Wildfires, Floods and Extreme Heat: Why Climate Adaptation Matters
Kathryn Bakos is the Managing Director of Finance and Resilience at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, an applied research center within the faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
Our conversation today is all about the inevitable impacts of climate change, including floods, wildfires, and heat waves in particular, as these phenomena are Kathryn's main focus. We talk about the increasing severity of each of these, the preventative efforts that individuals and communities can each take to avoid their worst effects and how risk and insurance industries are navigating these perils. And lastly, we have a conversation about why adaptation measures have seemingly lagged behind decarbonization efforts in the public consciousness about climate change.
Episode recorded on Dec 2, 2024 (Published on Jan 6, 2025)
In this episode, we cover:
[0:00] Overview of the Intact Centre
[1:30] Canada’s climate vulnerability
[2:44] Kathryn’s career path
[4:00] Major risks: flooding, wildfires, heat waves
[9:59] Responses to flooding: individuals, communities, industries
[16:55] Updating flood maps and using AI
[26:07] Wildfire risks: actions for homes and communities
[34:53] Wildfire insurance and resilience challenges
[37:42] Balancing adaptation and mitigation
[41:28] Political will for adaptation measures
[45:50] Cost-effectiveness of adaptation
[46:41] Don River and Waterpark Project
[48:34] Innovation in resilience technologies
[51:58] Heat risks and urban solutions
[58:34] Final reflections on resilience efforts
Resources from Intact:
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Cody Simms (00:00:00):
Today on Inevitable. Our guest is Kathryn Bakos, managing Director of Finance and Resilience at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, which is an applied research center within the faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Our conversation today is all about the inevitable impacts of climate change, including floods, wildfires, and heat waves in particular, as these phenomena are Kathryn's main focus. We have a conversation about the increasing severity of each of these, the preventative efforts that individuals and communities can each take to avoid their worst effects and how risk and insurance industries are navigating these perils. And lastly, we have a conversation about why adaptation measures have seemingly lagged decarbonization efforts in the public consciousness about climate change. But before we start from MCJ, I'm Cody Simms, and this is Inevitable. Climate change is inevitable, it's already here, but so are the solutions shaping our future. Join us every week to learn from experts and entrepreneurs about the transition of energy and industry. Kathryn, welcome to the show.
Kathryn Bakos (00:01:30):
Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.
Cody Simms (00:01:32):
Kathryn, I'm excited to learn from you today all about the world of climate adaptation and resilience. Let's start at the top. What is the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation?
Kathryn Bakos (00:01:44):
The Intact Centre, we're an applied research center housed out of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. So, our team, we help homeowners communities, businesses and governments reduce risks associated with climate change and extreme weather events. So, we focus on what we can do to reduce risk of flooding wildfire and extreme heat.
Cody Simms (00:02:06):
Now, this may be a total misperception on my part, but I always thought Canada was like a climate refuge. That's where you're supposed to move to escape the worst impacts of climate change, but it sounds like maybe nowhere is actually a climate refuge at this point.
Kathryn Bakos (00:02:19):
We're seeing global events of extreme weather, devastating events, but Canada is no different and actually Canada's warming at two to three times the global average. So, we're going to continue to see these severe extreme weather events going forward.
Cody Simms (00:02:37):
And how did you come to focus on this? What was your path to getting into the role you're in today and spending this part of your career focused on this problem?
Kathryn Bakos (00:02:44):
Well, I'm actually a biologist, so I studied at the University of Toronto. I wanted to be a marine biologist and that's go to the heart of an urban centre to study marine biology. So, that was very smart of me, but U of T is a great school. So, I got my biology degree. I did research on invasive green crab species in coastal regions in Canada, specifically looking at how fishery communities were impacted by invasive species. That research surprisingly actually led me to Bay Street. So, I worked for an investment firm where I helped the investment team integrate environmental, social and governance factors into investment decision-making. And then that led me to the Intact Centre and the head of our Centre, Dr. Blair Feltmate. He always says, he's like, "I can find people who are in the sciences and I can find people in the finance sector, but I can't find both." And so I have a very interesting background in that sense. And my work specifically as the managing director of finance and resilience, how can we integrate the financial conversation with the resilience and climate change discussion?
Cody Simms (00:03:48):
From the perspective of Canada, what are the large resiliency issues that Canada is navigating as you undergo this significant temperature percentage change that you highlighted?
Kathryn Bakos (00:04:00):
Of course we know that flooding, wildfire, extreme heat, these are the big bucket issues. So, we know that flooding is Canada's most expensive and frequent climate hazard across Canada. So, you have communities who are impacted by riverine flooding, coastal flooding, which is being exacerbated by sea level rise. But really I say if you live anywhere that it rains, you are at risk of flooding. So, even these high precipitation events that are overwhelming storm water systems. So, communities across Canada are being impacted by flooding. We know that impact is then being translated. Right now 1.5 million homes or approximately 10% of the Canadian housing market is actually uninsurable due to flood risks.
(00:04:43):
So, you can't get home insurance in certain regions, you can't get flood insurance, not necessarily home insurance, you can't get flood insurance, you can still get home insurance. And mortgage providers you had Desjardins Group in February, they stopped offering mortgages in certain regions in Quebec because flood risk is so great. So, flooding is a very big issue. Wildfire, we know with climate change things are going to get drier and with these conditions, this is going to become more prone for wildfires. We saw last year, 2023, that was Canada's worst wildfire season on record, most land burnt and we obviously saw the air quality affecting most of North America. I'm sure you saw those devastating photos of Toronto and New York. It looked very apocalyptic.
Cody Simms (00:05:27):
I was in New York that week.
Kathryn Bakos (00:05:28):
Oh, no way.
Cody Simms (00:05:30):
It was very eye-opening.
Kathryn Bakos (00:05:31):
But it's interesting, you see this, then Toronto and New York are being impacted and then all of a sudden wildfires exist. But people who live in British Columbia and Alberta, I was very lucky to live in Alberta throughout COVID. And you walk outside and it that's the normal day. You think it's overcast and it's about to rain? No, that's just wildfire smoke in the air. So, your provinces, British Columbia, Alberta, they're prone to it, but the prairies, Northern Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic provinces, Nova Scotia, they're becoming even more prone to wildfires. And then obviously heat waves, we're going to see longer and more intense heat waves going forward, specifically in urban areas. So, urban areas experience what's called the urban heat island effect. So, this is where paved over spaces, that dark surface of the cement, it absorbs the heat from the sun and it actually contributes 10 to 15 degree higher temperatures than surrounding non-urban or rural areas.
