Dr. Thomas Princen (2:55)

Thank you.

Michael Simpson (2:56)

So what were you hoping to achieve with writing this book?

Dr. Thomas Princen (3:00)

Well, in part, it was very personal. There was one case study in here on a fire in Sonoma county that really shook me up. It was, it was dramatic. I had grown up in the West, I'd seen plenty of fires. I thought I kind of knew the fire scene in some sense, but this was something else. This is, this was a so called wildfire that came right into the town. I was living in Sonoma county. And it just sparked that question, what does this mean? Not just what happened, but what does it mean? And I think that that event led to exploration of other extreme events, both in study and observation and consultation with others. And there's a story here that I don't see in literature, whether it's in the natural disaster literature or in my field, as you mentioned, global environmental politics. So I try to put that together and you know, a lot of empirical work, but also the conceptual work.

Michael Simpson (4:14)

Thank you. Now, since the concepts of resilience and adaptation courses through your writing here for our listeners, can you define what you mean by these terms?

Dr. Thomas Princen (4:25)

Well, I almost steer away from adaptation because it's been so used almost exclusively in the climate debate. And I really was determined not to make this yet another climate a book. I am not a climate scientist or climate policy person and I don't claim any expertise there. So resilience and what was the other one? Yeah, so I use the word adaptiveness in contrast to the climate discourse of adaptation to try to suggest more of an ecological notion, more of a place based notion, more of emphasis on relations and particular relations of humans to the natural world rather than simply what do we do about excess greenhouse gases? And I think, I don't recall using that too much. I know it has a very specific meaning among engineers, among ecologists, and so I more or less steered away from that. But asserting, I think it would be fair to say that our ecosystems and hydrologic systems, climate systems and so forth, are all disrupted. They are not resilient as humans are affecting them. And so it is an answer to that lack of resilience that, that I approach these extreme events.

Michael Simpson (6:14)

Okay, now you mentioned the Snoma fire and there are many case studies you highlight. One of them was the unprecedented 2017 rainfall event in the Houston area from Tropical Storm Harvey, a flooding impact second only to Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans. You do say that engineers have put some precaution or resilience in the designs of flood control mitigation, but these were markedly overcome by this event. Thus, considering that we may be seeing examples of exceedance of historical climate extremes, how much margin of safety is enough for building for the future?

Dr. Thomas Princen (6:54)

Well, I can't give a quantitative answer to that, but certainly it seems like all the indications if look at Galveston as a region, not just Houston per se, or even the island of Galveston, seems to be showing all the signs of decline or disruption. Subsidence is one of the biggest issues in that entire region. And I developed one of the case studies. There was of a neighborhood called Brownwood that back in the early part of the last century was just a beautiful housing development not too far from the Exxon Mobil petrochemical complex. And it slowly subsided. It sunk into the bay, as did an oil field also near that petrochemical complex. And that process, so that neighborhood was eventually abandoned, is gone, is now a nature center. And arguably, from what the hydrologists say, that this kind of thing is happening all over the region around the bay, suggesting that it will become uninhabitable, even aside from climate effects. So I mean, if the land subsides due to extraction, extraction of two vital liquids, water and oil, then it doesn't bounce back, it doesn't refill, it subsides and is no longer habitable. So what I took from that case. And then the rainfall event of Hurricane Harvey was that these are all signs, these are all signals, signals from the past that say that we cannot live indefinitely on this basis. And they are signifiers of what's coming in in the future. And so I postulated, I did a bit of a futuring exercise to suggest that what is actually already underway now in the greater Galveston area is a shift inland and upland, because even aside from climate change, the vast regions are becoming uninhabitable. And of course, then if you add in sea level rise and expansion and so forth, all the more imperative that the Houstonians people in that region adapt to that environment, rather than adapt the environment to their whims.

Michael Simpson (9:48)

Is it a premise of your book to start down this path, at least at the local and regional levels, to a more appropriate response to the looming impacts from a changing climate is facilitated or requires the signal from an extreme climate mitigated event. That is this seems to apply, that people must suffer loss and pain before grasping the scale of the vulnerability of future challenges facing them and plan adequately your response?

