vox--2020-10-22--Why one small-business owner shut down her shop for a month

In September , illustrator and designer Tuesday Bassen made an unusual announcement in response to her size-inclusive clothing company ’ s recent uptick in sales : She would be temporarily closing her online shop , Tuesday of California , for the entire month of October through the first week of November .
In light of , well , everything , Bassen and her three-person team needed to pause .
“ We are taking some time to catch our breath and assess where we ’ re at , ” Bassen wrote on Instagram .
“ We are experiencing rapid growth and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with purpose and respect to our team members , as well as meet the needs of our customers.
” It ’ s been a year of nimble if difficult business decisions for the 31-year-old Bassen , who started her business in 2015 : At the end of May , she permanently closed her 800-square-foot storefront on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles — a year before her lease was up — and used the money that would ’ ve gone to rent to purchase full-coverage health care for her team .
“ That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to focus on during this time , the human aspect of the pandemic and doubling down on support for my team , ” she said .
On the day before ( temporarily ) closing down the online shop , Bassen spoke to The Goods how she came to the decision and what she hopes to accomplish during the break .
After shelter in place started in March , of course I was worried .
Making clothes is honestly a fool ’ s errand .
It ’ s so expensive and the [ profit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially when you ’ re producing in the US .
I feel like quarantine has shown us that capitalism isn ’ t sustainable , and around May or June , I really started thinking more deeply about the ways I ’ m holding up the more gross aspects of capitalism .
Even if I ’ m presenting an alternative to fast fashion , what are the things that I have internalized as normal that shouldn ’ t be normal ?
Not necessarily ‘ What are the ways I am evil ?
’ but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which I haven ’ t challenged an idea ?
’ And I ended up signing up for a class ; first I did a one-on-one session and then I signed up for a group accountability session led by a woman named Toi Marie .
It ’ s kind of the anti-capitalist way to think about business .
We recognize that we live in a capitalist society , but how can we kind of subvert our place in that ?
One major actionable thing I got from Toi was figuring out how to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concept is not paying based on seniority , not paying based on anything except for personal need and then making a plan about how we were going to get there as a team .
Also being transparent about all of the different business costs , where our budget is , and where it ’ s going .
Another thing that I realized is that a major part of capitalism is not collaborating , not being open to listening and having a conversation , so we ’ ve had a lot of transparent conversations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy on the human side of the business and was like , here ’ s a couple different ideas about how we can approach something , what do you all think ?
We have experienced a pretty big uptick in sales during quarantine .
Part of it was people were recognizing that it is important to be critical with where and how they spent their money .
A lot of people were seeking alternatives to big-box stores , [ seeking ] places that were using sweatshop-free labor , that primarily use deadstock fabric @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produce masks for a really long time because we didn ’ t want to profit off of a pandemic .
It felt really gross , especially when the city of Los Angeles had not yet put together a plan for reopening local factories safely — this is kind of an aside , but LA has a sweatshop problem — so we actually didn ’ t produce any new merchandise for March , April , or May .
Then in June or July we got the go-ahead from the city to work at a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are both Latinx owned , because they had passed inspections .
Also , once we kicked it to the next level with the fulfillment center , we were able to ship faster and decided to make our shipping to the US and Canada free ; I didn ’ t anticipate quite how much growth that would allow us to have .
It was a perfect storm of all those things .
Honestly , I started to feel kind of overwhelmed by it .
We ’ ve tried really hard to do slow , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve made it my goal to avoid rapid growth because I don ’ t think it ’ s super-sustainable .
In fact , earlier this year I was like , ‘ You know what , growth is not the most important part of it for me anymore.
’ I really value being a smaller business .
I like the freedoms that it affords me .
I don ’ t think I want to get much bigger .
The most important part of it is really honing everything , making sure we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure people — both our team and customers — are happy .
“ I really value being a smaller business .
I like the freedoms that it affords me .
I don ’ t think I want to get much bigger.
” In September , I took a two-week break and just kind of hid out in the woods .
I think I felt burnt out .
I scheduled all of the Instagram posts for the business ahead of time so I didn ’ t have to be online .
I just needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and allow myself to be a person for a while .
As I started to come back to reality at the end of it , I started thinking about business perspectives and what I ’ ve gleaned from watching different CEOs from afar .
One thing I read multiple times was business owners saying things like , ‘ I regret prioritizing company growth over cultural [ growth ] , and we just grew too fast .
If I could go back I would do things differently.
’ And something kind of clicked for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a second , this is a critical moment .
I can choose where we want to go from here .
And what I think would be positive is closing the store for a month — [ taking ] a pause so we can implement new strategies , new ways of working , new ways to automate things like returns so customer service isn ’ t so overwhelmed .
To just really take the time to talk about it as a team and implement things together , allow space for collaborative conversation , allow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I got back , I scheduled an all-hands-on-deck meeting and we talked about that concept [ of temporarily closing the store ] .
I talked about my thinking behind it .
We all agreed that it would be a good idea , and we also talked about what work would look like in that period and how we would divvy up tasks .
Everyone will still be working full time , just from behind the scenes ; closing for a month is just giving us a little more time to move forward in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elegant .
I think it ’ s just about taking out one piece of the puzzle — instead of just being reactive , becoming more proactive in this moment of growth .
We recognized that customers , [ and ] people in general , are feeling really raw right now .
It ’ s an intense time in so many different ways , and I think customers need a lot more right now , more love and communication .
So how can we best give that to people ?
Yes , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s like , closing the store for a month will lose money .
It ’ s not insignificant , especially because October is usually a really good month for us , and we ’ re hiring a social media manager right now , which is another person with health care .
But I also feel like that ’ s short-term thinking .
When I think about the long term , and when I think about employee health and safety , employee retention , happiness , customer happiness , and trust too , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I don ’ t mean to say at all that I ’ ve been a perfect boss .
Last year , I definitely feel like I fell short of where I wanted to be , and I think a lot of that came down to my own personal shortcomings and immaturity , in part because I wasn ’ t taking care of myself .
My mental health was terrible .
Part of what capitalism demands from us , from CEOs , is [ being ] a superhuman , right ?
You don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the past year I ’ ve really prioritized working on my own mental health .
Placing a lot of emphasis on that and caring for myself has really allowed me to go , ‘ Everyone needs to have this.
’ This can ’ t stop at me .
This isn ’ t how it should be .
When you ’ re thinking about changing the world in X , Y , Z ways , are you also starting at home ?
Are you also starting at the ground level ?
“ Part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CEOs , is [ being ] a superhuman , right ?
You don ’ t have feelings.
” Like a lot of people , I ’ ve felt extra-disgusted at the state of things and inspired to attempt to do so much better than our country has .
I ’ ve been looking to democratic socialist governments like Norway , where everybody , no matter what job you have , gets the same amount of paid time off .
Moving forward , we ’ ve actually decided to take two weeks off in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just really to give everybody a solid break where nobody in the company is like , ‘ Hey , I ’ m really sorry , I know you ’ re on vacation but I have this question.
’ Everybody is off , everybody can have a mental break .
We ’ re also taking a break the week after Christmas .
This year , when the busyness of life has been stripped away , I feel like there has been so much time to say , ‘ Wait a second , it doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ I think there ’ s a lot of different social justice movements that are having that realization right now .
People are less busy , people have more time to think about how things can be .
And I think just removing the need to constantly be making money , to constantly be busy , is really positive .
Just placing more value on , you know , life .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
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In September, illustrator and designer Tuesday Bassen made an unusual announcement in response to her size-inclusive clothing company’s recent uptick in sales: She would be temporarily closing her online shop, Tuesday of California, for the entire month of October through the first week of November. In light of, well, everything, Bassen and her three-person team needed to pause.
“We are taking some time to catch our breath and assess where we’re at,” Bassen wrote on Instagram. “We are experiencing rapid growth and want to make sure we do so with purpose and respect to our team members, as well as meet the needs of our customers.” It’s been a year of nimble if difficult business decisions for the 31-year-old Bassen, who started her business in 2015: At the end of May, she permanently closed her 800-square-foot storefront on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles — a year before her lease was up — and used the money that would’ve gone to rent to purchase full-coverage health care for her team. “That’s what I’ve been trying to focus on during this time, the human aspect of the pandemic and doubling down on support for my team,” she said.
