♪ ♪ ♪ Thelisha> Welcome to Palmetto Perspectives in beautiful Mount Pleasant.

We are at the Memorial Waterfront Park.

Tonight a conversation.

"The Rising Tide, Living With Water."

I'm Thelisha Eaddy.

South Carolina sees billions of dollars from coastal tourism.

However, flooding from extreme weather and sea level rise has started to threaten our coastline more and more every year.

So, what do we do to help us navigate that question and possible answers, tonight's panel.

Thank you to our live studio audience and for those of you watching.

Let's talk.

Faith, I want to pivot to you because like many of the people that we were introduced to in that documentary, you grew up in a community that experienced and lived with and dealt with this.

What are some, first of all, your thoughts on what Jim just said?

And then kind of couple it or pair it with experiences from your childhood that's still with you today?

> Thank you very much.

And I think Jim has a very good point in saying we've got to look at the data.

As a professor, you always want the actual source.

And so, Jim was the person who could source that data.

But everybody in this room, everybody who's lived in Charleston, is a receptacle of data about how the water has risen.

And so probably everybody in here has a story about someone whose car flooded out.

My younger sister, her first brand new car- She was working at the hospital downtown, flooded out on the crosstown, trying to get to work.

But everybody has a story like that.

And the challenge becomes, do we just accept it?

And that was before we started talking about climate change.

Right?

But I remember it was about, early 2000s, I was talking with someone from the city administration and they said, "Oh, you know, it's just so expensive to fix."

And I looked at him and I said, "You can fix that?"

And so some of our challenges are natural and some are our inability or unwillingness to tend to our infrastructure.

And so I think it is incumbent upon us to look on both sides of that, of the pendulum to fix what we can fix, and then also, plan for nature taking its course.

Thelisha> You know, in that documentary we heard someone say, "That we love the water, but we've always had this fight or this struggle with water."

Grant, both you and your wife, you study this, you teach and you lead students on this topic.

When you hear experiences that we've all had and what Faith just shared with the science that Jim talked about, how have we managed the situation so far?

What happened to, what happens to the people in these communities when these experiences start to happen?

> It's very difficult for people to... take on change.

And so when a place or a space that they've inhabited and used and had friends with and had children raised in changes drastically in a very short period of time, humans aren't programmed to handle this.

So there are, we have to build in resilience and we have to project out.

You know, you said "25 years," the average person is not thinking 25 years out.

They're thinking next week.

And if it doesn't flood next week, then great.

And these projects are multi-decadal.

The wall around Charleston is going to be a multi-decadal process.

Is it going to be too late or is it not going to be too late?

So building in resilience in your community and talking about it openly and building in cooperative, cooperative experiences and cooperative projects to move forward.

Thelisha> I want to talk a little bit more about that, because after the historic 2015 floods, that's a word we've been hearing a lot of.

I started with ETV back during that time.

A part of the group that they hired to cover the long road to recovery for South Carolina.

And "resiliency" we heard it over and over and over again.

What does that look like for communities?

And I just want to kind of throw in there... I think when a lot of people hear the word or the term "climate change," they think, "Oh, that's a big, huge issue, topic what can little ol' me do?"

When it comes to resiliency, what are some roles and some key things that everyday citizens can do in their small little communities?

Grant> Climate change is a very large issue and it is overwhelming for everyone.

But you can, as an individual make decisions in your everyday life that collectively, hundreds or thousands or millions of people together, you can make decisions economically, socially- things that you buy, things that you don't buy, how you dry your clothes, etc.

All of those things, what trees you plant, all of these things collectively, can greatly affect what's going to be coming in our future.

And again, projecting out many years that can be challenging.

Watching a tree grow.

You know, we have an oak tree in our yard now that it's, that we planted soon after we moved here.

And now it's quite big.

It's replacing one that had to be cut down by the city.

And so, now we're enjoying its shade.

Our car is enjoying its shade, (laughter) that sort of thing.

And building in community with your neighbors and knowing what your neighbors have or don't have, and how they can support you and how you can support them.

And often we hear about a breakdown of that kind of community.

But certainly centered around this topic, it doesn't matter what your politics are.

Yeah, you have to be ready for it.

Thelisha> I wanted to give you two the chance as well.

What comes to mind when you when you hear resiliency and the role that we all play?

Faith> Well, I would say that resilience is very important in how we manage and how we will attempt to live with water.

Right?

There are certain ways that we can protect ourselves, perhaps elevate our properties as a part of our adaptation scheme.

