Meteorology, Climate Cancer, and Life after NBC News with Chase Cain

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Chase Cain, meteorologist and the former climate correspondent for NBC News, now the creator of a new YouTube series "Chase What Matters" about Meteorology, Climate Cancer, and Life after NBC News.  Read his full bio below.

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Chase Cain at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasecain/

Guest Bio:
Chase Cain is a meteorologist and three-time Emmy Award winner. As the first climate reporter for NBC, he also earned a national Edward R. Murrow Award for his reporting on how climate change is threatening the beloved Joshua tree. Now, Chase has traded the legacy news desk for the global reach of YouTube to lead an honest, hopeful conversation about our relationship with our environment. In his series “Chase What Matters,” he’s exploring how reconnecting with nature can heal us and the planet!

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura.

On today's episode, we talk about the ESRI User conference, specifically our appearance there doing another live. We interview Chase Cain about meteorology, climate cancer, and life after NBC News. And finally, today is Endangered Species Day.

So, uh, I found this interesting concept, Endangered Species Day. But Nic, what's your favorite endangered species?

I know, right? It's such a strange thing to be happy about. I don't know. Endangered Species Day.

Oh my goodness, no, uh, well, we were talking about this and my immediate answer is obviously cheetahs, and then I looked it up and there's only 7000 cheetahs, but they're listed as vulnerable, so I have to be much more specific. So the Amur cheetah, there's only like 20 of them in the wild, and that's a subspecies of cheetah. So those are critically endangered, maybe even going extinct in our lifetimes, which is devastating and really sad, but I love cheetahs. I think they're very cool.

And uh I don't know they're just like they're not the top dog they're just, you know, they're fast. They got one thing going for them, you know, they're fast and cute actually so they have two things that's me. They have lots of cats. I know they they don't need anything else going for them. They're extremely cool.

So what's, what's yours though? What's yours?

I mean, I have to go to manatee, but they were actually downgraded, which is a good thing, but they're still very near extinction. So I have to go with manatees, and then if I have to choose like actually critically endangered, I'm gonna go Florida panther, just my, my roots.

Yeah, that, that, wow, that's right, yeah, just the entire state of Florida, the animal you see kind of endangered. So yeah, um, that's sad.

So we both went cats in some way, but I love manatees too, they're great. So, there you go. How about that?

Well, amazing, hit that music.

Environmental Professionals Radio comes to the ESR User Conference. Join this lively live podcast featuring voices from the Nature Conservancy, ESR and the Society for Conservation GIS. We'll dive into digital twins, explore how mapping helps translate science into spatial insight, and discuss how conservation professionals can keep pace with an ever evolving technological landscape. Expect sharp insights, practical takeaways, and plenty of laughs from EPR hosts, Laura and Nic along the way. Let's get to our segment.

So Laura, guess what, um, we're gonna do a live show from the ESRI User Conference in San Diego in July. How about that?

I like you're telling me like I don't know already. Are you, oh, you, you do. You do. That's so crazy. Uh, that's so crazy. I love that we was sort of my idea. Sort of, sort of, sort of, hm, I think it was your idea. We're gonna give you full credit. It's a really great example of ask and ye shall receive.

Yeah, truly, you know, Sunny Fleming is a recurring guest on the show. Last time we had her on, we just kind of had this idea and well, and, and you know, for those not listening, she is the director of their conservation program.

Yeah, and so she's been a long, long standing friend of the show, which is great, and we pitched the idea to her, we talked about it, we talked about it, we talked about it, and then we did it, and we're really excited about it.

I'm thrilled. I can't wait to get out there. San Diego is beautiful in lots of many ways, but the user conference is a really big deal. It's a very cool, cool event and it's worth going to, even if you're not necessarily a GIS person per se, you use it all the time. Everyone does. And it is absolutely worth going to for lots of different reasons, other than that it's just super cool, so.

Well, I'm particularly excited because I actually, when I used to actually do GIS and led a team of GIS interns, I had submitted a talk on how to create your own GIS intern program and they actually accepted it. However, my employer would not sponsor me to go, so hugely crushed about that. But now I finally, finally get to listen to Jack Dangerman. Give a plenary speech and I'm so excited.

Yes, and I am also thrilled, very, very much to the whole conference is gonna be great, you know, we've had a few people on from ESRI actually on the show, not just Sonny, but Sonny's a, a great friend and our session itself is gonna be on Thursday and actually we're gonna talk about uh digital twins building community and the future of GIS.

We're gonna have a plug, sponsor plug for that as we get up to that moment. Thursday, July 16th, 10:00 a.m. Pacific. If you are in the area, you have to check us out. We'll be interviewing Healey Hamilton from the Sustainable Forestry Institute, Kelly Easterday of the Director of Conservation Technology at Nature Conservancy, and SUNY.

