Not Built For This

Not Built For This

We used to think of climate change in future tense, as something we’d have to deal with decades from now. But the past few years of seemingly never-ending disasters have made it clear that climate change is happening now. California’s fire season is no longer just a season, but a year-round event. 100-year storms now hit our coasts every few years. Intense rain events are washing away mountainsides and drowning downtowns. And extreme heat is making parts of the Southwest nearly unlivable during the summer months. 99% Invisible will look at how these dynamics are playing out right now, in communities across the country, from Vermont to California, and from southwest Florida to central Arizona and the Louisiana coast.

Episodes

August 20, 2024 28 mins

Reporter Emmett Fitzgerald was used to hearing people call his home state of Vermont a “climate haven.” But last summer, he got a wake up call in the form of a devastating flood.

All throughout the United States, people are watching the places they love change in unpredictable and scary ways. Places that once felt safe are starting to feel risky. Places that already felt risky are starting to feel downright dangerous. An...

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In disasters where a lot of people lose their homes, the impacts are not confined to a single city or town. They ripple outward, cascading into the surrounding area, as the survivors are forced to go looking for new places to live. This is the story of what happened after the famous fire in Paradise, California, and where many of the survivors ended up. It’s a cautionary tale about a town caught in the cross hairs of both the...

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August 27, 2024 49 mins

Insurance companies are not climate activists, but they know more about climate risk than just about anyone. And as storms get more extreme and unpredictable a lot of insurers are running the numbers on Florida and realizing that the math just isn’t working anymore. For decades, low cost insurance helped mask the risks of living in some of the riskiest parts of the country. However a climate correction is now underway. Prices...

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August 30, 2024 48 mins

All across the country thousands of people are living in locations that regularly flood, and many of these places will only get more flood-prone as the climate continues to change. Residents who live in these danger zones are often trapped in a demoralizing loop—flooding, rebuilding, and praying each time that the pattern doesn’t repeat. However in some neighborhoods the government is trying a different approach. They&r...

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September 3, 2024 48 mins

Most of the stories in this series have been about places that are ill-prepared for the extreme weather that is coming their way. But this story is about a place that managed to get the kind of infrastructure that will actually help it survive climate change. How after more than two decades of tireless work, the residents of Hamilton City, California finally got the levee they deserved. 

Not Built For This is a 6-part mini-seri...

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September 6, 2024 41 mins

The impacts of climate disasters are often measured in terms of property damage. But in places like Phoenix, Arizona, and in hot places all over the world, climate change is wreaking a very different kind of havoc – on living things. In the final episode of Not Built for This, we reckon with the biological limits of climate adaptation.

Not Built For This is a 6-part mini-series from 99% Invisible, with new episodes on Tuesdays...

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