>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives, I'm David Dumke.

We hear a lot about climate change and today's guest, Dr. Thomas Crisman will talk to us about how to adapt to climate change and some of the challenges facing the Caribbean, Florida and the rest of the world.

Welcome to the show, Tom.

>>Thank you very much.

>>So, Tom, you've been writing a lot lately on the water, energy, food nexus and how it applies to the Caribbean region.

>>That's correct.

Can you explain a little about what your what you've been working on?

>>The - we're trying to figure out in the 1990s, they came up with the idea that the three factors are controlling sustainability, and those factors are water, energy and food.

And together that becomes WEF.

So it's like a three-legged stool that if you can you can get a little bit of imbalance and you can adjust that but they can also three-legged stools can break very easily.

And so we've looked at the Caribbean and trying to figure out what are the factors on ten of the Caribbean islands.

And then we also did a study of Puerto Rico to figure out what are the factors and are they sustainable now and will they be sustainable into the future as climate change and population growth?

>>So what have you seen in terms of the trend trends?

Where are things today as compared to ten years ago or where they could be in ten years?

>>We found out the frightening thing is that most of the Caribbean islands are not sustainable with water.

They're not sustainable with food and they're not sustainable with energy.

And you think they're completely an importing society and and they are.

Historically, they're dictated.

Their economies are dictated by exports.

Now it's changing.

So it's moving to tourism.

And so there's a difference of exporting material versus importing tourists is that the tourists use a heck of a lot of energy.

They use a lot of water.

And what kind of pressure does that put on these islands is the question.

>>So tourism has been seen in some developing nations as you know, a magic bullet to economic development and growth.

But you're saying that there's problems with sustainability of tourism right now?

>>Yeah, we found that, first of all, the population on many of these islands doubles during the tourist season.

The resources don't double.

And so you have no resources.

And so there has to be a partnership developed in which tourism actually feeds back into the nexus by adding water, treating their own sewage, water re-use, food and so on.

You can get more money from tourism, but then if you get more money, you also have higher expectations of use of resources.

>>So you have worked all over the world and done research all over the world, and you've been looking at nature based solutions.

>>That's correct.

>>So when we apply this to the region, we're talking about what are some of the nature based solutions that are that are being used and some that are that should be used that are not.

>>Okay.

Well, first of all, we start out by saying that here in Orlando, not about five miles from where we sit right now is Orlando Wilderness Park, which is actually where Orlando polishes off much of their treated wastewater.

And it is for multiple years.

So you're you're saying, okay, you can't throw away the water.

The water is then treated by nature.

Wetlands do not have a life.

Life span.

They were there.

They're good forever and engineered solution to be 30 to 50 years.

And so in the Caribbean, with sea level rise, the populations are on the coast and we're really concerned about where would you put the engineering solutions because you're going to have to keep retreating.

So we did a study of these ten islands again to figure out, are there sufficient places where of land right now that's not being used that could be put into wastewater treatment via nature, via wetlands.

And yeah, so we can we have the ability to treat the water, but can we add that water back into the supply?

And we found out it doesn't really add much.

But you are treating the water.

It's not going to be on the reefs.

It's not going to be in the Caribbean.

So this is critical.

>>So you also mentioned governance is a big part of these decision making is whether you choose nature based solutions or sustainability or different economic development plans ultimately comes down to an ability not only to make a policy decision, but to implement it fully.

So so what are some of the shortcomings you've seen in the governance area in this this region?

>>Puerto Rico is a fine example where nothing seems to get done.

You have money coming in, but you're not coming up with solutions.

Governance throughout the Caribbean is is is a total failure in terms of implementation and accepting that they want to do the quick solutions.

They want big bucks to come in, but that that's really not where it's going.

Interestingly, we have compared the Middle East and North Africa, the same situation there with water and such, and we find that those countries have also failed and they're not meeting their food demands.

They're not meeting their water demands, and governance is not responsive.

So the sad thing is that you hate to be a gloom spreader, but the reality is that coming down the pike very quickly, we have failed nations where nations just collapse.

And if you think about them, Somalia, Syria, Jordan's next and it keeps coming.

These are where you now have internal strife because water security, water insecurity, rather, is going to breed populist discontent, which is going to lead to government collapse.

And that's what we're seeing and that's what our biggest fear in the Caribbean is.

Each island is an individual.

There's not one model that's going to fit all of these islands, and you have big ones, small ones, mountainous flat.

So some have more problems than others.