(00:06:27):
Heat waves we know pose significant health risks to the elderly, pregnant women, people with pre-existing health conditions, those experiencing homelessness. We saw in British Columbia during the heat dome 619 people passed away. So, it's really all of these impacts are really driving the need for adaptation. And it's not just to say flooding, wildfires, extreme heat are our only risks. We're seeing ice and hail storms, hurricanes, tornadoes. I live in Ontario in Barrie, which is just north of Toronto. It's experiencing tornadoes like it's never experienced before. So, you're seeing these pockets of extreme weather risks across Canada.
Cody Simms (00:07:07):
It feels like here in the US the first wave of the risk industries dealing with this has largely been in the Gulf states around hurricanes because the disaster is so widespread when it happens. The devastation is so widespread when it happens. We just saw North Carolina obviously be dramatically impacted there with a flood event or the like. It feels more localized and maybe harder to predict that it's on its way. Is that the wrong way to think about it?
Kathryn Bakos (00:07:36):
Yes and no. So, there's obviously modeling that is being done and weather and climate are two different things. I think that's a really good place to start. So, weather is I look outside and it's raining, that's weather. When we talk about climate's a trend and we're noticing that this trend is increasing year over year and it's becoming more severe. So, it's a trend over time. And that's when we talk about climate change, that's what we're focused on. But when we look at weather or the weather that we're experiencing on a day-to-day basis, that is becoming more extreme. And you can look to extreme heat events. So, temperature changes. You could look at the city of Toronto or Montreal. So, Montreal currently experiences 10 to 13 what's considered hot days. And these are any days over 30 degrees. By 2050, 2060, they're going to be experiencing approximately 54 hot days that are over 30 degrees.
(00:08:35):
In Toronto our hottest temperatures reach 36, 37 degrees by 2050, 2060 that's going to be 42 to 43 degrees. So, it's not necessarily that we can predict out is this one going to be the big storm that's going to wash out, in Toronto, the Don Valley Parkway. We had almost a billion dollars worth of damage in one day because of a high precipitation event. But going forward, modeling is getting much better and we are having early warning systems to predict that these are the big storms that are coming, but we see the growing risk in the system. Wildfires, things are more dry, it's hotter. With warmer temperatures that leads to more lightning storms. Lightning storms are 50% of the cause of all wildfires. So, we can predict where the trend is going.
Cody Simms (00:09:23):
Let's break down the three big ones at least that you're navigating in Canada that you mentioned, flooding, wildfires, and heat waves and spend a little bit of time on each of those. And I guess one thing I'm curious about is the difference in adaptation work that individuals can or should be doing that communities can or should be doing. And then just how, I guess at that point the risk industries themselves may need to evolve and adapt as well. I don't know if those are the right three lenses to think about. That's how at least the problem hits my brain. So, maybe start with flooding.
Kathryn Bakos (00:09:59):
That's great because that's exactly where my mind went. Again, it's the costliest extreme weather event. So, what should an individual, a homeowner or a renter be doing? What should a community be doing? And then again, how are financial institutions and potentially the federal government supporting them throughout these different types of events? So, the good news, and we could go through costs, how events are going to trend upwards and become more severe, but there's actually, so there's a lot of negative news for Canada, the US globally, but the really good news specifically here in Canada is that we've actually done the research. We don't have to start from scratch. I always hear government officials saying, oh, we need another working group or we need to do more research. The point of the Intact Centre is we've done that research and we've been very lucky to work with the National Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Standards Association, the Standards Council of Canada, and basically for every one of our reports we've worked with 50 to 200 subject matter experts from across Canada.
(00:10:59):
The point of our research is what can we do that's practical, meaningful, and cost-effective for an individual or community to put into place to reduce risk? What we've recognized is all of our reports, these are 50 to a hundred-page reports. No one wants to read reports even if we make them really flashy and great images and everything like that. But what we've done is we've taken that information and we've distilled that information down into one page infographics. So, as an example, so if we're talking about flooding, what can I as a homeowner do inside or around my home to reduce the risk of flooding? So, we've actually developed what's called a home flood protection infographic. So, in three easy steps, any homeowner can perform these actions for limited cost and time. So, we've basically broken up the steps based on cost. So, what can I do for $0?
(00:11:48):
I can clean out my eavestroughs or sweep leaves away from sewer grates. And you might say what's sweeping leaves away from sewer grates? There was a major flood in a city nearby, it's called Guelph, Ontario. It was a $30 million flood and it wasn't because of climate change or extreme weather, it was just because people didn't sweep the leaves away and there was too much water in the system and it flooded homes out. For under $250 putting window well coverings and extending downspouts. For over $250 you're more technical where you probably have to have someone come into your home, sump pumps and backwater valves.
(00:12:21):
It stops water from coming in the home and it gets water out of the home or usually sewage water out of your home once there's water in the home. So, we have practical ways and resources to get information into homeowners hands. What we've recognized, and we've worked with cities and financial institutions across Canada, you have to hit or you have to provide individuals with the same information eight to 12 times for them to actually digest it. So, we need to continue to deploy these resources as quickly as possible.
Cody Simms (00:12:52):
I have a downspout that needs a longer tube. I can tell you that already.
Kathryn Bakos (00:12:57):
$30 from Home Depot. You can go and it's a very practical because what you want to do is you want to get the water away from the foundation of the home basically. We've done that for the level of the home, but we've also done at the level of existing communities, new community design. So, how should homes be built and retrofitted? Coastal communities, what measures should be put in? So, for a community that's already in place and it needs to be retrofitted, we deem that it's at high risk of flooding. We have to determine where there's risk in the system. So, we have a list and we know what to do at the level of the community. So, just as an example, flood risk maps across Canada, they're 20 to 25 years out of date. So, we have to bring those flood risk maps up to date to be able to say where is there risk in the system?
(00:13:46):
Now once we've determined where there's risk in the system, we need flood control systems and structures. We need dams, berms, diversion channels, cisterns, holding ponds. We need to complement that traditional gray infrastructure with green infrastructure, wetlands, grasslands and forested areas. So, in regards to flooding these natural spaces, they almost act as like sponges. They take water out of the system. We need to be looking at culverts. So, these are subterranean waterways that direct water around bridges and roads. What we're noticing with high precipitation events, these culverts are collapsing and it's leading to greater flood risks. They need to be rebuilt, they need to be rebuilt bigger and they need to be reinforced. We need emergency plans, emergency alert systems in place. We need to be providing information to homeowners and renters and what they can do. The good news is we know what to do, we have to put these actions in place.