Dr. Thomas Princen (10:17)

Yes, the signal from an extreme event is necessarily local. That is local to the event, and that is kind of the locus, if you will, where, where the human environment interaction and the mal Adaptiveness of human settlement, say, occurs. So, for example, in the Galveston island case. For some time there, it appeared the early settlers were secure on that sandbar that otherwise, like all sandbars, coastal sandbars are just sand. They shift. It seemed like they were secure, but then that hurricane came through. The question is, what did that hurricane signal? And maybe even more usefully, the question is, for people living on Galveston island, what signal did they pick up or not from the hurricanes? They hit a nearby island, Indianola, that was absolutely devastated. Did they somehow reason that it didn't apply to them, or do they just ignore it? Did they disregard what happened along the coast and say somehow that would not happen to us? That's the kind of relationship that I think does come out of a very might say, a localized view of extreme events as opposed to, let's say, all floods or all hurricanes or all fires. And to answer your, go to the issue you raised. Do you have to experience pain? Yes and no. Those who do experience the pain of an extreme event, and I go back to the Sonoma fire that I experienced, the usual reaction is actually to do everything possible to get back to normal, not to affect fundamental social change, which is the thrust of this book. And so. And when a fundamental social change does occur as a response to an extreme event, it seems generally to be the case. It's by people who did not experience that pain themselves. They may have experienced it vicariously from a distance, but they were outside the event. And I call that not local to the event, but at a societal level. And that's where the greatest potential is reading the signal of a given an event or a series of events and saying, how can we be more adaptive?

Michael Simpson (13:07)

Okay, but don't you think it's sort of the human condition that if it happened over there, your fire was in California, it's California. Or, you know, this is down on the coast, that people think, well, it's not going to be us. And how. How do you. How do you build from your examples to that kind of understanding that it can be then?

Dr. Thomas Princen (13:32)

Well, I don't think there's any easy answer to that. And yes, it's part of maybe human nature might say to say, well, it won't be us, or maybe more realistically, that there isn't anything we can do about it. Those fires hit there, maybe we'll have a fire here, but there are other things that we have to worry about. That's perfectly understandable. But all of that is within the context of a presumed sort of stability of modern living, that we will always have the water we need, that the climate will be, the weather will be predictable and the climate stable. Those are presumptions that are increasingly in question and not just coming from the scientific community. Community you ask farmers, you ask ranchers, land managers in general. They know things are changing. And the question I would like to think that this book would help prompt is not just how can we defend ourselves against those changes? That's the standard military response using a military metaphor, but rather, how can we be more adaptive in our places? And I like to think that if that becomes a prevailing question that we all are asked, how can we be more adaptive? Then a lot of the sources of extreme events, the disasters themselves, will be mitigated.

Michael Simpson (15:16)

So my own research into post Superstorm Irene in 2011 that impacted almost every community of Vermont where I live, show that these communities have shown tremendous commitment, solidarity and improvisation. So, based on your own reflections, are these forms of local collective action enough to drive what you call lasting social change needed to respond to such future events, or are they ultimately overwhelmed by the institutional inertia of the greater political economic system?

Dr. Thomas Princen (15:54)

I think this research would suggest that those kinds of positive responses, assuming they are more adaptive, they're taking measures, accepting the increased variability, let's say, in rainfall or wind events, those can be, they can serve as the ingredients, the foundation of larger social change. But so much in an environmental arena, if you do everything right locally or even individually, you know very well that's only a first step, but I would say a necessary step in order to effect that, that larger social change. So those people, your neighbors in Vermont there, they will do everything they can, but they will come up against certain limits. And that's where they have to go to higher levels, beyond just the local, to the state, to the region, to the country, internationally.

Michael Simpson (17:00)

So let me follow up. So how do you scale up to those levels that's effective, that cultivates adaptiveness, learning and resilience?

Dr. Thomas Princen (17:14)

Well, nothing in this project dealt directly with that kind of issue. And so, but what it did deal with was that larger sort of normative shift from a, whether it's a defensive or even extractive, exploitative, cost, externalizing approach, natural resources, to one of living with accommodative partnership with nature, that kind of thing. And so it's that larger normative shift that I think is occurring in many places, and not just among the environmentally concerned, that provides some of the groundwork from which those larger scale shifts can occur. But in some sense, that's the billion trillion dollar Question.

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Michael Simpson (19:36)

This you didn't talk about the politics of disasters. What what more is in is involved with the politics of disaster? And let's just go back to Sonoma, your hometown.