On the day before (temporarily) closing down the online shop, Bassen spoke to The Goods how she came to the decision and what she hopes to accomplish during the break.
After shelter in place started in March, of course I was worried. Making clothes is honestly a fool’s errand. It’s so expensive and the [profit] margin isn’t great, especially when you’re producing in the US.
I feel like quarantine has shown us that capitalism isn’t sustainable, and around May or June, I really started thinking more deeply about the ways I’m holding up the more gross aspects of capitalism. Even if I’m presenting an alternative to fast fashion, what are the things that I have internalized as normal that shouldn’t be normal? Not necessarily ‘What are the ways I am evil?’ but more like ‘What are the ways in which I haven’t challenged an idea?’ And I ended up signing up for a class; first I did a one-on-one session and then I signed up for a group accountability session led by a woman named Toi Marie. It’s kind of the anti-capitalist way to think about business. We recognize that we live in a capitalist society, but how can we kind of subvert our place in that?
One major actionable thing I got from Toi was figuring out how to pay everybody a thriving wage. The concept is not paying based on seniority, not paying based on anything except for personal need and then making a plan about how we were going to get there as a team. Also being transparent about all of the different business costs, where our budget is, and where it’s going. Another thing that I realized is that a major part of capitalism is not collaborating, not being open to listening and having a conversation, so we’ve had a lot of transparent conversations. I started spending more time and energy on the human side of the business and was like, here’s a couple different ideas about how we can approach something, what do you all think?
We have experienced a pretty big uptick in sales during quarantine. Part of it was people were recognizing that it is important to be critical with where and how they spent their money. A lot of people were seeking alternatives to big-box stores, [seeking] places that were using sweatshop-free labor, that primarily use deadstock fabric like we do. We hesitated to produce masks for a really long time because we didn’t want to profit off of a pandemic. It felt really gross, especially when the city of Los Angeles had not yet put together a plan for reopening local factories safely — this is kind of an aside, but LA has a sweatshop problem — so we actually didn’t produce any new merchandise for March, April, or May.
Then in June or July we got the go-ahead from the city to work at a smaller capacity with our factories, which are both Latinx owned, because they had passed inspections. Also, once we kicked it to the next level with the fulfillment center, we were able to ship faster and decided to make our shipping to the US and Canada free; I didn’t anticipate quite how much growth that would allow us to have. It was a perfect storm of all those things.
Honestly, I started to feel kind of overwhelmed by it. We’ve tried really hard to do slow, sustained growth over the years, and I’ve made it my goal to avoid rapid growth because I don’t think it’s super-sustainable. In fact, earlier this year I was like, ‘You know what, growth is not the most important part of it for me anymore.’ I really value being a smaller business. I like the freedoms that it affords me. I don’t think I want to get much bigger. The most important part of it is really honing everything, making sure we’re a well-oiled machine, making sure people — both our team and customers — are happy.
“I really value being a smaller business. I like the freedoms that it affords me. I don’t think I want to get much bigger.”
In September, I took a two-week break and just kind of hid out in the woods. I think I felt burnt out. I scheduled all of the Instagram posts for the business ahead of time so I didn’t have to be online. I just needed to step aside for a little bit and allow myself to be a person for a while. As I started to come back to reality at the end of it, I started thinking about business perspectives and what I’ve gleaned from watching different CEOs from afar. One thing I read multiple times was business owners saying things like, ‘I regret prioritizing company growth over cultural [growth], and we just grew too fast. If I could go back I would do things differently.’ And something kind of clicked for me.
I was like, wait a second, this is a critical moment. I can choose where we want to go from here.
And what I think would be positive is closing the store for a month — [taking] a pause so we can implement new strategies, new ways of working, new ways to automate things like returns so customer service isn’t so overwhelmed. To just really take the time to talk about it as a team and implement things together, allow space for collaborative conversation, allow everyone a moment to breathe.
When I got back, I scheduled an all-hands-on-deck meeting and we talked about that concept [of temporarily closing the store]. I talked about my thinking behind it. We all agreed that it would be a good idea, and we also talked about what work would look like in that period and how we would divvy up tasks. Everyone will still be working full time, just from behind the scenes; closing for a month is just giving us a little more time to move forward in a way that feels more purposeful and elegant.
I think it’s just about taking out one piece of the puzzle — instead of just being reactive, becoming more proactive in this moment of growth. We recognized that customers, [and] people in general, are feeling really raw right now. It’s an intense time in so many different ways, and I think customers need a lot more right now, more love and communication. So how can we best give that to people?
Yes, there is a big part of me that’s like, closing the store for a month will lose money. It’s not insignificant, especially because October is usually a really good month for us, and we’re hiring a social media manager right now, which is another person with health care. But I also feel like that’s short-term thinking. When I think about the long term, and when I think about employee health and safety, employee retention, happiness, customer happiness, and trust too, I feel like this is a wise decision.
I don’t mean to say at all that I’ve been a perfect boss. Last year, I definitely feel like I fell short of where I wanted to be, and I think a lot of that came down to my own personal shortcomings and immaturity, in part because I wasn’t taking care of myself. My mental health was terrible. Part of what capitalism demands from us, from CEOs, is [being] a superhuman, right? You don’t have feelings. So in the past year I’ve really prioritized working on my own mental health. Placing a lot of emphasis on that and caring for myself has really allowed me to go, ‘Everyone needs to have this.’ This can’t stop at me. This isn’t how it should be. When you’re thinking about changing the world in X, Y, Z ways, are you also starting at home? Are you also starting at the ground level?
“Part of what capitalism demands from us, from CEOs, is [being] a superhuman, right? You don’t have feelings.”
Like a lot of people, I’ve felt extra-disgusted at the state of things and inspired to attempt to do so much better than our country has. I’ve been looking to democratic socialist governments like Norway, where everybody, no matter what job you have, gets the same amount of paid time off. Moving forward, we’ve actually decided to take two weeks off in the summer together. That’s just really to give everybody a solid break where nobody in the company is like, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry, I know you’re on vacation but I have this question.’ Everybody is off, everybody can have a mental break. We’re also taking a break the week after Christmas.
This year, when the busyness of life has been stripped away, I feel like there has been so much time to say, ‘Wait a second, it doesn’t have to be like this.’ I think there’s a lot of different social justice movements that are having that realization right now. People are less busy, people have more time to think about how things can be. And I think just removing the need to constantly be making money, to constantly be busy, is really positive. Just placing more value on, you know, life.
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vox--2020-10-22--The future of the office has been put on hold

Share All sharing options for : Why the future of the office has been put on hold So far , the office of the future looks a lot like the office you left seven months ago — though you probably haven ’ t seen it .
Most of those who have been able to work at home during the pandemic haven ’ t gone back to the office and don ’ t want to go back until there ’ s a vaccine .
It ’ s not clear when , if ever , offices will return to their previous level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 15 percent of office workers have returned in New York City , the largest office market in the United States , according to Partnership for New York City .
In big cities nationwide , office building occupancy rates are hovering around 25 percent on average as many of the country ’ s workers remain stuck in limbo .
It ’ s not yet safe to return to full capacity , and it ’ s not clear if offices operating at partial capacity are a better solution than people working from home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a crawl as the office class has taken more permanently to working in their living rooms and bedrooms .
Tech juggernauts like Facebook and Microsoft are offering employees the opportunity to work remotely forever .
Meanwhile , even less digitally savvy companies are weighing the future of their real estate and the location of their workers .
The entire landscape of office work has shifted , but the physical workspaces themselves have yet to change much .
The open floor plan still predominates the office landscape , and germ-killing robots are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dreams .
Instead , to goad workers back into offices , employers have enacted a raft of minor precautions to make their offices safer — or to give the appearance of safety — but most have put off major , expensive alterations to their office space until there ’ s more certainty about a coronavirus vaccine , and , in turn , more certainty about the future of the office .
Those who have returned to their offices have only been able to do so because so many others haven ’ t .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ model , which lets people work at home and in the office .
And since the majority of people are choosing to work from home most of the time , that frees up space in the offices for those who want or need to come in to have adequate social distancing .