But it's it's a very serious problem that unfortunately, it's it's not going to go away.

And with hurricanes coming in and causing major damage, I think we're in we're in big trouble in the Caribbean.

>>You've also done a lot of work in Florida.

And I know we you know, we're talking about small island developing nations, but what are the similarities you see to the name in the neighborhood for Florida that that could be applied here?

>>Being from Tampa, our problem arises that we're running out of water.

We have to get into water reuse.

The county government has just nixed that as a possibility.

And Zephyrhills, just north of Tampa, where they have a bottling plant for for spring water, has now put a moratorium on all development for fear of harming the the the aquifer.

Well, what is the role of the business sector in this management?

You've got to have in the case of Zephyrhills, they make money by the bottling plant.

So they're trying to stop development.

You can't pit one against the other.

You have to be able to use technology.

And Florida has a great deal of experience for 30, 40 years now of using nature based solutions for dealing with dealing with changes in climate and dealing with huge populations.

So we have a great experience here, but it's going to be very iffy as to how it's going to hit.

Florida is divided into about six climate zones from the north, temperate and in the far north down to the tropics, and that tropical line is moving north.

And I think what we have to do is to say climate change, stress on resources.

These things are not going to go away.

We're not going to solve the problem.

But how do we adjust to it?

So adaptive management is the key to living in Florida, and it has to be developed for each individual zone within the state.

So one one fix doesn't fit all and that our concern is that that governments like to have one fix and that that will apply to the whole state.

Well, it doesn't.

>>You you're you're talking about, you know, all these different climate change and adaptation as is is an important as the important ingredient because the bigger issue of climate change and what goes into that, there's a lot of different components, there's a lot of different reasons for that.

But on the adaptation side, who is adapting successfully and who isn't?

And is it is it just human nature to be stubborn about things?

We've always grown oranges, for example, so we have to stick with that particular crop, for example, instead of shifting to other things that may make more sense with the different climate.

>>Oranges are a prime example.

When I first moved to Florida 50 years ago to move to Gainesville, oranges were growing outside of Gainesville, and the Orange line has moved south.

And so the peak of orange production is now around Lake Okeechobee here in central Orange County for a reason.

It's gone now with climate change.

As the tropics move north and Florida, you now you have the possibility of a reintroduction of oranges into the historical range where they were, but climate took them out.

People don't like change, but I find that governments and people are going to respond to three main factors.

Does it affect my health?

Does it affect my income?

Does it affect my property?

And if you have, climate change is going to affect all of those.

Punta Gorda is a prime example.

So if we have those things under consideration, then people will begin to say we want change.

We are.

We want it now.

And the expectation of people is if we address a problem and we come up with a solution, then we want the answers tomorrow.

We want change tomorrow.

It's not going to happen that way.

There's a lag time between when you do something and when you're going to get the response of the ecosystem, either human or natural ecosystem.

>>You've also, though, when when you've given talks on agriculture, for example, you are also talking about introducing new crops entirely to Florida agriculture process.

Would that be difficult to do or is it again, is this a function of human stubbornness or is this just a reluctance to experiment?

>>I think it's first of all, what do we do with sugar cane?

You know, areas that are in sugar cane could be in bananas, they could be in plantains, they could be in papayas.

We don't have to import those things, things, commodities that are fragile and have short life on the shelf.

You can grow them here and move them very quickly.

Tampa has just built a new banana port, so you're importing them from Costa Rica.

Why don't you grow them here?

So I think that you the counties have to look at what is their tax base.

How is that tax base going to change with a with an increasing population and with decreasing resources?

And how do you adapt to it?

It's not you can't go to the state level.

That's that just that just won't work from something from the Panhandle to Miami.

>>How have demographics affected the climate change and sustainable, sustainability issues you're talking about either in Florida or in the greater area of the... >>Well, demographics are you have to look at the current population, influx of population.

We're still a thousand a day moving in.

We have an immigration on top of that.

We have people that are coming down not just for short business, but they're moving down and they're they expect to have high resource use.

How to educate people on effective cutting down and adapting to the potential.

I find it very interesting.

My light bill went up 50% last month compared to the year before.

And I'm talking to people over here and they're saying the same thing.

We if it gets hotter, if it gets wetter or drier, we how do we adapt on fixed incomes to be able to live in this zone of hotter, drier?

But some parts of Florida are going to be wetter.

And I think that it's going to that's a big challenge right now.

>>So what is the answer to that question?

>>Move to Virginia.

The the answer to that question is education is trying to meet the needs of all levels of society.

