Ten Across Conversations Ten Across

Ten Across makes the future visible through examinations of communities in the southernmost U.S., which are often on the front lines of climate change. This applies especially to the engineering, design and politics surrounding intersections of our built and natural environments—where the development of more resilient and equitable infrastructure has proven to be an important theme.  
 
Ten Across Conversations with Dr. Robert Bullard and Megan Kimble have offered a thorough look at the impacts of interstate highways on human health. However, we've rarely had the opportunity to explore another trade-off often demanded by these structures—one with tremendous implications for the future.  

According to environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb, no human activity kills more animals than driving does. Collisions with vehicles have been responsible for a loss of 60% of the world's animal population since 1970, Ben reports. Further, human infrastructure has massively disrupted wild animals’ habitats, health, and abilities to migrate for food and reproduction. Salmon and other migratory fish populations, for one newsworthy example, have rapidly declined due to the effects of mega-dams, culverts, chemicals from car tires, and rising heat from carbon emissions.  

Biodiversity is essential to the systems that support life on Earth, and its decline contributes to worsening cycles that threaten ecological, climate and agricultural systems—as well as human health and wellbeing. But there is cause for hope: research provided by road ecologists—including many working along the I-10 transect—is beginning to inform selective redesigns of roadway infrastructure in ways that will protect wildlife.  

Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and author Ben Goldfarb discuss this extraordinary field—its mission, observations of human and animal behavior, and ideals for the future. Together they discover a vision of design that is inclusive of the natural world and may help us both to reach our climate targets and maintain the beauty of the native environment.

When Henry Ford streamlined vehicle manufacturing in the 1920s, he vaulted the U.S. to its status as a global economic leader. Soon after, the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and its establishment of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) affirmed private automobiles as Americans’ preferred method of travel. Federal and state departments of transportation have since dedicated vast sums of money and public land to roadway projects and maintenance, and comparatively little to public transit or housing development.  

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) represents the largest surge in federal transit funding ($20.5 billion) to date, but it is still small compared to the additional $118 billion allocated by Congress to keep the HTF solvent. A similar budget pattern appears at the state and local levels with an average 6% of general funding going toward highways and roads, compared to the 2% spent on housing and urban development, according to the Urban Institute.  

Now, a growing coalition of freeway fighters is pushing back against the nation’s largely unquestioned prioritization of roads, claiming that this paving of the nation to support vehicle travel has come at the expense of human and environmental wellbeing. They further point to evidence that the expansion of highways does little to address congestion or route efficiency for drivers.   

This is particularly true in Texas, a state at the heart of Megan Kimble’s new book City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways. Here, widening of the I-10 from eight to 22 lanes through a busy part of Houston came at a cost of $2.8 billion and 20 city blocks’ worth of existing and potential development. Though the project aimed to address congestion, it actually increased rush hour travel times by 33%.  

Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and author Megan Kimble explore the history of community and economic trade-offs in our ever-expanding network of Texas and U.S. roads-- why it becomes more difficult to sustain and what alternatives there may be for the future.

The administrative and financial costs of disaster recovery have increased in recent years, exacerbated by the changing climate. The 122 separate billion-dollar disasters occurring between 2016 and 2022 in the U.S. represented more than $1 trillion in damages and claimed 5,000 lives. A significant portion of that expense was incurred by seven Category 4 and 5 hurricanes that made landfall in the Ten Across region or along the Atlantic Coast. 
 
Yet this figure doesn’t begin to encapsulate the full range of climate-related losses in the U.S., nor the less visible but steadily accumulating costs of adapting infrastructure to withstand more frequent and destructive weather events.  
 
Federal legislation has moved toward addressing these potential risks to the built enviornment, human health, and the economy. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act represent the largest surge in climate action funding in U.S. history. Combined, they account for a trillion dollars of investments over ten years. The funding incentivizes all sectors to build climate security by scaling up the clean energy economy and redressing environmental and economic injustices, past and present.   
 
Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and Xavier de Souza Briggs, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro and member of the Biden-Harris transition team, discuss the strategy behind these dollars and what gaps remain to be addressed to ensure greater climate resilience and equity within this corridor and the nation.  

Articles/sources referenced in this podcast:  
“Community Development in the Critical Climate Decade” (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2024, Briggs and Donovan)  

“America is witnessing the birth of a new industrial policy. Here’s how to make sure it benefits workers and entrepreneurs across the country, not just a handful of superstar urban regions” (Fortune Magazine, September 2022, Briggs and Muro)  

 “Arizona Voters’ Agenda: Voters Want to Protect Environment, Addressing Forest Fires and Air Quality Among Priorities” (Center for the Future of Arizona, June 2022)

 “A More Democratic Federalism?” (Democracy Fall 2021 issue, Briggs and Rogers)  

The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America (2005) by Xavier de Souza Briggs

Insurer vacancies resulting from recurring natural losses in California, Florida, and Louisiana point to the fact that climate change is among the greatest threats to companies’ bottom lines within the coming years and decades. As a result, investors want greater transparency when it comes to the environmental risks of publicly-traded organizations.  

