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Blue Dot 92: Jeff Goodell & Kathryn Miles

In this episode we revisit two authors we interviewed in 2017. Jeff Goodell is the author of The Water Will Come, a sobering look at what lies ahead as the world's oceans expand and rise due to climate change. A contributing editor to Rolling Stone, the New York based writer was inspired to write the book in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the East Coast with flooding in 2012, previewing what is certainly going to be a major and ongoing slow motion disaster in the near future. Goodell visits Miami Beach where the effects of sea level rise are already becoming a problem. Perhaps the most alarming chapter is about the U.S. Naval base at Norfolk one of the nation's most important defense installations that is likely to be abandoned in the next couple of decades. On a personal note, Dave also learned to his amazement that Goodell's mother is close friends with his neighbor, proving the adage that it is indeed, a small world, and one destined for major coastal changes no matter what actions we take to combat global warming in the near future.

In the second half of the show, Dave revisits his interview with Kathryn Miles, author of Quakeland: On The Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake. Her book opens with a look at the tragic events following the Hebgen Lake earthquake of 1959 and takes readers on a a story that is part science and part travelogue as she journey's around the country investigating what scientists know, and more alarmingly don't know, about the ground beneath our feet. Miles travels into the bowels of the Earth in deep mines and the Hoover Dam in her search to understand how a devastating earthquake could have cataclysmic effects on the economy and infrastructure of the U.S. And not just in the seismically active west, but also on the east coast and midwest.

 

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.