So it'll be a great time. We're going to have an absolute blast doing it.

I know we are. Yeah, super excited and I think, you know, for the podcast, it's just. A great milestone to have achieved, and we're looking forward to it.

Yeah, and, uh, you know, we're gonna be doing some mini interviews as well, so we'll be all over socials. It'll be a good time, so if you're going to be at the conference, find us.

Yeah, come talk to us. Let's get to our interview.

Welcome back to EPR. Today we're joined by Chase Cain, a meteorologist and former climate correspondent for NBC News. He is now the creator of a new YouTube series called Chase What Matters. Welcome, Chase. It's great to have you here.

Hi, Laura. Thank you. Great to be here.

Yeah, so, OK, meteorology. When does your interest in this start? I know for Nic was more dinosaur related. Does this also start when you're a kid or you're like, wow, weather's cool.

Hold on, wait, dinosaur related, like you were into dinosaurs and that led you to.

Well, I mean, I don't know. I just think it's like that's where science started for me and that's where I kind of got interested in it. And so there's always like a spark somewhere, you know, and it gets you to where you are today, so.

I, I was, I was curious because when I was a kid, the first job that I wanted to have was paleontologist, but my mom says that I couldn't say paleontologist, so I called it dinosaur bone digger. Like, what do you want to be, dinosaur bone digger. Couldn't say paleontologist.

So, so you, you switched to meteorology. I got it.

A little easier to say, right, right, yeah, and actually meteorological is always a word that I have to like think about, so I don't say that often because I'm like meteorological. That's one of those words I don't think you can say 3 times fast.

I think it was that my grandfather in particular was one of those people who, when there was weather, he wanted to see it. So I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, so, you know, in the spring, we have severe storms, and sometimes tornadoes, and a couple times those tornadoes were much too close for comfort. But my grandfather in particular, like when that would happen, he was like, opening the front door and like, what's going on? I wanna see it.

And I think that's what it was, like, I'm unsure. I, I can't like pinpoint a specific moment, but I think that's what it was.

And so when I was in high school, like I knew that I wanted to do, you know, television journalism. I was actually considering going to school for meteorology, and then I started looking at like the course requirements, and it's like, you know, advanced physics, calculus 4, and I'm like, OK, physics I'm on board with, but like, why do I need calculus? Like we have calculators, we have computers.

So it scared me off from it at first, but then pretty quickly, maybe a couple of years after I had graduated from college, I was at a station in Lexington, Kentucky, and they were really focused on covering weather and they actually needed someone to help fill in. So, when there was a storm, I was going out to report on it, and then I was filling in on the weekends, doing the actual in-studio forecast.

And so I started a meteorology degree then it was kind of a thing that I would like pick up and put down, but a few years ago I was like, you know, enough of this back and forth. I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna get my master's in meteorology, uh, so probably even a little harder than the thing I was afraid of in high school.

Right. What is involved in a master's in meteorology? What types of classes are you taking?

Crying into a textbook.

Yeah, it's familiar, familiar. Um, I mean, so I went to the University of Miami for my master's and it was, I chose that school because they had a really interesting combination of weather and climate, which was really what I wanted to focus on.

Now, you know, well into my career, this intersection of like how is climate change making the day to day weather different and I wanted to understand what's known as attribution science. And the best places to do that are probably in the UK but couldn't go to the UK, so University of Miami was a a fantastic choice.

And the thing that was the hardest, Laura, was when I was calculating what they call energy balance equations of the atmosphere, of essentially there's a certain amount of sunlight coming in, some of that bounces back to space, some of it makes it to the surface, and then like various things on Earth's surface hold that energy.

And then release it back into the atmosphere as long wave radiation, and so, doing calculations by hand of like, OK, if there's this type of cloud versus that type of cloud, how does that change the equation? Or if it's not a forest, if it's a city where there's lots of asphalt and pavement, how does that change the equation?

Yeah, yeah, calculating that, I'm not kidding. Like I was an adult man sitting on my couch at home one night, like with tears in my eyes trying to figure this out, you know, because I'm more of a, I'm more of a one train is coming from this direction, the other train's coming in this direction. What do they cross and Is it going to be raining when that happens?

I would have loved for that to have been the question, Laura. That would have been great, right? Um, but I will say to fast forward in that answer, I wound up getting straight A's in grad school, so apparently the tears were worth it. Uh, I figured out how to calculate the energy balance of the atmosphere. That's pretty crazy.

So, OK, a couple of questions. In today's world, can you be a meteorologist and not also be interested in the climate? 00, controversial question. I don't know if you realized it was gonna be controversial.

