Virtual event with susan hough and henry fountain. Before he began i do have some short guidelines. It would like to ask a question for the q a just use ask the question button at the bottom of the screen. Etc questions that seem interesting you can also vote for them and they will make their way to the very top of the list. If youre considering supporting a bookstore by purchasing a copy of, copy of tonight featured book click on the green purchase button directly below the viewers screen. You will be directed to our website where you can complete your purchase. Our next Virtual Event is scheduled for tomorrow august 28 with jon wiener and you can learn more about upcoming Virtual Event on a website as well as by following us on outcast. With that said let me briefly introduce our speakers for tonight. Susan houseman is a Research Seismologist so i bet that at the u. S. Geological survey in pasadena, california. She served as an editor and contributor from many journals and is a contributing editor to time magazine. She has from his short on the board of directors of Seismological Society of america as well as the Southern California earthquake center. She is the author of five books including earthshaking science, what we know and dont know about earthquakes. Joining her tonight is henry fountain. Henry is a writer who covers Climate Change and the innovations that will be needed to overcome it. For ten years he wrote about Research Findings from across the world of science and observatory a weekly column and site science times. He is the author of the great quake debate about the 1964 alaskan earthquake. With that said im going to turn the screen over to her speakers. Enjoy the talk. [laughing] thank you. Great to be here. I want to thank reera and vromans bookstore and henry for being here. Im excited about this event. I live not far from vromans bookstore but im in the Virtual World right now along with everybody else. Its long been my favorite bookstore, and henry has long been one of my favorite reporters. The title of my book sort of came to me one day and i eventually told henry i had not consciously ripped off of his book title, although its possible it was in my subconscious and that bubbled out. But i would encourage everybody who interest in earthquakes and science books deathly check out both the great quake and the the great quake debate, his book is a lot of fun to focus on the 1964 earthquake in alaska. And thank you to everyone out there whose tune in. We have some people from a ways away so thats great. I know theres a lot going on in the world, some good, a lot of it not so good so appreciate everybody tuning in. We look forward to leaving room for q a at the end. To get the ball rolling eyes going to read just a couple of pages for a few minutes to start off, and then well move to a conversation between me and henry, and then leave time for q a at the end. So i guess theres an ask the question to have hopefully at the bottom if you have any questions. So i was going to start if you do have the book by chance, im going to start reading on page 160. So to set the stage, where i start reading in 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake had struck, cause quite a bit of damage, and scientists were trying to make the case for significant earthquake hazard in los angelee damage that occurred, that businesses were pushing out. And then the earthquake was to some extent a teachable moment for scientists to make the case that they lost after a few months they start to lose momentum. Willis stepped forward at that point. Just jumping in, getting in the middle of things. Whatever understanding had been worked out between harry wood and local businesses in Southern California 1923, Bailey Willis comfortably distant and the San Francisco bay area never signed on to the deal. In the words of the story girl henry cash when, by the of 1925 quote, willis decided to embark on a new strategy. He would scare californians by not only pointing backward at the recent seismic to struck and also predicting that a catastrophic earthquake much larger than the Santa Barbara shock would soon strike california. And his prediction was based to some extent on a result that would come out from a survey. After the survey result became known in 1923, scientists avoided making overly alarmist public statements. In addition to having specifically cautioned the public statements, he knew analysis of early data could be imprecise science. The resulting questions were, in fact, preliminary, estimated from triangulation measurements that had not been properly connected to the larger regional triangulation survey. Moreover, scientists would even reluctant to go public with a scientific result the raise concern in scientific circles but did not support a specific forecast let alone a precise prediction. As he himself had written cogently in his 1916 article, or, at what time future shocks will occur we do not know, spatial inning precise way but we do know that since 1769 no half centuries pass without the occurrence of the lease one great earthquake in the region. He was wrong about that by the way. The average points conclusively to greater expectable frequency. However, close prediction of the occurrence of the day or hour, even the month or year cannot be approximated as yet. He was right about that. But the u. