Fire Pt. 3: Fire Is Not the Enemy

The cost of putting a fire out is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to assessing the total cost of a wildfire. Multiple studies have shown it is less than 10% of the full cost of the disaster, which includes post-wildfire flooding. In this episode, we travel to Flagstaff, Arizona in the mid…

Fire Pt. 2: Sorting Through the Ashes

In April 2022, 50 mile-per-hour winds propelled the Tunnel Fire toward neighborhoods just north of Flagstaff, Arizona where it destroyed 30 homes. Weeks after the fire—and the media attention surrounding it—fizzled out, volunteers, homeowners, and government officials were working tirelessly to cle…

Fire Pt. 1: Fighting Angry Fires

The average area burned by wildfires in the United States annually has nearly tripled since the 1980s. But perhaps more importantly, those fires have gotten hotter, faster spreading, and more dangerous—placing the future of America's forests in jeopardy. In this first installment of our fire series…

A Better Food Future: PhD Researcher and Hopi Farmer

Food production is responsible for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions and in the Western United States, 80% of water consumption—but it could be done more sustainably. Michael Kotutwa Johnson is a Hopi traditional farmer, PhD researcher, and opera singer—and he is a proponent of applying Indige…

Water Pt. 3: Old Technology

Fast-growing Phoenix is sometimes thought of as a “new” or “up and coming” place without much history. But as we learn in this episode, it was actually born from the ashes of a thriving culture with centuries of accumulated knowledge about how to thrive and grow food in a dry desert. In this third …

Water Pt. 2: The Wild West of Water

In certain parts of Arizona, there are no rules on how much water wells can pump out of the ground. That unlimited access to a finite resource is what economists call a “tragedy of the commons.” In this second part of our three-part water series, we travel to the Sulphur Springs Valley in Southern …

Water Pt. 1: The Drying Lifeline of the Southwest

The Colorado River, or the "Lifeline of the Southwest," is an essential source of water for 40 million Americans in the West, including 80% of Arizonans. But thanks to climate change, it is drying up—and the effects are being felt unequally. On this first installment of our three-part series on wat…

Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari

Phoenix-area-raised Yassamin Ansari worked on climate issues as a policy advisor at the United Nations before she became the youngest woman ever elected to the Phoenix City Council in 2021. InHospitable host Anthony Wallace spoke with her at the Hear Arizona studios about how she got involved in cl…

Heat

In Phoenix, the temperature is climbing and heat deaths are rising. Hear from the people most vulnerable to heat (elderly and homeless) and the experts fighting to help them. Plus, meet neighborhood activists who reveal how heat exposes systemic inequality and learn what heat-beating innovations ar…