Um, I've been, I would say no. However, if you go to, I've been to a few meteorology conferences, and it's not the majority, it is definitely the minority, but there are some people who I'll just say are very old school and are like, well, I don't know about that. I don't know about that climate thing.

But the important context there is that Cornell University did this analysis of all peer-reviewed science in the world about climate change, and there is 99.9% agreement across all this peer-reviewed science. So the, I don't know about climate change thing just doesn't hold up under a, you know, metaphorical or literal microscope. It's just completely invalid to say, I don't know about climate change.

So I would say no, but there are still some people.

Yeah, that's, yeah, wild. So the climate is changing, we've got science to back that up. As far as meteorology goes and, and weather, what are some of those, I mean, I think I could list them, but in your more professional opinion, what are some clear indicators of that?

I mean, heat is like the first and most obvious thing, right? That it is hotter than it's been, very likely in not just hundreds, but thousands of years. When we have a heat wave, it lasts longer than it does in the past, typically.

And I think the most interesting and really like insidious part of heat and climate is, you know, we talk about the afternoon high of like, it was 115 in Phoenix, like that's the thing that gets the headline. But it's the overnight lows where there's actually the strongest climate signal. It's not cooling down as much at night.

And so that has a lot of different impacts for, let's say agriculture, like crops are used to it being like cool at night, so they kind of get a break from the sun. That's impacting farmers, it impacts animals, whether it's livestock or your pets, if your dog stays out in the backyard at night.

It also affects us, because, and financially, because a lot of people who don't have the means to run air conditioning all the time, are like, OK, I'll run the air conditioner a couple hours in the afternoon when it's really hot, and then I'll turn it off and open my windows and let in the cool air at night.

Well, what happens when there isn't the cool air at night? Like, these people are forced into really dangerous, awful situations where like, I can't afford to run my air conditioning, but it's so hot that it's dangerous to my health.

And actually University of Miami, several other places have done research about the danger of indoor heat, and, and one of the things that's driving that is the overnight warmth, essentially.

You know, a couple of things that I think are really important to mention is rain. Fall rates that simply put, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. So it's kind of like, I've done a couple of things on TV with this of like it's, you know, hold up a sponge, a wet sponge, and if you were to like hold that wet sponge over your head and wring it out, you're gonna get a little water. But what happens if instead of a sponge, what if it's now like a large glass or a bucket of water, and then you dump that on your head? Like, it's not just gonna be a sprinkle anymore, you're gonna be soaked.

And we're seeing that show up all across the country, particularly because like our city's stormwater systems, a lot of them were designed and built in the 50s, 60s, 70s. They were designed and built in a different world, where the rainfall rates were not what we are today.

And so, you know, you see this in New York City, you see this in Chicago, we've seen this in Fort Lauderdale, where there's just too much rain falling too fast, and that is because the atmosphere is holding more moisture up there.

I mean, we can talk about any weather phenomenon you want, but those are the two that I think are really important, especially as we're headed into the summer.

Yeah, that makes total sense. That was a really good visual on the rainfall.

Yeah, I have a terrible memory in there, but just last week there was someplace that got like what, 46 inches in an hour. Nic, talk about that.

I think was that was that in Louisiana?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly right. Yeah, it was like 46 inches. In 24 hours and that is an unbelievable amount of water.

I can't even when you talk about the bucket versus the sponge, that totally makes sense.

Well, and the other thing people don't think about connected to that is that also affects snow that, I mean, what was it just a week or actually a few days ago. Where Denver was getting snow, several inches of snow in early May after it had been 90 for weeks. My friend sent me pictures. She, she said she got 10 inches of snow and it was then she sent me another photo. It was gone. All of it gone the very next day.

Well, that's very Denver for that, you know, Denver. But like, but it's one of the things that climate diners will say like, see, it's snowing. Climate change isn't real, but like there are like the signal with climate change is that like, you're not seeing the snowfall as consistently throughout the winter.

What we're actually seeing in a lot of places is that it's this bookend that you'll get a lot of snow. Beginning of the season, snow at the end of the season, and then kind of nothing in the middle or not much in the middle. So it's coming in these like huge amounts and not so much the consistent snowfall.

So there is even a climate signal in the winter with snow, despite what some might say.

Yeah, just like pattern changes.

So, along these lines, What are the challenges then with reporting the weather, and I guess there's probably some sort of nuance between wanting to tell people this has to do with climate and people not wanting to hear it, or maybe even expectations from your employer, which you're currently not having to deal with, but in the past, like, what are the challenges of just being a meteorologist today?

I mean, there, well, you know, there's this thing like, well, the weather is always changing, the climate's always changing, or my favorite is. Meteorologists can't even tell me if it's gonna rain this weekend. What do you mean you can tell me what's happening with the climate?

