Extreme Weather, Ukrainian Nuclear Power, Maui Unemployment

Daniel, How's it going? It's Friday, one more day. I know I really struggled sleeping.

Sit around and do not much. That's my plan. We're so similar.

From desert downpours to Mediterranean fires, a summer of weather extremes.

Is this the new normal? The lows aren't as low as they used to be in. the highs are higher than used to be, and.

That will continue for I'm Leila folded with Daniel Estrin, and this is up first from NPR News.

Hawaii residents are desperate for work. I need to make money, I'm making phone calls, applying online, but no.

No, nobody. So stay with us, we've got the news you need to start your day.

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Christian nationalists want to turn America into a theocracy. A.

Government under biblical rule, if they gain more power, it could mean fewer rights for you.

I'm Heath Dresden and on the new season of Extremely Americans, I'll take you inside the movement. Listen to Extremely American from Boise State Public Radio.

Part of the NPR network on the TeD Radio Hour.

MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle. Her latest research into the intimate relationships people are having with chatbots technologies that say, I care about you, I love you, I'm here for you, take care of me. The pros and cons of artificial intimacy.

It's been a summer of extremes. Dozens recently died in Brazil when a cyclone dropped more than 11 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Grease has been dealing with severe flooding following deadly wildfires in the Nevada desert. People got stuck in the mud at the Burning Man Festival when torrential rains soaked the driest state in America. And much of the world has been baking in intense heat.

What is going on? Michael Copley joins us from NPR's climate desk. Good morning morning Daniel. Let's start with the heat This summer felt hotter than usual. Is that true?

We're right, it has been different. This summer was the hottest on record, with heat waves in places like the U.S. Europe, in Japan. So what we're seeing is that heat waves are happening more and more frequently and the hot days are getting hotter. And that's mainly because we keep burning fossil fuels, which releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, trapping heat close to the Earth. But what's also happening right now is something called an El Nino.

Okay, and does that warming have any connection to the extreme rainfall that we've been seeing in Brazil and Greece and other places?

So what we know is that warmer air holds more moisture, and warmer water acts like fuel for hurricanes. So what we're seeing right now in Brazil, for example, where a cyclone has caused severe flooding, is the kind of extreme event that we can expect to happen more often as the planet gets hotter. That's according to Andrew Weaver. He's a professor of Earth and Ocean sciences at the University of Victoria. This year, we've seen it's more ocean temperatures worldwide, and what we're seeing that is a direct consequence of that is, you know, more energy being fed into the system.

Okay, that's interesting, I hadn't connected the dots before. So, hot air causes more rain. hot air also heats oceans and fuels hurricanes. Is that it? That's right?

You know, when I spoke to Professor Weaver, what he says is. We're not necessarily going to continue seeing record-breaking heat year after year, but there's every reason to believe we will keep breaking records in the future. Especially during years with an El Nino weather pattern. What you're seeing, and you can see that in all the records globally, is that the lows aren't as low as they used to be, and the highs are higher than used to be. And that will continue for it. Scientists say this pattern of extreme weather is going to continue until we stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Okay, now, this is a hypothetical question, because we're nowhere near close to actually stopping greenhouse gas emissions, but let's say we stop them tomorrow. Would that stop this extreme weather?

The reality is that carbon dioxide hangs around the atmosphere for a long time, like hundreds of years. So we're going to be living with the consequences of the emissions we've already put into the atmosphere. So there's a lag, oh wow. But there's a much bigger problem.

All right, NPR's Michael Copley. Thank you so much. Thanks Daniel.

You?

Ukraine is trying to do something no nation has ever attempted.

It's operating a nuclear power industry in the middle of a war. The nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia has already been caught up in the fighting. At least nine other Soviet-era reactors are operating in parts of the country where drone and missile strikes are common.

So let's understand the risks with NPR's Brian Mann in Kiev, who visited a nuclear power plant last week. Good morning Brian, Good morning Daniel. What doesn't a nuclear reactor look like in wartime?

Well, it looks like most civilian atomic power plants the one I visited was in Melnitsky, in western Ukraine. It's a huge, brightly painted complex of buildings, which means it's a pretty visible target. I spoke about this with Edwin Lyman. He's an American physicist who heads the nuclear power safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

These plants were not designed to be hardened against military attack. And even though there is some capability to protect their airspace from missiles and drones, it's not perfect. And Daniel?

There've already been reports of drone and missile strikes really close to these plants, and last year, Russian air attacks briefly knocked out the off-site power supply.

