San Diego Fires & Deep Brain Stimulation & Sustainability - Sustainability book

>>> Coming up next on "Arizona Horizon," the impact of San Diego wildfires on Arizona fire preparedness. >>> A new kind of brain surgery helping children to walk again. And an NAU professor says the term sustainability is overused and misunderstood. Those stories next on "Arizona Horizon." >>> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of 8, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you. >>> Good evening. Welcome to "Arizona Horizon." I'm Ted Simons. Arizona resources are ready to be used to fight San Diego area wildfires which have burned thousands of acres and forest. What we're hearing is over 120,000 evacuations. Jim Payne is with the Arizona Brewer of land management G. to have you here. I want to get to how much resources have been used over there, but as far as San Diego, this is awfully early for this. >> It is. Their normal fire season comes August, September, when they have the Santa Ana winds which can run into October. Pretty much 100% of the state is in drought. They only had a fraction of their snowpack. In San Diego County they had some rain but that helped the grasses grow and the brush fields. You have to think about San Diego County. People build in the valleys, at the small hilltops. We have brush fields that go up the sides of those hills. The whole area in this condition with wind, that's the problem. >> off-shore breezes kick off the Santa Anas. >> Woe have severe drought that's been going on for a number of years. The good news here is we have had variable weather. Here with we were in the 90s, '80s. Once we hit the continuous over 110 degrees, we'll start seeing more causes of fires here. That's one of the things we're pre-pearing for. How do we keep down the human caused side of it. >> As far as resources are concerned how much of what is designed for Arizona being used right now in San Diego? >> None of our resources except for one national air tanker, a DC 10, sent to assist them with dropping retardant on the fires. All of our resources as far as engine, hotshot crews, municipal fire departments, everyone is staying home. >> nothing compromised now, but if that thing gets much more out of hand you have to figure more resourceless be needed. >> In California they have Cal fire, their forestry department. All of the municipal fire departments well-versed in wild land fire. They haven't needed our help at this point. >> we're looking at some of the -- wildfire. That's the tragedy. This is a tragedy all around. As far as Arizona firefighters are concerned, are they trained? Are they ready to go? >> They are ready to go and trained. Since January folks have been preparing. Between the BLM, forest service, national park service, state of Arizona and municipal fire departments are partners. Most municipal fire departments have a wild land vision. Have engines and firefighters that work closely with the federal agencies. >> Is that new? >> No. That's been going on for quite a while but every year that cohesiveness, coordination gets much better. >> You talk about interagency programs we're talking federal, state and local. Talk about how difficult it is to get everyone in line and ready to go. >> Well, that's once again training, making sure our firefighters are trained. Every march we have Arizona wildfire academy in Prescott. Those -- this year we had over 800 students. The majority obviously from Arizona. We actually had some from Australia. What we do in Arizona, in my mind we're well advanced. We have fire-wise communities. Communities do their own thinning around structures like in Flagstaff, Prescott and other communities. Then as far as the campaign now called one less spark, one less wildfire, it's basically all the agencies together with one voice and one goal. That's to prevent human-caused fires which come to about 56% of the fires in Arizona. >> as far as fires this year what have we seen and how much of what we have seen human causeD? >> Right now out of 415 fires, 403 were human caused. Only 12% were lightning caused from earlier in the year. San Carlos reservation has two large fires going. Southern New Mexico near Silver City has another fire going there. These fires start throughout the spring and for intensity May and June is our worst, but this year it could extend into July and August W. this variable weather -- we're ready for large fires, ready to respond. >> I heard a couple of folks on the program saying the fire season looks about average from a distance. Other folks say, oh, no, it looks much worse. >> Statewide it's probably about average. But if you look at the southeast part of the state up-to-into central Arizona probably higher than normal. But that could change. If it stays hot, and we get ignitions, any source and winds, it could be off to the races. >> when you the cooling and heating trends usually the cooling trends are associated with winds. Winds not good. >> Winds cure out the vegetation more, makes them dry out more, but it has a modifying effect with lower temperatures. It's the continuous high temperatures. We get into the single digits, any kind of ignition. People think, well, human caused fires are always from a campfire. Somebody didn't put their campfire out properly. Obviously those do happen, but it's the vehicle fires. If you look at a picture or map of the state of Arizona and you follow all the highways, the beeline highway, the highways to wickenburg and places like that, between the BLM, forest service, park service, there's a clear line, a bunch of fires. Dragging chains. Folks have a flat tire. They park their car with catalytic converter on dry grass. Falling material off the back of the vehicle. Fires started on private land. Somebody was welding on a fence near seDoania, started a fire. The one less spark, one less fire is a campaign to really bring attention to -- hey, think about what you're doing. Use your head. Any spark can start a fire. You get win behind it and it goes. >> we have 30 seconds left. Are the Feds, state, all firefighters looking at a new normal when it comes to Arizona fire seasons because of what seems to be a new normal? >> We have had a new normal for a while based on our drought and the conditions out there. With changing weather, especially you talk about the winds, then our high temperatures, especially average temperatures start rising, it's going to be a problem in the future. We have an average about 2400 fires a year in Arizona. Of those 56 are human caused. The rest are lightning. The message is, folks, less make sure that you aren't the one who starts that fire. >> all right, Jim, good