Cover. And man versus himself. I am not a crook. The story were about to chase has all three. Several billion times over. The cast includes you, everyone youll ever meet, and every living thing. The stage is the entire planet, and the stakes 100 miles, whoa, only the end of life as we know it. But this is not a show about the end of the world. The world will be just fine. The world has been spinning through fire and ice for over four billion years. No, im talking about us, life as we know it. The modern human world that could only be built on a living planet with a goldilocks climate. Not too hot, not too cold. And now the worlds scientists are urgently trying to tell us goldilocks is dying. So this is a roadtrip into american stories of man versus nature, his neighbors [ chants ] and himself. As seas rise, mountains burn, and economies shift. And its a search for ways to turn our denial or depression into action. This is only the beginning. To save the lives of millions we will never meet and a few we know really well. This is the road to change. Whoo lets start with a confession. For years, i considered myself the luckiest s. O. B. In television news. Whoa. I got to chase stories all over the globe. But everything is gone look at this. Each trip brought fresh insight. Like a lawnmower in the sky came down. Into how much were losing and how much we have lost. 50 years ago, 60,000 acres might burn in a year. Last year, it was almost two million acres. And now with every unnatural disaster a report out today from the United Nations warns that Climate Change is having a devastating impact every horrifying warning from science this report paints a deadly picture for people right here in the United States. And every willfully ignorant shrug from the people in charge. All of this with the Global Warming and a lot of its a hoax. Its a hoax. My wonder and gratitude turn into worry and grief. And im not alone. Since so many share this feeling, the American Psychological association came up with a name for it ecoanxiety. [ chants ] what were not doing is acknowledging the bigness of it reporter renee lurtzman studies the psychology of the Climate Crisis. Suddenly were saying, guess what, everything that you thought was really amazing about being human, all these incredible developments, travel, food production, industrialization, that humans have benefited so much from and are very proud of, its like all the sudden the narrative changes. Its like this is all actually destroying our planet. Destroying lives that you care about and destroying the beings that we love. So thats a pretty intense message. It bs big enough to short circuit our brains almost. Exactly. Exactly. How did we get here . How did good people with good inventions pave our road to hell . Maybe we should start on highway 1. A prime example of nature versus hom an nature. Look at this human nature. Look at this, im driving on a highway over the ocean. The question now, though is for how long. You know, this was originally the overseas railroad built by an oil man named henry flagler. Driven by the audacious vision that turning sea and swamp into paradise. Man, if he could see it now. But 20 years before flagler found florida, a woman in upstate new york discovered something even more profound. Her name was eunice newtonfoot. She was a founding feminist, artist, and scientist who discovered that when you fill glass cylinders with different gases and put them in the sun, Carbon Dioxide traps the most heat. An atmosphere of that gas would give our earth a high temperature, she wrote. Back then nobody paid attention to scientists in skirts. And even as countedless men duplicated her discovery, there was no stopping the Industrial Revolution. Coal and oil transformed humanity, built the modern world. Complete with overseas highways. But all that burning also built an invisible greenhouse in the sky. And thanks to all that heat trapping gas, just the oceans are absorbing as much extra heat as five hiroshimasized atomic bombs every second of every minute of every day. Eunice foote was right. And 163 years later on Independence Day 2019, anchorage was hotter than key west. This whole lake was there was no lake in the early 1950s. So the ice went all the way down to the end of the lake down there. Right. This is what is left of alaskas spencer glacier. What took thousands of years of snow to grow has melted away in mere decades. The ice that were standing on is probably about 5,000 years old. Once this water melts off and goes into the ocean, as long as we have all this Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, its not coming back here. And if you count greenland and the polar caps, since 1961 earth has lost the equivalent of a block of ice the size of the United States 16feet thick. The satellites and computer models get better by the year. New science shows that predictions of sealevel rise have been wildly conservative. From bank do bangkok to bosto it is predicted that 150 Million People will be living at high tide by 2050. Were committed to about a foot, maybe a foot and a half of sealevel rise here. By the end of the century by the end of 2100 it could be between three and six feet. Some of your colleagues, theyre predicting 15 feet of sealevel rise which means miamis gone, right . True, yes. 15 feet is a serious problem. Are they doomsayers . Are they overly pessimistic . What theyre trying to tell us is if we remain on this trajectory, then theres a real possibility what theyre suggesting could happen. Its not out of bounds. Its not a radical statement. Next up mr. Mayor how you doing . We check with the movers, the shakers. The