Cody Simms (00:14:40):
I would assume you mentioned for the floodplains moving from concrete to more natural systems that could create more unpredictability in terms of how the waterways might move though, I guess hopefully good civil engineering landscape engineering can navigate that, but it seems like it would also have the benefit of refilling groundwater resources as opposed to just all the water flowing eventually out to the ocean. Would that be a side benefit there?
Kathryn Bakos (00:15:06):
Yeah, so again, the best thing to do in regards to natural infrastructure is just maintain what you have, keep what you have, stop ripping it up basically. So, it's in a good position, it's natural, leave it as naturalized as possible. It's when we're rebuilding or restoring what we've already lost that yes, of course there would have to be engineering that's involved in it. Where is it being placed and why? But just to put into perspective, even when we're building homes, so I say flood risk maps across Canada are 20 to 25 years out of date. This is where I really think something like AI could come in handy, because the moment that you build, whether I'm building a home or a highway or anything, the moment I build, I'm redirecting water and the flow dynamics of that water within that community. And so flood risk maps are up-to-date, but if we update them and they're static, then the moment we build, they're out of date again.
(00:15:58):
And so how can we utilize something like AI to be able to constantly be updating and then run it through simulations as well. To your point, where is the water going? How is it flowing? Where I live just outside of Toronto, we have Lake Ontario just to the south of the city and all the water that city angles down and it filters into the lake. The only problem when we had these high precipitation events are communities are built with sewage and rainwater running through the same piping systems. So, Toronto experienced a major flood event in July because it was a high precipitation event. We had a hundred millimeters of rainfall and basically the rainwater, it pushed sewage throughout the piping systems and it led to what's called combined sewer overflow. So, this is where sewage ends up on roadways in waterways and into people's homes. Again, how can we model for that and how can we put adaptation in place to build structures to prevent that from happening?
Cody Simms (00:16:55):
Combined sewer overflow is never a word do you want to hear.
Kathryn Bakos (00:16:59):
No.
Cody Simms (00:17:01):
But obviously terrible. So, you mentioned these floodplain maps are 25, 30 years out of date. I would assume that means they're out of date, both in terms of the frequency with which we are now seeing floods due to emissions level and climate change somewhat now being baked into where the world is headed over the next 30 to 50 years, but also out of date, as you mentioned from not just go forward construction, but all of the construction that's happened over the last 25, 30 years of development. And so how in the world then going maybe to my third bucket, which is how are risk industries evolving to navigate all of this? How do we properly ensure, let's just again, stick with flooding either a community or a specific property or specific parcel appropriately if all of our data about the flood risk of that location is potentially out of date.
Kathryn Bakos (00:17:57):
So, I think there's two things. So, when I say flood risk maps, I mean publicly available flood risk maps. So, I could go to the city that I live in and I could say, please provide me with flood risk maps. I want to buy a home in this region. Where are the floodplain maps? That's what I mean as they're out of date. Now there's different, and again, on average, so the province that I live in Ontario, we have what's called a conservation authorities and we have over 20 of them across Ontario. And one of their main mandates is to ensure flood risk mapping is up-to-date. So, Ontario is actually in a very good position because we have conservation authorities. The rest of Canada, it used to be a federal initiative, then it went to the provinces and now it's with the municipalities and obviously budgeting and things like that.
(00:18:41):
That's why they're so out of date. The problem with the publicly available flood risk maps is, and what I try to advocate for, is they just identify where the floodplains are. So, you live near a river and you're at risk of flooding. It doesn't include this forecasting of high precipitation events that, oh, you're actually in a low-lying area. You are more at risk due to a precipitation event, but you're not near a body of water. Plus the flood risk maps they need to layer, are there structures in place? Are you a low-lying area, but you've actually put adaptation measures in place and you're at a lower risk and maybe a community that's higher elevated and doesn't have flood risk measures in place? And so we need to be mapping it based on what are the floodplains, what measures have been put into place and actually what are our most vulnerable communities?
(00:19:32):
So, looking at socioeconomic demographics and being like these are our very vulnerable communities, that's publicly available flood risk maps, when we look at the risk industry, whether you're an insurance company, a bank, a credit union, you're going to have your own proprietary information. So, I'm assuming they have very good flood risk maps up to date, and that's their own proprietary information. That's how they're analyzing and gauging their own risks. For insurance companies there's over 160 insurance companies in Canada. I don't speak for anyone, so each one is going to do their own risk analysis, but that's how you get an edge in business is being able to understand the risk and then price it better in the system.
Cody Simms (00:20:15):
The risk industry today navigate flooding. Is it something that's typically included in a standard policy or is getting coverage for flooding typically something that somebody has to sign up for independently?
Kathryn Bakos (00:20:28):
So, you can have different types of flood risks. You can have your dishwasher or your washing machine overflow, and that's technically water in the home. And then you could live near a water body and that could flow into the home. So, insurance companies in Canada, they do tend to cover for insurance in regards to flood risk, but again, there might be a cap on that limit. So, I'm only going to cover, like for my personal home insurance, I have a $15,000 basement flood limit, but the average cost of a flooded basement in Canada is $54,000. So, let's just make the math easy. Let's say it's $10,000, that's $44,000 that I'd have to be on the line for individually. So, that's what we call insurable versus uninsurable losses. So, insurable is what my insurance is going to cover. Uninsurable is what I have to pay out of pocket for. And the rule of thumb in Canada is for every dollar of insurable loss, there's three to $4 of uninsurable loss that a homeowner, community, government or business will have to pay out of pocket for.
Cody Simms (00:21:33):
I'm sure homeowners are one thing. There are other big industries like agriculture or whatnot that potentially could have devastating economic loss in the event of a flood if their years crop was ruined for example.
Kathryn Bakos (00:21:47):
And again, I just was traveling overseas, so I was speaking with some regulators in Zambia, Africa actually I was in the Sock of Zambia and we're talking about climate change and how should they be incorporating this into decision making. Literally their people are starving, their agricultural sector is being greatly impacted. And that wasn't to sound indelicate, but their people are dying because they're going through massive drought. In Zambia, not to talk about the Zambian marketplace, I was just there. But 90% of their electricity comes from hydroelectricity generation. So, you notice multiple power outages throughout the day and you have 11 million people who are currently food insecure. So, they're obviously a very vulnerable and developing nation, but that very easily could happen in North America as well.
