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Ten Across Conversations
by Ten Across
Ten Across Conversations examines pressing issues impacting communities along the U.S. Interstate 10 corridor. From Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles, California, this region provides a compelling and comprehensive window into the major challenges and opportunities of the 21st century in their most extreme. Join founder and executive director, Wellington “Duke” Reiter, as he chats with subject experts bringing unique insights and new ways of thinking to reveal our collective capacity to create a more resilient future. For more information about the Ten Across Initiative visit www.10across.com.
Episodes
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What It Takes to Cool a City: Bill Updike on Smart Surfaces
"…we can still get stuff done in this country when people's lives are on the line." —Bill Updike, Director of U.S. Policy & Programs, Smart Surfaces Coalition Cities are getting hotter, but some of the biggest opportunities to change that may be hiding in plain sight—in the roofs, roads and…
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Every City Is Now El Paso: Jazmine Ulloa on a Border Built Brick by Brick
"The foundation of the immigration system and the battles... all of that had been built brick by brick in El Paso, through both Republican and Democratic administrations." —Jazmine Ulloa Episode Description: To much of the country, Interstate 10 reaches El Paso on its way to somewhere else, the...
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Jeff Goodell on the Science and Accountability of Extreme Heat
"This is really a story about... the people who are causing the pollution, harming the people who basically did nothing and are suffering the damages. And do those people who cause the harm owe the people who suffer the damages anything?" —Jeff Goodell, contributing writer at Rolling Stone and...
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Why the Southwest Is Already the American Future with Kyle Paoletta
"There's maybe a more practical way to look at it, which is just understanding water as a communal resource, as something that is necessary to share rather than this thing that we divide up and profit on." — Kyle Paoletta Kyle Paoletta opens his recent book, American Oasis: Finding the Future in...
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Preparing for the Next Disaster: AI, Local Capacity, and a Shrinking Federal Role with Jeremy Greenberg
"A large portion of an emergency manager's time is not doing active response. The administrative burden of writing grants, developing plans, reviewing plans, all of those tasks are what takes up a significant portion of time... So where we would say, hey, these smaller jurisdictions don't have…
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From City Hall to Climate Bank: Financing Resilience with Chris Castro
"If you use low-cost capital, you don't need tax credits to make the economics work. That's what excites me the most about how to scale this thing up. [...] How do I help every other community bank get in the game of building their green lending muscle and thinking about resilience? And if we can...
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Translating Risk: Science, Communication, and the Future of Resilience with Steve Bowen
Among the diverse professional perspectives featured over the years, few have resonated as consistently with Ten Across participants as those from the field of insurance and reinsurance. Insurance is often underappreciated as a knowledge industry in everyday life—yet serves a powerful…
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The Water We Have: Data Centers, Growth, and the Colorado River Basin with Sarah Porter
As water scarcity intensifies across the Colorado River Basin, public attention has increasingly focused on data centers, AI, and the growing demand for resources in the Sun Belt. But are these technologies really driving the region's water challenges—or is the story more complicated? In this...
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Why 2026 Will Decide the Future of Water in the West, with Rhett Larson
As the Colorado River approaches a pivotal moment facing historically low flows and record-breaking shortages, decisions made in 2026 will help determine the future of water, energy, and economic security across the American West. Today, Ten Across Conversations shares an episode from Arizona…
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Part Four: Two Texas Cities that Are Reexamining Data Center Deals
As artificial intelligence has grown globally, so has the construction of immense, resource-intensive data centers. The arrival of these projects-- both the facilities and the powerful tech companies behind them-- in communities throughout the U.S. has created some controversy. Ten Across cities...
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Part Three: Oil Wars, Nuclear, and AI — Can Texas Power America's Future?
As conflict in the Persian Gulf threatens global oil supplies and artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for electricity, Texas is in a race to unlock the full potential of its diverse and deregulated grid. The path it chooses may arguably shape the U.S. economy and global energy...
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Part Two: Does Texas Have the Water to Support an AI Boom?
Texas has emerged as a frontrunner in President Trump’s push for U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence and is poised to become the nation’s top data center market. With data centers rapidly scaling across Texas, the state is emerging as a bellwether for the nation—highlighting how rapid,...
