vice chair of president trump's 1776 commission, carol swain, as our guest on in-depth. other titles include be the people and the fading immigration. join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets, on book tv. >> this monday, labor day, on c-span, a congressional hearing on workers rights at 1:00 p.m. eastern with experts testifying before the senate banking and urban housing committee on the opportunities the economy provides an government's role in those who fall behind. as we approach the anniversary of the september 11 attacks, watch as a security agency official and scholars testify before the house homeland security committee on the causes and consequences of the terrorist attack.

watch monday, labor day, on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: for our spotlight on magazines segment you're going to be talking with national geographic environmental writer sarah gibbens, who is here to discuss her recent piece examining the nexus between climate change and the rising costs of natural disasters. good morning. guest: good morning, thanks for having me. host: first of all, what made you interested in this subject, and in your piece he featured lake charles, louisiana. why there? guest: i was in lake charles just a few days after hurricane laura hit on august 27 of last year. as a climate reporter i had covered hurricane seasons since 2016 or 2017, so a few years.

it is always a similar pattern, where we as reporters look at a city that has been hit by a hurricane for a week, maybe two weeks, and we move on to the next story, but being in lake charles and meeting so many of the really interesting people who lived there and who had been so badly impacted by what was just a catastrophic storm, i was really curious about what it really took to recover from a hurricane, not just the week or two after when you're waiting for electricity to be restored, but in a year, and maybe two years. how do you recover, basically? the story evolved from one about a city that was hit by one major hurricane, to a story about a city that was had by you bureau major hurricanes, then a deadly winter freeze, and a 1000-year flood event, and it became a

bigger story about how the city endured so many disasters. host: iq said, lake charles was hit by hurricane laura, then by hurricane delta. hurricane -- did hurricane ida affect lake charles? guest: luckily lake charles was pretty spared hurricane ida. there were a few days before the storm made landfall. i was talking to some of the people i know there who were really anxious about what ida would mean if they were to get hit dead on. they didn't know if they would never be able to recover. luckily for them, not so lucky for the other part of the state the storm moved east. but, of course, peak hurricane season is not over until october, so this is still a big source of anxiety for a lot of people there. host: you feature a family --

and correct me if i'm pronouncing their last name wrong -- jolevettes? guest: that is right. host: they have lived in lake charles and they have been wiped out by hurricanes. why do you focus on them, and tell me why a family will continue to rebuild in an area that seems to get hit by hurricanes over and over. guest: the jolevettes,, john and judy, have lived in this part of the louisiana for their entire lives. i have lived in the house that was hit by laura and delta for the past 38 years. they, throughout the past year, have really struggled to rebuild. there has been such a demand for construction and housing contractors, people like that in lake charles, that finding people to work on your house was a big challenge, and i thought that they really embodied some

of the struggles that homeowners had experienced in the past year. judy's brother, a man named hurricane, and his wife judy, had their homes destroyed by laura, just as it had been impacted by hurricane rita in 2005, and another hurricane in the 90's. -- the 1990's. i asked them, why rebuild? why not move somewhere else that is more -- that is less in the path of a hurricane? but they love their home. they know their neighbors, they have churches they go to, and they feel a sense of pride in louisiana. you know, the place that has a distinct culture you can't find anywhere else. even if they were to move, where would they go? how could they re-create that kind of culture?

does a really hard questions for people to grapple with. host: i am a southerner, and we grew up watching hurricane forecasts from my parents house in mississippi, but i did not know that lake charles has seen four weather events that were federally declared natural disasters. if i understand correctly, that is the first time one city has had four federally-declared natural disasters. do people in louisiana claim climate change do they just say, lake charles is unlucky? guest: i will point out that they also had all of these disasters on top of covid-19, which only complicated all of those evacuation efforts, and that sort of thing, but to your climate change question, it really depends on who you ask. i have done some reporting through other parts of the south. i find that people in the

