think that the best version of what we have, and I think for a lot of folks that I talk to, in communities that we would define as environmental justice communities, for example, the status quo has not been serving them for generations. And I think if you think about all the folks who don't necessarily benefit from normal, this idea that we're not trying to change and we're trying to hold on to what we have today, that in itself is a failure of imagination in some ways, and a failure of just recognizing that we can do better. And it's not just kind of this better of like, we need to fix climate change or respond to climate change. I think again, in the process of responding to climate change, acknowledging climate change and adapting to climate change, there are so many other things we could fix and make better along the way for so many people in this world.
- [34:49]
Sammy Roth
Well, I agree with that. And I think there are a lot of people who agree with that, I imagine. And Tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but I would imagine that probably most of the conversations you're having with people who have read your book, maybe they're not necessarily people who are out there crusading about climate change, but there's still people who are going and choosing to spend their spare time reading a nonfiction book about sea level rise and showing up at bookshops and art museums, et cetera, that they may not be people who are prone to, I mean, they're gonna be people who are probably gonna hear environmental justice communities and think, oh, yeah, I wanna help those people. I guess what I'm getting at is that it's still, I still am a little bit skeptical at the idea that this is something that, you know, you can bring everyone on board with totally, that, hey, we can change the world for the better, for everyone. Isn't that great?
- [35:36]
Rosanna Shaw
I think step one is to get more people engaged in this conversation and to expand who might think they belong to this conversation. I, I, you know, there I, I was kind of humbled just realizing the number of people who didn't realize that they did have a say in sea level rise adaptation, for example, you know, in my reporting process, like, folks who lived further inland were like, oh, I don't own a home on the beach. This is not my problem to think about. I'm worried about jobs, I'm worried about air pollution and the freeway cutting through my community. But like, all of these are also climate change issues. And I think so step one for me is thinking about how to expand the universe of who is engaged and empowered to speak on this issue. And then also, like, kind of recalibrating, expanding our notion of who can be seen as an expert in this conversation. We absolutely need the scientists, we absolutely need engineers with engineering licenses and coastal planners who have really given so much thought to this. But also I think, kind of thinking through, like, can we honor somehow the perspective of someone who's lived on the beach for generations, who has seen firsthand all of the changes and if we only took, was willing to listen with respect and actually honoring kind of what that perspective can provide in this conversation? Also, I've been thinking a lot about where indigenous knowledge fits in and where the kind of lived experiences of frontline communities fit in stories that don't necessarily have the hard data, quote unquote, to back something up, but are points of data and expertise in its own right. And so I think again, there are a lot of folks that I ran into in the reporting process who didn't necessarily think immediately that they had anything to say about this issue. And again, it's like, where do we start the conversation? How do we start it? That's something I've been thinking a lot about as a reporter and a writer. And then post book coming out, I'm also thinking about how do we continue this conversation with folks and how do we continue to bring even more people into this conversation and to have every single person feel like what they have to say matters. And what they have to say is in itself critical to the way we think and understand this issue.
- [37:57]
Sammy Roth
I love that I could keep having this conversation with you all day. And I hope that we can keep having this conversation on many future occasions, maybe even on a future podcast. Before we wrap things up, I do want to ask, I hear you're working on a documentary or I hear you've done a documentary.
- [38:15]
Narrator
Tell us about that.
- [38:16]
Sammy Roth
Where can people maybe see it? What can you say, oh my gosh.
- [38:21]
Rosanna Shaw
Where do I even start?
- [38:22]
Sammy Roth
I hear you haven't been sleeping maybe.