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Part One: Can Texas Drought-Proof Its Economic Miracle?
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including a water crisis. According to the Texas Water Development Board, population and industrial demand could outpace existing supply by 7 million acre-feet by 2070—an amount equal to the current annual water demand of the entire state of Arizona. Last November,...
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SERIES TRAILER | Artificial Limits: Water, Energy, and Growth in Texas
Ten Across Conversations returns next week with a limited series, a three-part narrative look at key intersections of water and energy in Texas. What does a severe statewide drought, ambitious industry buildout, and rapid population boom tell us about the future in this part of the country and...
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2025 Ten Across Podcast Year in Review
This 2025 Ten Across podcast year in review takes a deep dive into the critical issues shaping the future of the Interstate 10 corridor. We’ve curated a series of interview clips and reflections that will examine contemporary U.S. climate, economic, and governance-related concerns as presented...
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End of the Sunbelt Boom? Climate, Cities and the Next Population Shift
Economic and social science research suggests climate risks are beginning to inform where people choose to live, raise families, and invest, foreshadowing the decline of a near 75-year trend of domestic migration to the Southern U.S. This is the focus of urban planner and trusted climate…
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The Hard Decisions Ahead for Lower Basin Colorado River States
Despite more than two years of intense negotiations, the Veterans Day deadline to agree on the allotment of reduced water supplies under the Colorado River Compact passed without a consensus. If the seven states divided into the upper and lower basins of the river cannot put forward a joint...
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10X Convergence: The Region's Experts Convene to Address the Insurability Crisis
In October, stakeholders representing an unusual combination of sectors — public, private, academic, non-profit and journalism — gathered with insurance industry experts at the 10X Convergence in Jacksonville, Florida, to explore solutions to unsustainable insurance and disaster recovery costs...
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The Future of Insurability: New Approaches and Mindsets
As a prelude to the Ten Across Convergence in Jacksonville coming up on October 22nd—where insurability planning will be a focal topic—we’re sharing a conversation Charlie Sidoti and Stephen Brandt, founders of the nonprofit InnSure. Concerned about the risk protection gap growing with climate...
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Extreme Heat Has Only Just Begun: How Prepared is the U.S.?
The Ten Across Resilience Network convened in Jacksonville, Florida, in April to share strategies from their communities—the hottest in the nation—for mitigating the mortality and economic loss caused by extreme heat, and to identify common obstacles to both long-term planning and immediate...
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Negotiating Survival: The Complex Decision-Making Required to Save Louisiana's Coast
The human interventions intended to make Louisiana's coastline habitable and productive over the past century have contributed to the region's most existential threats. Without redress, displaced river sediment, compromised wetlands, and land subsidence will increasingly expose the state to…
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Latest Deadpool Projections Inject New Urgency into Colorado River Negotiations
Negotiators representing seven states, 30 tribes, and Mexico are running out of time to agree on new rules to guide sharing of Colorado River water before a federally mandated deadline next fall. Failure to do so would forfeit water allocation authority to the Bureau of Reclamation, and costly...
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Katrina's 20th: Jeff Hébert on Community Recovery and Resilience
Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana in 2005 and is still the costliest disaster in U.S. history. New Orleans, a city resting below sea level, is uniquely dependent on engineering for its safety. On August 29th, nearly every defense seemed to fail, allowing storm...
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Katrina's 20th: Vann R. Newkirk II on What We Owe Climate Disaster Survivors Today
Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina—still the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history—made landfall in New Orleans. Many mark the storm as the transition point to a new age of extreme weather impacts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency more than tripled the size of its Disaster...
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Mississippi River Mayors Coalesce to Address Shared Climate Risks
Recent Ten Across Conversations episodes have considered how current changes in staffing, research, and responsibilities within federal agencies like FEMA and NOAA may affect disaster readiness and response at the local level. Many cities find themselves pressed to rethink how their own limited...
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Beyond the Forecast: TV Meteorologists Weigh in on Climate Challenges
Local broadcast meteorologists have become more vocal about the evidence of climate change in their communities’ weather in recent years. While some have encountered dramatic pushback, others have found audiences that are eager to understand the causes of recent record-breaking disturbances in...