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey results even put scientist like would face a a limit that remains similar to present day professionals. On the one in an apparently sound scientific result raise concern with professional circles but on the other there was clearly uncertain to some extent and in any case the result did not apply any suspect the timeframe they did know a regional if it existed would be released eventually in a large earthquake, and that the relatively modest Santa Barbara earthquake had not been that. Willis had spoken publicly to a limited extent about the buildup of strain before the Santa Barbara earthquake struck, and that led to the rule he predicted. Before 1925 due to a close he latched more squarely on to the u. S. Coast survey results. Pointing to the result he told leaders among others in novembee earthquake in Southern California come in the southland was not quote, no windows where it will be when your changes to force severe earthquake comes, but when it does it will come suddenly and those are not prepared will suffer. In the earthquake business that can be vanishing refined line be seen enough get nifty take the hazard sisley and being overly alarmist. Either direction away from that line unfortunately things happen. In one direction they ignore warnings altogether. In other people might and or failed to take action. We are all doomed. Whats the point . Now some individuals look more closely with outlines and others. In the statements he made in november 1925, willis did more than flirt your quote, no one knows whether it will be one year or ten years. In fact, then as now know when you what it would be year for ten years or 100 years. The modern leader can do switch with the benefit of almost a century of hindsight, damaging earthquakes did strike the Greater Los Angeles area including not only the one that with multiple into the great quake debate but also a moderately damaging earthquake in whittier in 1987 and appear larger quake struck the San Fernando Valley in 1971 in 1994. Yet the earthquake that willis and some of his colleagues warned about great earthquake in Southern California did not occur within three years or ten years or 90 years of 1925. When a scientist dances, with oversteps the vanishing find like the media which is always called on to translate scientists statements into actual english invariably are not altogether unreasonably drop do once qualification. Headlines are designed to grab the readers attention with less room for subtlety and the modern twitter tweet. Willis is words soon found a Way International media, the New York Times for example, publish an article titled professional willis says predicts los angeles tremors. Los angeles with a vicinity, the article begins with experience a severe earthquake probably more violent than that in San Francisco in 1906 in one to ten years. The article went on to repeat the lord that willis quote at status of years ago that Santa Barbara we feel severe earth tremors, prophecy that was fulfilled in the past summer. Over the years following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the great quake debate in Southern California had at various times Summer Institute and flared. Yet willis is public words in late 1925, did explode. So i i was going to leave io everyone to read more about the debate that played out. Right. Because actually thats more than half of the debate you read, basically, right . Yeah. Well, so mr. Hill as well, dr. Hill i guess. Yet. The book kind of evolved into intertwined biographies into protagonist. One of them was Bailey Willis who ended up on his own side of that vanishingly fine line and the other was robert hill who landed on the other side. So hill was the skeptic, willis was the crusader. When i started working on the book i was interested in the debate itself because theres a couple of different takes on it you can read about that dont quite agree. I was curious what the real story was. I thought i would introduce hill and willis briefly and then move on to the debate. The more i got into their lies, the more i realize what really fascinating individuals they were. I agree. Theres a lot of things i really like [inaudible] you can delve into both these people equally really. Whatever the archival material you found is really remarkable. They are both scientists obviously and quite renowned scientists, yet they are both very human. Particularly hill reminds you of people i know, sort of a problematic personality. In some ways i feel like maybe because he was more curmudgeon or whatever but i felt like, i sort of felt more empathy for whatever for hill just because he was sort of a problem child. He couldnt get out of his own way. Hill was a pain in the, if i can say that, after my own heart. He reminded me quite a bit of my late father who was an academic and brilliant but didnt always play well with others. But when you got into hills life story and when he went through as a child, he was born in nashville, tennessee, in 1858, and then the next thing we knew still a toddler, the civil war literally rolled through his hometown. His parents lost their house. His father lost his life, not in war, but the illness. His mother was confined to a mental institution, and the one memory he had of her was of a military team dragging her away, and are screaming for her children. From there hills childhood proceeded