Nicholas Kristof & Rohit Aggarwala

the coming climate disaster. Welcome to Fast Politics. Read thanks, it's great to be here, Molly. Thanks for having me. I am very thrilled to have you tell us exactly your title, because you have a fancy title. So I am the chief Climate Officer for the City of New York and the Commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection. Yeah. New York is an interesting city, and

in some ways we're not that unusual. Right. We're coastal city that's an island, and I mean we are a city that is going to be affected by climate change in ways we can't even wrap our heads around. Yes. True, on many levels, New York, like most of the world's Great Cities is a coastal city. You know, most cities historically grew up around waterways, which is why the challenges at sea level rise and extreme storms are going to

affect so many people around the world. Because all of the city is both in the global North and the global South, are really very much on the front lines. We actually can sadly imagine a lot of what's going to happen. It'll be probably faster than we think, it will be more extreme than we think, but we've already seen a lot of it already, and the science is really clear about what we face. So let's talk a

little bit about what we face. There are kind of three horsemen and the apocalypse that you can think about. There's coastal inundation, there's rainfall, and then there's the related issues, although you could have a fourth of heat and drought. So those are the four things. Pretty much every community around the world, if they're at all coastal, they're they're probably facing three, if not four. And as you say, New York has five miles of coastline, and we are

vulnerable to all four of those risks. In fact, I mean, what do you think is the most imminent well, I mean imminent. We've already had. We had a Hurricane Sandy ten years ago. Um, you know, forty New Yorkers lost their lives to a storm that you know, is at the very extreme end of what people would have expected.

Certainly that kind of storm is exacerbated and made more frequent by by climate change, and so the storm surge that caused all the flooding and the depths during Sandy is an example of the kind of thing that we have to be prepared for more frequently and at an extreme level. And of course, when you're talking about a storm surge, it's over sea level, So as sea level rises, those storm surges rise. In addition, you know, both because the sea level is higher and because these storms are

getting more powerful. So it's a compound effect. So that's one that we've already seen. I mean, this is a problem that New York is going to, Miami is going to have, Boston, all the sort of coastal cities will have this. What are this sort of ways in which you climate people are Can it protect us from all drowning? Well, let's remember, Molly, we're all climate people, and we all know how to be climate people. There's a lot going on, and this is true many cities around around the world

are doing a lot. Just to be specific to New York. In the ten years since SAMI, there are huge projects. Billions and billions of dollars have been spent. Well over ten billion dollars has been invested to protect our coastline. We do that in two ways. One, for example, is

going on on the Lower east Side. It's gotten a lot of attention as well as similar projects and in far Rockaway, which was very hard and hard hit, and on the south shore of Staten Island to build sea walls literally to have those coastal defenses that if the sea level rises or if the storm sur derups or takes place, it won't actually cause that flooding inland. And in some of those cases, the more dramatic ones, that actually involves movable barriers, and that's that's one of the

techniques we've we're deploying on the Lower east Side. There's a lot of work though it's gone on actually as much money, far more under the radar, which is about hardening our buildings and our infrastructure. Because there's one strategy for resilience that says well let's prevent something bad from happening. There's another which says, let's just make sure we bounce

back from it. Let's make sure that nobody dies. Let's make sure that the equipment, for example, in this case, a lot of the work and Nisha which people love to complain about, but Nitscha has really done tremendous work on this. Explain what NIGHTSHA is to those of us who are slightly slow. Not everybody is in municipal government. That's fair, right, exactly, That's what I meant for those of us who do not work in municipal government. What is NIA New York City Housing Authority, which is all

of the public housing in New York City. Something on the order of one out of every ten New Yorkers lives in a NIGHTSHA facility. It's the largest landlord, a second only to the u US Army UM in the United States. And several NIGHTSHA projects or housing developments were seriously hurt during Hurricane Sandy. And one of the biggest issues was that when basements flooded, and it wasn't just