In a way , this hybrid model represents the situation overall .
Offices and office workers are in a holding pattern , not ready to commit to working from home or the office .
And the future of the office , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substantially different , has yet to be realized for many reasons that have nothing to do with the office itself .
A whole spate of other issues — transportation , child care , trust in society and coworkers — is informing employees ’ decisions not to go back just yet .
Of those who responded to our recent survey about returning to work in an office , about half said they feel safe there and think their employers have done a good job .
But for the most part , employers aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nod to the difficulty of those issues or as an acknowledgment that they can ’ t guarantee their safety .
Still , many employers want workers back in the office , and many employees want to be back .
Both employers and employees , however , say the availability of a vaccine is a main consideration before returning to the office .
A widely available vaccine may not be a reality until the middle of next year .
In the meantime , employers are doing what they can — without expending excess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the space feel safer for their workers .
If you ’ re one of the few returning to the office soon , here ’ s what you might expect .
Office space largely looks the same Back in the early days of the coronavirus , when legions of office workers were sent to work from home for the first time , many were making ambitious predictions about the future of work .
( I declared the end of the office as we know it . )
They thought the future of the office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office spaces , state-of-the-art filtration systems , and , of course , those germ-killing robots .
The reality has been more mundane .
So far , the changes to offices have largely been superficial and temporary .
“ To reconfigure a space takes money , ” Julie Whelan , head of occupier research for the Americas at CBRE , told Recode .
“ Not a lot of organizations are willing to deploy capital right now because of the uncertainty of what the future of office space is.
” Juliana Beauvais , research manager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , put it another way .
“ Do companies really need to spend money right now , when people don ’ t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the office anyway ?
” “ It ’ s still hard for companies to make the ROI argument for a lot of these more sophisticated technologies , especially if they involve hardware or equipment investments , ” Beauvais said .
“ Do companies really need to spend money right now , when people don ’ t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spaces , many employers have mostly forgone major construction in exchange for simpler , less expensive , and more temporary fixes that capitalize on the fact that fewer people are coming in .
“ These are table stakes to manage a building in the Covid environment , ” according to Kevin Smith , executive managing director of asset services at Cushman & Wakefield .
Instead of building more walled-in private offices , for instance , desks have been taped off or chairs removed in order to ensure at least 6 feet of space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and bulk bins of office snacks have gone by the wayside .
Most offices don ’ t have sophisticated hospital-grade HVAC systems that can handle filtering viruses out of the air , though Smith says some of the wealthier landlords are looking into it .
Rather than complete overhauls of air conditioning systems , building managers are opting to upgrade their filters and change them more regularly .
Many have also placed smaller air filtration devices around the office .
Plexiglas dividers have popped up to create physical divisions between workspaces and colleagues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how effective these shields actually are .
Indeed , many post-coronavirus measures amount to little more than hygiene theater , an effort to make people feel safe rather than actually making them so .
Nonetheless , Plexiglas dividers and other types of lightweight barriers are seeing a spike in demand , according to office furniture company Steelcase , which has also seen a growth in demand for mobile office equipment like tables and carts with wheels .
Such requests represent employees ’ wanting to be able to construct the space around them and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All the things we thought in March and April changed in May and June and seem to be shifting again right now , ” Steelcase ’ s VP of workplace innovation Gale Moutrey told Recode , referring to the ways in which our understanding of the virus and how it spreads have changed drastically since this spring .
Getting into and moving around offices is more complicated Many of the changes to offices have manifested less in the physical space than they have in how we behave in that space .
Signage is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feet apart , instructing them in which direction to walk , and reminding them to wear masks .
Mask-wearing , which is often required by law these days , is ubiquitous in many offices , but the degree to which individuals comply with the law varies from job to job .
Other less visible changes to office space include cleaning , health checks , and scheduling protocols .
Offices are being cleaned much more frequently than they used to be .
( This includes notifying people that the space has been cleaned .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ item — is being placed everywhere .
While welcome , many of these changes probably won ’ t do much to stop the spread of the coronavirus , which scientists believe travels primarily through airborne particles , not so much on surfaces .
Rather , they convey the idea that employers are thinking of their employees ’ safety .
Health screenings are also common .
Thanks to local government mandates , many offices have implemented employee questionnaires — Do you have symptoms ?
Were you exposed to someone with the coronavirus ?
Have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checks to avoid letting obviously sick employees in the building .
This , too , can be a bit of theater .
The CDC has said such screenings have “ limited effectiveness , ” since people transmitting the diseases don ’ t necessarily have a fever or symptoms .
That hasn ’ t stopped a whole cottage industry from popping up around these sorts of checks , with badge-in company Kastle , airport biometric ID company Clear , and health care concierge Eden Health all pivoting to include coronavirus screenings in their offerings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ card access to a building once their questionnaire has been completed .
Clear uses kiosks equipped with biometric technology , allowing employees to complete their questionnaire and temperature screening on the same device that checks their identity .
Eden Health offers not only health screenings on their app but also coronavirus testing on site or at home .
Rent the Runway , for example , instituted coronavirus tests monthly for its employees .
while a financial services client is getting weekly at-home tests .
Many employers use scheduling tools — or more simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people can be in the office at once and to book space within the office .
Employees can see who else will be in the office and decide when or whether they ’ re going in based on that information .
To a lesser extent , different groups or teams alternate coming into the office by the day of the week .
Real estate is also in a holding pattern Like offices themselves , the office market at large is also a bit stuck .
Companies have stopped expanding their real estate footprints @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s more certainty about the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic .
As a result , more office space is coming on the market than is being leased , and many are choosing to sublease space they already have , according to data from CBRE .
In some markets , this has led to rising vacancy rates and declining rents .
However , it ’ s not yet clear whether these changes are stem from work-from-home policies or are simply reflective of being in a recession , which always results in a real estate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Those companies that are shopping for new space are also asking questions about safety parameters , HVAC systems , and cleaning protocols , according to Michael Colacino , president of office leasing platform SquareFoot .
“ We haven ’ t had anybody reject a building because they didn ’ t like the answers , ” Colacino said , “ but there ’ s no question people are putting it in a metric of things to consider that they didn ’ t a year ago.
” Companies are also looking for more space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added cost , he said .
In the past , businesses had typically asked for around 250 square feet per person ; now they want more like 300-400 square feet , according to Colacino , who attributes the increase to a need for more collaboration space and a desire to add social distancing .
“ When you actually sit down and do the logistics of half-baked plans of rotating through offices , the easiest solution is to take a little more space , ” Colacino said .
Nina Broadhurst , a principal and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Group Architecture , thinks when everything shakes out , offices will take up less space .
Thanks to working from home and desk-sharing in the office , she ’ s operating on the assumption that offices will require about 70 percent of their existing footprints .
What the future of work looks like While the wide variety of solutions to improving the office space in a pandemic may seem slipshod , CBRE ’ s Whelan thinks of them as all part of a larger effort to build up “ multiple lines of defense.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ solution we know is going to be perfect.
” As for any big changes — either in the vein of what we thought about this spring or something entirely new — they aren ’ t off the table yet .
“ Real estate is historically an industry that takes a long time to change , ” Whelan said .
“ We can talk about all the great things that are coming , but it ’ s going to take time to really unfold and show itself in the physical portfolio.
” And those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the coronavirus at all ; they could represent jumps forward in trends that were already underway .
“ When people thought it was going to be tamer — when we thought we could go back in June and September with precautions — we saw more 6-foot gaps and one-way traffic and Plexiglas , ” said Cuningham Group ’ s Broadhurst said .
“ The more they haven ’ t made that leap , the more they ’ re starting to look forward rather than make adjustments for a temporary situation.
” Broadhurst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office as a place of collaboration , where people come in to work together and to maintain an office culture .
They see a future in which fewer people go into the office all of the time , while the vast majority still want office space they can go to some of the time .
When they do , they want to be able to work with others .
The coronavirus made working from home more widely acceptable , but it also made being together more important than ever .
In the office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward fitting as many people into the office as possible may finally reverse .
But also expect more flexible seating as well as larger and more robust and more numerous conference and other group spaces .