We can use nature based solutions to help the problem, to try to keep water from going into the storm water that is having all those pollutants in.

But I think it also is incumbent upon us to consider where we build and how we build, because, you know, the first rule ought to be do no harm.

And as we continue to build in spaces that will continue to flood, we might then need to ask the question, "Why do we continue to do something when we know what the problems will be on the other side?"

And so adaptation as a strategy is helpful for homes that already exist.

But we must recognize that, that is still a challenge to say, "elevate your home" if you're already in the house, and now if you're a senior citizen, you can be elevated.

But what happens if someone has a heart attack during a king tide?

How's the ambulance going to get to them?

And so we need to recognize we did elevation for storms, for hurricanes.

And your home was elevated, so that when you return from evacuation, it would be there.

The intent was not for you to sort of shelter in place every other month when there's a king tide or a rain bomb.

And so adaptation, really, if you look at that adaptation not just for storms but for daily living, that's a challenge.

When you looked at the house where they said, "Every time it rains and she's got to put down boards to get out of her house."

Well, what if somebody's about to have a baby and has got to get out of the house?

So, I just think we need to think about resilience in how we build and how we adjust our current housing.

But think about what does that disruption mean to our lives.

Jim> You know, it used to be years ago that when they talked about sea level rise, they talked about, well, when the next Hugo occurs, fortunately, we haven't had that.

But now we're seeing more and more flooding and you don't have to be right on the coast to experience sea level rise because it backs the water up into the estuaries and places that people never suspected that, that would be the case.

And we actually see this when storms do approach the coast in that for emergency managers, they have to figure out what the time is that you have to get out.

And that's based on when is your evacuation route going to be cut off.

And today, that's getting further and further out from whenever a storm makes landfall because of all the water that's coming in around the islands and into the interior sections.

So, that to me is an illustration right now of how we need to plan.

We need to be able to plan for things like this.

Thelisha> What are some undeniable examples of climate change?

Because it has become a polarizing issue.

Some people, they say, "it doesn't exist" and that's the way they live their lives.

But just in conversations, we know there are some things we can point to and say, "there you go."

What are some undeniable examples?

Grant> I was born and raised in Florida, and armadillos had just arrived there when I was a youngster from Texas and on along the Gulf Coast and coming into Florida.

Today, we have armadillos in Virginia.

While I've been here, armadillos have begun cruising through South Carolina.

Animals and plants do not lie.

They do not want to live where they can't.

They will not live where they can't.

And, you know, there's a subtropical animal that has been resident in Mexico for hundreds of thousands of years, and now they're in Virginia, not its normal habitat.

And plants, the same thing we have, you know, a lot of tropical and subtropical plants that are able to survive year round here in Charleston, which ten years ago, 20 years ago would have been impossible.

I'm growing coffee at my house.

(muted laugh) Thelisha> Faith, I want to come back to you.

You left the area.

What drew you back?

> Because this is home.

And as a part of the Gullah Geechee culture, you've always been trained to stick with your home community.

And so I wanted to come back.

My intention in getting my law degree was to use it to help my community, my family.

And so I think coming back to Charleston in 2017, right when these storms were starting to really gin up, it's just been a different experience because, you know, I went to school in the Northeast.

I never heard people talking about nor'easters in South Carolina, but now it's not just hurricane threats.

Now we're having these rain bombs and nor'easter storms.

And you combine that with the king tide- We never heard of king tides growing up.

And so, you know... believe what you want about climate and change if you put that together, all I know is there's more water than there used to be.

And the storms are more intense because the temperature is hotter.

And when you get more intense storms, you get rain bombs.

And then we have more storms coming off of the Atlantic with hurricane threats.

I mean, literally a couple weeks ago, Charleston was saved from a hurricane five, a Cat.

five hurricane by a Cat.

one hurricane.

And so, like, it's playing defense on our behalf.

So I think if you look at the weather patterns and the tide records and everybody's own experience.

It's just different than it used to be.

Thelisha> Bridge the gap for us.

How does this, how do these issues impact a person's property through the lens of your experience, also through your organization?

What are you seeing?

Kind of, break it down for us.

Faith> Well, I will say this.

Growing up in Charleston, yes, we knew of flooding downtown.

Some of that was how we maintained our infrastructure or built our infrastructure to move flood water out of the peninsula.

But the other part of this is that as a part of the Gullah Geechee community, what we know is that South Carolina at one time, right... during reconstruction, we had more African-American landowners than any other state in the country.