to see you. >> Thank you, Ted. >>> The neurological institute at Phoenix children's hospital recently performed an advanced type of surgery on several children with dystonia, the first time the procedure has been used successfully to treat children in Arizona. It has allowed the children to walk again and perform everyday functions. Neurosurge union Dr. Ratan Bhardwaj joins us now. What are we talking about? >> It's a pleasure to be here. This is a pretty amazing technology. Very humbling from a medical point of view. Technically we're seeing children who are suffering from really bad movement disorders. What we're doing while they sleep is place electrodes, very precisely in the right location deep in their brain. Then we tunnel these leads into a battery Pack in the chest or the abdomen. Two weeks later we turn it on and amazing things seem to be happening. >> that's amazing. You go up into the brain. The wires go where? Just straight down the spine? >> No. The spine is lower. We try to avoid that. There's an important part of the brain called the basal ganglia. For instance for me to pick up the glass like this I have to use a lot of different muscles in my hand, tension in my tendons. That part of the brain is the basal ganglia. It's specifically in a expert part. >> That makes it clearer then. How precise if I have a problem doing what you said, lifting things, how precise can you be? Is it still -- I don't want to say guesswork. Are you approximating or can you fine tune this? >> We have to be as precise as possible. Millimeter or better. We're doing this while the patients are sleeping. Children, it's tough do while they are awake. It's all placement and location. I have an excellent operative team. I work with people, whether it's a frame that goes on the head or the highest technology of brain imaging to make volume uh men Rick -- trajectory to avoid the blood vessels. So far, so good. >> So far you have gotten children -- dystonia means, what, you can't control movement? >> That's a great way to put it. These are very debilitated children. It's almost like somebody who could see and went blind. There normal until five or six, running around, playing in kindergarten, then get worse. They get worse and worse and medications don't help. So these children who out of our first two or three were wheelchair bound children who used to be running and playing, now basically can maybe sometimes lift their head and watch TV. They can't eat, they can't type, they can't text, they can't run, they can't play. Their life has changed dramatically as well as the family's life. Medicine doesn't help. This is the only treatment for these children. >> what cons constitutes success? >> It's a great question. I have a love fort brain. It's the most complicated thing in the universe. I wanted to treat children with brain problems. When I started a DBS program at Phoenix children's hospital I said wouldn't it be great if these children could walk again. That was an amazing possibility. Once we did our first child, a lovely young girl, that was the million dollar question. Sure, she could open her hand, put her shirt on by herself, wash her hair, but she's looking at me saying I can't walk. That was at one month. At three months she started walking and with a lot of physical therapy she's walking now. >> I believe we have video of a patient who is literally moving, doing things that, again, this was -- things were debilitating, deteriorating fast. >> But you asked me what success -- absolutely what blew me away with this patient and is so humbling is that she told me in my clinic, doctor, you have made me more human. From a medical point of view I could never imagine a patient would tell me that. You have a 13-year-old girl who can't write, speak, communicate with the world. Now she's writing journals, texting people, making Facebook friends. She's got her life back. This is so immensely more important than walking even, which is absolutely unfathomable. >> I imagine when you see something like this, see this little girl moving -- just to look in her face, this must be so fulfilling. >> Magical smiles. I had a little boy who was basically wheelchair bound, rolling around in bed, dying. Within three months he is playing tennis, although his mother says he's not playing very well. Tough mother. >> How does this different from treatment and therapy for Parkinson's? >> Great question. DBS has maybe been in over 100,000 patients primarily with Parkinson's. We can help these patients. I'm looking at children. So amazingly, children's brains are growing and changing as opposed to an adult's brain. How we're able to modulate the circuitry that governs movement, thinking, governs their mind, that's amazing. These are things we're trying to understand better. We're seeing dramatic improvements that I had no idea we would see when we started. >> But there was some concern, maybe caution -- you are dealing with developing brains. Developing bodies. >> In that caution and concern hasn't left at all. To take the responsibility to operate on a child's brain we take that with immense responsibility. I'm a very conservative surgeon, however, sometimes the most conservative thing is to do surgery. It's horrible watching them whittle away and not do well. We had one child yesterday and he suffered from a problem where unless his parents were holding his hands he was striking himself and hitting himself very hard. We have turned the system on a couple days ago, and the parents were amazed that for the first time in years they didn't have to hold his hands. I pray and hope this keeps going in this direction, but we just -- it's amazing what the limits are. >> Last question here. You pray and hope it goes in this direction. These children will have to wear this and have this apparatus in them for the rest of their lives. >> It's become a part of them of the most surgery we take things out. Here we're putting something in. It's a very small Pack. Children love superheroes, so do doctors. I tell them it's a little bit like ironman. They are not going to fly but if they can walk I'll take that. >> This is encouraging information G. to have you here. >> Thank you. >>> What am I doing here with you Do you think I should not do What am I doing here with you When we said I would be through >>> Tonight's focus on sustainability in Arizona looks at the word sustainability. In the new book, sustainability, if it's everything it's nothing, NAU professor Zachary Smith argues that the term sustainability is so broad and overused it's lost its meaning. Professor Smith is here to discuss his concerns. Good to have you here. >> Thank