nice abilities that had this problem. When basements flooded, a lot of equipment was destroyed, and so it wasn't just that there was a problem for the people who lived there while the flooding was going on, but for days, weeks, sometimes months later, the time it took to do those repairs, there was an impact. So when a lot of work has gone into hardening that moving some of those critical pieces of equipment up to upper floors, waterproofing the ones

that have to remain at lower levels. At my agency at d e P where we were on the water supply, on the wastewater treatment for the city, we've done a great deal of that because all of our wastewater treatment plans that process our sewage and make sure we're not dumping raw sewage into the harbor, are also of course right at sea level, so we have to protect them. We can't always keep the flooding out. We have to

also make sure that they'll bounce back. Talk to me about what preventing flooding looks like more specifically, to prevent flooding again, you can you can build a wall, right, you can build a barrier, and that's that's the kind of thing we're doing at the Lower east Side. If you if you go down to the Lower east Side now you'll see that's the green zone. Can you explain that to us a little bit how that works. There

are a lot of different designs. Some of them are literally just putting a wall up, that's basically building a dam. A lot of the work on the lower east side is around having it be much more accessible, So we're literally raising a park on the shoreline by something on the order of ten or more feet so that it's

simply a higher bank on the east river. And then there are some places where we can't do that, and there are movable gates where when we know a storm comes, because it's one of the nice things about hurricanes is you generally have some warning. Is you can close these big gates and you create a barrier so that the water will stay on the other side. That's a technique, of course, that the Dutch are famous for. They've been doing it for hundreds of years. Cities around the world

are embracing that. I mean, will that work when we start getting very large waves? You have to follow the science and the best predictions about what is reasonable to prepare for. I mean, yes, of course, the theory you could imagine some infinitesimal risk of a fifty foot inundation or something like that. You can't you literally cannot protect

against every risk. So right now we've used designs that look ahead to what we expect rationally to be the case for say a fifty year seventy year time horizon. But I think the planners who work on resilience, of course, we know the climate sciences is evolving. We we know we don't we don't know when we're going to end carbon emissions around the world, so we don't know when

this process of global warming begins to slow down. So a lot of these designs are built so that they can be added to and raised if need be, so that flexibility that has to be built in. One of the things you said to me when we talked was that it's not a question of which one of these adaptations we're gonna have to take. We're gonna have to take all of them, gonna have to do all of these things, and that climate is actually climate change is happening in a way that's much faster than a lot

of us thought. Can you talk about what you've seen in New York that where you've seen climate change in action, Well, I mean, the data is really clear on all of the risks that I mentioned, but I'm thinking about the micro verse and the stuff you were telling me about. Well, in addition to those coastal inundations which got our attention a decade ago, you know, just last year we really

started to see a change in summer rainfall patterns. You know, for seventy years of good weather data, that we have the most intense rainfall that New York had ever experienced, which is how much rainfalls in an hour, right, because that's what really calls causes flooding, Like long duration light rain doesn't cause a problem, it's it's those really intense firsts. Was around one point seven or five inches per hour, was the most intense rain we've ever got for decades

and decades. Last year, in August of Hurricane Henri came by and gave us one point nine inches of rain in one hour, and then only ten days later, Hurricane Ida arrived and gave some neighborhoods in the city three point seven five inches of rain in one hour, literally doubling more than doubling the historic rate. And of course the problem is all of our sewage are sewer system and our drainage plans are all based on that historical maximum one point seven five inches, So we've got to

come up with an entirely new playbook. And then, as you were correctly citing, we've now begun to see a pattern of microbursts where the kind of rainfall that you associate with like the Caribbean or Florida, where every afternoon on a summer afternoon, you know it's going to rain, it's gonna be very intense, it's going to be very short lived, and you don't quite know where it's going to be because it might be rain over here, in

five blocks away, it's there's not much rain at all. Right, We've started seeing that pattern in New York and just last year we had a couple of these. Just this past summer, rather number of twenty two, we've had a couple of these examples, one of them in the Bronx that caused a sinkhole because it actually the flooding damaged one of our sewers and the street collapsed. Another one in September that I like to site because in one hour LaGuardia Airport got more than two inches of rain,