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Past, Present, and Future Climate Reporting with NPR's Sadie Babits
The global climate has undoubtedly changed. Earlier this year, Copernicus, one of the most trusted weather models in the world, calculated that global average temperatures have increased by 1.4°C (2.5°F) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This seemingly slight increase has had an...
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A Road Trip Along Interstate 10 with Author E.A. Hanks — Part Two
This episode deals with some mature topics. Listener discretion is advised. This week, we’re bringing you the second half of our discussion with author E.A. (Elizabeth) Hanks about her new book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. Elizabeth undertook her journey along the iconic...
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A Road Trip Along Interstate 10 with Author E.A. Hanks — Part One
Earlier this year, E.A. Hanks—also known as Elizabeth—made her literary debut The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. Considering its framing, it is no surprise that the book was recommended to Ten Across by many. The 10 documents Elizabeth's re-creation of a fraught childhood road trip…
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AI Series: Balancing Data Infrastructure Resource Demands
Previous episodes in our AI series have focused on the evolving features of artificial intelligence itself: its potential to democratize education and to improve city planning and weather forecasting. In this final installment, we examine its costs: the accelerating resource demands of AI and…
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AI Series: AI-Powered Extreme Weather Modeling is on the Horizon
Over the course of a calendar year ending in May 2025, the United States absorbed nearly $1 trillion in damages due to extreme weather. This amount, representing 3% of U.S. gross domestic product, was driven by rising insurance costs and a series of disasters primarily concentrated in the Ten...
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AI Series: 10X Cities Are Using Digital Twins to Solve Complex Challenges
This is the second episode in our limited series about artificial intelligence trends shaping life in the I-10 corridor and beyond. In this episode we chat with experts from the Ten Across cities of Phoenix, Houston and Jacksonville on the power of digital twins to more seamlessly convene...
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Why the Ten Across Geography Needs FEMA with Dr. Samantha Montano
As we were publishing this episode, news from The New York Times broke that Jeremy Greenberg, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster command center has left his post, a day after President Trump said he would wind down the federal agency by November. CBS reported that...
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Understanding Groundwater Risks in the Southwest with Jay Famiglietti
Last week, news broke that the depletion of groundwater across the Colorado River Basin has been quietly, rapidly outpacing the more visible decline of the river itself. Even as the seven basin states negotiate reduced consumption of river water—inevitably driving dependence toward local aquifers...
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A Fight for Better Air Quality in CA's Inland Empire Reveals a Need for American Innovation
Last week, we discussed the emerging digital economy and artificial intelligence sector. Fulfilling the long-term potential of such technological advancements will also require innovation in the ways we anticipate, understand and control their potential consequences. Take, for example, the...
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AI Series: The Emerging Digital Economy Has Deep Roots Along 'The 10'
As artificial intelligence capabilities and related infrastructural demands have exploded in recent years, we have been keeping an eye on the implications for the Ten Across region. To help kick off our summer podcast series on the subject of AI, Arizona State University’s chief information…
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100th Episode: The Importance of Place in U.S. Higher Ed with Michael Crow
If you follow the evolution of American education, you are surely aware of Arizona State University's transformation under the leadership of Michael Crow. In a little over two decades, Crow has grown ASU into one of the largest and most influential public universities, in terms of overall...
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Carolyn Kousky on Using Insurance Models to Drive Positive Change
The insurance industry's bottom line offers the clearest, least political evidence that a stable economy and livable communities are increasingly dependent on strategies to address extreme weather impacts. California, Louisiana, and Florida have become harbingers of a spreading issue:...
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Checking in on Tense Colorado River Negotiations with Anne Castle and John Fleck
Given a looming negotiation deadline and recent changes in federal operations, this is an apt time for us to check back in on how things are going with Colorado River management. Frequent listeners and 10X Summit attendees alike will be well acquainted with how clearly this topic illustrates our...
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Checking in with Dave Jones on California's Insurance Outlook
During an on-stage conversation between insurance industry leaders at the 2023 10X Los Angeles Summit, former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones described the need to mitigate the impacts of climate-driven weather in order for the state to remain insurable. His point has been clearly...