louisiana, especially along the southern coast, tend to definitely know the weather is changing. they can see the tides rising higher, the wetlands are disappearing more quickly, they can see all of these changes happening, whether it is what they say that climate change is a result of tends to vary, but a lot of the people i spoke to were sort of trying to factor this into their decision-making, saying, you know, if we only had to go through one hurricane laura or one hurricane rita, we could whether one big storm in our lifetime, but if climate change is going to be giving us more intense storms more often, should we rebuild? should we now take that into our decision-making? and when do we make that decision? people are definitely starting to think about that. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up regional lines for this conversation

about climate and natural disasters. that means if you are in the eastern or central time zones you want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your numbers going to be (202) 748-8001. and we are going to open up a special line for louisiana residents, especially we want to hear from people in lake charles. a special line for louisiana residents is going to be (202) 748-8002. you can always text at (202) 748-8003, and we are always reading on social media on twitter and on facebook. now, sarah, at what point do we say the federal government can no longer bailout places like lake charles that continually get hit by hurricanes, and yet people continue to rebuild in

the same areas? the same question goes for people who live in tornado alley or people who live on beaches or people who get burned out by forest fires, seemingly every year? at what point do we say, you can't live there anymore? guest: that is a tough question. there are already neighborhoods -- or at least one neighborhood in particular in lake charles, that is the recipient of a $30 million buyout. instead of encouraging people to rebuild in this flood-prone neighborhood they are saying, we encourage you to move elsewhere, to move out of this floodplain. that is definitely becoming a strategy that the state is looking at more and more. this article i was talking to a geographer at louisiana state university who was talking about how climate change is going to

create a greater demand for this recovery aid. what that means, he thinks, is that people will be less likely to get the same amount of aid they got in the past, because you do have so many people, from fires in california, two tornadoes along the gulf coast, it was a greater demand for funding. who we choose to save and who we choose to give less 82 is going to be a really hard and politically charged questions. people in lake charles have told me they sometimes feel like the ugly stepchild to new orleans. and i think whatever sort of disaster aid is given post-hurricane ida is -- could be kind of telling about where our priorities lie. host: is lake charles getting any type of federal help following the previous hurricanes we have already

talked about? guest: they have gotten about $1 billion in various fema assistance, whether through reimbursements to the city government or additional fema aid, but they are specifically asking for what is called supplemental disaster aid, which is approved through a congressional appropriations bill. the governor has asked for about $3 billion for the entire state, for disaster needs from lark, delta, and hurricane theta. but they have yet to receive that funding, which has been a big source of anger for the lake charles region. host: and when people are rebuilding their homes, are they getting funds to so-called hurricane-proof their homes, or are they building their homes back the way they were before

the hurricane hit them? guest: that really kind of depends on a sort of case-by-case basis, but there is certainly an opportunity to do so with these funds. you can raise your home a few feet off of the ground to prevent it from flooding in the future. there are hurricane clips and bolts and things that can go into your house to make it more resilient to hurricane wind. it was a lot of opportunity to do that sort of thing, but, of course, the city would say they have not gotten enough money to do that on a large-scale. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in this conversation. we will start with john, who is calling from fort dodge, iowa. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. sarah, i have a question for you in regards to global warming. right now they say that global warming is caused by carbon, but how many other theories are out

there as to what is causing global warming? guest: yeah, it is a great question. so, i would refer to -- there was a recent report by a group of united nations-endorsed scientists called the intergovernmental panel on climate change. about every seven years or so they publish a very large, very well-researched report looking at all of the latest scientific studies that have come out in the past few years, what they have set about climate change, what they think is causing it, and why they think some of these changes are coming from. the science does tell us that it is carbon emission, greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. some people mentioned that there are natural cycles that the years -- that the earth goes through decade by decade changes to ocean currents and temperatures and that sort of

thing, and that is something that happens, but the changes in the warming that we are seeing now far surpasses those sort of natural changes to the atmosphere and ocean. we know pretty convincingly that it is greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. host: let's talk to joel, who is calling from eagle, idaho. good morning. caller: hello, jesse. hey, the question was raised about, you know, what could be done about people living in flood zones. the real problem with the national flood insurance program is that premiums do not reflect the risk. and we pay people to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. hurricanes are a different issue. but the national flood insurance program really needs to be reworked.