And a lot of that came because we set up the idea of Sherman doing this, you know, 30 acres, inland, the Field Order 15, which never actually happened, but it planted the seed of land ownership in our community.

And so the state created a land bank which bought up all these big plantations along the coastal areas.

And so when the state bought them up, African Americans were able to buy smaller tracts of land.

And so you see a very dense population of African Americans along this coastline.

So what that means for these property owners is that, what was once waste property that nobody wanted, but it's where we lived.

Now, it has become some of the most valuable property on the Earth.

But we have the same challenges that the peninsula has.

Water is rising on the peninsula.

It is also rising along the coastline and the creeks where African Americans live.

And so my point is with property values, they're both valued equally to the families who live there.

And just because it's not downtown doesn't mean that it doesn't need a solution.

As we look at trying to figure out ways to protect commerce on the peninsula, which is an important value.

We also have to try to protect people in their home place and in their home communities.

And so the property values, now are going to be struck by two big elements.

One, flood insurance.

We need to be sure that folks can still get insurance.

Flood insurance is something that everybody should get, if you are in a zone, a floodplain.

But how much do you get when it's done?

It's not a big payoff.

Right?

It's not enough to replace a home.

So the flood insurance part is important, but also, now everyone's going to report on what your floodplain is, and that's going to impact people's property values too.

Thelisha> I hear a lot of "Mhm" and affirmations in the audience.

If I can put someone on the spot who would like to share an example of what Faith was just talking about.

They're mulling it over.

(laughter) Yeah, we have... and we're going to get a mic to you in just a moment.

Thank you sir.

Audience member> Thank you.

I know what you're talking about as far as flood insurance.

I had a home on Piedmont Avenue in the inner city, Central Ward.

And they zoned it a flood zone.

And I said that "My house doesn't flood."

You know, and it's like... well, we are saying that "You have to have it."

And the insurance company said to me that "I had to have it," you know.

And I had to have I don't want to say an argument, but the idea was if I don't need it, why do I have to have it just because you're reclaiming it.

Right?

And I kept the insurance for like two years and I dropped it and nobody said anything to me.

The idea of me having to pay the insurance, along with the house insurance, along with the mortgage, I wasn't making middle income... financial gains and so it was a struggle, you know.

And so I look at my position versus position that we're talking about these settlement homes and stuff, I understand the struggle that they're having to go through just trying to make ends meet.

And now it's the flood zone, they have to pay this money.

And it's part of what... my understanding of it is it's part of the systemic flow of gentrification.

That's my point of view.

Faith> If I could add.

<Yes> I think, if you look at the rates that they charge for federal flood insurance, it's usually a lower rate.

So probably what's driving the challenge is the cost of your regular home insurance.

That house insurance price is escalating.

And the more we build in spaces that have damage and flooding, the more we're going to see these home insurance rates increase.

We have homes in the downtown area where home insurance is 20 or 30,000 dollars a year, and so we don't want to become Florida, where basically everyone's self-insured.

There is no real- There are areas where companies won't write policies.

We are starting to see that here, where certain companies are pulling out and denying insurance.

And then if you are able to get insurance is at an extremely high rate.

And so it is going to have an economic impact.

Thelisha> Jim, we saw a lot of this in the Midlands after the 2015 floods.

We reported on so many people having conversations with companies and organizations.

I need to lift my house.

We can't build in this area anymore.

Share as we celebrate, not celebrate, but commemorate the ten year anniversary of that.

Share a little bit about your time at WLTX during the, the immediate aftermath that is of the flood.

> Well, the 2015 flood had a real impact on Columbia.

Columbia had not seen a flood like that... gosh, in decades.

We had a tremendous amount of rain.

You had it here, but in Columbia we had up to 21 inches of rain.

And one of the things that we weren't prepared for was the fact that dams failed, And it caused a cascading effect on the eastern side of the city, where one lake fed, the dam failed, which poured into the next lake, which caused that dam to fail, which then, led to the next dam failure.

And so you had this tremendous flood that no one saw coming, even though we knew we were going to get a lot of rain.

And that was, not the... that was not an isolated incident.

It happened throughout the whole area.

And it literally has taken a decade to recover from the damage that was done.

I mean, I was on the air at the time and it's hard being on the air describing what's going on.

And you have friends, who literally are having to be evacuated from homes because it got flooded.

Fortunately, when Columbia has been building back, they've been building back with some resiliency.

If we have this situation again and we will.