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Catherine Coleman Flowers: A National Voice for Rural and Unincorporated America
Place and personal circumstance can play a decisive role in how one perceives the purpose and effectiveness of government. According to a 2021 study, in 2010 an estimated 37% of the U.S. population lived in an unincorporated area—places without municipal government and the services it might...
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Governing Through Times of Crisis and Opportunity with Mayor Mitch Landrieu - Part Two
Some curse words are used in this discussion. In the previous episode, Mitch Landrieu discussed his upbringing, including the impact his father had on race relations in New Orleans and how this informed Mitch’s leadership during some of city’s toughest hours. In the second half of this...
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Governing Through Times of Crisis and Opportunity with Mayor Mitch Landrieu - Part One
As a native New Orleanian, Mitch Landrieu knows a thing or two about crisis and recovery. He served as the lieutenant governor of Louisiana through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and the compounding effects of subsequent storms including Ike and Gustav. In 2010, he was sworn in as mayor of…
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ASU Researchers Tackle Extreme Heat Relief as Phoenix Temps Soar
Phoenix experienced a 113-day streak of temperatures at or over 100 degrees, and an annual average high temperature of 90 degrees in 2024. The city’s extreme heat is the worst in the nation and has equally resulted in staggering increases of climate-related health emergencies and deaths. Greater...
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Investing in New Orleans' Future with GNOF CEO Andy Kopplin
New Orleans is an extraordinary place that has experienced more than its fair share of adversity. Living below sea level where the mouth of the Mississippi River meets the Gulf Coast, residents have become adept at mitigating a variety of water-related challenges, from the inundation of tropical...
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Reporting on Climate Change When it's at Your Doorstep with Allison Agsten
Compelling communication about risks and necessary actions is of special interest throughout the Ten Across geography. As we continue to follow the course of recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area, we took a closer look at journalism on the ground-- reporters doing their best to convey urgent...
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Past and Future Resilience Along the Mississippi with Boyce Upholt
In many ways, modern American engineering was born on the Mississippi. In the early days of westward expansion, the continent’s largest river basin presented both a vital resource for transportation, biodiversity and agricultural production and a complicated barrier. The Army Corps of Engineers…
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What We Can Learn from the LA Fires with Char Miller
Our examination of the conditions that exacerbated the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this month continues today with perspective from author and environmental historian Char Miller. Southern California received some much-needed rain over this past weekend, allowing firefighters to better contain...
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Is Sharing Our Climate Emotions Key to Achieving Climate Action?
In the hottest year in recorded history, extreme heat corresponded to several notable weather events and ongoing public health impacts in the Ten Across geography. Evidence shows warming ocean temperatures were behind an especially destructive Atlantic hurricane season for the Gulf. Nearly all...
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Ten Across Conversations 2024 Major Takeaways
The events of the past year have reinforced the logic of the Ten Across initiative. In the context of the hottest year in recorded history, the Ten Across geography witnessed ongoing drought, a supercharged Atlantic hurricane season, devastating wildfires, and a significant loss of homeownership…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Ten Across Conversations examines pressing issues impacting communities along the U.S. Interstate 10 corridor. From Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles, California, this region provides a compelling and comprehensive window into the major challenges and opportunities of the 21st century in their most extreme. Join founder and executive director, Wellington “Duke” Reiter, as he chats with subject experts bringing unique insights and new ways of thinking to reveal our collective capacity to create a more resilient future.
For more information about the Ten Across Initiative visit www.10across.com.
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Ten Across
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Ten Across Conversations have?
Ten Across Conversations currently has 136 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Ten Across Conversations about?
Ten Across Conversations examines pressing issues impacting communities along the U.S. Interstate 10 corridor. From Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles, California, this region provides a compelling and comprehensive window into the major challenges and opportunities of the 21st century in their...
How often does Ten Across Conversations release new episodes?
Ten Across Conversations publishes regularly with 136 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Ten Across Conversations on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Ten Across Conversations?
Ten Across Conversations is created and hosted by Ten Across.
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