Cody Simms (00:22:37):
That's terrible. And thank you for highlighting. And it's a good reminder too that in some cases we talked about flooding. It's the act of too much water showing up and in other cases, drought the act of not enough water. And really I think it just paints the picture that with continued climate change, it's more a matter of increased instability. The world that we have relied on to some extent is and based a lot of modern civilization on is changing underneath us and our systems are still trying to navigate what that means for everybody.
Kathryn Bakos (00:23:09):
You're completely correct and it's that instability in that what is going to happen in the future, but we actually have very good indication. I can't tell you tomorrow what's going to happen, but I can tell you over the longer term period things are going to get hotter and wetter. When things get hotter, you're going to have drying out of natural spaces. So, again, you're going to experience your drought like events. This is going to create basically kindling for wildfires to be exacerbated. As I had mentioned earlier, with warmer temperatures, you have more lightning storms. Lightning storms are 50% of all causes of wildfire, but the other 50% is human caused, but the 50% caused by wildfires causes 80% of all of the damage.
(00:23:52):
With more air, you also have more moisture. So, with more moisture and more energy in the system, when water condenses and comes down in the form of precipitation, we end up with bigger storms with more water coming down over shorter periods of time. The energy that went into evaporating that water in the first place, it doesn't disappear, it stays in the system. So, we're noticing these, what are called like microbursts or water bomb storms where it's high amounts of precipitation falling. We noticed, I believe it was Hurricane Helene, it was 800 millimeters. This is why we saw homes literally being washed away. It was obviously exacerbated by the hurricane, but you had high amounts of precipitation falling over short amounts of time.
Cody Simms (00:24:36):
And in these places where if the default standard is higher temperatures, hotter climates, you're dealing with potentially a lot of the native landscape drying out, you have less root coverage potentially. So, you are thus when the water does come, it has the ability, I'm guessing, to be that much more dramatic in terms of what it does to the local landscape.
Kathryn Bakos (00:24:58):
You're completely correct and what we were talking about with natural infrastructure. So, in regards to flooding, having natural infrastructure as much as possible is really great because it's a natural absorbent, it's a natural sponge. The only problem is with these high precipitation events, what we notice is because we've removed so much natural infrastructure that the natural infrastructure that's there, what ends up happening is it becomes oversaturated and it can't take in any more water. And so it actually starts cooling or what we even notice is it's so oversaturated. This is where landslides and things of the can start being exacerbated by these types of events.
Cody Simms (00:25:34):
All right, let's shift over to wildfires since you brought it up. Let's take that same rubric of what can an individual do, what can a community do and how is the overall risk system navigating it? And it seems to me with wildfires, one of the unique things about what can an individual do is that it really ties into what a community do because with wildfires you get structure to structure spreading. Embers may hit one house and then may cause a fire that spreads over to the next house. So, the more you do potentially can also help protect your neighbor.
Kathryn Bakos (00:26:07):
Of course. Exactly. And I keep on mentioning the reports that we've done, and I'm going to reference again some of these infographics that we've distilled down. So, please, for any of your listeners-
Cody Simms (00:26:17):
That's great. Also tell people where to go to find them.
Kathryn Bakos (00:26:19):
So, please check out the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation website. We have all of our climate ready infographics and reports and resources freely available. Everything's free, our structure at the Intact Centre, we don't want money, just use our resources, please download them, share with friends, share on social media. Again, we're trying to work with cities and communities and financial institutions to get this information out. But yes, please anyone go to our website, download them. They're freely available and they look really cool too. We've worked with a great graphic designer and they're really great infographics in particular. And so in regards to wildfire, we do have two infographics. So, we've worked with FireSmart Canada, so they are the wildfire experts across Canada, and we've developed these practical resources to reduce the risk of wildfire at the level of the home and community. So, very similar what I had mentioned to our home flood protection infographic.
(00:27:10):
We've broken up in three easy steps what a homeowner can do around their home to reduce risk of wildfire. Now, flooding and wildfire, there are two very different risks. Usually, and this is in Canada, when we're dealing with flooding from an insurable perspective, it's usually a flooded basement. There's on average $54,000 is a flooded basement. When you deal with wildfire risk, you tend to deal with complete loss of home. So, the home will completely burn down. So, it's a very different risk, therefore there's different costs associated. So, in regards to our wildfire protection infographic, the three easy steps broken up based on costs. So, zero to $300, 300 to 3,000 and 3,000 to 30,000. 30,000, that's when you start getting into the metal roof situation. And you don't actually need a metal roof. What you need is what's called class a fire-resistant siding and roofing.
(00:28:05):
So, basically it looks like and is the same cost approximately of asphalt shingles. And so homes should be built and retrofitted within the wildland urban interface. So, this is where wildland vegetation meets human settlements. Any homes in those locations should be retrofitted or built with class A fire-resistant siding. Of all the actions, class A fire-resistant siding and moving combustible material, trees, bushes, and firewood 10 meters from the home. Those two actions alone will help reduce the home burning down by 70%. And to your point, homes, it's the close vicinity, if your neighbor is on fire, you potentially could light on fire as well, but it's actually mostly the embers that travel very long distances and land on people's homes and the roof will ignite and then the home ignites. So, being able to reduce that class A fire-resistant siding. But how do we couple that and at the level of the community?
Cody Simms (00:29:04):
Before you go there, no, that's okay. With flooding, you had mentioned, hey, one of the things you could do that's basically free is clear the leaves out of your flood grates, which presumably would be the thing you would do when you know it's about to storm and it's, oh, I'm going to go walk out in the backyard and I'm going to spend 10 minutes doing this and help my home be in better position as the storm hits. With a wildfire as well you obviously don't get a ton of notice, but if you know there is a fire in your vicinity, are there things you should do to your home before you say evacuate or whatever you may have to do?
Kathryn Bakos (00:29:35):
So, of course there are things, and one of those zero-cost initiatives is of course cleaning out your eavestrough. Again, if you don't have class A fires resistant siding and a wildfire is at your doorstep, basically you're at the point of we need to evacuate and get out of harm's way as quickly as possible.