Whelan estimates that offices of the future will have more common space than personal space .
Traditional offices are approximately 80 percent cubicles and offices and 20 percent common space ; she expects that ratio could flip .
It ’ s notable that some of these trends feel antithetical to coronavirus precautions .
Instead , they could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coronavirus vaccine .
The pandemic could effectively be , as Broadhurst put it , “ an opportunity to maybe reset how we go about working when we start again.
” “ Some of these trends were already underway .
Coronavirus has just accelerated them and made people start to really consider them , ” Broadhurst said .
“ People always say , ‘ don ’ t waste a good crisis.
’ ” Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Share All sharing options for: Why the future of the office has been put on hold
So far, the office of the future looks a lot like the office you left seven months ago — though you probably haven’t seen it. Most of those who have been able to work at home during the pandemic haven’t gone back to the office and don’t want to go back until there’s a vaccine.
It’s not clear when, if ever, offices will return to their previous level of activity. As of mid-October, less than 15 percent of office workers have returned in New York City, the largest office market in the United States, according to Partnership for New York City. In big cities nationwide, office building occupancy rates are hovering around 25 percent on average as many of the country’s workers remain stuck in limbo. It’s not yet safe to return to full capacity, and it’s not clear if offices operating at partial capacity are a better solution than people working from home.
Real estate leasing has also slowed to a crawl as the office class has taken more permanently to working in their living rooms and bedrooms. Tech juggernauts like Facebook and Microsoft are offering employees the opportunity to work remotely forever. Meanwhile, even less digitally savvy companies are weighing the future of their real estate and the location of their workers.
The entire landscape of office work has shifted, but the physical workspaces themselves have yet to change much. The open floor plan still predominates the office landscape, and germ-killing robots are still mostly the stuff of science reporters’ dreams. Instead, to goad workers back into offices, employers have enacted a raft of minor precautions to make their offices safer — or to give the appearance of safety — but most have put off major, expensive alterations to their office space until there’s more certainty about a coronavirus vaccine, and, in turn, more certainty about the future of the office.
Those who have returned to their offices have only been able to do so because so many others haven’t. Most businesses are adopting a hybrid work model, which lets people work at home and in the office. And since the majority of people are choosing to work from home most of the time, that frees up space in the offices for those who want or need to come in to have adequate social distancing.
In a way, this hybrid model represents the situation overall. Offices and office workers are in a holding pattern, not ready to commit to working from home or the office. And the future of the office, if it’s going to be substantially different, has yet to be realized for many reasons that have nothing to do with the office itself. A whole spate of other issues — transportation, child care, trust in society and coworkers — is informing employees’ decisions not to go back just yet.
Of those who responded to our recent survey about returning to work in an office, about half said they feel safe there and think their employers have done a good job. But for the most part, employers aren’t forcing employees back, perhaps as a nod to the difficulty of those issues or as an acknowledgment that they can’t guarantee their safety.
Still, many employers want workers back in the office, and many employees want to be back. Both employers and employees, however, say the availability of a vaccine is a main consideration before returning to the office. A widely available vaccine may not be a reality until the middle of next year.
In the meantime, employers are doing what they can — without expending excess cash in a recession — to make the space feel safer for their workers.
If you’re one of the few returning to the office soon, here’s what you might expect.
Office space largely looks the same
Back in the early days of the coronavirus, when legions of office workers were sent to work from home for the first time, many were making ambitious predictions about the future of work. (I declared the end of the office as we know it.) They thought the future of the office would bring touchless entry, completely remodeled office spaces, state-of-the-art filtration systems, and, of course, those germ-killing robots.
The reality has been more mundane. So far, the changes to offices have largely been superficial and temporary.
“To reconfigure a space takes money,” Julie Whelan, head of occupier research for the Americas at CBRE, told Recode. “Not a lot of organizations are willing to deploy capital right now because of the uncertainty of what the future of office space is.”
Juliana Beauvais, research manager in IDC’s enterprise applications practice, put it another way.
“Do companies really need to spend money right now, when people don’t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the office anyway?”
“It’s still hard for companies to make the ROI argument for a lot of these more sophisticated technologies, especially if they involve hardware or equipment investments,” Beauvais said. “Do companies really need to spend money right now, when people don’t feel safe or comfortable coming back to the office anyway?”
In their existing spaces, many employers have mostly forgone major construction in exchange for simpler, less expensive, and more temporary fixes that capitalize on the fact that fewer people are coming in.
“These are table stakes to manage a building in the Covid environment,” according to Kevin Smith, executive managing director of asset services at Cushman & Wakefield.
Instead of building more walled-in private offices, for instance, desks have been taped off or chairs removed in order to ensure at least 6 feet of space between employees. Common areas are off-limits and bulk bins of office snacks have gone by the wayside.
Most offices don’t have sophisticated hospital-grade HVAC systems that can handle filtering viruses out of the air, though Smith says some of the wealthier landlords are looking into it. Rather than complete overhauls of air conditioning systems, building managers are opting to upgrade their filters and change them more regularly. Many have also placed smaller air filtration devices around the office.
Plexiglass dividers have popped up to create physical divisions between workspaces and colleagues, though it’s not clear how effective these shields actually are. Indeed, many post-coronavirus measures amount to little more than hygiene theater, an effort to make people feel safe rather than actually making them so.
Nonetheless, plexiglass dividers and other types of lightweight barriers are seeing a spike in demand, according to office furniture company Steelcase, which has also seen a growth in demand for mobile office equipment like tables and carts with wheels. Such requests represent employees’ wanting to be able to construct the space around them and respond to the changing situation.
“All the things we thought in March and April changed in May and June and seem to be shifting again right now,” Steelcase’s VP of workplace innovation Gale Moutrey told Recode, referring to the ways in which our understanding of the virus and how it spreads have changed drastically since this spring.
Getting into and moving around offices is more complicated
Many of the changes to offices have manifested less in the physical space than they have in how we behave in that space. Signage is everywhere, cautioning people to stay 6 feet apart, instructing them in which direction to walk, and reminding them to wear masks.
Mask-wearing, which is often required by law these days, is ubiquitous in many offices, but the degree to which individuals comply with the law varies from job to job. Other less visible changes to office space include cleaning, health checks, and scheduling protocols.
Offices are being cleaned much more frequently than they used to be. (This includes notifying people that the space has been cleaned.) Hand sanitizer — once an impossible-to-find item — is being placed everywhere.
While welcome, many of these changes probably won’t do much to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which scientists believe travels primarily through airborne particles, not so much on surfaces. Rather, they convey the idea that employers are thinking of their employees’ safety.
Health screenings are also common. Thanks to local government mandates, many offices have implemented employee questionnaires — Do you have symptoms? Were you exposed to someone with the coronavirus? Have you traveled recently? — and temperature checks to avoid letting obviously sick employees in the building. This, too, can be a bit of theater. The CDC has said such screenings have “limited effectiveness,” since people transmitting the diseases don’t necessarily have a fever or symptoms.
That hasn’t stopped a whole cottage industry from popping up around these sorts of checks, with security services company Kastle, airport biometric ID company Clear, and health care concierge Eden Health all pivoting to include coronavirus screenings in their offerings. Kastle only allows an employee ID card access to a building once their questionnaire has been completed. Clear uses kiosks equipped with biometric technology, allowing employees to complete their questionnaire and temperature screening on the same device that checks their identity. Eden Health offers not only health screenings on their app but also coronavirus testing on site or at home. Rent the Runway, for example, instituted coronavirus tests monthly for its employees, while a financial services client is getting weekly at-home tests.
Many employers use scheduling tools — or more simply public calendars — to limit how many people can be in the office at once and to book space within the office. Employees can see who else will be in the office and decide when or whether they’re going in based on that information. To a lesser extent, different groups or teams alternate coming into the office by the day of the week.
Real estate is also in a holding pattern
Like offices themselves, the office market at large is also a bit stuck. Companies have stopped expanding their real estate footprints, deferring non-essential leasing until there’s more certainty about the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, more office space is coming on the market than is being leased, and many are choosing to sublease space they already have, according to data from CBRE.