And it's like, well, those are, those are very different things, and there's lots of ways we can go with this, but like the percent chance of rain is not actually like a 40% chance that it's going to rain on you. It's like over the entire forecast area, how much of that area is likely to get rain. So it's actually a calculation.

So sometimes like that's one of the things that I don't like the way we communicate. I think the bigger issue is a little bit of kind of like semantics and branding.

Climate change is a terrible brand, and I believe people have found that it was actually a term that was developed by the oil companies because it was a little, you know, softer than global warming. I don't even know that global warming is the right term either. I'm not sure what the right term is, uh, because that's what gives people the, it's snowing, it can't be global warming.

Exactly. I mean, maybe like Earth overheating is more accurate to what it actually is.

We're cooking, we're just cooking, that's all.

Yeah, yeah, we're oven, yeah, I mean, yeah, or like the metaphorical, I actually keep this at my desk as a reminder, the metaphorical like frog in a pot of boiling water.

Yeah, boiling frog.

Yeah, so unfortunately we are kind of a boiling frog, but yeah, I mean like just calling it climate change is a challenge because yes, the climate is always changing. The difference is, it's never changed this much, this quickly, and there is like such a clear, undeniable link to the industrial revolution.

We started burning coal, oil and gas and putting. These extra gasses up in the atmosphere, and it's making us get hot real fast. The science is just so clear about that.

But yeah, I mean, it's, it's a challenge because there's people that, you know, still a minority. I think it's only like 10% of Americans, according to Yale are actually climate deniers, but that 10% can be really loud, and so they're the ones who comment, they're the ones who email, they're the ones who, you know, want to chirp about this and that.

But it does, it does make it more difficult for everyone else because they're like. Oh yeah, that, that's a good point. That's a good question. And so it starts to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of other people who would normally be receptive to the message.

Um, that makes sense. And then as the, I mean, this had to be cool too. I would just like to know generally what your experience was at NBC as a climate reporter, but you actually were the first person to also get to dive into climate there. So what was that experience like?

Yeah, I mean there, there were people, you know, correspondents who had covered climate stories before me, and also a lot of credit goes to Al Roker and Aaron McGarry, who's the head of the climate unit at NBC cause the two of them, I think it was like close to 10 years ago, it used to be called the Weather Unit at NBC News.

And Al Roker and Aaron got together and said like, no, actually, climate change is real, it's important, we need to talk about this. And so they rebranded it and then started like making climate coverage a more consistent feature both in stories for correspondents, as well as like mentions that Al would put in. During the Today Show in the morning, so a lot of credit goes to the two of them.

But yeah, I mean, I was the, the first person at NBC who like, my job on air is covering climate change. So that was really exciting. It was, you know, it was something that I had wanted to do and a lot of persistence, you know, got me into that position.

My decision to leave, as I've talked about other places, was really just that I saw this disconnect between the number of people who really want to hear about this, they want to understand, but then the amount of coverage that's actually being devoted to it.

And one of the big factors is really just the reality of what it's like to live in the United States right now. We don't need to get into politics, but like there's a very clear approach of like just like flood the zone, create lots of chaos, create lots of other things to pull attention and pull focus.

And so it's difficult for producers, not just at NBC but in every newsroom, to figure out like, OK, there's 50 important things today and we have time for 20.

And so because climate change is this like, it's not always like the most visual, visceral thing, but it is there every day, and it's getting worse every day. And so it's sometimes hard to like, you know, that tug of war between like, oh my gosh, this important politician said this crazy thing which has global ramifications, overshadows like, well, this is a chronic problem that threatens all life on the planet, but we can wait on that. That can be tomorrow, that can be next week, and so that was really the struggle, that sort of the tug of war that I face.

Yeah, and it's like, it's interesting, like we love to talk about that, you know, you talked about persistence. We'd love to talk about that, but you have it in my mind you have persistence in a couple of ways.

It's, you know, I wanna know what that was like to get that job, to be on, to get to the place where you can talk about this, and then the confidence, I guess really to say this is amazing, this is a job I love, but I want to try to do something different.

So can you maybe walk us through how you got to where you were, like what that resistance looked like and how did that give you the confidence to do what you're doing now?

Sure, so I was working for, there was a period, I guess, maybe, gosh, almost 10 years ago now, 89 years ago now, where NBC was really focused on like, how do we tell news differently, and so they, they had these different sort of like R&D experimental teams.

One was called Left Field, there was NBC News Signal, and there was NBC LX. NBC News Signal evolved into NBC News Now. I was working for NBC LX.

And I had actually left news briefly and my former manager Matt Goldberg had said like, hey, starting this new thing, you might want to think about coming back. This is gonna be really cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And really quickly, like it wasn't like, hey, we need you to cover climate change right away, but really quickly, like, that's what I was doing because that's what I cared about. And so then it was very quick, like, hey, OK, focus on climate change and environmental stories.