Cody Simms (00:29:53):
I'm even think things like clearing pine needles off your roof and just basic maintenance stuff that people maybe forget to do but can help.
Kathryn Bakos (00:30:00):
But what we always say is yes, it's that proactive maintenance weeks and months before. So, that constant maintenance, but really these measures need to be put into place months before like moving your bushes. And everyone wants a really nice looking garden. I get that. I lived in Canmore Alberta and it's a beautiful place, but you walk around all the different homes and you're like, there are bushes right up to people's homes. Again, simple actions, moving firewood, making sure your firewood isn't right beside your house, that it's 10 meters from the home. You're right, there are proactive measures, but to be very honest, if I see a wildfire in the distance, I'm not getting up on my roof and cleaning out my pine needles.
(00:30:40):
I'm getting my family in my car and I'm evacuating. Sadly, when the Jasper wildfire happened this summer, our friends who live in Canmore, we were writing them like, are you guys okay? Because the wildfires were obviously moving very quickly and they said, we're ready to move. We're not waiting for ... when we feel like we need to go, we're ready and we're packed to go. It's very sad and it's a different risk in the system when you're dealing with wildfire.
Cody Simms (00:31:04):
For sure. Yeah, I had a friend who lost their home in the Malibu fires a few years ago and it's terrible. Okay, you're moving on, I think to the more kind of community-oriented things that people can do.
Kathryn Bakos (00:31:15):
So, to your point early on, how are we building homes? We need to be building homes further apart because if home A burns down, we want to make sure it doesn't jump to home B. how are we building our communities in these wildfire-prone areas? We need to be looking at firewood. But again, every home, the class A fire resistant siding and roofing, it's basically the same cost to build normal. So, why are we not building resilience? So, that needs to be incorporated into building design. At the community level themselves. Fire breaks. So, a thirty-meter gap between the urban area and the wildland interface that we're interacting with. So, paving over or mowing lawn, basically very short in between. So, creating a break between the forest and the urban center is incredibly important. Again, are we mowing it, paving it over? Are we putting in a water [inaudible 00:32:14]?
(00:32:14):
Are we putting in a pond as an example to make sure the fire doesn't jump into that community? We need to be looking at our transmission and distribution lines. One of the main fires, P-A-N-G fire in California was caused by something that's called arcing. It's where trees fell onto the T&D lines and it ignited a fire. We need to make sure that tree branches are cut within five meters of T&D lines. So, there's practical things that can be done within communities, but again, is there expertise, are there resources? And do we really know what to do? We do know what to do, but we have to put those measures in place.
Yin Lu (00:32:53):
Hey everyone, I'm Yin a partner at MCJ here to take a quick minute to tell you about the MCJ collective membership. Globally, startups are rewriting industries to be cleaner, more profitable and more secure. And at MCJ, we recognize that a rapidly changing business landscape requires a workforce that can adapt. MCJ Collective is a vetted member network for tech and industry leaders who are building, working for or advising on solutions that can address the transition of energy and industry. MCJ Collective connects members with one another with MCJ's portfolio and our broader network. We do this through a powerful member hub, family introductions, curated events, and a unique talent matchmaking system and opportunities to learn from peers and podcast guests. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. If you want to learn more, head over to mcj.vc and click the membership tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (00:33:54):
Moving on to how are the risk industries dealing with this? I know in California, for example, where I live, we're getting to the point where entire zip codes are getting dropped from homeowners coverage because of wildfire risk. And it feels like it's really terrible if you as an individual have done all the right work, you've spent $30,000 plus redoing your roof or whatever, but because your community is in a "bad place", you get dropped anyway. That's very painful and it doesn't seem like today you get individual credit for the work you do if your community is in a high risk zone. It feels like people getting involved to push their communities to do the work that need to happen feels like step one to me. Of course, doing the low cost work, you can do yourself too, but if you're investing a ton of money into your own property in a very at-risk community, that could be a financially challenging thing for you potentially.
Kathryn Bakos (00:34:53):
Oh, and you're right, it cannot just be on the homeowners. It has to be the communities taking action as well. It's a spectrum. So, I think between insurability and uninsurability, there's a lot that we can do to ensure the insurability and stability of, let's just focus on the housing market as an example, people's homes, because that's most people's largest asset that they'll ever invest in and so to have in State Farm and Allstate in California, Louisiana, Florida saying they're no longer going to offer wildfire or flood insurance. And remember, these are two different risks. You can have a home insurance policy without flood insurance. I can have still insurance policy for theft, if the dishwasher overflows, just if my basement floods, that's not covered. But when we're dealing with wildfire risk, because it's such a different risk, if you take out fire insurance from a home insurance policy, you no longer have home insurance.
Cody Simms (00:35:49):
Will mortgage underwriters allow that?
Kathryn Bakos (00:35:51):
So, that's exactly it. So, if I can't get a home insurance policy, I cannot get a mortgage to be able ... So, technically is this now becoming a stranded asset? So, in Canada, those 1.5 million homes that are uninsurable for flood risk, those homes still have insurance in place for their homes. But what we noticed in Quebec this year, in February, Desjardin Group, they're no longer offering mortgages in high risk flood zones in certain regions in Quebec. If other mortgage providers follow suit, that potentially means that those homes are at risk of becoming stranded assets. So, like those homes in California that Allstate and State Farm have removed wildfire insurance, unless they can get wildfire insurance through another provider when they go to sell their home or renew their mortgage, they don't have insurance in place. Therefore, how do you maintain your mortgage in the system?
Cody Simms (00:36:44):
What are the solutions there? Where are we headed? Because it doesn't seem like this is getting naturally better.
Kathryn Bakos (00:36:50):
When we talk about climate change. It's such a political conversation because so much of the conversation is focused on mitigating against greenhouse gas emissions. And that's one part of the conversation because mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, that's going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change in the future. But adaptation resilience needs to be a much more important part of the climate change discussion. If we look at the media, if we look at COP, it's all focused on, again, this COP was different because it was focused on financing, especially developing countries, and they came to the agreement of $300 million on an annual basis to be giving to countries who are going to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. But again, I go back to there's a spectrum. There's a spectrum between insurability and uninsurability, and you're going to say, but okay, we know what a homeowner can do.
