Cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Good evening everyone and we are live. Im rita and on behalf of our bookstore i welcome you to our Virtual Event with [inaudible]. If you like to ask questions for the q a just ask a question button at the bottom of the screen. If you see any questions that seem interesting you can also vote for them and they will make their way to the very top of the list. If you are considering supporting our bookstore by purchasing a copy of our copy of todays featured book just click on the green below the viewers screen. You will be redirected to our website where you can complete your purchase. Our next Virtual Event is scheduled for tomorrow august 28 and you can learn more about that on a website as well as by following us on a crowd cast that said let me briefly introduce our speakers for tonight. Susan hoff is a Research Seismologist at the u. S. Geological survey in pasadena, california. She served as editor and contributor for many journals and is a contributing editor and is formally served on the board of directors of seismological association and as well as the 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 observatory a weekly column in science and time. Is the author of the great quake a book about the 1964 alaskan earthquake. With that said i will turn the screen over to our speakers and enjoy the talk. Thank you. Great to be here. I want to think those for being here and im excited about this event and i dont live long ways away but im living in a Virtual World right now but its been one of my favorite bookstores and henry has been one long and my favorite reporters and the title of my book came to me one day and i eventually told henry i had not consciously risked ripped off his book title but that its possible it was in my subconscious and that bubbled out. But i would encourage everybody if youre interested in earthquakes in science books to check out both the great quake in the great quake debate as his book is a lot of fun and focuses on the 1964 quake in alaska. So thank you to everyone out there who is jeanine in. I think we have some people from a ways away so that is great. I know there is a lot going on and some of it good and a lot of it not so good. We appreciate everybody jeanine in. We look forward to the living room for q a at the end. To get the ball rolling i was going to read just a couple of pages for a few minutes to start off and move to our conversation. I guess there is an ask a question tab hopefully if you have any questions. If you do have the book by chance i will start reading on page 160 so to set the stage when i start reading the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake that caused quite a bit of damage and scientists who are trying to make the case that of the damage in earthquakes that can occur but Business Leaders were pushing back so this is and then the earthquake was, to some extent, a teachable moment for scientists to make the case but they lost after a few months and started to lose momentum. There was a step forward at that point so they are just jumping in in the middle of things and whatever understanding has been worked out between harry what and local Business Leaders of Southern California in 1923 they were comfortably disconnect in the San Francisco bay area and they never signed onto the deal in the worlds historian by the end of 1925 decided to embark on a new strategy that would scare californians but not only point of backward at the recent seismic destruction but also predicting that catastrophic earthquake much larger than the Santa Barbara shock would soon strike california. His predictions are based to some extent on a result the to come out from the survey. [audio difficulties] the results became known in 1923 and scientists like one avoided making overly alarmist public statements. In addition to having been specifically cautioned about public statements with news that analysis of early data could be an imprecise science. The results in question were in fact a luminary, estimated from triangulation measurements that are not been properly connected to the larger regional triangulation survey. Moreover scientists would have been reluctant to go public for the scientific results based on concern in scientific circles but not for the specific let alone a precise prediction. As lewis himself written cogently in his 1960 article, at what time a future shock will occur we do not no, especially in any precise way but we do know that since 1769 no half a century has passed without the occurrence of a least one great earthquake in the region. He was wrong about that, by the way. The u. S. Coast result even a previous science based the dilemma that remains familiar with quite professionals on the one hand and apparently sound scientific result raise concern within professional circles but on the other the result was unclear to some extent in any case the result does not imply any specific timeframe or a quantifiable statistical forecast, they know however, a strain if it existed that will be released in larger and the relatively modest Santa Barbara earthquake had not been. Unlike wood he spoke publicly to a limited extent about the strain before the cinnabar earthquake struck and actually led to what he predicted Santa Barbara earthquake before 90 tree five crew he walked squarely onto the survey results pointed to the results he told the leaders among others in november 1925 that a large earthquake in the southland, no windows whether itll be one year or ten years before in earthquake comes but when it comes it will come suddenly and those were not prepared will