In some markets, this has led to rising vacancy rates and declining rents. However, it’s not yet clear whether these changes are stem from work-from-home policies or are simply reflective of being in a recession, which always results in a real estate contraction, according to Whelan from CBRE.
Those companies that are shopping for new space are also asking questions about safety parameters, HVAC systems, and cleaning protocols, according to Michael Colacino, president of office leasing platform SquareFoot.
“We haven’t had anybody reject a building because they didn’t like the answers,” Colacino said, “but there’s no question people are putting it in a metric of things to consider that they didn’t a year ago.”
Companies are also looking for more space per person than before, despite the added cost, he said. In the past, businesses had typically asked for around 250 square feet per person; now they want more like 300-400 square feet, according to Colacino, who attributes the increase to a need for more collaboration space and a desire to add social distancing.
“When you actually sit down and do the logistics of half-baked plans of rotating through offices, the easiest solution is to take a little more space,” Colacino said.
Nina Broadhurst, a principal and leader of the work studio at Cuningham Group Architecture, thinks when everything shakes out, offices will take up less space. Thanks to working from home and desk-sharing in the office, she’s operating on the assumption that offices will require about 70 percent of their existing footprints.
What the future of work looks like
While the wide variety of solutions to improving the office space in a pandemic may seem slipshod, CBRE’s Whelan thinks of them as all part of a larger effort to build up “multiple lines of defense.” She added, “No one solution we know is going to be perfect.”
As for any big changes — either in the vein of what we thought about this spring or something entirely new — they aren’t off the table yet.
“Real estate is historically an industry that takes a long time to change,” Whelan said. “We can talk about all the great things that are coming, but it’s going to take time to really unfold and show itself in the physical portfolio.”
And those changes might not have much to do with the coronavirus at all; they could represent jumps forward in trends that were already underway.
“When people thought it was going to be tamer — when we thought we could go back in June and September with precautions — we saw more 6-foot gaps and one-way traffic and plexiglass,” Cuningham Group’s Broadhurst said. “The more they haven’t made that leap, the more they’re starting to look forward rather than make adjustments for a temporary situation.”
Broadhurst and others see the future of the office as a place of collaboration, where people come in to work together and to maintain an office culture. They see a future in which fewer people go into the office all of the time, while the vast majority still want office space they can go to some of the time. When they do, they want to be able to work with others. The coronavirus made working from home more widely acceptable, but it also made being together more important than ever.
In the office of the future, the decades-long push toward fitting as many people into the office as possible may finally reverse. But also expect more flexible seating as well as larger and more robust and more numerous conference and other group spaces.
Whelan estimates that offices of the future will have more common space than personal space. Traditional offices are approximately 80 percent cubicles and offices and 20 percent common space; she expects that ratio could flip.
It’s notable that some of these trends feel antithetical to coronavirus precautions. Instead, they could represent what offices will look like after a coronavirus vaccine. The pandemic could effectively be, as Broadhurst put it, “an opportunity to maybe reset how we go about working when we start again.”
“Some of these trends were already underway. Coronavirus has just accelerated them and made people start to really consider them,” Broadhurst said. “People always say, ‘don’t waste a good crisis.’”


vox--2020-10-22--The final 2020 presidential debate

The final 2020 presidential debate

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off one last time on Thursday night in Nashville , Tennessee .
After last week ’ s second debate was canceled when President Donald Trump refused to agree to debate virtually , Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will go head to head one last time on Thursday night in Nashville , Tennessee .
NBC News reporter Kristen Welker will moderate the debate , which will run from 9 to 10:30 pm ET .
Welker announced the six topics last Friday : Fighting Covid-19 , American Families , Race in America , Climate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Those topics have already prompted some controversy .
The Trump campaign wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates demanding the debate focus on foreign policy .
Trump sees foreign policy as a winning issue for him , and his campaign manager , Bill Stepien , accused the debate commission of “ pro-Biden antics.
” Biden ’ s campaign responded by saying Trump was the one trying to dodge questions .
TJ Ducklo , Biden ’ s national press secretary , said both campaigns and the debate commission agreed months ago that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had harsh words for the moderator of the first debate , Chris Wallace of Fox News , and for Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie , who hosted the president ’ s town hall last Thursday .
This time , he has gone on the attack against the moderator before the debate , calling Welker a “ radical Democrat ” and saying she will be “ no good.
” Follow along below for Vox ’ s debate coverage , including how to watch , breaking news updates , analysis , and more .

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off one last time on Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee.
After last week’s second debate was canceled when President Donald Trump refused to agree to debate virtually, Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will go head to head one last time on Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee.
NBC News reporter Kristen Welker will moderate the debate, which will run from 9 to 10:30 pm ET. Welker announced the six topics last Friday: Fighting Covid-19, American Families, Race in America, Climate Change, National Security, and Leadership.
Those topics have already prompted some controversy. The Trump campaign wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates demanding the debate focus on foreign policy. Trump sees foreign policy as a winning issue for him, and his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, accused the debate commission of “pro-Biden antics.” Biden’s campaign responded by saying Trump was the one trying to dodge questions. TJ Ducklo, Biden’s national press secretary, said both campaigns and the debate commission agreed months ago that the moderator would select the topics.
Trump had harsh words for the moderator of the first debate, Chris Wallace of Fox News, and for Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie, who hosted the president’s town hall last Thursday. This time, he has gone on the attack against the moderator before the debate, calling Welker a “radical Democrat” and saying she will be “no good.”
Follow along below for Vox’s debate coverage, including how to watch, breaking news updates, analysis, and more.


vox--2020-10-22--We must burn the West to save it

We must burn the West to save it

To live in many parts of the American West today is to live with wildfires .
And to suppress those fires is only to delay , and worsen , the inevitable .
The gargantuan wildfires that have scorched states like California , Washington , Oregon , and Colorado recently are vivid reminders of this fact .
A number of unique factors this year combined with long-term trends to create the devastating and unprecedented fires of 2020 .
But a major reason for the massive scale of the destruction is that natural fires and burning practices first developed by Indigenous people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are essential to many Western ecosystems , restoring nutrients to the soil , clearing decaying brush , and helping plants germinate .
Without these fires , vegetation in woodlands , grasslands , and chaparral shrublands accumulates , so more fuel is available to burn , especially when a megadrought keeps drying the fuel out , year after year .
A debt to the landscape starts to mount , and when it comes due , there is hell to pay .
“ If we ’ re not using fire in the same way that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then we could be creating a situation where we ’ re creating a further imbalance , ” said Don Hankins , an environmental geographer at California State University Chico and a Plains Miwok Indigenous fire practitioner .
So a key part of the strategy to reduce the growing threat from wildfires is to burn parts of the landscape on purpose .
This is much easier said than done .
It ’ s costly , it can be dangerous , and it demands a sophisticated and granular understanding of the land .
But American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the West for thousands of years , building up a vast reservoir of knowledge of when and how to start fires to protect themselves and to increase the bounty of the land .
Much of this burning stopped when European settlers arrived and drove American Indians away from their ancestral homes and deprived those that remained of their culture .
Now there ’ s a growing movement to bring these practices back to the landscape , with Indigenous practitioners in the lead in places like California .
But it requires confronting an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing wildfire risk .
Why Indigenous burning practices are a powerful way to mitigate wildfire risk To understand how we arrived in this era of extreme wildfires across the Western United States , scientists have studied patterns like those in tree rings to get a sense of the history of fires across the West .
“ It shows that a lot of these areas burned a lot , anywhere from every two years to every 15 years , ” said Eric Knapp , a research ecologist at the United States Forest Service ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If you haven ’ t burned in a long time — some of these places haven ’ t seen fire in recorded history , or since 1910 — that ’ s a lot of fire debt.
” The US Forest Service has even tabulated estimates for how often fires have historically occurred across ecosystems like sage scrub and ponderosa pine forests .
These records , plus what we know about how fires were suppressed since the 1800s , point toward how much American Indians in the Western US engineered the landscape with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European settlers arrived and saw a landscape that had been methodically cultivated , like forests with trees spaced far apart and with little leaf litter on the ground .
But they often failed to recognize it as such .
“ There ’ s this idea — the idea I was raised with — that this wilderness is untrammeled by man , ” Knapp said .
