Record breaking brush

fires are the calling

cards of climate change.

How one person is using

them to tell a story to

move the planet forward.

Hi everyone, I'm Frank

Sesno and welcome to

Planet Forward from the

George Washington

University, produced in

association with the

Global Futures Laboratory

at Arizona State

University.

Well, searing heat,

terrible drought,

tinderbox forests,

devastating fires in

California, Colorado,

Oregon, across the West

and in Australia, where

bushfires over the last

year burned 46 million

acres, about the size of

Syria.

Carol Duncan knows these

fires well.

Too well.

Her father lost

everything.

He almost died.

She quit her job to work

with fire refugees.

Now a city council member,

she's advocating for

change.

She's one of the Global

Futures Laboratory's

"Voices From the Future."

Hi, Carol.

I know this is personal

for you.

So tell us the story.

It's very personal.

The bushfires in Australia

last summer were horrific.

They were unprecedented in

our time.

Three billion animals,

Australian native

wildlife, estimated to

have been killed in these

fires.

It also included the

destruction of my father's

home on the New South

Wales Nnorth coast and in

a fire in which he also

lost two of his friends.

You thought you were going

to lose your, you were

going to lose your dad to

this, right?

What happened there?

Yes, I did.

I was actually on a video

meeting in the afternoon

and my father was calling

me and I was looking at my

phone, just going "oh, not

now," but I answered it

and he told me that they

were very worried about

the fire, that they were

going to go into their

large steel shed.

And I suggested to him, I

think you should head

across the road to the

public school.

This is a tiny bush

village in Australia,

population maybe 140

people.

But you don't really tell

your dad what to do.

So he went into the steel

shed.

And that was the last that

I had contact with him for

several hours.

But I was on Twitter, on

social media, talking to

the Rural Fire Service

here in New South Wales.

And as a journalist, I've

done a lot of work with

them over the years and I

have good contacts, thank

God.

They saw what was going on

via social media and

actually sent people in to

get my father and his

partner out of the steel

shed.

But yes, otherwise they

would have died.

So this terrible thing

that did cost a lot of

people their lives, more

than 30, and that caused

so much devastation,

prompted you to take

action.

You started a GoFundMe

campaign.

You quit your job.

Tell us about that.

What you were doing and

why?

Frank, you and I have

reported on all sorts of

things over many, many

years.

And the words come out of

your mouth, you know,

"terrible disaster, people

left only in the clothes

that they're standing on

standing in." When that

actually happens to you,

it suddenly means

something terribly

different, even though you

empathize nd you feel that

you understand.

When that happened to my

father, I guess the urge

to for me was was twofold.

One, the daughter in me

wanted to make sure that

he was safe and that he

was OK, as OK as you can

ever be when you survive

something like this.

The journalist in me was

determined to not let this

simply become another

media story along the

lines of "horror start to

Australia's bushfire

season." That's what we

hear every year.

I had the opportunity.

I took my shot to try to

tell that story more

broadly and to bring that

message home to people

that this, bushfires

happen in Australia, they

happen in America, but

that what we are seeing

due to climate change is

they're bigger, they're

more ferocious, they are

deadlier, and they start

more easily.

The vast majority are

started by lightning and

by storms.

So it was important to me

to just try to use my

dad's experience, with his

blessing, to talk to as

many people as I could.

I had no idea if my father

had insurance or not.

Turns out he did.

And so what we then did

with the funding was we

put it into New South

Wales Rural Fire Service.

We put it into a local

charity that was helping

people affected by the

fires on the ground up

there.

My father said to me, just

put aside enough for my

funeral, give everything

else to people who really

need it.

So that's what we've done

with that.

Coal is alive and well and

still very much an export.

Fossil fuels are alive and

well, just as in the

United States, coal and

fossil fuels are alive and

well.

What do you say to that?

One of the things

politically that we're

struggling with within

Australia at the moment is

a just transition.

So here in our backyard,

in the Hunter Valley,

where we have coal jobs

and the port is coal jobs,

we are needing to really

talk to people about what

a just transition for

those jobs looks like

because we can't just go

and turn off coal.

We would destroy

communities by doing that

and the economy.

But surely, we can be

taking the money that is

being spent by the federal

government, in particular

in subsidizing fossil fuel

industries, the old mates

network, and putting that

amount of money into

genuine, just transition

and showing people what we

can do with new green jobs

that are high paying jobs.

What can America learn

from Australia?

You need a president who

will get on board and

desire to bring people

along with them, him or

her, and and explaining

what we have to lose,

which is frankly just

about everything if we

don't act.

What is it that you try

when you have people's

attention as a

storyteller, as a

communicator, to convey?

What we have to lose and

the loss is immense.

It is personal, in the

case of my father.

It's lives in the case of

many people across

Australia and America and

Europe.