Dr. Thomas Princen (19:50)

Okay, well, one of the most vivid memories I have from researching that case was interviewing a a city councilwoman and she shortly after the fire and she said she's talking about what what the the city and the county were doing in in response and she was just at wit's end recounting for me how they were taking steps to rebuild as fast as possible and even to put aside improved fire codes that have been were just about to be implemented when that fire broke out. Putting aside those to speed up the rebuild and then justifying it in justice terms by saying that we have a housing shortage. There was a housing shortage before and there continues to be and building right in the very well documented known fire hazard zone where that fire had occurred. Not only it had occurred in 2017, but almost an equivalent one had occurred in 1964. And she was, like I say with that, she just could not conceive how a more thoughtful approach wasn't being considered. But urgency and speed in the rebuild, who are the paramount concerns? So, you know, those are the politics. That effort to rebuild was not just by chance. It wasn't just a few developers. It was a concerted effort. Some evidence it was organized by, I think it was a former FEMA director. It was effort to, you know, put aside any, any kind of roadblocks, including fire codes, to, to rebuild. But this is, you know, this is, this is what the, the transition is about, in my view. We are transitioning from, you know, we can build anything anywhere, anywhere, any, anytime we, we like if we have the money and the demand is there to. No, we have to build in a way that is, that is adaptive to the places we live. And that particular place is widely known well before current developments as a fire hazard zone. Native peoples knew it, early European settlers knew was only in the last few decades, roughly, that it was just disregarded the reality of living in a semi arid but highly flammable region like that.

Michael Simpson (22:47)

So let me be clear. You mentioned early Galveston and then Harvey Impact, and now you mentioned early fire in Sonoma and the most recent fire. So is it the drive for wealth and power, you're saying, that reinforces the vulnerability of communities to extreme events because they just want to build back?

Dr. Thomas Princen (23:13)

Well, there are, there are strong economic reasons, incentives to build back and build back quickly and build out even more densely in this case than in the past. And of course, there is demand for, in this case in the Bay Area, demand for housing. So, you know, that's all in place. But it is proceeding as if those communities will be safe, that there will not be fires, that the fires can be controlled. And one of the really insightful things I learned in this research was that those who are actually responsible for managing Wildlands for fire and those who are responsible for fighting fire, they know that the conditions are such that many of these fires cannot be controlled. And that basic awareness has been evolving maybe the last couple or so decades, especially in California, is there are some fires, those have become mega fires especially, that simply cannot be fought. And so to think that somehow we can build in or near, let alone even more densely, those areas is not just foolhardy, but it's dangerous.

Michael Simpson (24:47)

Now, I'm going to ask you a question a little off the mark, but As a whole, I'm taking all your thinking and it's based us based on, but stepping back to look for a core driver beyond the quest for getting back to usual or wealth driving some of this and other factor. There is a fact where I have worked in the global south, where there's just more people that need the resources and places to simply live. In short, considering we are populating the earth at an exponential rate, where in the 1880s we were at 1 billion and within 140 years we're now at 8 billion and by 2050 we're going to be at 10 billion. Don't you think that population growth and expansion in natural areas, and especially in the developing south where I work short circuits, some of your hoped for changes to make the collective society more resilient?

Dr. Thomas Princen (25:46)

Well, and as you said, this is beyond the scope of this work and a much broader question. And it seems to me it's incontrovertible that ever increasing population, ever increasing rates of consumption, let alone total consumption.

Michael Simpson (26:06)

All.

Dr. Thomas Princen (26:06)

Adding up to ever increasing throughput is precisely what the problem is. And then of course that begs the question, why do people increase in population? Is it just human nature or is it the only way that people in some places can have a modicum of security? And so if security, stability, dependable supply of fresh water and fertile topsoil is really the issue, and that's the question I want to ask, what really is driving increasing population or movement into natural areas? And this again, once again comes to that larger transitional question, the question of shifting from a sort of a modernist, exploitative, short term approach to natural resources to a more accommodative, more sort of living with approach. So that isn't the answer to the population problem or the overconsumption problem, I like to pair those up. But it does suggest that those problems have roots that are much more fundamental and maybe more tractable too.

Michael Simpson (27:31)

That's a great answer to a question coming out of left field.

Dr. Thomas Princen (27:34)

Thank you.