That's needed to operate all these plants safely. BRIan Has a nuclear facility ever been attacked anywhere in the world?

You know, during previous conflicts, mainly in the Middle East, nuclear facilities have occasionally come under attack. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, for example, Iran attacked a nuclear facility in Iraq. Those incidents generally involved complexes that were under construction or unfueled and non operational, or, in some other cases, the targeted reactors involved military research or weapons development. What's different here is that Ukraine is operating a civilian atomic power network, the first ever in this kind of sustained wartime threat.

So can the Ukrainians run these plants safely when Russian missiles are falling?

Well, they say they have no choice. These atomic reactors provide about half of Ukraine's electricity, and so officials here say they're scrambling to improve air defenses around these plants. During my visit, I interviewed Petro Kotyan, whose head of Ukraine's national nuclear power utility.

Disaster could happen there. Okay, wow, that's scary. What? What makes the Zaporizhzhya plant so vulnerable?

Yeah, some of the fiercest combat right now is happening. Only about 50 miles away from that nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, and officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency have inspectors on site. But last week, the IAEA issued a statement warning that Russian troops are refusing to let their team inspect key parts of the complex. They want to see whether mines or other military explosives have been placed in sensitive areas. The IAEA also reported that an attack drone hit a residential building close to the Zaporizhzhya reactor last month. So that's clearly the most vulnerable, high-risk situation.

Okay, man, PRs, Brian Man and Kiev, thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

After a wildfire last month destroyed the town of Lahaina, Hawaii, activists and celebrities went on social media and told tourists to stay away from the island of Maui. And people have, but now, Maui.

Is facing an economic crisis and lots of people are losing jobs.

NPR's Adrian Florido has been reporting in Maui. Good morning Adrian, Good morning Daniel. So it's been exactly a month since the fire, which killed at least a hundred and fifteen people. Hundreds of people are still tragically unaccounted for. But tell us about this other crisis that's unfolding now.

Yeah, it's an unemployment crisis, and not just in the town of Lahaina, where the fire was. All of Maui has seen this huge drop in tourism. Restaurants and hotels are pretty much empty, and so workers everywhere have been getting laid off or having their hours slashed. I spoke with a woman from Lahaina who lost her home and everything she owned in the fire, and who also lost her job. At a restaurant in the center of town. The restaurant didn't burn, but it is surrounded by destruction, and so it won't soon reopen. This woman yet.

Told my friend like, if you know someone who needs a housekeeper, I'm up for it like, I need. I need to make money. I'm making phone calls, applying online, but no, no, nobody. Oh.

Wow, how widespread is.

Unemployment Well, to put it into perspective, Daniel. The week before the fire, 130 people on Maui filed unemployment claims. The full week after the fire, 4,500 people did, and thousands more have filed for unemployment since then. Oh my goodness.

So that is a stark contrast. And so how have residents been surviving if they can't find work?

Well, Yadi Olea, who we just heard from. Friends, have been helping her find one-off gigs, cleaning houses, a few hours of work here and there. I spoke with a worker at one resort hotel who said that he had not seen his hotel as empty as it is. Since the pandemic. Some of his co-workers have been let go, and the rest are all giving up shifts. A lot of workers on Maui and business owners suspect that jobs are not going to return until Maui's tourists start to return.

Yeah, it's just devastating to imagine, you know, this iconic slice of paradise like Maui, just empty of visitors. I saw this recent picture of a beach that's just usually packed with tourists swimming with sea turtles, and the beach was completely empty. When is tourism gonna bounce back?

Yeah, that that is the big question on everyone's minds. Daniel. The activists and celebrities, you know, who sent out that message after the fire that tourists should avoid? Maui did not anticipate that an economic fallout of this scale would come. Business leaders and workers are trying to get the message out that they want tourists back. Now. Others are saying, Look, this is the risk of having an economy that's so dependent on tourism. And then there are others who are, you know, working to expand people's employment options.

What we want to provide is the ability to actively participate in the recovery efforts and help rebuild their own communities. Instead of having to go out of state to bring people in to do those jobs, you know, Daniel?

No one has any illusions that this is an immediate solution to Maui's problems right now. The jobs will return to the island when tourists do. But how long it's going to take for that to happen, whether that's weeks or months, that is really hard to say.

NPR's Adrian Florido, who's been reporting on Maui, Thank you Adrian. Thank you Daniel.

And I'm Leila Faldun. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrea Kisak, Michael Sullivan, Katia Riddle and Peter Granitz. It was produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Butch and Chad Campbell. We get engineering support from Gilly Moon and our technical director is Josephine Neonay.

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