(00:37:42):
We know what communities can do, but the idea is, but they're not doing it. And so how do we engage that action? How do we engage homeowners and renters more to actually take action? How do we engage communities to understand what their risks are? So, I listed off all of those different things that a community can do. Flood risk mapping, flood control structures, burns, diversion, channel cisterns, holding ponds, natural infrastructure. All of those gray infrastructure solutions that potentially could upgrade a community. There's 3,500 municipalities across Canada. Each one's going to be at a different stage of what their budget is, what resources they have available, what expertise they have. Just as an example, at the Intact Centre, what we did was we recognized that there was a gap of knowledge. There's all these actions I can take, but what is the most practical step I should be taking?
(00:38:37):
And so we developed what's called a municipal flood checkup tool. So, any municipality, small, medium or large, they could take this assessment. It's basically a 50 question questionnaire, and it will basically determine how prepared are you, but also how at risk are you? And then based on that, it'll provide an output to say, this is potentially your next action that you should take. And so again, when I say we have the resources available, but we need to ensure that insurability and stability at the housing market, we need to take action.
(00:39:10):
We need to be providing property tax mail out notices. Why are we not giving homeowners every year, hey, this is what you can do around your home to reduce the risk of flooding? At the community level, why are we not creating fire breaks? We need to, again, support those actions and inform those decision-making. Subsidies, as an example, I'm a community and I want you to take an action. I'm going to offer you a subsidy. There's great subsidies offered across Canada, but do you know that subsidies are only 4 to 10% successful? Meaning that's the only uptake is 4 to 10%. So, how are we not advertising subsidies more and letting people know that they're available? So, there's a lot that can be done in the system, but we need to promote resilience more.
Cody Simms (00:39:55):
It strikes me that there are initiatives in other areas related to homeowners that we have done that I wonder how well they would work if applied to some of these resiliency measures around flooding wildfire. And we haven't talked about heat waves yet, but in particular, I think of two things. One, with a water conservation. I know where I live in Southern California, it's a big deal, and I get mailers all the time from my water utility on things I should be doing, benefits I could have if I changed my landscaping to X, Y or Z, I get the little report card of how am I doing in terms of water usage relative to my neighbors, et cetera. But the big one strikes me as being more how we have incentivized people to actually adopt clean energy resources in their home. In particular with the Inflation Reduction Act and all of these incentives that have now come to homeowners.
(00:40:51):
So, essentially carrots to do the right thing. Credits for putting up solar panels, credits for putting in a home battery, credits for switching to an electric heat pump, et cetera, that would come to the homeowner. And we've been doing incentives for years to install more efficient furnace or whatever it may be. And that doesn't seem like that really exists from a resiliency perspective. It's just a big old stick, which is if you don't do it, you're going to get dropped. And by the way, even if you do it but your neighbors don't do it, you're going to get dropped from a wildfire perspective. And so how do we get there? That takes a lot of political will, I think, to push those kinds of incentives to people potentially. I don't know.
Kathryn Bakos (00:41:28):
Exactly. The point of the change or extreme weather conversation is so heavily focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. I'd say 80%. Let's say it's gotten better. I used to say it was 90. Let's say it's 80% of the conversation is focused on clean energy, which again, is incredibly important. But at the end of the day, if we all don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this is going to continue to happen. But adaptation is at the local level. I can take action, my community can take action, and that will genuinely make a difference if my community is impacted by a flood or a wildfire. And so in a way, how do you make adaptation more sexy? And how is it something that people want to talk about? Because when the homes burn down, the politicians were there, were thinking about you, but why are we not putting resources into place before these big events happen?
(00:42:21):
And listen, I'm not saying that these measures are going to take a hundred percent of the risk out of the system, but it's basically going to take you from an 80 to a 30. And again, that's people's livelihoods, that's their homes. Again, insurance in place, but it's mental health and it's physical health. We did research at the Intact Centre for a community in Ontario where I live that was impacted by a major flood event, and 3,500 homes were flooded out. We went back three years after the flood event had happened and basically went door to door and we did the survey at the door. And this was funny because we actually thought it was going to be like 10 minutes at the door. People were so invested, it was like an hour and a half per house. People were inviting us in going into the basement.
(00:43:06):
Here's where the floods were. And what we determined was that homes that were impacted by flooding experience significantly higher stress and worry every time a precipitation event occurs. Meaning if three years after, if it rains, I'm going in my basement three or four times to make sure it's not flooding out. They took on average seven days off of work. So, we're seeing these implications and that's just a flooded basement. Imagine these poor people in the states where Hurricane Helene and Milton were, where their homes literally were washed away, or in California or Maui, where homes are being burned down based on statistics that I've seen. When it's a wildfire, you're out of your home for two years, you're out of pocket $60,000, and I can only imagine the mental health stress that's associated with that.
Cody Simms (00:43:54):
What I don't understand then is climate change is unfortunately a political issue. It shouldn't be. But there's, as we know, there's a lot of lobbying dollars in the system from fossil fuel industries and whatnot that have ultimately ended up creating a fairly political conversation about decarbonization. But on the resiliency and adaptation side, everybody wants their neighborhoods to be safer. Everyone wants their homes to be safer. Everyone wants to avoid flooding and wildfires. Why aren't politicians grabbing onto this and figuring out a way to get favor in their local communities by creating policies that help this to be less severe?
Kathryn Bakos (00:44:31):
I don't have an answer for you. I could say that I think it's because it's still under the umbrella of climate change potentially. Is it better for a politician to look like they're coming out and helping after an event has happened? I don't know what the socio-behavioral aspects of it are, so I don't really have an answer for you. But again, I think also what I hear often, at least what I hear in Canada is we need to put another working group. We need to do more research. The research that has been done, and there's great groups who've done amazing research. It's not just the Intact Centre, but obviously I represent the Intact Centre so I'm going to talk about the Intact Centre. We've done a lot of great work at the level of the home and community, flood, wildfire and extreme heat. We know what to do.
(00:45:17):
Is it a hundred percent of what you can do? Of course not. But say it's 75%, take what we have now. It's not to say stop doing research. I'm a researcher. I want to keep my job. I like my job. But if we don't start now, then I'd rather have 70% of something than a hundred percent of nothing. We can't come to perfection. We need to take what we have, put measures into place. Of course, we want to avoid what's called maladaptation, putting measures in place that are actually going to have negative consequences over the longer term period.