I think the system will be better able to handle it.

But there's still going to be some impacts that we're not prepared for.

Thelisha> Grant, is there a happy medium when it comes to building, building smart.

We mentioned earlier that South Carolina is growing, the Lowcountry is growing.

More people are coming to the area.

We know that's going to be growth when it comes to houses and schools.

Our infrastructure, traffic.

Is there a happy medium for, growing and preserving to make sure that we're living a safe and healthy life?

Grant> Yeah, there's a term that's... that's used in community planning, urban design, urban planning called "smart growth."

And there are various definitions of what smart growth is.

And, and there are all sorts of variables that government officials and perhaps many taxpayers, many taxpayers are not really focused on or citizens, I should say, who are taxpayers are not really focused on.

And, you know, income for the municipality, income for the county or the state via taxes or fees or what have you.

And legislation associated with all of that?

How do we balance all of these things to keep the functioning of a resilient community going?

And can we get to a happy balance?

And that's what all the arguments are about, you know, where do we want to be within that?

Can we build, do we build up, do we build more dense?

Do we stop people from building in particular areas?

And frankly, with human behavior, I think we need to really stop people from building in particular areas.

Especially if the cost of allowing people to build in particular areas is not mitigated by infrastructure production decisions.

Driving everything, is the almighty dollar.

If people are going to make money, they're going to do it.

Thelisha> Okay, I thought I saw a question.

You can.

Yes, absolutely.

Audience member #2> Oh, all right.

So... do I have to use a mic.

So, I'm just, this whole conversation gives me so much hope, as we think about organizations like collective, the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, which is looking to preserve and protect the last remaining salt marshes that we haven't developed on.

And as we think about strategies to show that the money is actually in the marsh and what is the value of the natural capital in terms of, we know that every acre of wetland can store up to a million gallons of stormwater surge.

Can we work out something with the federal government where municipalities are incentivized to create wetland preservation ordinances in return for a lower rate on their flood insurance?

Thelisha> That's a really interesting question.

I was going to ask... I was going to say, we talked a little bit about what everyday citizens and residents can do, what municipalities do, and she kind of led right into that.

What are your thoughts on that question?

Faith> Well, I would say we need our municipalities to halt the ability to build in a marsh.

Right?

If you fill an acre of wetlands, that's a million gallons of water that has to go somewhere.

And in the film earlier, they talked about how when a new neighborhood, a new subdivision moved into the Ten Mile Community, the next thing you know is that the other homes are flooding.

Right?

So are they filling and building and then causing the stormwater to go somewhere else?

And if we're living in changed conditions as we speak, right?

If things started being different in 2015, 2017, how can we continue to allow people to build in places that will flood?

Because those are costs that all of us as taxpayers share.

We will have to pay for the recovery.

We will have to pay for the new EMS because the others got flooded out.

And so I'm a law professor, I taught at Vermont Law, and one of the basic tenets of environmental law is that we try to internalize externalities.

Right?

There are costs that people impose on the environment, and we try to incentivize companies or businesses or governments to handle that cost.

With flooding, heretofore, we all have been bearing those costs.

We've been paying for those externalities with damaged property, with cars that are flooding out.

We want to be sure that if there are going to be costs from dealing with these externalities, that if you're building there, you bear those costs, don't leave it on the rest of us who've been paying taxes and just trying to make it in our city.

Thelisha> Yes... Audience member #3> I have a question.

Thelisha> All right, one moment.

We'll get you a mic.

Audience member #3> When it comes to children, students like me that are either uninformed or informed and we speak out about these issues, what is the return or like, response to that from officials, lawmakers?

What do we get back from that?

Because I've seen we've done protests.

We've done stuff like that, not specifically about this issue, but just prevalent issues in our society.

And we don't really get much from that.

Rather that just be the kids or citizens that live in the area, what do we get back from speaking out?

Faith> Can I say something?

Thelisha> Absolutely.

Faith> So, we have to remember that a lot of the change that happened in the last century was at the hands of students.

Right?

Students at North Carolina A and T took matters into their own hands and did their own sit in.

Right?

Now, it was a part of a strategy.

They were in a different position than their parents who could lose their jobs.

So students have changed the world that we live in.

And you still have that power, because I think all of us, particularly in the South, we're all about history and heritage and generational wealth and generational legacy.

It's our responsibility to leave an inheritance for your generation.

And I sure don't want you to look back at us and say, "What were those people thinking?"

We left you nothing.