Unfortunately, a few years ago, just, you know, budget cuts and the reality of finances and, and major media, they shut down NBCLX, but I was very thankful that NBC said, what you're doing is important, we want to keep you, and so they just kind of like evolved my role and ultimately like I was just getting more exposure across NBC stations, NBC newscasts.

So that was how I got into the role, but you're asking about like the decision to leave and sort of like the persistence there.

Yeah, it was a really, I mean, honestly, it was a really difficult decision. It was one that I grappled with for probably a year, because I was living my dream job.

I was maybe like, maybe this is like weird, but like in elementary and middle school, like, I liked watching the Today Show before I went to school, and then I would watch WSB in Atlanta. I would watch the local news when I got home from school, so like I was maybe a weird kid that was watching news.

And I also wanted to work for NBC like my senior year spring break trip, I went to New York so that I could do like a 30 Rock tour, like that, that's how, that's how much I wanted to work for NBC.

And so facing this decision, which was my decision, like the company didn't want me to leave and I'm very thankful for that, but it was just really tough because I was like, I'm living my dream job. I'm covering a really important subject.

But it is also just like really difficult to, you know, the amount that I have to struggle to get a story on or to get the story the attention that I think it deserves because whether it is war, whether it is health, whether it is education, whether it is affordability, like climate change touches and impacts, basically every. Everything else.

Like there are very few subjects that aren't in some way connected to climate change. And so it was just that like that really big struggle between like this is my dream, but I also care about something I think really big, really important, like our planet, our only home.

I'm sorry, like Mars is just not an option. Like it's not, it's really, really not. Mars doesn't have, you know, sunsets over an ocean. Mars doesn't have Yosemite National Park. Mars doesn't have birds chirping in the spring when the flowers are blooming. Like, stop looking for other places. We already live on this beautiful, special magical planet.

Yeah, it's funny. That's actually kind of an amazing segue to our next question because. You know, I think a lot of this comes back to what we talked about before we started the interview, like messaging, you know, and how we even describe things, how we get our word out.

So there is a transition where there's, you know, we have traditional media is changing and evolving and it has been for a while. So you're, you know, approaching YouTube and Social media as a new place to tell these stories. What makes social media so different and why is that the place you're going?

Well, I mean, first of all, YouTube is now the world's largest media company. More people watch YouTube than like Disney, then Comcast, then Paramount, then Netflix, any of them. That's where the eyes and the attention is increasingly going.

But also Yale does this great research that they're constantly updating that found that, you know, climate coverage on traditional news is low, but it's even lower on YouTube and on social media. And then where it is happening, it's not someone that has the expertise or the credibility or, you know, the knowledge of like, And it's not like we need a bunch of PhDs on YouTube, like, great, if that's what you want to do, but it is important to have like accurate authoritative information.

And so, I mean, it was honestly pretty clear of like, the audience for traditional media is plummeting. I mean, just to be candid, um, you know, the combined audience for the 3 network evening newscasts is what, like 20 million people, maybe. A single YouTube video can get more than 20 million people, right? Like, it's just incredible, like how much people are watching on that platform.

And if it's also a place where there's not enough climate coverage, environmental coverage, then it's like, well, that's what I do, that's what I care about, like, it was honestly just a no-brainer.

Yeah, and like, so what are you doing? What is the pathway you're taking? Uh, walk us through what's going on currently with you.

Yes, so I am officially launching the channel on May 24th, so depending upon when people are listening to this, it's either coming soon or go back and watch. Um, also, as of just yesterday, I, I posted my first kind of like introduction video of like, here's what I'm doing.

I've been posting things on the YouTube channel, but it's been a little bit more like scattershot, and so this is kind of like the relaunch, the rebrand of Chase What Matters, is the name.

And obviously there's a nod to my name, but it's, but it's also about the things that I think really matter, not just to me, but to all of us, because when we get down to it, like the political polarization aside, like we all actually care.

We all actually care about so many of the same things. It's gotten sucked into this terrible place of partisan politics and division and tribalism and all those things. But ultimately, like, who wants to breathe dirty air? Who wants to turn on the tap and worry about the safety of drinking your water? Who wants to go to the beach and see plastic pollution, like all over the beach? Like, no, no one, like we all actually agree, and so the channel is gonna be, yes, sometimes like explaining something that's going on with the weather.

Like I'm not abandoning my expertise as a meteorologist, and there are important things to talk about. I have a feeling the summer of 2020. will bring lots of important things to talk about.

