Climate Change

“I’m On Fire” by the Garden State’s favorite son Bruce Springsteen could be the soundtrack to a bizarre wildfire season—wild because it’s happening in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, states that rarely if ever have suffered the extreme drought conditions and sustained unseasonable high temperatures afflicting the Eastern United States and much of the nation. Late last week, New York City was covered with smoke from a brush fire in, wait for it, Brooklyn. On the TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan ask: Is a five-month drought in a part of the country where rain is normal and standard a harbinger of still worse things to come? Donald Trump has just appointed Lee Zelda, a right-wing zealot, to head the EPA—will Republican policies accelerate humanity’s attack on the environment? Would people take notice of environmental degradation if temperatures were falling rather than rising? Ted and Manila are joined by Dr. Reese Halter (https://www.drreese.com/), a distinguished biologist, an award-winning broadcaster, environmentalist and writer who advocates for Planet Earth.

Like many Americans, TMI Show co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan have deep ties to Los Angeles. Manila grew up in metro LA and still considers herself a Californian. Ted was a talk show host at KFI AM 640 Los Angeles and the staff cartoonist at the Los Angeles Times. Join Manila and Ted as they discuss the long-term repercussions of the wildfires that continue to scorch the nation’s biggest city. As the drought continues and the climate continues to change in a place that never had many water resources to begin with, can we adapt, or is it time to consider forcible population shifts away from California? Should the federal government assist Californians who lose multi-million dollar homes but can’t get insurance? How do we define a tipping point after which a place is no longer suitable for human habitation? We are joined by Dr. Reese Halter, a conservation biologist and the author, most recently, of the book “Generation Z Emergency.” Keywords: California, wildfires, Los Angeles, fires, natural disasters, climate change, water shortage, Colorado River, irrigation, FEMA, disasters, L.A., Southern California, mudslides, earthquakes, global warming