#1259 - David Wallace-Wells

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Four, three, two, one, David. So, first of all, thanks for doing this.

David Wallace-Wells (0:15)

Oh, my pleasure, really excited.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

How much trouble are we in, legitimately?

David Wallace-Wells (0:19)

I mean, it's pretty bad already, and it's gonna get, I think, a lot, lot worse, so.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

It's not bad right now, right here. It's raining, it seems nice out.

David Wallace-Wells (0:27)

The hills are green. I mean, how long ago were the fires?

Right around the corner.

Joe Rogan (0:30)

I got evacuated. It was October.

David Wallace-Wells (0:32)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:32)

It was rough. But in all fairness, I've been evacuated three times over the past 20 years.

David Wallace-Wells (0:37)

Yeah, I know the fires, California's fires are kind of interesting in that they both seem like it's like the future of the apocalypse. They're here, but also it's so familiar from like decades of wildfires.

But you know, there are scientific estimates that say that they're gonna get, by the end of the century, 64 times worse.

Joe Rogan (0:54)

What?

David Wallace-Wells (0:55)

Yeah, I think that number's a little high, because that would mean more than half of California burning every year. But I mean, it's gonna get, yeah, it'll get crazy.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

And there's no way to avoid any of this wildfire stuff?

David Wallace-Wells (1:07)

Well, I mean, you know, if we don't raise the temperature of the planet, then...

Joe Rogan (1:12)

But is that the only thing that's causing wildfire? I mean, like, obviously, if the temperature raises, there's more brown, dry leaves and grass and stuff like that, but is...

David Wallace-Wells (1:22)

Yeah, no, there's a lot of preventative stuff you can do. I mean, not building in certain areas. Like, I mean, it used to be, you know, the Indians who lived here before the white people came did a lot of controlled burning. They, like, lived among fires, and I think that's, like, a probably more responsible way to be, but we've now built up the whole state so that there are all these homes that we don't want to burn. There are all these, you know, properties we don't want to burn. And when you, like, restrict the ability of natural wildfires to burn, that means that, like, more tinder gets built over time, and then, you know, at some point, some thing lights the match and it all burns.

So, I mean, you could do more controlled fire. You could take more aggressive action in terms of, you know, like, spraying foam and that kind of thing.

You could have a lot more firefighters. But I was just talking to a guy yesterday. I'm out here actually doing some reporting on wildfires, who was saying that no Santa Ana-powered wildfire has ever been stopped by firefighters. And he is, like, an environmental historian.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

Wow.

David Wallace-Wells (2:22)

It's like, you can hope that the winds redirect them, but, like, the action of firefighters is basically just spitting in the wind.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

So the action is not to stop, it's to kind of contain it.

David Wallace-Wells (2:30)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

As best they can.

David Wallace-Wells (2:32)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:32)

And minimize property damage.

David Wallace-Wells (2:34)

Yeah, but, you know, it's hard, because you have a lot more, it's a lot easier to do that when, you know, if the land was totally raw, you'd be like, oh, let's, we'll just, like, try to direct the fire in this direction. But if the land is, like, full of homes, you're like, well, we can't.

Joe Rogan (2:46)

Have you ever seen it live?

David Wallace-Wells (2:48)

Not a person, yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:51)

One time, we were filming Fear Factor, and we were way up on the five, like, probably, I would say, maybe 75 miles from here.

And for a full hour, driving about 50 miles an hour, there was fire on the right-hand side of the road for a full hour. I mean, like, Lord of the Rings, End of the World.

Like, you're waiting for Satan to come riding on a burning phoenix over the top of the hill. It was crazy. I've never seen anything like it in my life. That was the worst one I've ever seen. But I think that was just because of placement. I think that this past one was actually worse in terms of physical damage and size. It's just, I didn't see it the way I saw this one.

David Wallace-Wells (3:38)

Well, last year, there were flames like hopping over the 405, right? I mean, and that's really like crazy to me because I'm a New Yorker, I've lived my whole life in New York, and I just feel in my bones, I now know it's sort of not true, but my inner emotional perspective on the world is that I live in a fortress, I don't live in nature. I walk down on concrete streets, I look up at steel buildings, nature can't come for me. But when you see fire straddling the 405, that's, this is a major metropolis here, and we're not safe. We're certainly not totally safe.