The other part of it though is kind of like, you know, not just the weather outside, but like the weather inside. Like, how do we think about this? How do we feel about this? Because when you see, like I mentioned that like when you see that spectacular sunset over the ocean, it makes us feel a certain way. It inspires awe, and that's actually what the first story is about on May 24th of. Awe and how important it is, but also like how much less we're experiencing it in our lives, because we spend so much time in front of a screen, staring at our phone, and not like out in the world, not going outside, even if it's just like, even if you live in a city and just walking to the park nearby, like there's some really important things that have gotten pushed down the priority list in this world that we've created.

Yeah, and it's such a hard thing sometimes because It's easy to disconnect. It's probably easier than it's ever been, and that's not going to change anytime soon either.

So, I mean, to that end, do you have advice for people who are listening, looking to become meteorologists, climate journalists on how to engage and meet with people where they are?

There's a few things. Things there.

One, I really disagree with how the environmental movement has communicated things so far, like the fear and the doom and gloom, like we got to stop that because if the world is ending, then why do I care? Let me just keep doing whatever I want to do. Like, so I don't like the fear and doom and skies falling. No offense to the well-intentioned people who deliver that message, but we got to stop that, I think.

And the other thing is that recognize that, yeah, people are coming from different places on this, that if we assume that everyone cares, how might that change your message to not portray someone who drives a gas-powered vehicle as evil, right? Maybe they just can't afford any. Maybe they're a farmer and they need this for some reason and they can't afford an expensive electric hydrogen powered tractor. Like there's just, there's a lot of reasons that people aren't doing things that quote unquote, they should be doing. Like I think we need to stop with the individual guilt. Because this is a systemic thing, this is like a big picture thing, it's not Laura's fault, it's not Nic’s fault, it's not Chase's fault.

So that's one thing, and I think the other thing is to get creative with how you communicate. There are ways, there are so many ways to talk about climate change without ever saying climate change. You can say burning oil and gas makes the atmosphere hotter, and the hotter the atmosphere gets, it's making our weather more extreme and more erratic. Well, that's climate change, but I didn't say that. And so if that term or if another term term is going to turn off part of your audience and part of the people who you're trying to communicate with, like think about that differently. Like, let's not get so hung up on the like, must say climate change, must do like just talk to people.

Yeah, to that point, when the government wants to remove those words, let them remove the words, we're still going to talk about it, right?

Yeah, and, and the government can. Move and delete all they want, but it doesn't change the reality.

Um, there was something that this actually stuck with me and it kind of just came to me in the moment, but last, I think it was last summer I was, I was on MSNBC and we were talking about the government deciding to essentially like delete and bury the National Climate Assessment, which, by the way, is congressionally mandated, but that's a different story.

So the government is like, no more national climate assessment. And the kind of like the metaphor that I gave on TV and I, I think this is worth repeating, is that God forbid you go to the doctor and the doctor is like, hey, you have cancer, this is bad, however, we've caught it early, we can treat this. But then you go home and you tear up the test results and tell your family, no, everything's fine, I'm good.

Well, you can tear up those test results as many times, you can lie as many times as you want, but it doesn't change the reality. And our reality is very much that like essentially like the planet has cancer, but it is not too late. We can still do something about this, so lie all you want to, it doesn't change the underlying truth.

Yes, that makes so much sense.

And yeah, we can talk about this a lot, but we're going to listen to it on your, your show on podcast show, whatever, you can go whatever you want. You know, podcasts will probably come out. They'll have to change it to something new soon anyway, because it'll be too old, outdated.

And so, but we have a recurring segment called hashtag Field notes, and it's a part of our show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments doing work in the field.

So we ask you to share your funny, scary or awkward, or just otherwise memorable thing from the field. So we can, uh, well, if you have one, you're listening, we'd love to hear it from you so we can share it on a future episode, which you can do so at environmentalprofessionalsradio.com. There is a form, it's not even hard. You can just submit the form, answer a couple of questions, and we'll read it for you.

But Chase, do you have something you must have from covering weather?

Yes, I mean, I have so many things. Uh, what I know my head, my hesitation is I'm like, funny, I don't know. It's not funny. We, we've had, we've had stories of witnessing murders. We've had stories of being shot at. I mean, I have, I have been carjacked at gunpoint, but that's maybe not the most interesting story during work.

Oh yeah, I'm laughing. I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I was shooting a story about water and it's, yeah, I was carjacked at gunpoint in the middle of the afternoon. It was super fun. I'm OK, obviously, but I think the most recent one that comes to mind was when I was covering the LA wildfires and I've since moved to San Francisco, but I, I've lived in LA for like close to decades. Like LA feels sort of like my adult home and It was, it was like a day or two after my birthday, and so I was kind of just in this place of like, oh, but then wildfires break out and it's like very quickly going out there and covering it.