and on the same vein, these people that build in the sierras and these fire-prone areas -- fire has a multiplicity of factors, 80% of which are human-caused -- the insurance premiums in california on a mountain cabin, don't reflect the fire risk. and california legislators, in their brilliance, refused to let insurance companies raise the premium in accordance with the fire risk. people out there pay roughly $1600 for an average-sized cabin for fire insurance, and in reality the risk should be about $6,000. if you have the premium reflect the risk he wouldn't have so many people losing their homes out there. the premier article on this is in recent magazine, i think it was a month or two ago, but i would encourage you to read that

for a little bit of a clarification on your views on building in flood areas and the fire risk. guest: yeah. i will say that that raises an interesting point, a lot of people who are building in some of these regions, they don't have a clear, accurate idea of their risk. a lot of those insurance premiums are based on fema flood maps, which have gotten a lot of criticism for being outdated and not showing the true accuracy of how at risk an area is. there are independent groups that have sort of remodeled, to a greater extent, where people's homes are at risk, that is still something that homeowners don't have a great, clear picture of, just how dangerous it is to live in where they choose to live. i think that goes for buyers as well.

i'm a little bit less familiar with wildfire. host: let's talk to frank, who is calling from west virginia. frank, good morning. caller: good morning. guy's, you can't take rockets and send them up in the sky and think everything is going to be all right. you are blowing holes in the ozone layer. i understand cars and stuff like that, but when you are's -- you are sending that space shuttle, you are hurting the ozone layer. host: go ahead and respond there, sarah. guest: it sounds like you are mentioning some of the emissions from space travel or rockets and that sort of thing, to clarify him about, yeah, i think where our emissions come from is something we are going to have to really scrutinize if we want to get a handle on climate change. host: sarah, in your article you

talk about lake charles being a working-class town. what type of jobs are there in lake charles, and how has all of this -- all of these natural disasters affected the economy of lake charles? guest: lake charles, after the storm, lost 6.7% of its population. it is unclear how much of it has returned. part of that is because employers were not able to bring back everyone they wanted to bring back, because businesses were impacted. but this is a town that is the 11th busiest port in the country. hundreds of ships carrying oil and gas pass-through lake charles regularly. it is also a big casino town. there are luxury casino resorts,

and that entertainment is a big source of revenue for the city. those oil and gas jobs do sort of make the city -- that will bring a lot of people back. those are jobs that cannot really be moved anywhere else. you cannot work on an oil rig in the middle of kansas or anything like that. so the city can be resilient in that way, what i think the full impact from the past year is something the city is still sort of understanding. they have certainly taken an economic hit, what that will mean long-term is something that remains to be seen. host: we know president biden was in louisiana earlier this week, but before going down to louisiana he came out at the white house and talked about natural disasters and climate change. i want to play a little bit of what president biden said and get you to react to it. [video]

pres. biden: the past few days of hurricane ida, the fires in the west, and the flash floods in new york and new jersey is another reminder of these extreme storms and the climate crisis are here. we need to be better prepared. we need to act. when congress returns this month i'm going to press for their action on my old back better plan. that is going to make historic investments in electrical infrastructure, modernizing our roads, bridges, our water systems, sewer, and training systems. electric grids and transmission lines, and make them more resilient in these super storms and wildfires. and floods that are going to happen with increasing ferocity. we are reminded that this is not about politics. hurricane ida did not care if you were a democrat or a republican. rural or urban.