as as a teenager he e his way to the frontier in texas such a compelling life story, what he went through, and then he made his way and through it all went to cornell university, never having gotten past i forget, ninth grade but maybe before that. So i got to cornell and was able to launch his career. He never left a chip on his shoulder. Its interesting, you are in the business so to speak. Im just a journalist and im not aware of the history, but how big, like is this idea of this debate that went on in the mid20s in Southern California, is that something if i were go to school to become a seismologist i would learn about that . Was this sort of an obscure thing you latched onto . Well, dont say just a journalist. I like to say im not a scientist but i play one in the newspapers, so there you go. I indepth talking to top Science Writers and realize they often understand the science extremely well. So what was the question . So was this something that you kind of latched onto, this idea, this debate took place back then . I wouldnt say that everybody knew about it. Scientists in general dont tend to be interested in history or the history the history of science that kind of an orphan subfield because historians dont tend to care so much about science, and scientists dont tend to care so much about history. Im sort of unusual. Theres some of us who are interested in the history. So i had been aware of it. It had come up a little bit in my previous books, the book on prediction, because Bailey Willis was the first person to come out with a public prediction of earthquake in california. If you look back scientists since 1925 have occasionally been making alarmist statements that the San Andreas Fault or Southern California is overdue for a great earthquake. It started in 1925 but there were others. There were statements in 1969. There was a palmdale famous statement in the 19 city. I touched on it and i was aware of it. The conventional telling of the great quake debate is that Bailey Willis was a flawed hero that was crusading from this production, and Bailey Willis was a quote, tool come into the pocket of business interest and sort of painted as a laughingstock. And eventually over time i became aware that there was a second version of the debate which painted hill as a victim, that hed been set up by business interests who had twisted his words. I wouldnt say its well known among seismologists but i but e aware that there were two very different versions of the story and that got me interested through that with the actual truth was. I i found that really interesting reading about both of them. If i remember correctly, Bailey Willis also, was he in Santa Barbara when the Santa Barbara quake happened . He didnt deny he predicted that earthquake where, in fact, he really had not, right . That played a role in him being a crusader type or whatever . I conclude he was sort of inclined to crusade. He didnt shy away from opportunities to step on to the stage. Ive heard he was a very impassioned and effective order, for example, in his speeches but maybe a little bit of a showboat but very effective at it. Then in 1925, this was sort of how the book project started for me, i was researching the 1925 earthquake to understand better what fault itd been on and with the magnitude was. I realize willis had left his papers to the Huntington Library which is just down the road from me. I applied for reader privileges and was looking into the earthquake, and then i realized theres this huge collection of letters that he wrote and of the material. I started to get interested in the other part of it. It is very curious. He had made public statements based on this survey result that seem to show a lot of steam was building up in Southern California. He made some limited public statements in 1923. And then on june 28 he and one of his sons took the train down to Santa Barbara. He didnt talk in his letters about why he was doing some sort of consulting, and the very next morning the Santa Barbara earthquake strikes. So the lore developed very naturally that he predicted it, and he didnt take teams to set the record straight. Im just wondering if a little taste of fame at that point or as the great predictor and that sort of influenced him down the road. Who knows . He doesnt seem like the type of guy necessary would be influenced but you never know. I did think, you could see looking back, it was fascinating in the book to look back, hill and was were born by direct same time. They both start at the usgs around the same time, very early days. The careers were in a 20 they took a road trip together down to texas in 1898. You could see him, that willis was shying away from Media Attention. There were a couple times in my research actually laughed out loud in our cuts come which is something you really not supposed to do. Archives are very quiet places. But one of them was finding a little newspaper article that willis had saved i was just hysterical. Its the beach mermaid, but it was a little editorial, a letter in the Santa Barbara paper that was suggesting that willis had gotten used to the Media Attention and that had driven the prediction. Meanwhile, hill is kind of fuming [inaudible] holds grudges, just cant seem to get out of his own way. He was a sort of stubborn as well as was smooth and charming to some degree or whatever. Its interesting, im not