Michael Simpson (27:35)

Now, towards the end of the book, you provide a type of roadmap of short and long term changes. I would call them adaptive changes, but changes so do acknowledge day to day in accordance with a long term ethical future for our listeners. Can you expand on what you mean by this ethical future?

Dr. Thomas Princen (27:58)

Well, I think I did that primarily in the context of fire and trying to think through what a fire ethic would be. And that was sort of a take off on Aldo Leopold's land ethic. Just trying to imagine, you know, how we can live with fire, such as that wood stove in the background there, very much like mine in my room. And so an ethic then would be a question of, you know, it's a question, how do people, let's put this way, how do people in the place with, live with a reality of that place, namely fire? Because humans do. Fire always have, always will. How can they live and do so responsibly and beneficially? Beneficially for themselves, for other creatures, for the land, the water and so forth. And so that was my attempt to suggest some of the conditions in which a fire ethic could be developed or some of the features of a fire ethic that accepts fire, that sees fire not just as a threat or something to contain out of sight, out of mind, but as something that is integral to our daily lives. And again, I keep looking at your wet stove and I think, yeah, you know, a fire, if you're like me, you have a furnace down in the basement too, and fires going there all the time, but never see it, never think about it and just pay the bill. Bringing fire up front, as well as floods, as well as hurricanes. I mean, one of my favorite examples is volcanoes. There are people who live with volcanoes. They have figured it out, arguably sustainably, equitably. So it is possible, maybe one wood stove, one volcano at a time. But there are different ways of living. There are peoples around the world and right here in modern industrial over consuming places like the United States who are working on that and practice it to some extent they can. So it's not just a sort of pie in the sky, wishful thinking. It does exist. It is possible it can be developed and hopefully works like this will make that more imaginable, more realizable than it otherwise would be.

Michael Simpson (30:46)

As an ecologist, the things you're describing, we call ecological services that society depend on. But there seems to be a disconnect between the urban population and the natural world that you're talking about. And you imply that about building back or building back quickly and probably more densely. How do we address that question? The book helps with that. It's educational and it does provide a message. But dealing with this non understanding of societal needs that are provided by a natural system seems inherent in an urban environment. So any thoughts about how best to educate? I guess.

Dr. Thomas Princen (31:39)

Well, I would put a little different. How best to maybe internalize the two costs. I'll start with economic terms because you use ecosystem services. 1 I have some problem with because it puts the ecological in the economistic realm. I'd rather keep those separate actually. But that's another big question. But rather than, let's say, educate, I'll go back to that Sonoma example and all the pressures to rebuild right in the fire hazard zone. I'm almost sure that the houses that have been built there are being subsidized one way or another, either by public monies with a public insurance or maybe private insurance or some other way. There's. There are huge subsidies to guarantee or ensure or that, that housing and their apparent safety that, that other people like in Coffey park and the working class neighborhood probably did not have. So, so oftentimes, if I had, if I could do another project, I would do it on insurance, both private and public, and just try to expose all the subsidies that go to making the very thing that you described possible. I can build a house, an urban house with urban amenities in what otherwise looks like a wildland and beautiful natural scene. And all I need is a whole lot of money. That should not be possible, cannot be possible when you have recurrent fires in a known fire hazard zone. So exposing that to begin with would be a major step in that direction.

Michael Simpson (33:36)

So is there any last thoughts you'd like to share with us?

Dr. Thomas Princen (33:41)

Yeah, I think it comes out of both fires and floods. On the one hand, these are dangers, these are threats. No one wants to see a fire come over that hillside right towards your house. No one wants to see the river waters rise up and wash away, let's say a children's camp as it happened in Texas. So they're easily perceived as threats that must be managed, must be vanquished, must be attacked, must be built, even put more ramparts and so forth. And I would like to think that a major part of what this book says is no fires and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts and cold snaps and all the rest. This is part of the human condition, or more accurately, the human ecological condition. Our ancestors have always dealt with these and our successors always will. This is part of what it means to be human. And in the last couple or three centuries, with modernity, with industrialization, with economization, financialization, globalization, all that, we move so far away from that. But once again, Living with natural systems, including fires and floods, has happened and will continue to happen. People are doing it, the experiments are going on and we can learn from them.

Michael Simpson (35:24)

Hey. The book is Fire and Flood, Extreme Events and Social Change, Past, Present and Future and is published by MIT Press. Thank you, Tom.

Dr. Thomas Princen (35:35)

Thank you, Manna.

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