suffer. In the earthquake business there could be a vanishing fine line between sane enough to get people to take hazards serious seriously, neither direction away from that line unfortunately things happen in one direction the public and decisionmakers have warnings altogether and the other people might panic or fail to take action, were all doomed, what is the point there starts to be a danger crying will too often, some individuals work closely without light and others then the statements he made in november 1925, no windows whether itll be one year or ten years. In fact they never knew if it was one year or ten year or 100 years. The modern reader can view his word to the benefit of a century of hindsight damaging earthquakes struck the Greater Los Angeles area including not only the one that was listed to the great debate but also moderately damaging in 1987 in a pair struck the San Fernando Valley not too far north of los angeles in 1971 in 1991, the earthquake that some of his colleagues warned about until then california with a 1906 San Francisco earthquake did not occur within three years or ten years or 90 years im 1925. When a scientist dances and oversteps the fine line the media which is always called on to translate scientist statement into actual english invariably not altogether indecently drops any nuance qualifications, the moral designed to grab the readers attention leaves room for subtlety in a modern twitter tweet the words found their way into the national media, the New York Times titled it predicts los angeles tremors. Los angeles, the article began and will explains a severe earthquake probably more violent than that in San Francisco in 1906 and 1 10 years doctor bailey said, the article went on to repeat that he had stated three years ago that Santa Barbara would feel severe earth tremors, prophecy that was fulfilled in the summer. Over the years following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the great quake debate in Southern California at various times simmered in stewed inflated with the public words in late 1925 that explode. , im just going to leave the two for everyone to read more about the debate that played o out. Thats one side of the debate that you read. Mr. Hill, the book evolves into intertwined biography to protagonist who ended up on his own side of the vanishing fine line is the older was robert hill who landed on the other side, hill was a skeptic in the crusader, when i started wor wog on the book is interested in the debate itself because there are a couple of different takes that you can read about that dont quite agree so i was curious what the real story was and i thought i would introduce hill and willis briefly and move on to the debate and the more i got in to their lives i realized what really fascinating individuals they were. I agree. There is a lot of things [inaudible] you could dive into both these people equally, and whatever it found, its remarkable and we talked about, they are both scientist and quite renowned scientist, and some ways they are both very human in particular hill and people i know, and a problematic personality in some ways maybe its just because i felt more empathy for hill just because he was a problem child, he could not get out of his own way. Hill was a pain in the if i can say that, he reminded me of my late father who was an academic and brilliant but did not always play well with others, and get into hills life story and what he went through as a child, he was born in nashville, tennessee in 1858 and the next thing when he was a toddler, civil war, talented parents lost their house, his father lost his life to illness, his mother was confined to a Mental Institution in the memories he had of her was of the military team dragging her way and her screaming for her children and from there his childhood proceeded as a teenager he made his way to the frontier in texas, its such a compelling life story what he went through and then he made his way to cornell university, never having gotten past the ninth grade so we got the canal and launched his career. Its a chip on his shoulder, it is interesting youre in the business so to speak, im just a journalist and im not aware but how big, is this an idea of the debate that went on in the mid20s in Southern California is that something if i were to go to school and become a scientologist what i learned about that or is this something that you latched onto . Dont say just a journalist. Im not a scientist but i ended up talking to top Science Writers may understand the science. Sorry, what was the question. It wasnt something that you latched onto this idea, this debate. I would not say Everybody Knows about it, scientist in general dont tend to be that interested in history or the history of science its an orphaned deal because historians dont tend to care so much about science and scientists dont care so much about history and im sort of unusual, there are some of us that are more interested in the history. I had been aware of it, it had come up a little bit in my previous books, book on prediction because willis was the first person to come out with a public prediction of an earthquake in california. If you look back scientist since 1925 have occasionally been making alarmist statements with the san andreas Southern California overdue for greater, is started in 1925 but then there were others, they were statements in 1969 in the palmdale bulge in the 1970s, they touched on it, i was aware of it in the convention of the great quake debate was the flawed hero that was crusading with production and Bailey Willis was a tool into the pocket of business