The ones that are falling behind are going to be the very poor because they're going to take a chance on where they live because they don't have insurance.

They can't afford insurance.

And so we're seeing in Lee County, for example, a lot of of poor people are moving into very marginal environments and it only spells disaster.

>>So disaster, of course, is not just hit Florida, but but but the region as well.

You know, hurricane season is coming up.

How has that played in you've seen you've seen an increase, as I understand it, tempo of extreme weather events.

>>Right.

>>How is that affecting sustainability and adaptation plans?

>>We have two factors going on.

One is what's happening with the sea level.

And I'm not so concerned about sea level rise as I look as I am about the flatness of Florida.

So storm surge can come in and extend farther.

So the higher the sea, the greater the potential for more surges coming in.

So that's one thing.

The other thing has to do with the trajectory and a generation of hurricanes.

Historically, we go through what's called the Cape Verde season, where they're coming off of the west coast of Africa at the line between the Sahara Desert.

It's called the Sahel.

It's a transition zone into into forest in West Africa.

That's where they generate they come across.

And this is we've had they got four, I think, right now that that we're looking at.

But the problem that we're having with that is with as the desert expands south, that line moves south.

And so when the hurricanes come off, we're seeing a lower trajectory as they come across the Atlantic.

So this year, we've had three or four that have just come straight across into the Caribbean and out through Central America, rather than curving up, getting in the Gulf and the potential for playing havoc with Florida in general.

So that's what we're concerned about, is and the intensity.

Are they going to get more intense or are they going to get more frequent?

We have more questions with sustainability and climate change than we do answers.

And at this point, you have to keep an open mind and be willing to adapt to whatever is coming down.

Don't point fingers and say it's your fault.

No, it's your fault.

No, it doesn't exist.

It exists.

And just how do we get together and adapt to it?

>>You've been focused on water much of your career.

Yes.

So where are you seeing the biggest problems with water security right now.

>>In Florida or the world?

>>World.

>>The biggest problems?

Caribbean, North Africa and the Middle East.

These are the biggest problems.

And then Africa itself as the Sahel moves south.

We're getting less and less water for being able to be used.

>>Are these questions of management or are they based on climate change or a combination there?

>>One thing that is emerging from our years of working on this is that the resource, the people are really adaptable.

They will find a way in Puerto Rico and when they got hit by the hurricane and their water supply went out, they found water.

So if you give them the opportunity, the people will adapt.

The resource, if the resource isn't going to be there.

So there are places that we have to abandoned in Syria, for example, areas that were abandoned, agricultural areas that were abandoned as a result of a bit of an extended drought and people move to Damascus and Aleppo.

We find that now they want to go back.

But the satellite images, images are quite clear in saying you're not going back because it's blown away.

It's like the Dust Bowl.

It's going to happen all around the world.

So I'm I'm I hate to be a pessimist, but I think being a realist is is critical on how we're going to deal with this.

>>Now, you're known for using a quote, that Mark Twain used about water.

>>Yeah.

>>And I want to ask you, you know, we've heard a lot over the years about warning about there are wars over resources and particularly over water.

Have we had wars over water?

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

>>And what's the quote too?

>>The quote is the whiskey is for for drinking water is for fighting.

He was very pathetic, prophetic.

We we have to identify where are the the hubs of water generation for the world.

And they're very clear.

The Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes.

They're all mountains and they all have glaciers on top of them.

And those glaciers are disappearing.

So your actual source of water is is gone.

Have we had problems?

Yeah.

In Bolivia you had an insurrection not too long ago that that people are extremely upset because they don't have any water.

And who gets the water first?

The rich people in the city.

Who gets it last?

The people that are living in the mountains.

The Alps, the Rhine this summer became impassable because of low water.

The Alps, Switzerland, in particular.

Switzerland feeds the Rhine and the Rhone and the Danube.

So anything that affects Switzerland is going to affect all of Europe.

In the case of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has been at odds with Iran for years.

And when the Taliban came in the first time, they shut off the water to Iran and it almost caused a war.

Now they've been.

There have been clashes between the Taliban and the in the Iranian government because Afghanistan is building a huge canal to keep the water in the country.

So these are these are very dangerous places to be.

The Mekong River is just now, I think, 20, 20 some dams capturing every bit of water that comes up.

But now there's no water coming off.

So we're we're in a situation that you have to put your resources where the water comes from, but also what is an equitable distribution water.

The UN was very clear about it.

Water is a basic human right.