(00:45:50):
But again, with the research that's been done with the subject matter expertise, again, we know what to do, but there needs to be, you're right, there needs to be that will to do it. And these are billions of dollars of losses per year. You would think the financial incentive, the cost-effectiveness of adaptation is actually very appealing. We know that for every dollar you put into place for adaptation will save on average 3 to $8 over a 10-year period in cost avoidance. That's money you don't have to pay out over the longer term period. And as I'm saying that probably also part of it as a politician that maybe only has a four-year term, I don't reap the benefits of that law.
Cody Simms (00:46:30):
It's hard to say, I'm putting money into this thing so that something never happens that you wouldn't know would've happened that I can't take credit for. Such a paradox that we're stuck in it feels.
Kathryn Bakos (00:46:41):
Can I just give you one example though? And I think it's just such a great example. So, in Toronto, the city has put a measure in place. So, they're doing a major infrastructure project. It's the Don River and Central Waterfront Project. It was initially budgeted at $2.5 billion Canadian. It's now budgeted at 3.7 billion, and it's basically this major tunnel system. It's going to hold 650,000 cubic meters of water. So, during these high precipitation events in this one region of Toronto, it's very prone to flooding. It's going to hold that water, and then once water levels recede after precipitation events, it's going to release it, sanitize it, and then release it slowly into water bodies. So, again, $3.7 billion is what it's currently budgeted at. It still has 10 to 15 years to go.
(00:47:32):
My assumption it's going to be around 5 billion at the end once it's all built and ready to go. In July, and I'm repeating myself, but in July, Toronto experienced this high precipitation event, a hundred millimeters of rainfall. In insurable losses it cost the city $940 million. Uninsured losses, the rule of thumb is multiply that by three to four times. So, uninsured losses is what individuals, businesses and governments paid out of pocket for 3 to 4 billion. So, add all of that up together in a one-day flood event it costs the city $5 billion. So, a $5 billion infrastructure project. You're creating jobs, you're protecting the city. It costs you the same amount that literally you experienced in a one-day flood event.
Cody Simms (00:48:18):
The USA has certainly had large scale public works projects before, been a hundred years almost since the major major ones that you can think of that got us out of the Great Depression, it feels, boy, maybe it's time to start thinking about what those might be for the next wave.
Kathryn Bakos (00:48:34):
And again, I think this is where innovation comes in. How are we innovating and thinking about this risk going forward? I think there's a lot of, we think about the negative, and I'm sure your listeners are probably like, oh, this is very depressing. There's so much risk and there's sadness when you talk about this. But what I always like to bring is hope. I want to bring hope that there is ways to reduce these risks. We've done the research, we know what to do, but we need to innovate in the sense of there's a lot of opportunity for jobs creation, innovation to create new technologies, and we need to move forward. We cannot just be stagnant.
(00:49:09):
We have to recognize at the end of the day, no matter what your beliefs are, this is going to happen whether we like it or not, and we're seeing it. You don't have to believe in climate change, but you can look and your neighbor or you yourselves, someone who's been impacted by a flood or a wildfire. And so I think also the topic of climate change and extreme weather, until you're really impacted by it, people don't take action. Again, I want to pay my bills, I want to pay my mortgage, all of that. But you might not have insurance. So, the insurance, the mortgages, it's bringing people a little bit more down to earth in a very high-level conversation. And I understand that too.
Cody Simms (00:49:46):
Maybe it isn't the need for some large scale giant public works type of project, but for individual innovators and entrepreneurs at the risk management level, at the modeling level, and then at the actual sort of preventative technologies level as well. Creating, as you mentioned, fire safe sightings and fire safe shingles and things like that. Those are innovations that had to be created at some point, and presumably they're going to be the very large markets for whatever companies came up with those technologies.
Kathryn Bakos (00:50:15):
Exactly. And how I think about it from my perspective is let's get information into people's hands. So, that's to me the first step. Because if I get a piece of paper and it tells me about home flood protection, why is this important to me? Am I on a floodplain? Oh, I don't necessarily need to be on a floodplain to be at risk of flooding. Oh, I should be taking action. Hey, what's my community doing? It almost instigates a conversation. And so I think a homeowner or a renter is at the very first level of initiating that action around their home, but also holding their communities accountable for making sure I'm protected. Again, just so many, I'm Canadian. So, a lot of my examples are here in Canada. There are major lawsuits going on in municipalities across Canada that homeowners are suing the mayor, the community, conservation authorities basically saying, you allowed us to continue to live here, or you did not put measures in place to reduce our risk.
(00:51:11):
Now our homes are devalued. We don't have insurance. We're experiencing, say flood events on an annual basis. There are class action lawsuits that are going forward because communities are not preparing. But I think it's the homeowners needing to be educated. But I can just imagine a listener saying it's not just on the homeowner, and I completely agree with you, the burden shouldn't be on the homeowner. It needs to be everyone. I hate this term, but it does need to be an all of society approach. What are we doing for homeowners? What are the communities doing? How are financial institutions being regulated to think about these issues? How is all levels of government thinking about it? How are we looking at our vulnerable communities and thinking about physical and mental health? It really is an all-encompassing issue. It's very interesting. That's why I work in it.
Cody Simms (00:51:58):
We did not do a quick tour of heat waves. We've been letting this conversation go for a little bit, but let's back to the what can a homeowner do? What can a community do and what's happening from a risk perspective around heat waves? Let's just quickly hit those. Just for anyone who was sitting here waiting in the conversation, aren't you going to talk about heat waves?
Kathryn Bakos (00:52:16):
Of course. So, again, on the Intact Centre website, we have two infographics for extreme heat at the level of the home and apartment and condo. Now, I don't want to put the home aside, but more or less, if you own a home, the probability is that you probably have access to some form of cooling, whether that's air conditioning, a fan and or a basement to be able to go and cool off in. I don't want to summarize and say that to everyone, but really, if we're just going to focus our conversation with limited time, I think it's really important to focus on apartments because people living in apartments, specifically older apartments that don't have air conditioning, they're more at risk. This is a very interesting statistic. Again, just something that we know from the former Chief Resiliency Officer in Toronto. What they said was, there are currently 500,000 people in Toronto living in apartment buildings that are 30 years of age or older, that are over eight stories high, and one third of them only have enough power backup generation to last one to two hours.