it's destruction is everywhere, and it is a matter of life and death, and we are all in this together. this is one of the great challenges of our time, what i am confident we will meet it. we are the united states of america, and there is simply nothing -- you heard me say it before -- nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. for all of those still in harms way, for all of those struggling to deal with the aftermath, i say god bless you. keep the faith. everyone working day and night to look out for their fellow americans is what this is about, and we are going to get this done. host: sarah, how confident are people in louisiana and lake charles that the federal government will eventually help them? guest: i think that depends on who you ask. i think maybe they were losing a little bit of hope there.

now that hurricane ida and the level of destruction it has caused will lead to greater political will for some of this additional supplementary disaster aid i mention. lake charles is hoping to get a chunk of that, and i think people in lake charles hope they will not be made a climate offer or a climate sacrifice as a result of too little aid. yeah, i think to respond to the clip you just played, i will go back to that you report i mentioned. -- un report. this is what we can say with a lot of confidence, is that climate change will lead to more disastrous rainfall that is more likely to cause flash flooding, it will lead to more drought, and it can lead to dangerous hurricanes. host: i will tell you, sarah, that one of the facts that

caught my eye in your story was the fact that the geological survey says louisiana is losing a football-sized piece of its coastland to the ocean every hour of every day. i will tell you, that fact really surprised me. i did not know the coastline was eroding that quickly in louisiana. guest: yes. i have been lucky enough to spend some time in the wetlands in the day that is about an hours drive south of new orleans . i went out there with some scientists from lsu who had markers in this marshland showing when we were out here just a year ago this marsh extended out a foot farther, and now it is a foot back. that is causing a really big problem for cities like lake charles and new orleans, because those wetlands really protect cities from storm surge caused by hurricanes, and with fewer

wetlands available to protect them they are more at risk. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to john, who is calling from loving, new mexico. good morning. caller: yes. i was listening to the young lady and she said that the climate changes are vastly different than they were in the past, and that's, may be in the recent past or -- but in the distant past alaska was a jungle , and, you know, some of these other -- like, iceland and greenland, they were jungles, and some of the other places that are now jungles were covered with ice. i don't see how she can say that things are vastly different.

they may be vastly different than the recent past, but not distant past. then on the flooding and things going on now, you have to take into account that we have covered so much of our landmass with pavement and concrete and houses and stuff, and that, and you do have an extreme event, which is normal -- you have these 100 having your floods and things, so they are normal -- because of the buildings and concrete and pavement and everything, they look worse. so there is a lot of different thoughts on climate change. guest: yeah, that is an interesting point. it sounds like he is referring to the geologic timescale of different climates, extending back to the jurassic era and times like that, which, of course, with a completely different climate on earth. scientists know about the

climate change we are seeing today is it is happening at a much faster rate than it has in the past. those changes where alaska was a jungle or greenland look different or what have you, those changes happened over the house and send thousands of years. we are seeing now as a result of greenhouse gas emissions are rapid changes on the timescale of decades, which is unprecedented, in our history. we have built an infrastructure, we have built cities and towns that were built for the environments we had 100 years ago, when the climate had not changed. now a lot of these storms, extreme weather, unprecedented heat waves in the pacific northwest, flooding in germany and new york city, these weather events are forcing us to think about how we want to build our

infrastructure for the next 100 years or 200 years. host: one of our social media followers has a question for you. they want to know, when will the government augment the building code in some of these disaster prone areas? they build houses that look like a pile of matchsticks after a hurricane or tornado, and people rebuild the exact same way. how about living with bricks or reinforced steel frames? who is in charge of those building codes, sarah? guest: that is a great question about when there might be a more uniform federal change, which i don't know, that i know a lot of these communities are now starting to take initiatives of their own. lake charles, after the past year they have had, has issued a new drainage ordinance, which may not sound that exciting, but it can have a really big impact on flooding, which is something they really, really need to address.

so i think you are seeing a lot of individuals administer polities take action on their own to say that we know in our community these changes are happening and we are going to do something about it. host: let's go to our phone lines and talk to jim, who is calling from new york. good morning. caller: hi. does she have a science background? i have a background in science. i worked as a lab instructor for , -- lab instructor. i want to say something that nobody is saying. the thing is, it is a paradox. yesterday when you had the abortion debate on, somebody called and said that they are killing the babies. one of them could essentially come up with a cure for covid. and that is the paradox.