A recent decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission addresses this investor demand. In March, the SEC adopted a new rule mandating that companies disclose how climate change has affected or is affecting their strategies, finances, and organizational outlook. This legislation is scheduled to go into effect later this month.  

Last fall, California passed similar but more thorough disclosure requirements in the form of two laws. The Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act requires companies operating in the state with $1 billion or more in annual revenue to disclose both direct and indirect emissions associated with their operations. The Climate‐Related Financial Risk Act requires companies exceeding $500 million in revenue to report their climate-related risks every other year. In February, this legislation became the subject of a lawsuit brought against the state by the California Air Resources Board.  

Listen to this first installment in the 10X “Financing our Future” series— an ongoing investigation into the ways in which markets and governments are adapting to climate impacts in the I-10 corridor and beyond. In this episode, Ten Across founder Duke Reiter speaks with Steven Rothstein, Managing Director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, about the lead up to and intended results of this national and state climate legislation which his organization helped craft.


Articles/sources referenced in this podcast:  
 
Arizona lawmaker calls climate research ‘anti-God,’ pushes to ban it at state universities (AZCentral, March 2024) 
 
Americans overwhelmingly support mandatory climate disclosure for US companies (Ceres, February 2022) 
 
Jamie Dimon fears for the future of the free world and US debt (CNN, April 2024) 
 
Ceres Accelerator webpage 
 
Ceres Roadmap 2030 
 
Freedomtoinvest.org  

The Ten Across geography reveals many aspects of the entire nation’s future, particularly the ways climate change will reshape where we choose to live and why. This southernmost tier of the country is a natural focus for examinations of climate trendlines and the tipping points for human habitability.

The residents of Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles are often cited as the first community in the nation to be entirely displaced by coastal inundation and land loss. Recent satellite data analysis by The Washington Post aligns with many previous studies suggesting that such retreats from rising water may be required of communities throughout the Gulf Coast in years to come.  

In the west, states like California, Nevada, and Arizona still face the consequences of ongoing megadrought and heat, challenging agricultural output and hydropower systems, while increasing wildfire risk and the need for power-hungry air conditioning technology. Even the extreme weather and floods in California in late 2023 and early 2024 have not affected long-term drought conditions in the region.  

Clearly, climatic conditions along the I-10 transect are changing, and with this level of risk to property has also increased. Last fall on the podcast, we covered the impacts of climate on insurance availability in California, Louisiana, and Florida. The unprecedented insurer vacancies and soaring premiums suggest subtler, economic challenges to habitability within this region.  

In his new book, On the Move: The Overheating Earth and The Uprooting of America, esteemed environmental reporter Abrahm Lustgarten explores how these conditions are changing our sense of which parts of the world as really habitable, and for how long.  

Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and Abrahm talk before a live audience at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona, about past and present forces driving our responses to climate risk in the Ten Across geography and beyond.  

A note to listeners who may be sensitive to the subject matter: This episode contains brief descriptions of death and distress caused by climate events.  

With a widescale and urgent phenomenon like climate change, there are innumerable ways to imagine communicating its impacts through articles, film, or television. That said, given the immensity of this subject within our minds and environment, certain audiences may be unwilling or unprepared to interact with the challenging realities of manmade warming.  

Emmy-winning filmmakers Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel needed to overcome exactly this difficulty when directing their latest documentary, The Here Now Project. Luckily, through their previous projects documenting harrowing events such as Hurricane Katrina in their film Witness: Katrina (2010) and the September 11th attacks in 102 Minutes That Changed America (2008), the team behind Siskel/Jacobs Productions has become skilled at using film to memorialize and give context to communal grief at the site of disaster.  

Like these previous documentaries, The Here Now Project combines amateur and professional videos captured by eyewitnesses to convey the lasting social impact of its subject—namely, climate change. Through thoughtful editing and compilation of this primary source footage, the film provides the viewer an intimate experience of over 200 climate-related events that took place in 2021, including the 180 simultaneous wildfires that burned around the globe that summer.  

Listen in as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and Greg Jacobs, co-director of The Here Now Project and co-founder of Siskel/Jacobs Productions, discuss the directorial process behind this latest film, how the Ten Across geography is present within it, and why this kind of climate storytelling is necessary today.  

The Here Now Project will premiere before select audiences at the Toronto Hot Docs Festival, April 26 and May 1. Stay up to date on timing for its wider release by visiting herenowproject.com.