interest in the scene as a laughingstock. Eventually over time i became aware there was a second version of the debate which painted hill as a victim, he had been set up by business interest who had twisted his words. I did not say is well known among scientologist but i became aware there were two different versions of the story and i got interest in figuring out what the actual truth was. I found it really interesting reading about both of them, if i remember correctly, lewis, was he in Santa Barbara when the Santa Barbara quake happened, and he didnt deny that he had predicted that earthquake where in fact he really hadnt. He still played a role in him being more the crusader type or whatever . I think he was inclined to crusade, he did not shy away from opportunities to step onto the stage, i heard he was very impassioned and effective organ he was very effective at it, 1925, this was how the book project started for me, i was researching the 1925 earthquake to take a look back and understand it and what belt it was on and what the magnitude was and i realized willis had left his papers to the Huntington Library down the road for me so i applied for privileges and i was looking into the earthquake and then i realized there is a huge collection of letters in the materia and i started to get interested in the other part of it, but it is very curious, he had made public statements based on the survey results that seem to show that a lot of stream was building up in Southern California and he made some limited public statements in 1923 and then on june 28 he and one of his sons took the train to Santa Barbara and he did not talk in his letters about why he was doing consulting in the very next morning the Santa Barbara earthquake strike, so he very naturally predicted it and he did not take aims to set the record straight. Im just wondering, if he got a little taste of fame at that point as the great predictor and that influenced them down the road, he doesnt seemed like the guy who would be influenced, but you never know. You can see it looking back it was fascinating in the book to look back and realize they were born around the same time, is started at the usgs within a few years of each other, their careers were intertwined, they took a road trip together to texas in 1898. And you could see him, willis was not shying away from Media Attention, there were a couple of times in my research that i laughed out loud and archives which is something you really not supposed to, our curves are very quiet places. But one of them was finding a newspaper article that willis had saved that was hysterical, it was an editorial in the Santa Barbara paper, it was suggesting that willis had got used to the Media Attention and that had driven the prediction so that was pretty funny. In meanwhile hill is fuming and he cant seem to get out of his own way, he was stubborn as willis was charming, it is really interesting, im not a big reader of biographies and certainly i dont know if ive ever read a dual biography but theres a lot of similarities in terms of their age and their profession and et cetera but there is so many differences in its nature versus nurture and you could look at his background as he described growing up in civil war versus willis who was up in new york state. Willis did lose his father at a young age and his own father had been a renowned rider literary celebrity, they lived in a Country Estate and was very idyllic until the father fell ill and then that set into motion some hard times but willis is mother had a number of kids that willis was the youngest and his mother thought he hung the moon. She was the world to him and i think vice versa so he grew up with a doting supportive mother where hell grow up for all intensive purposes and orphan so they were in some ways a study in contrast including the yankee versus the confederate, they were on opposite sides of the civil war and that was an interesting thing about the book, diversity is on a lot of peoples minds and rightly so the conversations are overdue, hill felt like a victim of discrimination and you look at that now, he was white, male, he was like every other geologist of his age but he was a southerner so he was from the south among the northern Government Agency and intellectual elite and that was a lifelong chip on his shoulder that he felt like he was a victim of bias is and he wasnt entirely wrong, he was seen by assist with every little issue that came up and it took on a life of their own but it was interesting to think about the fact that there was bias against people from the south and maybe some of those are still out there. When he went to cornell, cornell was a big deal. It certainly was for him, he had never been north of the masondixon line, he had grown up having yankees portrayed as monsters, all of a sudden hes going off, takes the cak stagech and Lanza Cornell in the middle of a snowstorm and he does not have winter close buddy actually describe cornell is a very good experience in a very liberal university and for the first time in his life he was in a study where people were interested in science and knowledge, after his periods were gone he lived with his grandmother who was extremely religious, extremely strap there was not a lot of encouragement or their work science books in the house for example, cornell was a revelation for him, i think that part of his life was when he got to the usgs in washington, d. C. , that he started to run into what he perceived on his deathbed he paid off his student loan right. He wrote a check in 19284 cornell, i never figured out if he paid them off entirely or not but you