a big reader of biographies but and certainly i dont know ive ever read dual biography which usually what this is, but as you say theres a lot of similarities to them in terms of their age and their profession, et cetera, et cetera. But there are so many differences. Nature versus nurture type of person you could have a field day looking at hills background as you described growing up in the civil war verse as well as who had relatively easy time summer at the new york state i believe, right . Willis did lose his father at a young age and so his father had been a renowned writer, literary celebrity. The house can fill it in a Country Estate that was really idyllic until the father noel felt ill. But willis his mother have a a number of kids but willis was the youngest. His mother thought he hung the moon. She was the world to him and the think vice versa so he grew up with an absolutely doting, supported mother whereas hill grew up for all intents and purposes and orphan. So they were in some ways just an absolute study in contrast, including the yankee versus the confederate. They were on opposite sides of the civil war. That mattered. That was one interesting thing about the book, is that diversity is now on a lot of peoples minds, and rightly so, some of the conversations are very overdue. Ill felt like the victim of discrimination hill. You look at that now as he was white, male, of european descent, like every other geologist in his day that he was a southerner. He was from the south among a northern Government Agency and intellectual elite. That was a lifelong chip on his shoulder that he felt like he was the victim of biases. He wasnt entirely wrong. He was seeing biases behind every little issue that came up, and it took on a life of their own. It was interesting to really think about the fact that there were biases against people from the south. Maybe some of those are still out there. He even felt it when he went to cornell, i think, didnt he . Southerner going to cornell was a big deal. It certainly was for him, so we had never been north of the masondixon line and he had grown up having yankees portrayed as just monsters. All of a sudden hes going off, takes a stagecoach eventually dancing cornell in the middle of a snowstorm, and he doesnt have Winter Clothes ready actually described cornell for the most part as very good experience. It was a very good university, and for the first time in his life he was in the setting where people were just interested in science and knowledge. After his parents were gone, he lived with a grandmother who was extremely religious, extremely strapped it was a lot of encouragement or, you know, there were not science books in the house, for example. Cornell really was a revelation for it. That part of his life was, well, it was when he got to the usgs in washington, d. C. That he started to run into what he perceived as life. And still paying Student Loans, right . Practically on his deathbed paying off a Student Loans i believe, right . He wrote a check in 1928 to cornell. I never figured out if he paid them off entirely or not, but if you think of Student Loans as a modernday issue, but it was something, he got to cornell with no money. So working his way through school and borrowing money. To me again the thing that is so interesting is how human these people are. Its always great, in doing my job i talk to scientist all the time and some of them seem pretty human and some of them dont seem very human. So to really get the rich sort of humanities, people, its really a valuable thing. Your book also, its wonderful bringing george oscar to life, and yet i envy you, and its great. George is very much alive and well so he was come if people have read your book, george is kind of the leading scientist who went up to alaska after the earthquake and sorted out what it happened in the earthquake at a time when, actually deleting seismologist turned out to be wrong. George is a great guy. He works for the same organization that i do. Hes alive and well and in his early 90s, and you got to talk to him. I got to spend a lot of time with him. Before i wrote that book, which is three or four years ago now, i did know anything about geology. I knew little about earthquakes but not much. George was my geology teacher so i feel pretty, you know, what aa deal for me to have somebody like george describing mountain building in alaska. It was just a great experience. He is a very unique guy. He had an interesting he really did. Lived in an orphanage and an early age. When he was real active usgs guy, i dont know what he was like really, but certainly as an emeritus usgs guy, he doesnt have the chip on his shoulder that hill does. He takes life with much more you know, to get to know scientists, and he think thats what your book does. It helps, i felt like i got to know those two people. Another thing is, its the part you read as well. I mean, i kept thinking obviously were in a different time now. We know a lot about earthquakes in the 90 years since, but theres still the issue of how threatened dash at which the word . How should we deal with the risk i know as part of your job its talking to people about risk. It seems like in some ways things really have changed, although they have obviously. We know so much more than we did in the 20s. That was before the plate tectonics revolution which george oscar