the thing is, we are at a balance now with the world. disease, pestilence, and wars cap to others and control. we can't do that. the world cannot handle this. if you think you can keep doing this, we can keep doing this indefinitely, it is impossible. there are not enough resources. host: go ahead and respond to him there, sarah. guest: sure. my background is in journalism. i have been working as a science journalist for several years now. that has taught me how to interrogate the truth and ask people the right questions, and asked scientists the right questions and understand what is fact and fiction there. i guess, to the second part of the question, which sounds like it was about overpopulation, i mean, that is a dicey topic that gets brought up sometimes in climate change.

i think it encourages us to think about how we can respond to climate change in a way that is fair and just for everyone. host: let's go to steve, who is calling from anaheim, california. good morning. caller: good morning, professor. sarah, you are right on most of your points. to your question, jessie, you mentioned earlier that people that live in fire prone areas or flooded areas, where should they move to? well, you can't move to anywhere. you are at the stage to where, if you listen to the past they tell you there was global warming, and they told you you would see global warming. now, in 2035 you are going to feel global warming. it is not like you can pack up and move away. to finish this off, i'm tired of people from the midwest telling us about where our fires are out

of control over here. california is not all forest. we are also a grassland, and we are burning from mexico to oregon right now because of the severe drought we have out here. right, jesse, that is it for me. thank you very much. host: go ahead and respond there, sarah. guest: the fires in california that have been seen recently, places like idaho have seen populations increase as people leave california. now idaho is seeing wildfires as well. it is becoming really challenging to know where to move in a way that is safe from some of these disasters. there are really few places in this country and on earth that are not going to be increasingly at risk. host: let's talk to sheila, who is calling from orlando, florida. good morning. sheila, are you there?

alright, let's go to jeff, who is calling from missouri. good morning. caller: good morning to the both of you. i just want to bring up two points that people don't talk about all the time. in studies they show that the sun grows every year and that the solar flares have picked up in intensities, so the amount of ice and freshwater that has been dispersed through the oceans is eventually going to change the freezing point of saltwater. so, we cannot stop the sun from growing, we cannot stop the ice from melting, so at what point are we going to have a global freezing due to the disbursement of freshwater to salt water? and that is my question, and i hope the both of you have a good day. guest: thank you. that is a great question.

i haven't heard too much about that freezing point changing, but i think it is a great opportunity to bring up a new field of science that is really interesting called attribution science. a sickly what this science does is take an extreme weather event, like, say, hurricane harvey in 2017 or the pacific northwest heat wave that hit a couple of months ago, and what scientists can do is look at these storms and model what the environment they grew in would have looked like if there were not greenhouse gas emission changing the atmosphere and changing our ocean. they can sort of re-forecast storms and see how they would have developed in those conditions. these studies are increasingly showing us to what extent climate change plays a role. the one that was done for the pacific northwest heat wave showed that he wave would have been virtually impossible without emissions.

so this is sort of adding to our arsenal of research that we have to show what is causing climate change and how it is affecting our weather. host: let's talk to william, who is calling from lexington, kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. when i was going to school some years ago i was taught that there are four things that man has no control over. that is the earth, fire, wind, and water. so if you build your house below the sea level, pretty soon somewhere in there it is going to get washed away. have a good day. guest: sure. i mean, i wish i had control over the weather myself. but i think in terms of what we can control, we can build back more resiliently, we can look at keeping our soils healthy and that sort of thing. so there are certainly things we

can do easily to sort of mitigate some of the impacts of this weather. host: sarah, in cities like lake charles, who is affected the most by these natural disasters? is it the working-class people? is it the businesses? who is bearing the brunt of these natural disasters? guest: disasters only exacerbate existing inequalities, so people who were already rent-burdened or struggling to put food on the table, those are people who are, of course, owing to be most impacted by these storms. the average cost of evacuation from a storm can reach as much as $1000 when you add up the cost of renting a hotel room and gas and food away from home and all of those costs. so you see after disaster strikes, sociologist tend to see