think of Student Loans as a modernday issue but he got tore cornell with more money working his way through school and borrowing money here and there. I think to me again the thing that is so interesting is how human these people are and its always great, i talked to scientist all the time with my job and some seem pretty human and some dont seem very human, to really get the rich humanity its really a valuable thing. Your book is wonderful bringing george to life, i envy you and its great, george is very much alive and well, if people have not read his books, george is a leading scientist who went to alaska after the earthquake and sorted out what it happened in the earthquake at a time when the seismologist turned out to be wrong and george is a great guy, he works for the same organization as i do, he is alive and well and an early 90s and you got to talk to them. I got to spend a lot of time with him in alaska, before i read the book which was three or four years ago i did not know anything about geology, i know little bit about earthquakes, george was my geology teacher, i feel pretty, ideal for george to describe it, it was an experience, he is a very unique guy. Is interesting. S. And hill in terms of the orphanage in the early age, i dont know what he was like really but certainly usgs guy, he certainly does not have the chip off his shoulder, he takes life much more seriously to know that and get to know scientist and i think thats what your book does, i felt like i got to know those two people, another thing, the part that you limit as well, and reading this book i kept feeling obviously were in a different time, we learned a lot about earthquakes in the 90 years but there is still the issue of how should we deal with the risk, and i know thats part of your job talking to people about risk, it seems in some way things have never change although they have obviously. You know so much more than we did in the 20s, that was before the plague revolution which george contributed to, people did not understand about earthquakes, they had some sense that earthquakes were clustered but they did not understand that we have boundaries and they did not understand the weights of earthquakes, how often earthquakes occur on average, would made a statement about earthquakes, great earthquakes happening every 50 years, they did not have a sense of how big earthquakes were let alone how often they occurred, so geologist have dug in to the San Andreas Fault and found evidence of past earthquakes and from that we have gotten evidence on current, we know how great earthquakes occur, thats one of the key ingredients that has gotten better and better and those are critical to develop building codes with appropriate provisions, an awful lot has changed, but we still want to know when is the next big one going to be and that is where we have a need any headway in terms of making a prediction on the short timescale or a decade timescale, there waiting for the san andreas to have a big earthquake, the southernmost part has got a ruptured around 1690 which is the date founded by geology, the 1857 earthquake which was more north of los angeles was 150 years ago, that starts to feel like quite a long time, there is evidence that there is a lot of strain built up, we would not be surprised if something happened but we still cant say its going to be this year or this decade. That translates to the public, i didnt grow up there, a group in new york and lived till recently in york basically and i live in new mexico which is really not earthquake country, i always thought how do people live because theres earthquakes, but obviously you come to terms but you come to terms with her cane every 30 years for something but there is still the issue of how as a seismologist or person who is an earthquake expert, how do you warn people to not get in a panic. That is a vanishingly fine line which hasnt gone away, i heard the author event two days ago who wrote a book about los angeles and i asked him about earthquakes, i think they have contributed to the sense of reason in los angeles and a source of identity that we feel that he said, if you live here, part of living here is been on the edge and having that realization that something could hitch you any time and now im forgetting again what the question was. I dont know if it was a question but. Might feel that way but as a person whose job to inform people the risk. That fine line, has not gone away and i think its gotten worse because there has been such a weaponization of science now, the science, we have debates but theres a body of knowledge that is established that we know and even in the 20s we knew that earthquakes happen and that medication was important, there is a body of knowledge but if you have a nuance balance discussion in the context of a larger political environment where people are refusing to accept basic science, it just gets more difficult. Go ahead. I do conclude that scientist play a role in the process of the media they play an Important Role as well and there is some really good science journalism author, i think that helps. It is interesting because as you point out in your book, as were in the news business, are much more interested in the photo of a disaster than a photo of a near disaster and that is true today, it is certainly true to the place that i work in New York Times and is true obviously in broadcast news, cable news, you talk about nuance and there is not as much nuance as one would hope where one would wish in media and obviously please allot herself to. Getting into the great quake debate we were thinking we were looking at the