contributed to. People really didnt understand. They had some sense earthquakes were clustered in certain zones but they didnt understand your plate boundary zones. They didnt understand the rates of earthquakes, how often earthquakes occur on average. So Bailey Willis, no commentaryy with you made a statement about earthquakes. Great earthquakes happening every 50 years. That was offbase because they didnt have sense since about g earthquakes were even, let alone how often they occurred. So geologists have dug into the San Andreas Fault and found evidence of past earthquakes and from that we get an average occurrence. Sewing on average how often great earthquakes occurred. Thats one of the key ingredients that is gotten better and better. Those are critical to develop building codes with appropriate provisions. So awful lot have changed but we still want to know when is that next take when going to be. Thats what we really havent made any headway in terms of making a prediction on a short timescale or even decadeold timescale. Theres a sense were all waiting for the San Andreas Fault of a big earthquake. The southernmost part of the fault hasnt puckered since rent 1690, i date established only by geology. The 1857 earthquake which was north los angeles, was 150 years ago. That starts to feel like quite a long time. Theres various evidence that theres a lot of strain built up. Wouldnt be surprised if something happened but we cant say its going to be this year even this decade. Right. So that translates, for the public, you know, how worried should i be . I didnt go at the earthquakes. I grew up in new york and lived until recently in new york basically. I live in new mexico which is not earthquake country. I only stopped like how do people live in california . Obviously you come to terms with it, just as against living in your becomes to terms with living with her cane every 30 years something. But theres still the issue of how do we, how as a seismologist or a person is an earthquake expert, how do we warn people not to get into a panic . Thats a vanishingly fine line which hasnt gone away. I heard the author event a few days ago about a book about los angeles in the sense of i asked him about earthquakes, which i think have contributed to the senses placed in los angeles in the sense of identity we all feel. He said, if you live here, part of living here is being on the edge and having that realization that something could hit you at any time. And now im forgetting again what the question was. I dont know if it was a question, but what as a person whose job it is to inform people of the risk. That fine line, it hasnt gone away and i think its gotten worse because theres been such a weaponization of science now. The science, we love debates but theres a body of knowledge that is established, even in the 20s hill and was both knew that earthquakes happen in unit Hazard Mitigation was important but theres a body of knowledge. If you are trying to have a nuanced balanced discussion in the context of the larger political environment where people are refusing to accept basic science, it just gets i think more and more difficult. I do conclude that scientists play a role in the process but the media plays an Important Role as well. There are some really good science journalism out there, and i thank god, that helps. Its interesting because as you point it in your book, even then as we see in the news, if it bleeds it leads. In the photo of a disaster, theres a photo of a near miss or a near disaster. And thats true today. It is certainly true at the place i work at the New York Times, and its true obvious in broadcast news, cable news. But it was true back then, right . You talk about nuance and theres just that not as much nuance as one would hope for one would wish the media. Plus a lot of other stuff, too. Getting into the great quake debate, thinking more complicated more of what the business interests were doing because they are very easy to paint as the bad guys that were denying the hazard. Like most things in history the truth is more complicated than the simple short telling. Some of the things they were saying back then were not entirely unreasonable and they were making the point went earthquakes happen, the coverage tended to be biased towards the dramatic. You see the pictures of the buildings that are knocked down. As recently as 2015, the big earthquake in the paul if you think back to the headlines and the stories you saw in the news, i remember headline saying that their Cultural Heritage was destroyed. I worked in nepal, i have friends there. My heart was in my throat initially, and it was a horrible earthquake. It killed 9000 people and took a very heavy toll. But i landed in kathmandu about a month after the earthquake and those just stunning how few signs of damage they were. The picture that you got just five years ago in the media versus the boots on the ground reality were so different. I mean, it does apply as well to, you can just even, with earthquakes get noticed. I guess i am the person at the time soon as most of the earthquakes theres an earthquake, people, editors asked me about it. You know, 6. 8 in chile or something, knocked out some buildings and theres of the child or two. Oh, like this is really unusual and have to point out, theres probably like 6. 