So I think if young people will stand up and say, "This is important to us, and we want to live in our home community, we want to stay in Ten Mile."

And say to folks, "Well, what are you going to do to help us be here?"

Because it's an obligation that we owe your generation.

Audience Member #3> So, with that being said, With our world being as fragmented as it is coming into this new generation, where do we start off at and how do we spread the message to other kids to get them to be informed and also want to help save our world?

Faith> Professor, can you go first?

Grant> So that's a question that's presented to me almost every day when I'm teaching.

You say, "that we live in a fragmented world," and that's what the news tells us.

That's what our parents might tell us.

That might be what people in responsible positions might tell us.

But you, can get up and talk to your neighbor and you can text them, you can chat with them, you can do all... You can communicate about all of these issues.

And that's an advantage of, of social media, is that the communication could go far and wide to millions of people.

And that's a very, very powerful tool.

We can see it for good, and we can also see it for bad.

And it's up to us, I guess, as adults, to try to help young folks filter through the chaos that is in that kind of environment.

But we also have a responsibility to give you hope, to give young folks hope, a reason to do that.

And we have this program here, on... airing across the state today.

And that's built, this whole thing is built on hope.

The idea that we can do something.

So yeah, go out and talk to your neighbors, talk to people that are your age and banning together.

You're bound together for the foreseeable future.

I don't think all of us are going to Mars.

Audience member #3> And when it comes to that, how do we make sure that we don't spread an uninformed or non-intelligent message that is not fueled in the real, the facts?

How do we make sure that we're spreading the correct information to our peers, our families, and our families spreading the message to us?

So we are going out there spreading the right message?

Faith> Well, I will say, check your own facts, do your own research.

You can't believe everything you see on the internet.

But keep in mind, you don't have to be the most lettered person to have the right to speak up.

Right?

All you've got to do is talk about your experience, and people have to give credit and credence to what people's lived experience is.

And so I don't think there's any- If you go to a county council or town council meeting, that is democracy at its best.

Anybody and everybody has the right to stand up and say something.

Now, we normally feel an obligation to speak truth and give real facts, but when you're passionate and you stand at a microphone, people have to listen.

Audience member #3> Thank you.

Thelisha> Thank you very much for those questions.

Grant, I wanted to circle back to you because your dialog just right, just then with our audience member- I'd like to ask, how hopeful are you or if you had to level your, your amount of hope because you're in the classroom every day with our next set of leaders, the ones that are about to matriculate on and help lead us forward, how hopeful are you that we can find that happy medium, or we can find that, that Goldilocks stage to to get this right for all communities?

> I continue to do my job the way I do my job, because my students give me hope.

It is a question every spring that I pose to one of my classes.

How hope, that exact thing, how hopeful are you for the future?

And students for a while were not particularly helpful, but over the last several years, to be honest, that level of hope has risen.

And it's because students are binding together and bonding and talking about these issues.

We're seeing things change in Charleston, in our local community.

In my arena, buildings are being saved, land is being saved.

We all, see all the time, new parcels of land being conserved... in various ways.

And all of that driven together does, does engender hope in me, for sure.

And then keeps me going to work, for sure.

And because that's a magnification process, you know.

I'm in a, I understand every day that I'm in a unique position that... what comes out of my mouth goes into hopefully some hearts and minds in my classroom.

And that can continue on across campus and across communities, all across the country, hopefully.

Thelisha> Faith, the same question for you.

But first, what are some of the successes through the lens of your work that you do through your organization and some of the obstacles or barriers that we haven't found solutions to yet?

Faith> Well, I am excited that we are able to create conditions that lead to land being conserved, and that also helps preserve communities.

And so if you look at Charleston County, 49 percent of our land territory is protected.

That means it's not going to be intensely developed.

That is the result of decades of work of our land trust, of our environmental advocacy organizations.

We have one of the most successful conservation banks in the country, which is able to swoop in and outbid developers for properties so that we can preserve land, preserve salt marsh, so that the rest of us can stay in our communities.

And so I think conservation really helps, and frankly, it helps drive our economy.

People are coming here because we have been able to protect as much land as we have, that we've been able to protect our beaches and make it something that folks can enjoy.

So I think preservation is a driver of our economy, but it is also what helps us stay in place.

We've been very active to our south on Saint Helena Island protecting... we have a cultural protective overlay that protects that island from golf resort development.

And so when we come to good decisions and we stand in the strength of that decision, you know, who else is going to protect it if we don't?