fear is palpable in miami. And builders you want materials below flood. To see how well theyre prepared and how neighbors of the future might survive. I do solemnly swear that i shall faithfully serve the underwater homeowners association. This was supposed to be a roadtrip into the future. With science as my map, i set out to imagine how america would be transformed by the Climate Crisis. But i quickly learned that the future is now because we are the first humans ever to walk on a planet this hot. So nobody knows what comes next. Even if we take dramatic action and avoid some of the worst impacts, the world wish so totally transformed by the action that we do take that the planet will be unrecognizable. One way or another. One way or the other. Were not going back to goldilocks. Even if we manage to avoid really dramatic warming that will mean solar arrays everywhere you look. Carbon capture plantations mild wide. A whole new way of growing feed. A whole new kind of airplane. A whole new concrete. Every single building will have to be retrofitted. If we do nothing, our world will be transformed. If we take action, our world will be transformed, too. What i realized were living through the end of as we know it, it began to feel like a roadtrip through the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Miami shows signs of all five at once. 135,000 years ago all felt south florida was under water. What these hills are marine sands, and the valleys are the tidal channels which cut between them. The roirirony is what happened 125,000 years ago will dictate what happens to your house now. Today around the u. S. , close to 100 coastal communities face chronic flooding due to sealevel rise. The union of concerned scientists says that number could jump to 170 just in the next 15 years. Meanwhile, in miami, Everybody Knows theyre living on porous limestone. Everybody sees how saltwaters bubbles up at king tide, and the university of miami study says flooding events have gone up 400 since 2006. But between the floods and storms, its freaking gorgeous. Its estimated that a population of florida is growing at about 38 people an hour, and its hard to find a developer or politician eager to sound the alarm that the water will come. Their basic message is that we can deal with this. Yeah. Can they . No. No . No. Nobody can . Not in the long run. Whether it will be a floating city, whether it will be an abandoned city, i dont know what it will be. But it will not look at all like this city. But its a short drive from denial downtown to bargaining, depression, and acceptance in pinecrest. I live in pinecrest. Im 11. 8. 54 feet. Im 9. Where neighbors have formed americas first underwater homeowners association. Im at seven feet. Lower than i thought to be honest. My name is judy, and im here for hope and for inspiration. There was some really negative response from people recoiling and saying, why are you doing this . Youre going to hurt us and our property values. Which i thought to be part of the cancer im trying to cure. It is the brainchild of artist and activist xavier cortada. Whats happening in our community before water covers the street in the next century, there will be an aquifer below it that will not give you the fresh water that you drink in these homes. And before that happens, theres going to be a Flood Insurance rise. As that happens, theres going to be property devaluation because all of a sudden the psychology of a house being an investment is going to be started to turn on its head. My momehome is in danger. A bunch of homes next to me. The fear is palpable. I wanted to give people a mechanism for coping and dealing with that fear and preparing for the inevitable. But they all know they cant do it alone. They need help from people in power. You are a republican. Yes. What is it like being associated with a party in which Climate Change denial seems to be a main plank in the platform . Well, for me, denying climactic events is not an option because we live it. We want to push back on what people try to brand us with which is not accurate. Come is what . That were going to be under water in 50 or 100 years, when we know thats not going to happen. How can you say that for sure . Because were planning for it. Were making significant investments, hundreds of millions of dollars, and hopefully billions of dollars into the future, to make sure that doesnt happen. Theyve raised their Wastewater Treatment plant to handle three to four feet of sealevel rise. In 2017, voters raised their own taxes. The Miami Forever Fund devotes 400 million to higher streets, bigger pumps, and better drainage. But thats just a drop in a smelly bucket when you consider that Miamidade County needs over seven times that amount to fortify all their septic tanks. And if they fail, its everyones mess. Even those on ultra ritzy fisher island. What does it say about the human condition that the most expensive zip code is also one of the most vulnerable to a changing planet . People at that income level have a lot more options than a lot of the rest of us. They can invest in upgrading their sea walls, their buildings. A sweeping new report by Worldwide Consulting giant mckenzie found that floodprone homes could lose 5 to 15 in value this decade, and up to 35 by 2050, which has some scrambling to protect their investment. The plan is to raise the sea wall to here it will be by this high. Traditionally you would build at fema base flood and one foot of free board. In miami beach were saying you can build one to five feet higher. Do you worry about banks or Insurance Companies at some point deciding were not going to