8 earthquakes a week or whatever but there are places where there are not any. We dont hear about them. Its a lot of like the coverage and i soon even back then it is based on if theres people around to report on it and to put into print or put it on tv. And having the photographs really made a difference, when the 1906 earthquake had a huge impact for a number of reasons but there were actual photographs of the damage. And it plays very basic fears. The fact that people tend to worry about the wrong things, worry about plane crashes when 40,000 americans are killed on the road and nobody has panicked over that. Earthquakes are kind of the same way. We dont like them. They are terrifying. Hurricanes, at least you see them coming for us earthquakes, when your house start shaking at 4 31 a. M. , even if youre seismologist, thats terrifying. So they are fundamentally scary in the way thats kind of hard to deal with. There are people who leave california. Its just not something they want to deal with, especially if they go through a big earthquake. So i think it does shape the folks who stay here. You know, we are crazy enough or something to put up with it. Speaking of science and one of the of the points i thought was in your book and it came towards the end was the fact that this is really, this whole debate is really science at work. Both bailey and was ideas and robert hill ideas, there were flaws in their thinking. They probably got half the stuff right really. Certainly didnt get everything right in their arguments but over time thats the way science works. There is debate about things and things get worked out and bad ideas get debunked and good ideas get promulgated. This is great, like a scientific process at work. Just how great it is. Frankly in my book, too. The book was written all about plate tectonics. There were all sorts of crazy ideas, and even, [inaudible] but it got a long time to work out but it got worked out. In an age when i [inaudible] its good to read a book that shows this space, basically. You broke up a little bit there. I dont know if other people heard you, but there were a lot of fun things about researching the book. One of the interesting things was to look at what hill and willis, but mostly hill were saying about things we now know are wrong. But realizing that some of them were really pretty insightful at the time. You go back to 1920, 1925. They didnt know that plates were moving around. They didnt know that they could move sideways. They could move vertically. There was no theory to explain lateral sideways forces, and all of the theories to explain earthquakes tended to focus on vertical forces. So things being the earth expanding, you talked about this, or contracting or there were ideas of these blisters that we have locally and things. You are starting from a fundamentally wrong premise. You can make some very insightful arguments that are completely wrong. Hill was looking at all these faults in the area and for example, to conclude the debate of faulting in california had slowed down over time, which is wrong but the rate of vertical faulting has slowed down, 30 million years ago. So starting with his long premise actually, a very insightful conclusion. When one thing about earthquakee is that the earthquakes come along and they are sort of, theyre going to have the last word. How strong is the ground going to shake in the next earthquake . Or is it his fault active . Fortunately, they dont happen all that often. A lot of advances in earthquake science has happened because notable earthquakes have happened. They are getting studied much, much more than they used to obviously. Theres more instrumentation, more data that goes through. I think in 64, the 64 earthquake was by far the most studied earthquake up to its time, and its gotten better since then. Its fascinating to read about George Plafker running around alaska and a float plane ticket article lines to feel whats gone up and was content. Nowadays there so Much Technology that the ridgecrest earthquakes happened last year in the desert within days, less than that, we had maps showing what it moved and how and where the faults were. By developing better and better instrumentation its really driven science. Thats great. So i have one eye on the time, and i know we were supposed to at some point break away for questions. I dont know if lets see. So i thought reera might come back on and guide us through the questions. I am not seeing her. I have been called up. Do you have been called up . So how can scientist best communicate the risks of natural hazard . I wish i knew. Because again we have this climate where science, you know, there is a body of knowledge, things we can say enters a contingent out there that has politicized it. Im not sure what the answer is. I wish i knew. I think we just keep plugging away, look for ways to reach the people. People better, social media, getting information out that way, trying to make science accessible. I hope with my book one of the things ive done is make an interesting story, a story that people will read maybe because hill and willis are interesting characters and you want to know what the deal was. But its one of the ways you can popularize science and communicate some of the aspects that science to a broader audience. But its something my community thinks about a lot and works on all the time. As a journalist i would say the earthquake Scientific