you, Ted. >> This is interesting. One of the questions we tried to figure out was what does it mean? What does it mean? >> Well, that's a good question. The fact of the matter is that if you asked 10 different people you get 10 different answers. A good example, if you go on the ASU school of sustainability web page, the front page says what is sustainability then quotes a bunch of people and they all have different perceptions of it. I want to talk a little bit about what we wanted sustainability to mean and what it has turned into. >> Go ahead what. Did we want it to mean? >> We wanted it to mean managing resources in a way that would take care of current generations and current needs and protect future generations and their needs in whatever way that they deem fit. What's happened is that it's turned into sustainable development and sustainability growth most people who study this stuff think sustainable growth is an oxymoron. Sustainable development is close. You can have sustainability development if the development doesn't involve the continual use of resources or using up your resource base beyond what's there for future generations. >> Could it be continuing to use those resources but not at such a fast pace? >> Imagine you have $1,000. You've got to do some activity. You're spending $100 a day. Now, you're going to decide that you're going to be sustainable. Through sustainability you're spending $50 a day. Well, you're still going to run through that $1,000. Unless you're spending zero and in the book we talk about we as Dr. Heather Farley, a professor at Georgia coastal college, college of coastal Georgia, we talk about rethinking sustainability. The fact that we have to have a type of sustainability that involves bringing back natural resources to where they were when we started whatever the process was. We're not doing that. We examined government institutions, academic institutions and the private sector across the board to find out who is doing what in the area of sustainability. Nobody is doing anything that's really remotely sustainable including academic institutions and government. >> But I go back to the question then. Sustainability development, sustainable growth. Is it possible, if it's not possible, does sustainability mean the best -- you write about how some folks say any change is good. Is any change good? >> Well, you could look at it that way, I guess. Using $50 a day as opposed to 100 is better. It means that it will be the end of the earth and the end of the human race a little bit prolonged. That's better, but we really are talking about the ability to support ourselves and live the lifestyles we have become accustomed to and most people know that, and we have used this term sustainability to fool ourselves into thinking that we're going to get there sooner by being sustainable. But we're not doing that. Most of what is called sustainable now are eco-friendly is another one. Everybody is sustainable, eco-friendly, but when you look carefully at what government, academic institutions and the private sector, corporate sector in particular does you discover it's not at all. That's dangerous. Dangerous because it leads society into this -- the general public into this complacency. I'm buying sustainable stuff. I'm recycling. I'm doing everything right. But in fact we're not being sustainable. >> So you want a new definition. You want a new term. Neo-sustainability. What does that mean? >> That's correct. It means a number of things. One thing is we have to think of traditionally there have been three pillars of sustainability. Ecology, economy and society. We have to address all three to be sustainable. What's happened in the way sustainability has been addressed now is there's been an emphasis on economy. We have come to interpret sustainability if we look at one of those pillars, environment is good, economy is important, society is good. But it the are equal. That's how sustainability has been dealt with. We can't think that way. You can't have economy or society unless you have a good environment. So everything has to come from that basis. So neo-sustainability means that we're going to think about the economy because we want a good, healthy economy. We're going to think about environmental justice and society because we want that as well, but it has to be in the context of what's good for the ecology and the environment. This sounds like tree hugger stuff to some but the fact is that if we don't have fresh air, we can't have -- or good drinking water we can't have Ault other things we want to have. >> Sounds like you're focusing on improvement rather than maintenance. >> You put your finger on the most important aspect of neo-sustainability. If we continue sustainability as it's currently defined it will ultimately lead to the destruction of natural resources. Neo-sustainability has to do what we're doing now but halls to lead us to a future where we're contributing back to our resource base. >> You mentioned tree huggers. Critics will be saying this is -- whatever. But it has to be realistic. It has to be something that society wants and society can grasp. Is this realistic? Can society as we know it, can society figure this out and accept something like this? [laughter] >> Good question. This legislature is not going to do anything like that. I think that people are smart and people are willing to do what needs to be done if given good information in the right form. Everything that I have talk about and everything in this book is solid science. It's well searched. The fact of the matter is if it were better known I believe people would do the right thing but they don't because they are not getting good information. They turn on the TV, they think this is eco-friendly, when it's not. >> If it's everything, it's nothing. Very interesting stuff. Good to have you here. >> Thank you. >>> Friday on "Arizona Horizon" it's the journalists' roundtable. Yavapai County attorney says she will pursue her campaign finance case against Attorney General Tom Horne. The governor asks the state Supreme Court to toss a lawsuit against Medicaid expansion. Those stories and more Friday on journalists' roundtable. That is it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you so much for joining us. You have a great evening. >>> "Arizona Horizon" played possible by contributions from the friends of 8, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you. >>> The global institute of sustainability is the heart of ASU's sustainability initiatives advancing research, education and business practices for an urbanizing world. 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