write 30year mortgages . Were having those conversations. As a developer, you now have an ethical obligation to try to convince a customer to build higher . We have those conversations, and its also a dollar and cents because the higher you go, the more money it is. But as the haves decide between luxury appliances and altitude, the have nots in little haet are worried haiti are worried good something else. This one is pressured every day, sell, sell, sell, sell. The descendants of those who built Henry Flaglers railroad and immigrants who could only afford to buy on the wrong side of the tracks are now three feet higher than their rich patients in. They are being pushed out from their homes, from their businesses. We are now because high ground is valued property now. Believe it or not, we didnt know that. But even a few extra feet of altitude may not save you from a nextlevel hurricane. Next up, how the fingerprints of an unnatural storm could be used to challenge the fossil fuel giants. Weve always put safety first. And we always will. For people. For the future. And there has never been a summer when its mattered more. 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This is a unique one in the world air sea interaction tank. In a big, moist room at the university of miami, there is a box full of hurricanes. Wow thats incredible. A multimillion dollar storm simulation built to better understand the power of wind, water, and heat. The amount of moisture that can evaporate from the surface of the oceans is very, very sensitive to temperatures. So small increases in temperature lead to large increases in evaporation. Evaporation is the fuel that drives the storm. If you warm up the ocean a little bit, you get a big response in evaporation that gives you a big response in the intensity of storms. At least one study predicts that by centurys end, the number of cat 4 and 5 storms in the Atlantic Basin will increase by 45 to 87 . While they can predict the behavior of nature during a hurricane, its much harder to predict human nature after modern storms have passed. Wow, look at that. You can see right into that kitchen. Yep. Wow. This was mexico beach, florida, three months after hurricane michael. Once known as mayberry by the sea, the panhandle town lost three lives, 90 of its buildings were damaged, and theres no telling how many residents left and will never come back. Its hard to ignore what the data that is being put out about Global Warming and the oceans around our continent and the rise of those. And knowing that, though, would you invest here . Would you build no. My house is over there. No. But at what point is there a emotional obligation from leaders, from business to say, im sorry, you cant build there anymore . Unless you take all the risk. You have to think of the economics of that. What becomes of the most valuable taxbased lots and not only mexico beach but along the coast, is the state willing to buy your property . Because the value of that lot pays your cops thats right. They pay it all. Sugar sand. Thats exactly right. The mayor tells me he has an annual budget of 3. 5 million. But just the cleanup from michael is estimated to cost up to 60 million. In a future of storms made bigger, stronger, and wetter by the burning of fossil fuels, some wonders whether fossil fuel corporations like this one should help cover the tab. The motiva refinery is the big nest north america, and its owned by a Saudi Arabian company that made 111 billion profit in 2018, almost twice as much as apple. Meanwhile, their neighbor who lives here was driven out by the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey and almost two years later cant afford the repairs to move back in. Mitiva and 20 other fossil fuel companies are being sued by rhode island for their partial responsibility for our once and future Climate Crisis. While the companies are fighting the firstever liability suit of its kind, motivas Parent Company acknowledged in a recent disclosure that claims such as these could grow in number. So climate attrition science i think is one of the biggest advances in our understanding of Climate Change in the last ten years. And basically this is researcher looking for human fingerprints on the storms. I also think it will become important in courtrooms in the future as people continue to sue fossil fuel companies and governments that are supporting these industries that we know are making the planet more dangerous. Thats the thing thats so controversial, right. Yeah. A day when you could sue exxonmobil for 50 of your losses for that storm. Thats already happening to . Degree. [ chants ] after rhode island, new york state did sue exxonmobil for allegedly defrauding investors about the true cost of Climate Change. And while the judge ruled new york didnt show enough evidence, he wrote that nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve exxonmobil from responsibility for contributing to Climate Change. [ applause ] and while a federal Appeals Court ended the climate kids bid to sue the federal government for lack of climate action, court fights over liability have only just begun. I think this is a growing area, litigious area, because someone is to blame for losses that are occurring, and everyones trying to figure out the legal mix of who and how and how much. Do you see your town as a victim of this new normal . As a victim of a changing climate . No . No, i dont. I see us as a victim of Mother Nature in terms of hurricane michael. Ive been here 65 years, and for 64 of those years we have been just fine. That, my friends, is human nature. Even for those like the mayor who ac