I mean, a really scary moment, and I actually made a YouTube video about this if anyone wants to like go and watch it, it's on my page, but I was with a producer. The producer was driving me out to basically the Palisades, because the Palisades fire had just started and was spreading really quickly. And there was already a crew there with a camera and setting up a live shot, so it was basically just like, get me to the camera so that I can be on air.

And we're on Sunset Boulevard, and it's where Sunset drops to two lanes, and it's really, you know, curvy, and we hit gridlock traffic, and it's gridlock in both directions. And of course, you know, it's like, we want you on TV, where are you at? And it's like, well, I can't, I can't fly.

But basically made the decision to grab my, my fire gear and leave the producer in the car and say like, it's a little less than 1 mile, I'm just gonna walk the rest of the way.

But once I get down there, I realized that the reason traffic was backed up in the direction of going into the fire was because the fire had started to spread down a hill alongside the road and there was a fire crew there starting to, you know, trying to put it out and Very quickly also telling people that were in their cars, like, get out of your car and go.

So they were like, people were getting out of their cars and like running the opposite direction, just abandoning cars on the road.

Um, to jump ahead for a moment, they actually had to later bring in a bulldozer and literally just like shove these abandoned cars out of the road so that fire trucks could get back in the forth. I mean it was very much like a Walking Dead. Moment if anyone watched the show, it just it felt very apocalyptic of like, here's all these cars abandoned on Sunset Boulevard, but after I'd gotten past that, the wind was so strong.

I mean you were getting like gusts of hurricane force winds and so that's of course like picking up embers, picking up little pieces of burning things and just throwing it through the air and so these spot fires will start all around you.

And I'm on, you know, trying to like get down sunset, and like I have my fire gear on, and I'm like, it's heavy, and so I'm like breathing harder, but like, even through the mask, it's like the smoke is starting to get through, it's really dark.

I mean, this is also midday, and it feels like it's dusk, like it's evening. And I'm kind of like, I'm by myself. So it was a moment where I was very thankful for the annual fire training that we had to do with Cal Fire, which after you've done it, like, you know, I don't even know how many times you start to say like, OK, I've heard this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

In that moment I was like, oh, I know what to do. And so I found a fire hose and literally like followed the fire hose and tried to like stay near that, and then I was, of course, like, you know, just considering like, do I have another way out of here? Like there was a lot of just brain calculation that's happening in that moment.

I was able to get down the hill safely and get to the live shot, but there were a couple of moments where, just to be honest, I was like, this could be it. Like I might be in a situation that I can't get out of. All for the job.

So did you get the news you wanted?

Well. I mean, it was certainly a story.

Yeah, I mean, I was there till late in that night. I had slept like maybe like that night I slept maybe 1 hour and a half hours before I was like going back out to continue reporting on the Palisades fire, and then after that second day, so I've slept, I don't know, a couple of hours over the course of 3 days.

I get home to like have an actual break and I'm showering. My partner had gotten me like delicious Thai takeout and so I was like, uh, I'm in my home, I'm safe, I'm clean, I'm eating food, and then like I had a few bites of food in my mouth before I'm, you know, I'm watching NBC LA and it's like breaking news. There's Sunset Fire in Runyon Canyon, which was very close to where I live. Walked to the back door and I could see flames.

Oh my gosh.

So after that, I'm then like now I'm like, oh my God, I never thought that I would have to evacuate. Like I live in the city of LA like you don't think about evacuating from an urban place, but now we're scrambling to just like, what do we pack, what do we pack, like throw stuff in a bag and leave.

Thankfully, the wind had died down just enough for fire crews to be able to contain the sunset fire, but If that fire had spread, I mean, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, like it would have been right through the heart of LA.

So, you know, I was thankful to be alive, but then I was like, oh, and now I'm evacuating too. I mean it was, it was quite a few day stretch that I will certainly never forget.

Yeah, the whole thing, and that too is like, OK, people, if this isn't enough to tell you why the climate cancer change, whatever is important, I don't know what it is because like you said, denying it doesn't make fires stop happening. It doesn't make the threat go away. So what are we talking about?

Yeah, I mean, with fire in particular, like there's so many things at play, like climate change does not cause fires, it does not start a fire, but when one does start, it lets them spread so much more quickly, and it's just outstripping our ability to contain the fires, and the deniers will say like, oh, this is bad forest management. I'm like, the Pacific Palisades is not a forest. The Eaton, like the suburbs of Pasadena are suburbs with cul-de-sacs. Like this is not about forest management. This is a whole different thing.

But yeah, it's just, I you know, it's a complicated issue with lots of factors, but climate change is very much making what they call fire weather days much more common. Climate Central actually just did a new analysis where they were finding that like California, Arizona, all the way over to Texas, that parts of the West are seeing. 2 more months every year, like 60 days extra every year of these fire weather days, and that's climate change. That's global warming, that's Earth overheating, whatever we're gonna call it, right.