And we've got to get to a point of recognizing that you cannot have people without water.

>>When you're talking about some of the examples you just cited, though, when you're talking about dam major dam projects, those are also addressing other critical needs like energy security.

>>Which is part of the WEF.

>>Exactly.

And food security.

>>Right.

>>So you need you want to retain agriculture there.

You need water to grow things.

>>Right.

>>And if it hurts the neighbor, then so be it.

>>Right.

>>So how can you get solutions or is it you know, this is you're talking about countries making decisions that are.

Well, the hell with our neighbors.

But we need to protect our own WEF.

>>Yep.

>>Nexus.

>>Right.

>>And even if its an expense to the others, do you see an increasing frequency of that, or do you see?

>>Yes.

It's my water.

I own it.

And there's a difference.

Even in this country, there's a difference in water rights.

If you go west of the Mississippi, you own the water under you east of the Mississippi, you don't own the water under you.

And we have to and it goes back to the whole West Bank, Israel, Palestine question.

For a long time, the Palestinians were not allowed to drill wells.

The Israelis drilled drilled wells along the edge, but slanted them under Palestine, the West Bank.

So these are critical issues.

Where are you going to find additional water?

You're going to have to you've got to get into water reuse Orlando.

You're in trouble.

Where do you get your water?

It's one of the few places where historically you got your water from surface water out of the river.

With global change, it's sea level rise.

You have to keep in mind that the St John's River was a drowned estuary.

It was.

It was saline until the water came up after the last glacier.

What's happening, though, is as the water continues to come up, salt water is moving south in the Saint John's River.

That's part of your water supply.

And so with with planned new development here, with a new city being proposed, you've got to find additional sources of water.

The traditional sources just don't work.

And a lot of that has to go back to the individual household collection of water systems, reuse of water from within your waste if you have not toilet water, but if you have water from sinks and washing, that water can be used to have a rooftop garden.

To these, again, designing with nature where you are using that water and not let it get away.

Like it or not, let it drop, get wasted.

30% of the over 30% of the food of Mexico City is generated by people growing on top of their houses.

That's a lot of water.

Mexico City doesn't have a lot of water, so they are very much into conserving every bit.

They have.

>>When you're talking about local solutions to these, but clearly there's decisions that need to be made at every level.

What do you think needs to be done to encourage these kinds of decision making?

We were talking earlier about the the COP meetings.

The COP 27 was in Egypt last year.

These are the global climate summits.

Are these valuable or are they just more sessions where we're airing grievances and identifying issues but not addressing solutions?

>>There again, I'm maybe I'm a pessimist.

I think there are there are a lot of posturing.

It's an opportunity to posture, to promise, but they're not coming through.

And I think the proof is in the pudding.

What do we see?

Major changes?

Not really.

I'm I'm hopeful that they'll finally get their act together, but I don't see much.

>>So I want to try to spin this in a positive light at the end.

Even though we're talking in such very grave and issues of great, great, great importance here.

So tell us a few solutions.

I know you've you've talked to to Florida groups about climate change adaptation.

What are some of the easy wins?

>>Don't flush it.

If it's yellow, let it mellow.

It is.

You can quote me on that.

That's not my quote.

But during the night, flush the toilet in the morning, reduce the volume that you're flushing, reduce the time that you're taking a shower.

You don't need to go in and and sing sing opera in the shower, go in, wash, get it done.

These are very simple things.

We, for example, water that we're using in the house, we use for watering the plants.

If you have a sink full of water, use it.

Use it for something else.

It's a matter of reuse.

Wise use and in Florida recognized that we have a wet season and a dry season and we our population here in central Florida it swells during the dry season in winter.

That's when the people come.

People who want to use more water.

So and the same in the Caribbean, you're putting your got to somehow become a partner with the business community.

The business community will come up with solutions.

And I have more faith in the business community than I do in government because they will they see a profit in it and government will not act.

>>So you're you're also talking about this business decisions that are that are not necessarily great decisions, but small ones, how to retrofit buildings, for example.

>>That's right.

Solar and things of that nature, right?

>>Yeah.

These all have to go hand in glove to come up with a sustainable and a sustainable solution for global change.

It's so multifaceted that one person or one group cannot address all the issues and the solutions.

And you you want to reach that next generation.

They're the ones that are going to tell us, don't waste, don't waste, because we're not going to have it.

>>Dr.

Tom Crisman, thanks for joining us.

It's good to have you back on the show.

And we'll meet again soon.

>>Thank you very much, David.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.