“ The more work I ’ ve done in this field , the more strongly I believe that there was a pretty strong human imprint on this landscape.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ burning and the current fires also illustrates how much more fuel is now available to burn in dangerous megafires .
However , there ’ s more to paying off this fire debt than lighting a match .
Bill Tripp is the director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources .
The Karuk Tribe ’ s territory is in Northern California and reaches into Oregon .
Tripp , a member of the tribe and an Indigenous fire practitioner , explained that every bit of the landscape has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fire , a unique set of traits in a given region that can influence a blaze .
The ideal conditions for a burn depend on the mix of plants , sunlight , soil , and weather conditions .
They can change from day to day , and from one hillside to another .
And these deliberate fires are not just about reducing wildfire risk , as is often the case with prescribed burns from government or private land managers .
These Indigenous burns serve cultural purposes , like maintaining trails , helping food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ building and crafts .
Such fires don ’ t just hinge on “ when ” and “ how , ” but on “ why , ” which in turn demands sophisticated local insight .
For practitioners , it ’ s not just a tactic , but a way of thinking about how they interact with the natural world .
“ The Karuk people have historically been dependent on the food , fiber , and medicinal resources that come off the greater landscape , ” Tripp said .
“ We ’ re still dependent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these Indigenous-prescribed fires have natural breaks built in as they spread from one type of vegetation to another .
Rather than having hundreds of thousands of acres suddenly engulfed in flames , Indigenous burning practices can create a mosaic of areas that can readily burn surrounded by areas that are more resistant to ignition .
Those breaks can be areas that have previously burned , thereby having less fuel , or plants that retain more moisture and are less likely to catch on fire .
There are ecological benefits , too .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ biodiversity of the species of plants and animals in places where invasives have become dominant .
For example , invasive grasses like ripgut brome and shrubs like Spanish broom in parts of California can outcompete local vegetation , but quickly turn into highly flammable tinder when it gets hot .
A robust mix of native plant and animal species can instead make an ecosystem more resilient to shocks like drought and extreme heat , as well as speed up recovery after a fire .
“ In California , in our foothill and valley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of nonnative grasses , ” Hankins said .
“ If we think about the seasonal timing of when it ’ s appropriate to remove those species with fire and favor native species in their place ... we can still achieve the fuel reduction but then we ’ re shifting the dynamics in favor of native species.
” The Indigenous-prescribed fires can be slower and less intense than natural or inadvertent fires , creeping along the forest floor rather than tearing through tree canopies .
The trees and plants that remain become more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with frequent controlled fires , the landscape starts to shift to a healthy mix of species .
The fires become easier and safer to conduct , and eventually the risks of a devastating wildfire start to go down .
Halting Indigenous burning practices was part of a deliberate strategy to eradicate American Indians When European settlers arrived in the Western United States , they intervened to stop American Indian burning practices , but not just out of fear of fire .
Instead , according to Tripp , cultural burning practices were blocked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survival of Indigenous people like the Karuk Tribe .
“ It became part of the policy to remove that connection to the food systems well before fire suppression became a policy , ” Tripp said .
“ When you ’ re going through a cycle of genocide and people are trying to remove the Indigenous component from a place , that [ Indigenous burning practice ] becomes a logical target.
” Laws in states like California stripped Indigenous people of their rights and prevented them from practicing their culture , including burning .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ people were actively stopped , and even shot , for trying to conduct burns .
Fire exclusion policies also stemmed from a misguided impulse to improve the region ’ s ecology .
Prior to the 20th century , forests like those in the Sierra Nevada were far less dense , with trees spaced much further apart .
“ The relative openness of forests was attributed to frequent fire , which many early foresters saw as a negative , ” according to a 2012 study from the US Forest Service .
“ It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the forest could support many more trees .
This became one of the main arguments for suppressing fire.
” With the suppression of natural fires and indigenous burning practices , some sections of the forest grew to be anywhere from twice as dense to 10 times as dense as they were when fires were more frequent , increasing the likelihood of what ’ s known as a “ stand-replacing fire.
” These are massive blazes that can wipe out almost all of the living trees in an area , including towering overstory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drought , more trees means there ’ s less water to go around , leading to drier and more flammable vegetation .
Today , the Karuk Tribe can only conduct burns on the tiny sliver of their ancestral lands across California and Oregon that is privately held and not part of federal land .
More than 135,000 acres of Karuk ancestral territory burned in the fires this year .
But Tripp said that this could also be an opportunity to begin a regimen of controlled burns in those areas .
“ We need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ follow-up burning , ” he said .
Vast swaths of land across the West are overdue for a fire The question now is how to scale up these Indigenous burning practices across federal , state , and private land and develop an appreciation for the knowledge behind them .
Even with the record-breaking blazes across the United States in recent years , there are still millions of acres of wildlands that have yet to burn and could still be devoured in megafires .
And as the climate changes , more areas will become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the plants that could fuel a massive uncontrollable fire are depleted in smaller , easier to manage bursts .
Many small fires can help prevent devastating megafires .
Burning is also just one of several ways to reduce the risks of dangerous wildfires alongside measures like mechanically removing vegetation and building fire breaks .
Bringing these tactics to all the places they ’ re needed stands to be a costly endeavor , and the investment is far short of where it needs to be .
Already the federal government , which manages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States — including 57 percent of the land in California — is struggling to implement its existing prescribed burning plans .
The US Forest Service conducts fire mitigation work , including controlled burns , across roughly 1 million acres of land per year across the country .
But the agency has an 80 million-acre backlog built up after years of fire suppression and inadequate budgets , with 50 million acres “ at high risk of wildfire , insects , and disease.
” Over the summer , California reached an agreement with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatment across 1 million acres in the state per year .
That ’ s a big step up .
Currently , California land managers conduct controlled burns on 125,000 acres per year across state , federal , and private lands .
By comparison , Florida , a much smaller state , permits about 2 million acres of controlled burning each year .
And California has a lot of fuel it needs to eliminate .
“ An estimated 20 million acres of forestland in California with high wildfire threat may benefit from fuels reduction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” according to a 2018 state report .
For Indigenous fire practitioners like Hankins and Tripp , the aim now is to build a framework from the bottom up to support Indigenous cultural burning practices within and beyond the bounds of Indigenous lands .
The Karuk Tribe , for instance , has launched the Endowment for Eco-Cultural Revitalization and is raising funds to help teach people about the culture around burning and to support burning practices over the long term .
“ It ’ s not lost , it ’ s all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tripp said .
“ If we wait a couple more generations , it might get lost .
If we don ’ t start acting soon to revitalize the knowledge , practice , and belief systems , then a lot more than just information about our practices will be lost .
We ’ ll be looking at large-scale biodiversity collapse as well .
And we ’ re already starting to see it.
” Deploying Indigenous knowledge to reduce fire risks would also require recognition of tribal sovereignty over their ancestral areas , returning land @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frank accounting of what was lost and stolen over more than a century of settlement and colonization .
At the same time , when land managers start strategically deploying fire and thinking carefully about all the factors at play , they often come to practices and results that resemble Indigenous burning .
Jared Dahl Aldern , an environmental historian and lead researcher at the West on Fire Project , highlighted the recent example of a 15,000-acre plot of land managed by Southern California Edison near Shaver Lake .
The area survived the recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destruction than adjacent federal land , becoming an island within a nearly 350,000-acre megafire .
Prior to the blaze , the power utility deployed controlled burns , forest thinning , and timber harvests to help protect its assets on the land from wildfire .
“ While they didn ’ t draw on a lot of Indigenous knowledge or consult with tribes in terms of figuring out how to do their land management , I call it a process of convergent evolution of their forestry practices because they ended up in the same place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an Indigenous fire regimen , ” Aldern said .
But land managers don ’ t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to strategically deploying fire ; by partnering with and following the lead of American Indian fire practitioners , they can build on an existing foundation of knowledge .
Prescribed burns are essential for reducing wildfire risk .
But we need to do even more .
As important as it is to reduce the amount of vegetation that can readily burn , fuel is not the only driver of massive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season — which is still not over — is a case in point .
Many factors converged to create such a devastating year for wildfires in 2020 .