busiest interest redoing because theyre very easy to pay as the bad guys that were denying earthquake hazard, i think most things in history the truth is more complicated than the simple short telling excuse me. Someone said that they were saying back then it was an entire movie unreasonable and they were making the point when earthquakes happen the coverage tended to be biased towards the dramatic you see the pictures of the buildings that are knocked down and most recently as 2015 the big earthquake if you think back to the headlines and the stories that you saw on the ne news, i remember headlines saying that the Cultural Heritage was destroyed and i worked in the polls and i have friends there, my heart was in my throat initially and it was a horrible earthquake and killed 9000 people took a heavy toll but i landed at camp about an hour after the earthquake and it was stunning how few signs of damage there were, the picture that you got five years ago in the media versus on the ground reality were so different. Yeah, even to what earthquakes get noticed, i am constantly since whenever theres an earthquake people, editors asked me about it so 6. 8 in chile or something knocked out some buildings and maybe theres a totality or two and they say this is unusual and i have to say its like 6. 8 earthquakes a week or whatever but there are places where there arent any so we dont hear about them, its a lot of coverage and i assume even back then its based on it people are around to report on it and put it in. Or put on the tv. Having the photographs really made a difference and it had a huge impact for a number of reasons, they were not full photographs of the damage, so yeah it plays it very basic fears and he had some very thoughts about fears and they tend to worry about the wrong thing and worry about plane crashes and americans are killed on the road and nobody panicked, earthquakes are the same way, you dont like them, their terrifying, hurricanes at least you see them coming, earthquak earthquakes, when your house starts shaking at 4 31 a. M. Even if youre seismologist, that is terrifying, so they are fundamentally scary and its hard to do that and there are people who leave california and its not something that they want to deal with especially if they go through big earthquake, i think it does shape the folks who stay here. Were crazy enough for something to put up with it. The study of science and the other points in your book came to the end was the fact that this whole debate was really science at work, there were a lot of ideas and roberts ideas that were flawed in their thinking, they probably got half a step right and certainly did not get everything right and their arguments but over time thats the way science works, theres debate about things and things get worked out and bad ideas get debunked in good ideas get propagated, this is great this is like the scientific process, and in my book to the book was written about play tonics, there was all sorts of crazy ideas in the first guy talked a lot about it but it got worked out took a long time to get worked out but it got worked out. [inaudible] its good to show the force. You broke up i dont know if other people heard you but we know a lot of things about researching the book a lot of interesting to look at what mostly hill was saying, but realizing that some of them were pretty insightful at the time and you go back to 1920, 1925, we did not know the plates were moving around, we did not know that they can move sideways, we did not do that they can move vertically, there was no theory to explain lateral and only theories to explain earthquakes tended to focus on vertical forces so things being expanded, you talk about this or contracting or ideals of blisters, if youre starting from a fundamentally longterm or you can make very insightfu l arguments that he was wrong looking all of these in the area and for example he concluded the vaulting in california which slowed down over time which is wrong but the way vertical has slowed down from 30 million years ago, so starting he was very insightful conclusion, one thing about earthquake science is that they are going to have the last word, how strong is the ground going to shake in the next earthquake, the fortunate they dont happen all that often but a lot of advances in earthquake science has happened because notable earthquakes have happened. There getting studied much, much more there is more data in a think and 64 the earthquake was the foremost study earthquake upwards time, its gotten better since then. Its fascinating to read about george running around on a plane looking at lines to figure out what is klonopin what is gone down and nowadays there is so Much Technology that the earthquakes happen last year in the desert within days we had mount showing what moved in where the bolts were and by better instrumentation is really driven the science. Sure. That is great. I have one i on the time and i know readers are supposed to at some point break away for questions, i dont know, lets see, i thought they might comiccon and guide us to the questions but im not seeing h her. I havent called them yet have you call them . Okay how content is best communicate the work of natural hazard. I wish i knew because again they have a climate where there is a body of knowledge, things we cant say and theres a contingent author, im not sure what the answer is, i wish i knew, i think we just keep plugging away and look for ways to reach people better, social media getting information out that way, trying to make science accessible, i hope with my book one of the things that i have done is make