again blowing that historical record out of the water. But for Hurricane Ida, so LaGuardia got more than two inches of rain in one hour. Central Park got point one five inches of rain in that same same storm, so radically different across the city parts of New York that day it didn't even rain it at all. Right, so interesting. So I mean, what are the other sort of things that are interesting climate sort of adaptations that New York is working on right now and that other American cities

are working on. Well, I think, you know, in addition to all the things that are related to water in fact, that people don't appreciate because we we lost forty people during Hurricane Sandy, we lost a leven New Yorkers um during Hurricane Ida. Flooding and water gets a lot of the attention in fact, and it's true in New York, it's true in in most places around the world. Most

climate related deaths are caused by heat. And the significant increase in the heat of our summers, longer durations and hotter higher temperatures which we've seen, is leading to an increase in depths, and those deaths are concentrated among people who are older and among people who are low income, because it's older people who are just more susceptible to the things that go wrong when you have extended periods

when you're hot. And of course lower income people are less likely to have air conditioning, and so during during the pandemic, in fact, New York had a program to give air conditioners out to several thousand low income individuals who were at risk. And we are developing plans for how we think about cooling as something that we have to take as seriously in all of our buildings as we do heating. Yeah, that's really interesting. What can people who are listening to this right now in abject horror?

I mean, what can they do? The first thing is that if you're worried about climate as if you know when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Right. So as important as it is to plan for for adaptation and resilience, we also have to get control of our carbon emissions. Um. New York has been a leader on this. We've got a law that's going to impact many New York City buildings that

are going to have to reduce their carbon emissions. Some buildings are going to have to make some real big investments to become more energy efficient and more carbon efficient. We've got to make big changes in our our transportation system. So that person you're thinking about, I hope they're thinking about buy an electric vehicle. I hope they're thinking about leaving that electrical vehicle at home when they can and

biking or taking transit or walking whatever possible. Here in New York, we're we're going to bring congestion pricing to the city, which will which will help both fund more investments in transit and reduce the propensity to drive. So that that's the first step. Can you explain can chess gen pricing and why it's good for the environment. Well, so, congestion pricing, which is something that I was advocating for when Mayor Bloomberg was mayor, and we've been working towards

the New York for a long time. There's a system they have it in in London and Singapore and Milan and in Stockholm, several many other big cities around the

city have it. It's basically a toll to drive into the most congested, most transit rich part of the city, and so here in New York, basically to drive anywhere in Manhattan below sixt Street will involve paying a toll, and the idea is that most everybody traveling from anywhere in the Tri state area going to Manhattan below six Street has a transit option, and they should take it unless there is a very good reason. And if there is a very good reason, it's not that big an

imposition to pay at all. I mean, I think that's that's a really good point. Will you just tell us we're almost out of time, but just tell us what one of the sort of most interesting things that um the city is doing to deal with climate the most interesting thing or whatever you want to talk about. I'll say that certainly, when it comes to dealing with with both coastal inundation and stormwater, we have to think very

differently about our landscape. Traditionally New Yorkers have relied on gray infrastructure sewers underground to get rid of our water. Over the last several years, we've started really to think to be thinking as much or more about the green infrastructure.