A series of unusual weather events , from a searing heat wave to a rare dry lightning storm to high winds to extraordinarily low humidity , left much of the West ready to burn .
But other long-term factors are at play as well .
People have continued to build into the wildland-urban interface , where suburbs meet shrubland .
Across the United States , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has grown rapidly over the last two decades .
And more homes continue to be built .
One study found that , based on current trends , 645,000 homes in California will be in “ very high ” wildfire severity zones by the middle of the century .
Since the vast majority of wildfires are ignited by humans , this can increase the likelihood of sparking a new blaze , increase the damage of the blazes that do occur , and lengthen the fire season .
Humans are also continuing to destabilize the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gases from burning fossil fuels , the planet is warming .
That ’ s upping the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events and is increasing aridity in many parts of the West , making grasses and trees more likely to ignite .
California , in particular , is still experiencing the effects of a drought that stretched from 2011 to 2017 .
That drought , exacerbated by climate change , helped dry out forests and leave trees vulnerable to pests like bark beetles , fueling a die-off of more than 140 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more fuel to fires .
There ’ s also risk in conducting controlled burns .
Even a well-managed fire can behave in unpredictable ways , or winds can suddenly shift and drive embers over fire breaks and six-lane highways .
Fires can even generate their own weather , and rising temperatures are making it harder to safely conduct controlled burns , whether by American Indians or by other land managers .
There ’ s also the problem of air pollution stemming from wildfires ; deliberate blazes also have to take steps to reduce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ downwind .
In addition to restoring fire to the land , some of the existing vegetation may have to be removed in other ways .
That can take the form of forest thinning , where trees in a given region are selectively removed to reduce fire risk .
Some forest thinning can yield salable products and generate money .
But forest thinning is different from logging in that reducing wildfire risk is the priority .
In fact , some forms of logging can increase fire risks , as hardy , fire-resistant trees give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People will also have to use fire-resistant building materials for their homes and construct a defensible perimeter around property .
In some cases , people may have to retreat from high-fire-risk areas altogether .
Humanity will also have to take aggressive action to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to stave off the worst consequences of climate change .
Just like there ’ s no single cause of the increase in destructive wildfires in recent years , there ’ s no single fix .
And since this situation took more than a century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to start making progress toward a solution .
However , without concerted action now , the risks will only get worse .
There is a debt to be paid — both to the landscape and to American Indians — and restoring Indigenous burning practices is a small step toward paying off both .
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To live in the American West today is to live with wildfires. And to suppress those fires is only to delay, and worsen, the inevitable.
The massive fire seasons in recent years are vivid reminders of this fact. Record heat and an expansive drought across much of the region have laid the groundwork for another massive fire season this summer. It’s not clear yet whether it will be as severe as the unprecedented fires of 2020, but already, more fires have ignited and more acres have burned. In California alone, more than twice as many acres have burned so far this year compared to the same time period last year.
A number of unique factors in recent seasons combined with long-term trends and created the devastating blazes. But a major reason for the massive scale of the destruction is that natural fires and burning practices first developed by Indigenous people have been suppressed for generations.
Wildfires are essential to many Western ecosystems in the US, restoring nutrients to the soil, clearing decaying brush, and helping plants germinate. Without these fires, vegetation in woodlands, grasslands, and chaparral shrublands accumulates, so more fuel is available to burn, especially when a megadrought keeps drying out the fuel, year after year. A debt to the landscape starts to mount, and when it comes due, there is hell to pay.
“If we’re not using fire in the same way that this landscape evolved with over millennia, then we could be creating a situation where we’re creating a further imbalance,” said Don Hankins, an environmental geographer at California State University Chico and a Plains Miwok Indigenous fire practitioner.
So a key part of the strategy to reduce the growing threat from wildfires is to burn parts of the landscape on purpose.
This is much easier said than done. It’s costly, it can be dangerous, and it demands a sophisticated and granular understanding of the land. But American Indians have used burning practices across much of the West for thousands of years, building up a vast reservoir of knowledge of when and how to start fires to protect themselves and to increase the bounty of the land.
Much of this burning stopped when European settlers arrived, driving American Indians away from their ancestral homes and depriving those who remained of their culture. Now there’s a growing movement to bring these practices back to the landscape, with Indigenous practitioners in the lead in places like California. But it requires confronting an ugly past and facing a future of growing wildfire risk.
Why Indigenous burning practices are a powerful way to mitigate wildfire risk
To understand how we arrived in this era of extreme wildfires across the western United States, scientists have studied patterns like those in tree rings to get a sense of the history of fires across the West.
“It shows that a lot of these areas burned a lot, anywhere from every two years to every 15 years,” said Eric Knapp, a research ecologist at the United States Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station. “If you haven’t burned in a long time — some of these places haven’t seen fire in recorded history, or since 1910 — that’s a lot of fire debt.”
The US Forest Service has even tabulated estimates for how often fires have historically occurred across ecosystems like sage scrub and ponderosa pine forests. These records, plus what we know about how fires were suppressed since the 1800s, point toward how much American Indians in the western US engineered the landscape with their burning practices for thousands of years. European settlers arrived and saw a landscape that had been methodically cultivated, like forests with trees spaced far apart and with little leaf litter on the ground. But they often failed to recognize it as such.
“There’s this idea — the idea I was raised with — that this wilderness is untrammeled by man,” Knapp said. “The more work I’ve done in this field, the more strongly I believe that there was a pretty strong human imprint on this landscape.”
The gap between historical levels of burning and the current fires also illustrates how much more fuel is now available to burn in dangerous megafires. However, there’s more to paying off this fire debt than lighting a match.
Bill Tripp is the director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. The Karuk Tribe’s territory is in Northern California and reaches into Oregon. Tripp, a member of the tribe and an Indigenous fire practitioner, explained that every bit of the landscape has its own terroir when it comes to fire, a unique set of traits in a given region that can influence a blaze. The ideal conditions for a burn depend on the mix of plants, sunlight, soil, and weather conditions. They can change from day to day, and from one hillside to another.
And these deliberate fires are not just about reducing wildfire risk, as is often the case with prescribed burns from government or private land managers. These Indigenous burns serve cultural purposes, like maintaining trails, helping food plants grow, and providing materials for building and crafts. Such fires don’t just hinge on “when” and “how,” but on “why,” which in turn demands sophisticated local insight. For practitioners, it’s not just a tactic, but a way of thinking about how they interact with the natural world.
“The Karuk people have historically been dependent on the food, fiber, and medicinal resources that come off the greater landscape,” Tripp said. “We’re still dependent on those today.”
When done right, these Indigenous-prescribed fires have natural breaks built in as they spread from one type of vegetation to another. Indigenous burning practices can create a mosaic of areas that can readily burn, surrounded by areas that are more resistant to ignition. Those breaks can be areas that have previously burned, thereby having less fuel, or plants that retain more moisture and are less likely to catch on fire.
There are ecological benefits, too. A well-timed burn can also restore the biodiversity of the species of plants and animals in places where invasives have become dominant. For example, invasive grasses like ripgut brome and shrubs like Spanish broom in parts of California can outcompete local vegetation, but quickly turn into highly flammable tinder when it gets hot.
A robust mix of native plant and animal species can instead make an ecosystem more resilient to shocks like drought and extreme heat, as well as speed up recovery after a fire.
“In California, in our foothill and valley ecosystems, we’ve got a lot of nonnative grasses,” Hankins said. “If we think about the seasonal timing of when it’s appropriate to remove those species with fire and favor native species in their place ... we can still achieve the fuel reduction but then we’re shifting the dynamics in favor of native species.”
The Indigenous-prescribed fires can be slower and less intense than natural or inadvertent fires, creeping along the forest floor rather than tearing through tree canopies. The trees and plants that remain become more resistant to future fires.
Over time, with frequent controlled fires, the landscape starts to shift to a healthy mix of species. The fires become easier and safer to conduct, and eventually the risks of a devastating wildfire start to go down.
Halting Indigenous burning practices was part of a deliberate strategy to eradicate American Indians
When European settlers arrived in the western United States, they intervened to stop American Indian burning practices, but not just out of fear of fire. Instead, according to Tripp, cultural burning practices were blocked as a deliberate tactic to threaten the survival of Indigenous people like the Karuk Tribe.