who the people who remain -- that the people who remained in the city -- the people who tend to be there most immediately are people with high incomes who can fortify their homes against storms and rebuild quickly, and people with very low incomes who cannot afford to leave it all. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to jim, who is calling from texas. morning. caller: good morning. i would like to keep the call session on rebuilding resiliency, things like that. i know it is often tempting to focus on, you know, cities along the coastal regions because we have hurricane ida, but we have quite a bit of our population lives along the coast. i want to mention something like new york city, or even

washington, d.c. these are very low lying areas, extremely prone to flooding, even storm surges. nobody is suggesting that we move new york city, and yet we just watched on the news the incredible flooding in their subway system. my question is this. it is always about, let's move these smaller communities, whether lake charles or some of these, but you have huge places like new york that have enormous damage, and yet there is never any discussion about, let's move new york somewhere on the higher ground. you can answer that, please. guest: i will point out that after superstorm sandy hit part of new york and new jersey there was a community that relocated inland, i believe to the poconos. i will have to double check that.

i think disaster -- people who study disaster and how to adapt to read -- two disaster say we should increasingly look at not just moving individuals out of harm's way, but moving communities out of harm's way so that the social bonds and structures stay intact, so that neighbors get to stay with neighbors and you don't have to go at it alone. i think typically you see some of these coastal communities lose population and sort of dwindle over time. there is some really interesting data from the louisiana showing that in the past few decades post offices have sort of migrated north away from the coast as a some of these towns lose their population. they increasingly see things like sea level rise along the east coast or worsening storms. there are researchers who say coastal cities, especially those small towns, will face

existential questions. host: let's talk to ray, who is calling from rockwood, tennessee. ray, good morning. caller: yes, i would like to ask her, with the global warming that causes the 1929 dust bowl? and was it global warming that caused the 1800 flood of new york city that destroyed it? and i think you need to get a little more experience and age on you before people take you serious. that is all i have to say. thank you and goodbye. guest: well, i will respond to the first part of that question, which is about disasters pre-sort of early in the industrial age. the dustbowl is an interesting example to use, because that is a sort of microcosm of what we are seeing now. the dustbowl exacerbated drought conditions, and it depleted soil

, to the detriment of farmers and populations throughout the region. so if we continue to see that sort of irresponsible action towards how we use our environment and the way we use resources, then we will see things like the dustbowl. but, of course, extreme weather has always happened, that our definitions of what is extreme are now changing. host: sarah, what is the state of lake charles today? and how are they planning to protect themselves and their residence in the future, with more hurricanes predicted just in this hurricane season? guest: lake charles is still very much grappling with some of the short-term recovery you see after major hurricanes. things like blue tarps over roofs, homes not been rebuilt, and debris still in the streets. this is a city that has

struggled to rebuild as quickly as it might have if it had just had one hurricane, and perhaps more disaster aid. you see a lot of people who are still exposed today, that if they were to get hit another hurricane, that could leave them in a very vulnerable position, but there are a lot of communities trying to rebuild. there are individuals taking action to do more to hurricane-proof their -- the city is looking at things like drainage to better prevent things like flooding from happening in the future. host: we would like to thank sarah givens, forgiving -- for being with us today and talking about her article, how many natural disasters can one city endure? thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: i would like to thank all

of our guests, our viewers, and social media followers for being with us for another edition of washington journal. continue to wash her hands and stay safe. have a great saturday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪

buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> up next, a house panel examines the affordability and access to higher education. education advocates testify about barriers, college affordability, and higher education alternatives. the ways and means subcommittee hearing was held online earlier this summer. i called to order the subcommittee on oversight. thank you for joining us today. i hate doing this impersonally. blame me. the fact of the matter is