- [38:24]
Rosanna Shaw
I have definitely not slept in a very, very, very long time. So real briefly, I'll just say that as I was doing all this reporting on sea level rise and thinking about our future, I was also starting in parallel to unravel this mind blowing story about our past. I got this really surreal tip a couple years ago from a renowned scientist at UC Santa Barbara, Dr. David Valentine. He has access to all this incredible deep sea technology and with this deep sea underwater robot, he came across these really eerie looking barrels on the sea floor just off the coast between Santa Monica and Catalina. And I'm sure some folks listening probably probably remember that first story, but it was like, oh my God, what is that barrel? How did it get there? And just the story of that barrel became the tip of the iceberg to this really just haunting history of all of the toxic chemicals that we've dumped into the Ocean in the 40s and 50s before, back when we thought the ocean could be treated as the world's biggest landfill. And so the story really just kind of engaged folks on again. I think one of the themes of my writing is just kind of helping people reconnect and reconsider our relationship to the ocean because so often we are standing on land kind of feeling somewhat disconnected to this massive, massive body of water. And you know, at first I was like resistant to the idea of turning this into a film. But then, you know, met this incredible independent film team director, Daniel Straub, and an immensely talented cinematographer, Daniel's brother, Austin Straub. And we also like found a remarkable composer, James Ellington, who just kind of really together got to the heart and spirit of the story and you know, it's been such a labor of love. But we made a feature length documentary that I also co directed and produced for the LA Times and we just finally premiered it in New York back in November at DOC nyc, the largest documentary film festival in the country. And I'm excited to share that we'll be playing in California for the very first time next weekend at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
- [40:40]
Sammy Roth
And the date for that is the.
- [40:42]
Rosanna Shaw
Weekend of February 7th to 9th. Excellent. And we also just found out that we'll be playing in Los Angeles later in February at the Slamdance Film Festival, which we're also super, super excited about. So there'll be two opportunities in the month of February in Southern California to check out the film. And both screenings, both film festivals feel so meaningful to me and I, I think it's going to be. And just to see the response in New York too. I mean, this is a story that takes place in Southern California, but it is again, the tip of the iceberg to such a bigger story about our relationship and our past disconnect to the ocean.
- [41:21]
Narrator
Yeah.
- [41:21]
Sammy Roth
Maybe once the DDT documentary is available on a streaming service, when people can watch it more widely, we could do a whole other episode on that because it's really a, a crazy series of stories that you did. I mean, just all of those barrels of DDT that are just sitting there still off the coast of Southern California. I mean, it's just, it's wild what you uncovered in that reporting.
- [41:41]
Rosanna Shaw
Yeah. And I feel like I'm still uncovering, I mean, the theme that keeps coming up every time I talk to the researchers, and it's an incredible community of marine researchers have come together on this issue since the first article came out. But just the more we look, now that we're looking, the more we find. So I feel like this story is still ever evolving and it was really cool to document and film so much of this process once the story started to take off and the film is now kind of in its festival run. So, yeah, I'm excited for the next couple of months. We've got a lot of pretty exciting film festivals lining up that we'll hopefully be able to talk more about soon.
- [42:21]
Sammy Roth
I'm excited for you. This is amazing.
- [42:23]
Rosanna Shaw
Thank you. It's been a ride. And I think that ultimately just thinking about the story of the ocean, both as a story of the future and a story of the past has been really profound for me. And I think, you know, at some point when I do catch a breath and sleep for a month, I think I will be able to kind of process just the immensity of what has happened in the last few years. And I'm just, I'm really, I've been blown away by every single person I've met on this journey. And just really, I'm grateful for all the folks who have kept me inspired and helped expand my own understanding and thinking about how we relate to the ocean.
- [43:03]
Sammy Roth
I'm inspired by what you've done. Rosanna Shah, journalist, author, documentary filmmaker, muse of the California coast thank you for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [43:13]
Rosanna Shaw
Thanks so much, Sammy.
- [43:17]
Narrator
One more thing about climate adaptation before we go. The Eaton and Palisades fires are mostly contained, but it'll be a long time before we understand the full extent of the pollution they've released, not just into the air we breathe, but into the ocean. If you go to latimes.com, you'll find a story by Rosanna and our colleague Corinne Purtil about researchers tracking the smoke, soot, toxic metals and other debris getting washed into the Pacific. We know these fires have changed our city. Soon we'll learn how they've changed the sea.
- [43:58]
Sammy Roth
Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflet. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio President, Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derek Shon and created by me, Sami Roth.