“It became part of the policy to remove that connection to the food systems well before fire suppression became a policy,” Tripp said. “When you’re going through a cycle of genocide and people are trying to remove the Indigenous component from a place, that [Indigenous burning practice] becomes a logical target.”
Related The great hypocrisy of California using Indigenous practices to curb wildfires
Laws in states like California stripped Indigenous people of their rights and prevented them from practicing their culture, including burning. As late as the 1930s, Karuk people were actively stopped, and even shot, for trying to conduct burns.
Fire exclusion policies also stemmed from a misguided impulse to improve the region’s ecology. Prior to the 20th century, forests like those in the Sierra Nevada were far less dense, with trees spaced much farther apart. “The relative openness of forests was attributed to frequent fire, which many early foresters saw as a negative,” according to a 2012 study from the US Forest Service. “It was believed that if fire could be kept out the forest could support many more trees. This became one of the main arguments for suppressing fire.”
With the suppression of natural fires and indigenous burning practices, some sections of the forest grew to be anywhere from 2.4 to 10 times as dense as they were when fires were more frequent, increasing the likelihood of what’s known as a “stand-replacing fire.” These are massive blazes that can wipe out almost all of the living trees in an area, including towering trees that form the canopy. When there’s a drought, more trees means there’s less water to go around, leading to drier and more flammable vegetation.
Today, the Karuk Tribe can only conduct burns on the tiny sliver of their ancestral lands across California and Oregon that is privately held and not part of federal land.
More than 135,000 acres of Karuk ancestral territory burned in 2020 fires. But Tripp said this could also be an opportunity to begin a regimen of controlled burns in those areas. “We need to be putting some strategic placement of follow-up burning,” he said.
Vast swaths of land across the West are overdue for a fire
The question now is how to scale up these Indigenous burning practices across federal, state, and private land and broaden appreciation for the knowledge behind them. Even with the record-breaking blazes across the United States in recent years, there are still millions of acres of wildlands that have yet to burn and could still be devoured in megafires. And as the climate changes, more areas will become primed to ignite.
With controlled burns, the plants that could fuel a massive uncontrollable fire are depleted in smaller, easier-to-manage bursts. Many small fires can help prevent devastating megafires.
Burning is also just one of several ways to reduce the risks of dangerous wildfires alongside measures like mechanically removing vegetation and building fire breaks.
Bringing these tactics to all the places they’re needed stands to be a costly endeavor, and the investment is far short of where it needs to be. Already the federal government, which manages huge swaths of land in the western United States — including 57 percent of the land in California — is struggling to implement its existing prescribed burning plans.
The US Forest Service conducts fire mitigation work, including controlled burns, across roughly 1 million acres of land per year across the country. But the agency has an 80-million-acre backlog built up after years of fire suppression and inadequate budgets, with 50 million acres “at high risk of wildfire, insects, and disease.”
In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to mitigate wildfire risk, with an emphasis on fuel reduction. In 2020, California reached an agreement with the US Forest Service to conduct fire mitigation treatment across 1 million acres in the state per year. That’s a big step up. Currently, California land managers conduct controlled burns on 125,000 acres per year across state, federal, and private lands. By comparison, Florida, a much smaller state, permits about 2 million acres of controlled burning each year.
And California has a lot of fuel it needs to eliminate. “An estimated 20 million acres of forestland in California with high wildfire threat may benefit from fuels reduction treatment to reduce the risk of wildfire,” according to a 2018 state report.
However, California has been falling far short of its targets. CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom reported that while the state has claimed that fire prevention work was conducted across 90,000 acres, the true number is less than 12,000.
For Indigenous fire practitioners like Hankins and Tripp, the aim now is to build a framework from the bottom up to support Indigenous cultural burning practices within and beyond the bounds of Indigenous lands. The Karuk Tribe, for instance, has launched the Endowment for Eco-Cultural Revitalization and is raising funds to help teach people about the culture around burning, and to support burning practices over the long term.
“It’s not lost; it’s all still ingrained in our culture,” Tripp said. “If we wait a couple more generations, it might get lost. If we don’t start acting soon to revitalize the knowledge, practice, and belief systems, then a lot more than just information about our practices will be lost. We’ll be looking at large-scale biodiversity collapse as well. And we’re already starting to see it.”
Deploying Indigenous knowledge to reduce fire risks would also require recognition of tribal sovereignty over their ancestral areas, returning land to American Indian communities, and a frank accounting of what was lost and stolen over more than a century of settlement and colonization.
At the same time, when land managers start strategically deploying fire and thinking carefully about all the factors at play, they often arrive at practices that resemble Indigenous burning.
Jared Dahl Aldern, an environmental historian and lead researcher at the West on Fire Project, highlighted the example of a 15,000-acre plot of land managed by Southern California Edison near Shaver Lake. The area survived the 2020 Creek Fire near Fresno with much less destruction than adjacent federal land, becoming an island within a nearly 350,000-acre megafire. Prior to the blaze, the power utility deployed controlled burns, forest thinning, and timber harvests to help protect its assets on the land from wildfire.
“While they didn’t draw on a lot of Indigenous knowledge or consult with tribes in terms of figuring out how to do their land management, I call it a process of convergent evolution of their forestry practices because they ended up in the same place as historically what forest conditions were under an Indigenous fire regimen,” Aldern said.
But land managers don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to strategically deploying fire; by partnering with and following the lead of American Indian fire practitioners, they can build on an existing foundation of knowledge.
Prescribed burns are essential for reducing wildfire risk. But we need to do even more.
As important as it is to reduce the amount of vegetation that can readily burn, fuel is not the only driver of massive, destructive wildfires.
Many factors converged to create such a devastating year for wildfires in 2020. A series of unusual weather events, from a searing heat wave to a rare dry lightning storm to high winds to extraordinarily low humidity, left much of the West ready to burn.
But other long-term factors are at play as well. People have continued to build into the wildland-urban interface, where suburbs meet shrubland. Across the United States, the number of homes in these regions has grown rapidly over the past two decades. And more homes continue to be built. One study found that, based on current trends, 645,000 homes in California will be in “very high” wildfire severity zones by the middle of the century.
Since the vast majority of wildfires are ignited by humans, this can increase the likelihood of sparking a new blaze, increase the damage of the blazes that do occur, and lengthen the fire season.
Humans are also continuing to destabilize the climate. With the emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels, the planet is warming. That’s upping the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events and is increasing aridity in many parts of the West, making grasses and trees more likely to ignite.
California, in particular, is still experiencing the effects of a drought that stretched from 2011 to 2017. That drought, exacerbated by climate change, helped dry out forests and left trees vulnerable to pests like bark beetles, fueling a die-off of more than 140 million trees across the state, potentially adding more fuel to fires.
There’s also risk in conducting controlled burns. Even a well-managed fire can behave in unpredictable ways, or winds can suddenly shift and drive embers over fire breaks and six-lane highways. Fires can even generate their own weather, and rising temperatures are making it harder to safely conduct controlled burns, whether by American Indians or by other land managers. There’s also the problem of air pollution stemming from wildfires; deliberate blazes also have to take steps to reduce the smoke exposure of people who live downwind.
In addition to restoring fire to the land, some of the existing vegetation may have to be removed in other ways. That can take the form of forest thinning, where trees in a given region are selectively removed to reduce fire risk.
Some forest thinning can yield salable products and generate money. But forest thinning is different from logging in that reducing wildfire risk is the priority. In fact, some forms of logging can increase fire risks, as hardy, fire-resistant trees give way to fast-growing, fast-drying plants.
People will also have to use fire-resistant building materials for their homes and construct defensible perimeters around property. In some cases, people may have to retreat from high-fire-risk areas altogether. Humanity will also have to take aggressive action to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to stave off the worst consequences of climate change, which include more severe wildfires.
Just as there’s no single cause of the increase in destructive wildfires in recent years, there’s no single fix. And since this situation took more than a century to develop, it will take decades to start making progress toward a solution. However, without concerted action now, the risks will only get worse. There is a debt to be paid — both to the landscape and to American Indians — and restoring Indigenous burning practices is a small step toward paying off both.