an interesting story, a story that people will lead and have interesting characters because they want to know the deal, its one of the ways you can popularize science and communicate some of the aspects of the science to a broader audience but the same thing in my community thinks about a lot and works on all the time. As a journalist i would say the earthquake Scientific Community has a much better job than most scientific communities then committed kitty with the public in unity as in general washes the earthquake hazards but the other groups are very good and the more troubled times theyre willing to talk about their work and help me and other journalists explain in ways that are wrong, i think you guys do a really good job. It has always been my favorite Government Agency. One thing about earthquakes, they tend to be nonpartisan and people tend to agree that certain functions or are inherently governmental. Putting out hazard mounts developing Early Warning syste systems, even people that are into government tend to want the usgs to be around in the old days it was agency the put out the map that were known for. But lets see, there is a question about earthquakes in oklahoma and other oilproducing states can be manmade, i think they are and on that that is not hydraulic fracturing per se, its a process of injecting water into the shale and seeing hydrocarbons in a can and do small earthquakes but the bad actors that the process produces a lot of water into disposed of injection wells and so those get quite deep and you want to get below the aquifer, thats a process and we seem earthquakes up to magnitude 5. 8 in oklahoma and we just had the anniversary, the anniversaries coming up september 3, 2016 there was a 5. 8 in oklahoma and there was a debate about that, were they induced, were they natural, was this a cluster, that settled itself out as well, there was an overwhelming body of evidence pointing to industry activities, that was a Success Story and humans are causing earthquakes, you can mitigate hazard by changing what youre doing in places like oklahoma had developed stoplight systems or if you have injection then you scaled and that sort of thing, so the rate of earthquakes, the rate of induced earthquakes has dropped over the last couple of years, i think oklahoma with oil and gas is Something Like 40000, and in fact i think a series of quakes, not the big one but there was a series of quakes around admin, they just close down five injection in the earthquakes disappeared, its a Success Story is a hazard and you can manage, theres other issues associated with fossil fuels but i think the induced earthquakes, i think theyre manageable issue. We only have time for one more question it sounds like. Is that correct. Theres one interesting question, the scaring the public with exaggeration help the public to better prepare. I have come down on the side that scientists have to be honest that im on, i come down on one side of the line, i would not argue the exaggeration is appropriate, you can frame things in unvarnished terms, there are things that we know, we know what happened in 1964 we know happened in 1906 so i think that needs to be presented but i dont think we should ever go beyond what the science and sups just because thats not what science is about and it can backfire, it backfired on bailey lewis once it was debunked the overall took a hit for a while. Im waiting for someone. I think were at the end of our time im not hearing our friend, there is a question what youre most concerned about, it is really hard to say, there is the haywood in the east bay area, we have a very moderately long earthquake in 1968 that it runs through the densely populated area, that is definitely a concern. But there is others, california has lots of vaults, there is one half a mile north of where im sitting, almost every year part of california is fair game, i do think we are at the end of our time because i was told an hour at the outset but i think they are having trouble connecting. It is malfunction she says. Oh dear, should we sign off . It sounds like we should. There we go. I wanted to thank everyone who took time out of their evening for the day, wherever they are to tune in, this is part of the process of understanding hazards in communicating, it is great that you are able to join us and thank you to henry and the university of washington who published a book. Thank you. Weeknights this month were petri booktv programs as a preview what is available every weekend on cspan2, tonight we focus on biographies and memoirs, first edward looks at White Supremacy through the lens of his greatgreatgrandfather a member of the ku klux klan in the wee siena during the years after the civil war, then biographer larry recounts the life of the late republican senator joe mccarthy of wisconsin. And later sarah broom discusses her National Book award the memoir the yellow house, watch tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, enjoyable tv, this weekend every weekend on cspan2. You are watching booktv on cspan2 every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2 created by americas Television Company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Good evening, welcome, i am john wind event director at the bookstore, pleased to welcome the astronaut in conversation, some zoom etiquette came in but you are muted and you will remain muted, speaker views are probably going to be the ideal experience for you tonight, that way you will see who is speaking on your screen at any given time and we do ask that you keep your video off as well, the chat is closed, you can open your chat