And one great example of that, which I think maybe the most exciting thing that New York City is doing related to climate adaptation is our Blue Belt network, which started on Staten Island in the es And and basically it has the realization that lakes ponds and streams, many of which we have filled in or covered over over two hundred years of development, are great receivers for stormwater

and so d ep. We now have more than thirty of these, and Staten Island and Queens were working to develop a citywide plan for them so that we have them all over these we we take either open space or existing lakes and streams, we connect them to storm sewers. There's a little bit a bit of filtration so that the water that runs off the street is not just bringing garbage into these places. And then during a storm they fill up, and when there's no storm, they drain

naturally and over time, and that's been tremendous. A lot of Staten Island is now much better off in terms of stormwater flooding than it was a decade ago because of these things, and they're beautiful people of them. They improve property values in the neighborhood. So that's a that's a great innovation. Oh, that's so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. So important, and I really hope you'll come back all right. Thanks for having me, Molly

do well. Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist welcome Too Fast Politics, Nick Kristof A great to be with you. We're thrilled to have you. Very exciting. So it is the holiday season and you do something very important during the hot as will you talk to us about what it is? Yeah, and uh, it raised a lot of eyebrows when I started, But it's to recommend ways in which people can give effectively to you know,

some fantastic organizations abroad and at home. And you know, I think originally there was some doubt about, you know, should journalists really be telling people where to give? And it's been just a wonderful experience to make these recommendations and people have really responded. So I've just issued my two recommendations. So how long have you been doing this?

I think it's been twelve years now. You know, it's one of the most satisfying things I do because normally I'm fulminating about healthcare, about President Trump or whatever, and nothing really changes. And here's a chance where as journalists, you know, we can recommend an organization that we've seen on the ground that really is making a difference, and people respond and as a result, you know, people get uh, you know, they get investments, they can feed their kids

better and they can send their kids to school. Uh, it makes a real difference in lives. So tell us one of the heartwarming holiday stories of a charity you recommended that got a boost from your column this year. You mean, well, you could this year, but you could also tell us historically, because these new charities are you're just introducing them, so it's curious of their stories from the history of it. Yeah, I mean in the past.

One of the things that I've really come to believe in my reporting is the power of girls education and the way the girl's education improves life not only for those young women, but for entire societies. And so there's a group that I recommended some years ago called camp FED, which stands for Campaign for Female Education, and it is just so incredibly cheap to send a girl to school, you know, elementary schools less than a hundred dollars a year.

And so tens of thousand readers really responded. They supported camp FED in a huge way. And the upshot is that tens of thousands of girls got to go to school who otherwise would not have. That makes you feel pretty good over the holiday season. So tell me about some of these charities that you have on the list this year. So this year I was, you know, really

affected in part by the crisis in Ukraine. I I'm just back from the reporting trip to Ukraine, and one of the things that is striking is that while there are many thousands of Ukrainians dying, there are also many thousands of people in poor countries who were dying from malnutrition, typically kids, because the war there has raised the cost of fertilizer and of food. And so I'm supporting a group called the One Acre Fund, which helps farmers in

Africa increase their harvests. And it typically constantly twenty five dollars per family, and it increases their harvest by that means that families can feed their kids, it means they can send their kids to school. It can be transformative, and so one Acre Fund is the is my number one pick this year. I want you to explain to

us what exactly does this do that helps them. It's giving them good fertilizer, for example, and good seeds, and in some cases encouraging them to try new techniques or new crops that might be effective, advising them on ways to irrigate that will use less water, use it more productively. It kind of means something to me because I grew up on a farm in rural Oregon and we always had extension agents who advised us how to improve farming

techniques and improve crops. And in rural Africa it is so hard, and you know, they don't get that advice. So the quality of the farming elements makes better food, makes more food, helps children. Better farming results more food for kids. What other charities are you working with? And let me just add on on that front that you know a lot of farmers in Africa that when they go to the market and buy fertilizer, the fertilizer is fake and so they've spent their money and it's just inert,

you know, stuff that doesn't do any good. Or they buy seeds and the seeds are counterfeit and don't really grow things. And so for these farmers to be able to get reliable seeds and reliable fertilizer again is transformative. That was my number one pick. Another one that I

that I chose that I really liked it. It's called Vision to Learn, and the idea behind it is that about a quarter of kids need glasses and if you're an affluent kid or a middle class kid, then of course you get classes and if you break them, then you get a replacement pair. But if you're a low income kid, then you probably don't get glasses. So you're distracted, you can't see the board, you squabble with the kid in the seat next to you, right, and you can't