Community actually does a much better job than most scientific communities in terms of communicating with the public. And the usgs in general, not just earthquake hazards of the other hazard groups or whatever, they are very good, very open even in these more troubled times they are willing to talk about their work and help me and other journalists explain it in ways that are not welcome which is good. I think you guys do a really good job. Usgs has always been my favorite Government Agency for that reason. One thing about earthquakes is that they tend to be nonpartisan, right . People tend to agree that certain functions are inherently governmental like monitoring earthquakes. Putting out hazard maps, now developing Early Warning systems. Even people that are antigovernment tend to want the usgs to be a round pick in the old days usgs was agency that put out the maps, but we were known for. But, lets see. Theres a question about earthquakes in oklahoma and other oilproducing states could be manmade. So i think the jury is in on that. That its not hydraulic fracturing per se. So hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting water into typically shale and freeing up hydrocarbons. So its an oil recovery technique. The actual hydraulic fracturing can trigger or induce small earthquakes, but the really bad actor is the wastewater. Its a process that produces a lot of water, wastewater, its toxic so you dont want to contaminate the aquifer. Its disposed of in the injection wells, so those wells get quite deep cut you want to get below the aquifer, and thats the process that can induce more significant earthquakes. We have seen earthquakes of magnitude 5. 8 in oklahoma. We just had the anniversary no, the universe is coming up, september 3, 2016, there was a 5. 8 in oklahoma. There was a debate about that, that where the induced, natural, just a cluster . But that settled itself out as well that it would there was an overwhelming body of evidence pointing to industry activities. That actually is sort of a Success Story in that you can actually, if humans are causing earthquakes, you can mitigate hazard by changing what you were doing. Places like oklahoma have developed stoplight systems. If youve wastewater injection and you start to have little earthquakes, the scale back and that sort of thing. So the rate of earthquakes, the rate of induced earthquakes has dropped over the last couple of years. Its really dropped. Oklahoma has been doing oil and gas for so long they have Something Like 40,000 wastewater wells. And the fact i think there is a series of quakes, not the big one in 20 but around admin and ages close down five injection wells for something and the earthquakes disappeared. Again, its a Success Story. And its a hazard, i risk you can manage. There are other issues associated with fossil fuels, and, but i think the induced earthquakes, i think they are manageable. We only have time for one more question it sounds like, is that correct . Theres one interesting question. Does scaring the public even with some level of exaggeration help the public to better prepare for hazards . The same things in kind of unvarnished terms, there are things we know. We know what happened in 1964. We know what happened in 1906. So i think that could be presented but i dont think we should ever go beyond what the science can say. Just because thats not what science is about and it can backfire. It backfired on daily willis, once the prediction was debunked the overall reduction took it for a while. So im waiting for someone. I think were about at theend of our time. Theres a question about which area and my most concernedabout. Its really hard to say. Theres the hayward fault in the east bay area that has, they have a very long record of moderately large earthquakes and last had an earthquake in 1868 at the fault runs through a densely populated area so thats definitely aconcern. But theres others and california has lots offaults. Theres one half a mile north of williamson so almost every part of California California is yourgame. I do think that were at the end of ourtime. Because i was told an hour at the outset but i think our host is having trouble connecting. Our chat has malfunctioned she says. Should we sign off . Sounds like we should. I want to thank again everyone who took time out of their evening that two and in. This is part of the process of understanding hazards and communicating. Thank you again to henry and to bowman, the university of Washington Press who published the book. Thank you susan. Weeknights this month we are featuring booked tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight we focus on biography and memoir. Edward ball looks at White Supremacy through the lens of his greatgrandfather, a member of the ku klux klan in louisiana during the years after the civil war then very time recounts the life of the late republican senator joe mccarthy of wisconsin and later cerebral stresses or National Book Award Winning the market, the yellow house. Watch tonight beginning at 8 pm eastern. Enjoy booked tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Youre watching the tv on cspan2. Every weekend withthe latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2 created by americas cable televisioncompanies as a Public Service and brought to you today by yo
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