We have everything to

lose, but we also have so

much to gain if we if we

act and we are successful

in communicating to people

what this really looks

like and what this really

means.

I think one of the the

best ways for me to do

that is to talk again and

again and again about what

happened to my father,

about the grief that

people go through with

this sort of loss.

For the first few weeks,

my father wished he hadn't

survived.

To hear that is...

he actually didn't tell me

that, I heard that from

one of my brothers.

I don't know that my

father could bring himself

to tell me that.

But to feel like that to

feel hopeless is

everything that we need to

pull back from so to share

dad's story.

He's just turned 84.

He's nine months later

only just moved into a

home of his own again.

And it's a nice little

house, but it's all gone.

Everything of his life is

gone.

Why did he not want to

survive?

Why did he say that?

I think it's the grief and

the shock and the terror

of, and grieving is a

process that that you have

to go through.

And I think it at 84, he

felt that it was just too

awful to have to live

through and to try to get

to the other side of that.

I'm so glad that he

survived and I'm so glad

that he is largely

speaking more positive

about it now, although

scratch the surface and

the trauma is right there.

We have the ability to

turn this around and to to

slow this horrible ship at

sea down over the next 10

or 20 years.

And we've got to do it.

Thanks a lot, Carol.

Oh, you're very welcome.

Thank you.

Is this really what we

have to look forward to?

Is it inevitable?

Is this the future?

What's the perspective of

those who will live it?

I want you to meet Lily

Young.

She's from California, a

junior now at George

Washington University.

She grew up with the Santa

Ana winds and the fires

they fan.

She posted the story at

Planet Forward.org.

Growing up, she writes,

I've experienced more fire

days than snow days.

Hi, Lily.

Tell me about those fire

days.

Growing up in Southern

California, we never

really had snow days.

Rather, I remember being

five years old and waking

up and seeing an orange

sky, opening those windows

and smelling smoke and

ash.

And we'd inevitably get

that call from school that

we had a fire day where we

wouldn't come into school

because the air quality

would be so poor or the

fires be too close to us.

And then throughout the

years, time after time,

the fires got longer and

they got more intense.

I knew more and more

friends or more and more

loved ones who lost their

homes in a lot of these

fires as well.

So it's definitely gotten

worse over the past few

years.

I, for the first time

ever, experienced a fire

that came close to my home

in 2018.

Around this time at

Thanksgiving, where we saw

fire come right across the

street from our home.

Luckily we didn't lose our

home, but a home in our

neighborhood did burn

down.

The trees are scorched and

black and any fences are

melted or incinerated.

Ash marks in the road or

hills, even white with ash

and then wind blows and

it's black underneath.

So it's very stark,

horrible imagery.

But I do have friends that

even two years after these

fires that really impacted

my neighborhood

specifically are living in

trailers on the property

that their home once

stood.

This past summer, we had

our home insurance company

come to us and say we can

no longer insure you.

That kind of stress to

constantly have looming

over you that your house

might catch on fire the

next time the Santa Ana

winds come into town is

extremely stressful.

You never know what's

going to happen.

And it's also very

unpredictable where these

fires go.

So realistically, within a

day, it could be home or

no home at the end of that

fire season.

California is always a

state that has drought.

That's just how it is.

But when the hills are so

dry that one spark from a

light post or one lighter

that gets left in the

grass lights an entire

wildfire, that's something

that is seriously wrong.

So what do you want to do

about all this?

I mean, in your, in your

studies, in your career

aspirations, in your

personal life?

These wildfires are just

my personal connection to

climate change as a whole.

And I think that this

year, more than ever, I've

seen climate being talked

about in the news, being a

regular topic of

conversation.

And that is very helpful

for me.

I specifically, I'm a

marketing major, so

sustainability isn't

necessarily my course of

study.

That being said, I've

still found a lot of ways

to practice sustainability

in my coursework and to

strive to align myself

with people that are

looking for those

sustainable measures and

companies that are

dedicating themselves to

that sustainability.

This is an interesting

kind of trend that I've

been seeing where

companies are focusing on

being sustainable.

And I think more and more,

we're going to see that

becoming the status quo.

And I think realistically,

it comes down to the

consumer decision.

And also I just think that

by aligning yourself and

dedicating your own

personal efforts to a

mission that aligns with

sustainability and

fighting climate change, I

think that you can do a

lot of good in the world.

Well, I hope you will do a

lot of good in the world.

Thank you very much for

spending some time with us

here.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, good luck.

Change the world.

Thank you.

California, Australia,

worlds apart, but on the

same planet.

Carol Duncan says the fire

was a catalyst.

Lily Young says at least

more people are talking

about this problem now,

aware of it.

But awareness needs to

lead to action, bold and

innovative, if we're

really going to move the

planet forward.

For the George Washington

University and the Global

Futures Lab, I'm Frank

Sesno.