So I think that, I am very hopeful about.

The counties are developing their own green belt programs.

That is not just about parks.

It's about preserving our neighborhoods, creating green space for us so that we don't just become sort of the concrete jungle.

Now, in terms of challenges going forward.

First off, you know, we heard a lot in the film about how our city is changing and gentrification.

And so we need to be sure that we have affordable and attainable housing, workforce housing within our city, because the more we commute, the more we put CO2 in the air, and that's the faster we have climate impacts.

And then also, I'm just very concerned- Right now, we are looking at the Cainhoy Peninsula, which is a pristine peninsula right now, and they are looking to develop it with 18,000 more homes.

And that is supplied by a four-lane road.

And so we know we're not going to be able to protect the settlement communities that are next to that area, because they're going to fill 180 acres of wetlands.

So it is our struggle, it is our purpose to be sure that people understand the choices that we're making and making sure that folks are informed.

Right?

The young man was talking about being informed.

We need everybody to be informed about what's coming down the pike in our communities.

Thelisha> Jim, again, a lot of your early work people today are using and studying, and it's guiding meteorologists.

How hopeful are you that the science will continue to propel us in the right direction?

> Well, I think the science is taking us in the right direction.

We've made tremendous strides in the last 20 years.

And... our projections are pretty much spot on.

You know, there was, one person said, "But there's an element of uncertainty."

Uncertainty doesn't mean lack of knowledge.

We know what is driving this change.

And unlike changes in the past, which might have been driven by some natural phenomena here on the planet, maybe the sun, this is being caused by our changing the atmospheric chemistry.

And that chemistry is driving the Earth's temperature.

So bottom line, we are the cause of the problem.

Therefore we are the solution to the problem.

We can solve this.

Excuse me, we can solve this, but it is going to take some time and it is a complex issue because it requires not only that we try to get away from burning fossil fuels, which is one of the main drivers.

But you can't just say, "Okay, you got to turn off the car."

No one's going to do that.

We've got to find other ways that we can utilize what we have.

Not everybody can go out and buy an EV.

Me, one.

I can't do that.

But there are other things that we can do that we can reduce our footprint and gradually move to where we need to be.

Audience member #3> You all speak of hope very highly, but when it comes to it, how do we not feel... fearful when we see meteorologists, scientists like you finding the facts, and then we see our supposed change makers doing the opposite of what we should be doing, which is protecting our community and environment.

Like, I started learning about this two years ago when I was a freshman in high school.

There hasn't, I haven't seen much significant change when it comes to the new advancements, new buildings.

You said, "8,000, 18,000."

That's insanity.

How do we not feel fearful about that when we know the research, we know the facts and nobody changes?

Jim> Let me leave you with this thought.

And it actually came from a politician, in Washington.

He said, "Change doesn't come from Washington.

Change comes to Washington."

So if you want change, it starts with you.

And... (applause) So, that change has to be it can be in many forms, but you've got to start electing politicians that will listen to you and not go up there and listen to somebody else.

Audience member #3> Okay.

And then you say that, but- (laughter) Jim> I understand how difficult that is.

<Yes> But I was your age once and we had a situation called the Vietnam War.

And there were a lot of young people who were out there trying to make a change.

Thelisha> You're in the right place and you're asking the right questions.

That's a really good start.

That's an excellent start.

(applause) <Thank you> So the great thing about South Carolina ETV and Public Radio is we are statewide.

So we know that climate change impacts everyone.

Give me your final thoughts very quickly about where we are.

We're gonna give it to Jim Gandy.

Jim> Well... look our, the globe is warming and that has local impacts.

Not always the same.

For instance, up in the Upstate they've got their own issues here in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, sea level rise might be one of the biggest issues.

But the other issue around here is something that you experience every summer.

It's hot and it's getting hotter and it's getting steamier.

And that's a health risk.

So that, is compounding everything else that we're trying to do.

For a young person, one of the biggest powers you have is the power of observation.

And you'll be surprised how far that will take you.

Thelisha> And we're going to leave it there.

Powerful words.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our panelists.

Thank you to all of our live audience members.

Give yourself a round of applause.

(applause) And for you watching us at home, thank you as well.

We also want to thank the South Carolina ETV Endowment, Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park.

We're here in the beautiful Cooper River Room.

Don't forget to start your Friday tomorrow morning, 6:04 a.m.

for your statewide weather and news on your local South Carolina Public Radio station.

For all of us at South Carolina ETV, have a wonderful night.

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