do as well in school. Yeah, and you you're just labeled a troublemaker. Um. The kids in juvenile detention centers or disproportional kids who need glasses partly because that's when their vision problems are first diagnosed. It's really cheap to get a kid glasses, and you know, if it's done in first, second, third grade, that is just transformative for their whole career. They're more likely to graduate from high school,

to go to college, to get a good job. And question isn't whether we can afford that is if we can afford not to provide those classes. And this group Vision to Learn does that really well in fifteen states. It needs support to be able to expand to the rest of the states. Okay, fantastic, Tell me what else you're working on. I'm a big believer that education is

the best letter to success for Everybody. And there's you know, there are a lot of the debates about education, but there's one organization that has really emphasized evidence and it's been subject to more than fifty careful studies. It's called Success for All, founded by some experts at Johns Hopkins.

They're my third recommended group, Success for All Foundation. And then I also wanted in the holiday season, you know, there are a lot of folks who they may not have money to donate, but they have time, and so I wanted to recommend groups of people can volunteer for. So my recommendations there were Big Brothers Big Sisters, which you know is mentoring organization does fantastic work, has thirty thousand kids on a wait list for a Big Brother

and Big Sister, So I'm hoping people will volunteer. And the final one, also for volunteers, is called Welcome dot Us and it's to help people sponsor a refugee from Ukraine, Venezuela, Afghanistan. That's particularly meaningful to me because my dad was a refugee from Eastern Europe in nWo and a group of people sponsored him, and you know that was transformative for the Christoffs and I think it would be fantastic if more people provided that kind of sponsorship for refugees who

needed today. Can you give me a little sense of like how this year's charities are different from previous years. I try to connect with issues that are really you know, important at the moment, and so given the food crisis that is affecting so many poor countries, I thought it important to provide something that had to do with food, and that was why I chose one Acre Fund that I thought that will alleviate the malnutrition around the world.

I think, you know, a child dies of malintrician every fourteen seconds somewhere around the world, and that's in part because of the war in Ukraine. Likewise, given the war in Ukraine, I wanted to find a way to support refugees, and this volunteer organization, Welcome dot US would do that.

But I also think it's really important to for people in the holiday season to donate intelligently based on evidence and not just on kind of a hunt show this feels good, this feels like a good organization, but really go with organizations that have proof of their effectiveness. And I you know, I'd like to think that all my organizations really do that. Just explain just for a minute

or two why this was controversial. It's so funny because it's like, now we're so many years into this world, the controversality of this seems insane, but it was right at the time. Yeah, it really was. And you know, I think the idea was that as journalists we shouldn't be raising money for specific organizations or telling people what to do. That we should be just passionate and covering

the story, but not advising people on giving. And that always seemed to me missing a real service we could provide for readers that you know, readers they read something or they want something on TV, and they want to know what can I do? How can I help? And we did not meet that need. We did not respond to that that it should people to help. And I'm really glad that it has become you know, I think now routine for news organizations to actually help scratch that

itch and tell people how they can help. That's very interesting. Can you just explain a little more are about why giving is good for the giv our and to give? Yeah, we used to talk about, oh is more blessed to give than to receive? And all that, but now we

actually have evidence from from brain science about it. They've hook people up to brain scans and they have a little screen in front of them, and as they give money to various causes and as they get money coming in, and it turns out that people actually vary and that there are some people who maybe are a little more selfish, who their pleasure centers light up more when they received

than when they give. But for most people, most of the time, when they give money to a good cause, and the pleasure centers of their brains actually light up and respond even more when they're giving to a specific cause than when they are getting. And you know, I think that kind of fits in with what a lot of us feel intuitively, that we feel a sense of satisfaction and purpose when we make those donations and you know,

make a better world. Thank you so much, Nick, Kristoph oh my pleasure, and I encourage anybody who wants to follow up to check out Kristophe Impact dot org again support these amazing organizations. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, Please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.