Yeah, well, we could go on about this stuff for days, but, um, let's move on to something quickly fun before we wrap up with you. So, well, I hope it's fun.

Yeah, I hope so too. I was like, I think like you outside of work.

Yes, have we been too much of a downer?

No, no, that wasn't the intent. I mean, that's kind of why we have the show. It's like it can be a downer when you're working on climate or environment or green or sustainability, whatever you call it, day after day after day, and if you aren't hearing. The other stories, other people are struggling and going through too, or, you know, cause your, your day to day battle is watching the climate things. Someone else might be watching wetlands disappear, somebody else is watching trees get cut down if you're into forest trees. So we all have this great honorable jobs to do, but part of that is seeing. The cancer spreading.

Can I, can I say something about that quickly actually? I've struggled with climate anxiety, eco grief, different terms for it. Uh, I've, I've been public about that and put that on TV. The two things that I just want to share, if anyone else like is feeling these things, or actually maybe three things. First of all, there is something called climate aware therapy. You can Google it, you can find like a therapist who is aware of climate change and can talk to you about your feelings for that.

But then like the two practical things that I try to do every day are gratitude or appreciation, just like, and sometimes it might be I have a really busy day, but I have the window open and I hear birds chirping, I'm like, yes, thank you birds, thank you tree for the shade. Little thing just to appreciate like what is here right now because so much is being lost because of climate change, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate what we still have.

And then also just like a mindfulness practice. Like for me, I can't really meditate, my mind is a little too active, but I found breathwork. If anyone isn't familiar with that, I would encourage you to Google it and check it out, but it's basically like breathing as a form of meditation, so it gives your mind something to focus on, like you're thinking about the breathing, and so it's accomplishing the same thing of getting you out of your thoughts, but Yeah, take it seriously. Like if anyone's feeling those things, you are not alone. There are resources, there is help. So I just don't want anyone to like have those feelings and not be, you know, not be doing something about it.

Yeah, totally. Um, yeah, so what else do you do when you're when you're not working for fun or you're not making YouTube videos? What else do you have going on?

I don't have a lot of extra time right now. It is, it is, I'm working harder than I was at NBC, uh, but it is very rewarding. I mean, the, the two things I like, I enjoy like camping, going to national parks, like this weekend, I'm actually getting ready to go on a little camping trip and be outside.

Um, I also enjoy a music festival, like, especially an outside one, so, you know, kind of, what are you talking about here?

I really like house music. Like, it's like a good vocal, a good beat I can dance to, especially if it's like outside in a beautiful place. I'm like, I'm outside dancing to happy music. I mean, throw in disco if you want, like disco is great. Disco, you know, gave birth to house music, but like, yeah, just like happy music you can dance to outside like all day, all night, like that it's a great way to release because yes, like the work that. You're engaged in the work that probably everyone who's listening to this is engaged in can be really heavy, and so yeah, I think it's also important to like find ways to just like, enjoy life, have some fun.

OK, so we're going to go to a party with Chase. That's what I heard. Um, come on, let's do it.

Yeah, that sounds awesome. There's one in San Francisco called Outside Lands that I'm gonna go to later this summer, so come to Outside Lands. It's in Golden Gate Park. I've never been, but I love Golden Gate Park. So that's very cool. So there you go.

That's great, and it's, I hate to say we're running out of time because it's been really, really fun, but before we let you go, is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

I mean, I would just say, well, I guess I should plug the YouTube channel, like it's at Chase Cain, C A I N, so go to YouTube and subscribe. If you want to reach out to me, it's chasecain.com, you can get in touch with me there.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate even just clicking subscribe doesn't cost anyone anything because the idea is that I build this channel to talk about things that I think are important and impactful to all of us. Hopefully to give people some like tools or ideas or a fresh perspective, or if nothing else, better understanding.

And of course, I want that to grow, to be at a place where like I can truly support myself doing that, but then the longer term goal is that if this Really works. I see this world where I'm covering my cost to live because we all know it's expensive just to be alive right now, um, but beyond that, like, I hope and think that there's gonna be a lot more that's coming in and then I can redirect that toward environmental nonprofits that are on the ground doing the work that, you know, there can be a, hey, here's a $10,000 check to go, you know, plant some more trees, or here's this thing for beach cleanup, like. I want this to eventually be a thing that's not just about like, OK, well, Chase is paying his bills on YouTube. No, like I wanna share that wealth and help support the organizations and the people who are doing really important work.

Yeah, that's great. I love it. Thank you so much for being on. This was a pleasure.

This was great, thank you so much.

That's our show. Thank you, Chase, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review.

Bye. See you, everybody.