(00:53:19):
So, now think about that. If there's an extreme heat event coupled with a major power outage, then you could have an elderly person living on a high floor of an apartment building or someone with a preexisting health condition or a disability who's unable to take the stairs. The elevators won't be running, you won't have access to an air conditioning unit, or your fans won't be running and municipal flow of water, the pressure doesn't go above the sixth floor, so people won't have access to water as well. So, when we talk about floods and wildfires, they're devastating, but people tend to not die. And I want to be very delicate because of course people do die during those events. But during extreme heat events, a lot of people will die. In British Columbia in 2021, 619 people lost their lives.
(00:54:03):
Just for a little bit of scale, in Europe, in 2022, 60,000 people died due to extreme heat. So, extreme heat is the killer. Floods and wildfires are financially costly. Extreme heat is costly from a loss of life perspective. So, what can someone living in an apartment building do? There's a lot that they can do from passive cooling. How am I opening my windows to allow for flow of water? Am I able to put up certain glazing or awnings over my windows to try to cool my apartment? Closing your shutters, making sure you close your blind, making sure light doesn't come in during the day to cool down the apartment as much as possible.
(00:54:40):
What plants are we putting on our balconies? Again, cooling that space off. Can we put covering over our cement balconies to make sure it doesn't absorb as much heat? But really working with the owners and operators, making sure there's power backup generation at site level. So, again, having those conversations. If you are informed, and I just gave this information to someone that I know she's an elderly woman and she lives on the 20th floor of her apartment building. She's like, "Oh, I'm going to go speak with the manager of my building." And it's the moment you're informed then you can have the appropriate conversations with also the decision makers who potentially could impact how you yourself as a homeowner or as a renter are being impacted.
Cody Simms (00:55:24):
That's great. And what about the community efforts on heat waves?
Kathryn Bakos (00:55:29):
Yeah, so again, retention and restoration of natural infrastructure is incredibly important. So, especially in urban areas, retaining tree canopy coverage is so incredibly important. So, we can actually look from one street to the next, in the same city, you can go one street over and these studies have actually been done and there is a significant higher temperature when there's no tree coverage. So, just natural infrastructure alone can drastically reduce the urban heat island effect. Green roofs, again, if you want this breaking down the silos between adaptation and mitigation, green roofs are really great for purification of water and the sorts. Cooling centers are incredibly important. Having access to cooling centers that people can come to, especially your most vulnerable, the elderly pre-existing health conditions, those experiencing homelessness. Roving groups, basically checking on those who are experiencing homelessness. Do we know where our vulnerable communities are? Are we knocking on our neighbor's doors? Hey, are you doing okay? Making sure that people are okay.
Cody Simms (00:56:34):
We've talked about the risk industry response to flooding and wildfire, but from a heat perspective, it's maybe more a public health risk response.
Kathryn Bakos (00:56:44):
That's exactly it. Again, it's more behavioral than anything, and understanding that people's lives, floods and wildfires, we can get people out of harm's way. You can get alert systems, and when the Fort McMurray wildfire happened in Alberta in 2016, all you saw was just cars upon cars leaving and exiting as the wildfire was approaching. When you're dealing with extreme heat, there's no reprieve, there's nowhere to go. And so having access to things like cooling centers are incredibly important, so at least people can cool off. It's lowering that body temperature, which is so important.
Cody Simms (00:57:20):
Do you anticipate a world where you start to have high school gymnasiums and places like that being these cooling center refuges in the future?
Kathryn Bakos (00:57:30):
Yeah, we're already seeing that. So, at least in some of the communities that I see, again, high schools, churches, community centers are being opened up. You shouldn't have to be a forward-looking community to do this. Again, it's a public health risk. In Ottawa, which is our capital in Canada, I was having dinner one night, it was an extremely hot night, and you literally saw people in red vests going around. They were bringing water and food to people who are experiencing homelessness and giving them information where cooling centers were. So, it's again, we have to be thinking about this. Whatever your views are, it's going to happen and we're going to be impacted. So, we do have to take action as quickly as possible.
Cody Simms (00:58:11):
Kathryn, this has been an incredibly informative conversation. Hopefully anyone listening has some personal action items you can take, but also just a better understanding of what the next decades ahead of us are going to look like and how we collectively should be thinking about the responses across our communities. Anything else we should have covered or talked about or any last points you wanted to make before we wrap up today?
Kathryn Bakos (00:58:34):
For the show notes, I'll provide all of the links to our resources. And again, anyone, please feel free to reach out. Like I said, our resources are freely available. Always happy to answer any questions that anyone has, but thank you so much, Cody. I really appreciate it, because it's again, how do we make adaptation more attractive and interesting for people and to recognize it's not this massive undertaking, it's we can start taking little steps to make a really big difference.
Cody Simms (00:59:01):
And it has huge impact, as you said. I think a lot of times, particularly where I come from in the startup venture capital world, a lot of venture capital funds that invest in technologies related to climate change may have to report on impact metrics and things like that. And often, I won't say always or usually, but often, maybe more often than not, those metrics are related to greenhouse gas emission reduction. But you just highlighted multiple areas where you're dealing with large scale impact of human health, for example, and of course of community risk. And so I think maybe folks also taking a second thought to how they think about and define impact as it relates to climate change is hopefully also a good takeaway from this conversation.
Kathryn Bakos (00:59:50):
Most definitely, and I think that's actually a really good point. It's not just businesses thinking about how am I going to adapt. And not to derail the conversation, we actually have some research at the Intact Centre. We've developed a framework to identify key physical climate risks on a per industry sector basis. But more importantly, what measures can be put into place to reduce risks. So, we actually have a framework so companies can start thinking about the physical risks of climate change. But as a business, I shouldn't just be thinking about how my business is resilient to extreme weather. The community in which I operate also needs to be resilient because I could be resilient, but if roads, bridges are all washed out or burned down, guess what? No one's coming into work. Customers aren't coming in. So, my business operations could still be impacted if the communities in which I operate are not resilient.
Cody Simms (01:00:40):
Such a good point too. I came at it from the startup investment perspective, but more companies are not small startups or venture capital firms. They're large local corporations, or not even large corporations, but businesses in a community that can think about what their own community impact could be as it relates to resilience and adaptation. Such a great point. Kathryn, thank you so much. This is a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Kathryn Bakos (01:01:08):
Thank you so much for having me.
Cody Simms (01:01:09):
Inevitable is an MCJ podcast. At MCJ we back founders driving the transition of energy and industry and solving the inevitable impacts of climate change. If you'd like to learn more about MCJ, visit us at mcj.vc and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at newsletter.mcj.vc. Thanks and see you next episode.
