David Pogue and Wei-Tai Kwok: How to Prepare for Climate Change

You might not realize it, but we’re already living through the beginnings of climate chaos. In Arizona, laborers now start their day at 3 a.m., because it’s too hot to work past noon. Chinese investors are snapping up real estate in Canada. Millennials have evacuation plans. Moguls are building bunkers. Retirees in Miami are moving inland.

In How to Prepare for Climate Change, bestselling self-help author David Pogue offers deeply researched advice for how the rest of us should start to ready ourselves for the years ahead. Pogue will walk you through what to grow, what to eat, how to build, how to insure, where to invest, how to prepare your children and pets, and even where to consider relocating when the time comes. (He says two areas of the country, in particular, have the requisite cool temperatures, good hospitals, reliable access to water, and resilient infrastructure to serve as climate havens in the years ahead.) He also provides wise tips for managing your anxiety, as well as action plans for riding out every climate catastrophe, from superstorms and wildfires to ticks and epidemics.

Join Pogue and renewable energy expert Wei-Tai Kwok for a look at their practical ways to make smart choices for the upheaval ahead.

NOTES

SPEAKERS

David Pogue
Correspondent, "CBS Sunday Morning"; Author, How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos

Wei-Tai Kwok
Climate Leader, The Climate Reality Project

Ahmad Thomas
President & CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group—Moderator

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.

Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

[az]

Wei-Tai is a wonderful, grounding counterpart to the drama. Thanks for the common sense explanations of decisions you made to make a difference.
A real fire in most fire places typically suck more heat up the flu than it generates.

[greatpix]

It's scary to hear about the wild fires in Siberia. Why? Because Siberia has large areas of tundra that in the past has stayed frozen just under the surface, which has trapped vast amounts of methane, one of the worst of the greenhouse gasses. If the tundra warms up enough it will release millions of tons of methane into our atmosphere greatly speeding up global warming or as David said in the video, global weirdness.

[part-timeprepper]

I didn't hear a lot about how to adapt on a day to day basis. The suggestions mentioned were typical emergency preparedness tips. Does the book have more of the adaptation piece

[alanmcrae]

I am reading "How to Prepare for Climate Change" right now. There is plenty of good, actionable advice in this book. Obviously acquiring greener technologies that will improve your climate change resilience is going to cost some money.

Not all of our ancestors survived the Ice Age. Not all of us are going to survive this next global climate state change either. People who aren't taking this subject very seriously, given all the satellite & meteorological data plus the every day news reports from around the world, are like the passengers on the Titanic that simply went back into their staterooms and put towels under their doors just as they were told to do by "the authorities". Me, I'm with the smarter passengers who decided to cobble some things together that would float and focus on surviving the inevitable.

I could care less about the man's presentation style. It's the actionable facts and practical solutions that might help me & mine to survive 2.5C of global warming that I care about.

As far as ripping out all of the gas powered appliances, I like to have independent backup systems that would tide me over if there is a prolonged electric power outage. After Super Storm Sandy, grid power was out for 3 weeks at my parents' upscale suburban house. Their gasoline powered generator and a real wood fireplace saved the day. (Note that gas stations require electricity to pump gas - so that was a supply chain bottleneck from day one.)

It's not hard to contemplate failure scenarios and think up ways to work around them. Just remember that a temporary dirty solution that works is better than a clean state of the art solution that doesn't. You just need to get by until your local crisis event is over and everyone is pitching in to restore basic services.

[justgivemethetruth]

I was interested in this, but after listening it is clear that Pogue has too much money to burn - at least it did not give off CO2. "How To Prepare For Climate Change" should be re-titled "How Millionaires With Plenty Of Time And Money Can Prepare To Survive While Others Will Burn",

Also the comments about being stunningly good look and blonde show what a dufus Pogue is. Ugh, if I see another lecture of video from this guy again it will be too soon.