Transcript
Z Cohen Sanchez (0:00)
Foreign.
Mike Pesca (0:03)
It's Monday, July 7, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. The tragedy in Texas is prompting necessary questions about warning systems and there are valid issues to be researched into staffing. The New York Times reports that the National Weather Service's San Angelo office, which is the one responsible for Kerr county, was missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster and a meteorologist in char. The Weather Services San Antonio office didn't have a warning coordination Meteorologist. He or she left on April 30, taking an early buyout after some Trump administration light harassment. This is natural. These are questions to ask. We search for why in the face of tragedy and sometimes we come up with answers. But like I said, it is also natural to ask the question. Deadly flooding in this part of the country is also actually quite natural. It's called flash flood Alley. Many, many such disasters have occurred here over the years. So Joaquin Castro, congressman from nearby San Antonio, is not wrong when he answered Dana Bash's question on CNN this way.
Z Cohen Sanchez (1:20)
How much do you think the changing climate is part of what we are seeing go on here, not just what we're seeing in the pictures that we're showing on the screen, but even the the flood that you talked about in.
Mike Pesca (1:33)
San Antonio in June? No, I think climate change is obviously a part of it. These floods are happening more often in more parts of the country and really all over the world. However the climate change played a role or a large role explanation is a lot more complicated than that give and take would indicate. Are floods increasing in number and severity? Well, they certainly seem to be. Ones in Europe, definitely, scientists say after the fact, were influenced by climate change. And we do know that warmth, warmth in the atmosphere makes systems more wet and wet systems shed more rainfall and the increase in energy kicks things into overdrive. Yes, yes and yes. And yet absent from the effects of global warming is that it has happened in this exact part of the world before, often and often worse. So I'll read you from Roger Pilkey's blog. According to a contemporary 1846 account, the Guadalupe river would often rise 15ft above its normal stand after these heavy rains, carrying with it in its swift torrent a number of large trees uprooted farther up the hills. Smaller brooks, ordinary temporarily not containing flowing water, became raging torrents which could only be crossed by swimming. That was again in 1846. In 1921 in thrall Texas, they got 40 inches of rain. That event led to 215 dead just eight years earlier, 117 died in floods. You might have heard that in 1987 a flood in this exact area killed 10 campers at a nearby Christian camp. A local meteorologist, Carrie Burgess, talked to Newsweek and said that flooding like this quote doesn't happen often. Large scale ones, quote, have occurred at least four times in the last 50 years. Kerrville actually had a higher crest of 37.4 inches in a July 1987 event where 10 campers were lost downstream. This flood resembles all of those previous events, Burgess noted, although we have a much higher population now compared to 40 or 50 years ago. Climate change, I'll say it again, makes systems wetter. The Houston floods of Hurricane Harvey show that warming likely increased rainfall by 15 to 20%. But that is an estimate that was generated after specific research into the exact event. It also doesn't explain the 80% or at least 80% not affected by climate change that still would have been catastrophic and record setting. And don't listen to me for science, just listen to me for everyone else who is making claims about science. And it's to know this when all the explanations all say climate change, but none of the explanations say the orographic lifting effect or the balconies escarpment, be a little wary. From what I understand, these features of geography and air had a huge effect on what we're seeing in this tragedy in Kerr county. You're not being lied to. Climate change played a role. You're probably given a little bit of a narrative that might be emphasizing a smaller part of the problem than you are led to believe. In any case, one reason the death tolls were higher 100 years ago might not have been that the floods were worse, but it's certainly true that that the systems of forewarning are worse. Human ingenuity has been able to help us tell each other when these tragedies are about to hit. We're getting better and better at pursuing these systems, but of course they come at a cost. And when that cost isn't paid, we find out what the ultimate cost is on the show today. It is an excellent full show interview with a political operative. I hope Z Cohen Sanchez doesn't mind me calling her that. I read a little from her book biography. She is the founder and executive director of Soul Strategy Soul like the sole of a shoe, get out the vote, that sort of thing. Z has worked on several people powered campaigns in the last decade helping flip seats across the country. After Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign, she committed to helping Democratic candidates win seats. Since founding Soul Strategies. Her multifaceted team has worked on hundreds of powerful campaigns nationwide. However, one of those campaigns hit a snag and made some news. The idea was to throw progressive voices into the mall when Charlie Kirk went to campuses to speak. Kirk goes to these campuses, talk to young men who might simply be bored saying who is this guy? And at least Kirk makes a case to vote MAGA and Republican, which Democrats do not. So the idea was hatched. Let's counter program Kirk. Let's call the effort Unfuck America Edgy. The idea was since Charlie Kirk is talking to fratty type guys, let's get some prominent, maybe larger bicep than the typical political science major and let's have them go out to talk to guys from a left wing perspective. Well, here's the deal. If you're a left leaning political effort and you lead with white guys, you might have a meltdown within and Unfuck soon proved itself fucked. But now they're back to re unfucking. Yes, let's call it that. The whole effort is engaging in a big reun fucking and Z Cohen Sanchez is right at the heart of it. She was generous enough to discuss this all in detail. Zico and Sanchez, up next. Are you buried under nonstop meetings and something important happens and you forgot. Wait, what was discussed? Fireflies is your AI teammate. Boom. Pops up, is on top of things so damn useful you don't even have to prod it. You don't have to feed it coffee to wake it up. We're all trying to figure out how to work smarter and not harder. And this is where Fireflies come in. Just say hey Fireflies. Boom, it's there. Like I say, boom, it's there. Hey Fireflies. Maybe if you're in a meeting while listening to the show now and I just said, hey Fireflies. You got Firefly. It's good. 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Foreign Z Cohen Sanchez is a Bernie Sanders veteran who wants to stop Donald Trump. Okay, too late. But what do you do? Maybe you look at Donald Trump acolytes like the young male influencers who draw big crowds on college campuses and you counter program that. That's the idea. Anyway, she has a pack of called National Ground Game and they had an idea to do this with Charlie Kirk and others and so they did and it was successful. And then stuff happened in the way and we're going to talk about it all and we're going to talk about what her what the efforts that she's organized un Fuck America, what they're doing. Hello, Z. Can I call you Z please?