Delano D'Souza is joined by Dr. Melissa Sterry, scientist, designer as she discusses how today's extreme wildfires are driven by climate change, highly combustible landscapes and growing human activity. While praising France's emergency response, she contends that lasting solutions depend on redesigning landscapes to build ecological resistance and resilience, rather than relying on firefighting alone.
Devastating wildfires are burning across the Mediterranean, the United States and Canada. Like numerous other extreme weather conditions or events, data suggests record breaking wildfires are becoming the new normal. How can our societies adapt to this growing risk? Design scientist Dr. Melissa Sterry shares her thoughts on why the plants that evolved to live with wildfire can provide us with answers.
As we have seen across the world in recent years, wildfires are often fatal, destroying ecosystems and displacing entire communities, and they will only increase in frequency and extremity as the planet heats up. But fire can also be life-giving. It might even seem counterintuitive that fire, which burns plant life and endangers animals within an ecosystem, could also promote ecological health in other ways.