When we learned that the deadliest storm in history killed half a million people and then almost destroyed the world, we made it our mission to show the urgency of the climate crisis as a non-fiction action thriller. We are Scott Carney and Jason ...

Damn, 500,000 people killed in one storm is insane and I'd never heard of it even though this was only about 50 years ago. How do you know it's the deadliest storm in history, and why don't you think more people know about it?

Thanks for this quesiton!

Casualty statistics from storms are more of an art than a science--especially when you are talking about mass casualty events where entire towns and landmasses get wiped out. However, Bhola is often mentioned as the deadliest storm ever from the historical records that we know of. This is the Wiki on natural disastersthat puts it right at the top--only being displaced by massive floods and earthquakes in China.

The question of "why more people don't know about it" is super interesting. Why is it that people don't talk about these world changing events more often? Is it simply because we flit from one news event to another and don't have time to reflect on the impact of things that don't seem to affect us directly? One of our missions in this book is to guide people to look back at history and show how it's all connected.

What was the process like finding strong sources and accurate information on a tragedy which happened over 50 years ago? And was it a challenge to piece together everything you learned into a comprehensive story?

This is a FANTASTIC question, because the sorts of investigative journalism I've generally done has been with living source--often with me holding a microphone. The problem with a 50 year old storm is that all of the relevant sources are either dead, or in their eighties. So how do we get around that?

The trick was twofold: first we delved DEEP into the archival material--from newsreels, newspaper stories, biographies, Watergate tapes, and especially sources where rivals wrote about one another. There were also some pretty important human rights commissions that included witness testimony. Ultimately we drew on almost 1000 sources total (so many that we couldn't include all of them in the published bibliography because there wasn't space in the page count!)

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Second: We got incredibly lucky with a few interviews. We knew we had to tell this story in a way that puts the reader right in the moment, which meant finding someone who 1) survived the bhola cyclone and 2) ended up fighting in the war that followed. To do this we actually put out an advertisement in a national paper in Bangladesh asking people to come to us with their stories (and made it clear that we can't pay sources, which would break journalistic ethics). About 100 people replied, and we were lucky enough to come across Mohammad Hai--a fisherman who survived the stormy by grabbing onto a palm tree all night while his family died around him--and ultimately ended up coordinating the local resistasnce on the island of Monpura.

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We also found Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, who was one of the most famous soccer players in Pakistan at the time, who joined the army just before the cyclone, and ended up leading a mutiny against the Pakistani army once Yahya Khan ordered a genocide. His story completely riveting.

So strange. My Google home refuses to tell me about the great bhola cyclone unless I specifically ask for it. I asked "what was the deadliest storm in history?" and it will only tell me about the great Galveston storm of 1900. And if I ask it about the worst mass casualty event, it tells me about the battle of Okinawa in WW2.

Interesting! I wonder if it's the word 'storm' that's throwing it off. Try 'cyclone' or 'worst disaster' maybe?

Asking for the worst cyclone does get information on the great bhola cyclone. Worst disaster gets information on the central China floods of 1931.

Wiki on natural disasters

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll

Look at the third heading down titled "Ten deadliest natural disasters since 1900 excluding epidemics and famines"

Funny. 'bhola' in Hindi means innocent. That's an interesting name to give to a cyclone.

It's the name of the island where the storm made landfall first.

After the Concert for Bangladesh raised millions of dollars in relief funds, much of the money was tied up for years by the IRS. Is it possible to know whether the this was some form of political sabotage by the Nixon administration, or just simple bungling government bureaucracy?

It was a major bungling all around. The money that did reach Bangladesh arrived about 12 years late. George Harrison's manager Allen Klein was indicted for tax evasion over it--and the inefficiencies (and corruption) around the concert for Bangladesh has plagued just about every other similar aid effort since. In the age of social media, the problems have metastasized once again.

I think most people do care about the climate crisis, but people feel (and often are) powerless to do anything meaningful to help.

When all the power is held by a tiny minority of the people, who are almost exclusively responsible for climate change and who seem to have no interest in the long term survival of the species, what role does the regular person play in ensuring our long term survival and the survival of every other species on the planet?

What is the next step after being educated about the severity of the crisis?

I completely agree--we all see what is coming down the climate pipeline, but feel like we can't do anything about it. That said, one thing we learned and thought deeply about while writing The Vortex is that action happens when humans are faced with direct consequences, and when doing something actually matters. So, for instance, the farmer turned revolutionary and soccer star turned soldier turned mutineer--never had an ambition to get involved in global politics...or hell...politics at all. They only started getting involved when they had no choice.

I don't think the world will actually wake up to the effects of climate change until we are faced with some sort of mass destruction---miami going under water, massive food shortages or some other truly catastrophic event. And it WILL be painful. But I think the context of those moments will allow us to raise outselves to the challenge. We will start to take action not because we want to, but because we have to.

At the moment we are anxious about what the effects of climate change might be. We won't know what they are until we are in the midst of it.

I fear this outcome, but I'm relieved that your response was much more thought out than "vote for the right politician" and closer to "a revolution is necessary". Sadly, due to the delay in climate events after the damage is done, the the feedback loops and their resulting death spirals, I dread a world where a revolution only occurs after we are already in a collapse that could be impossible to stop.

Nonetheless, I think what you gave is a realistic, even if grim, answer.

Yes, it's certainly not ideal. The best possible world would have forward thinking world leaders who can see a problem before it develops and take corrective action. But it's sadly clear that is not the world we live in right now. But I don't think the game is over just because the climate horizon of damage has already been locked in. We will start doing things when it affects us directly. And one thing that The Vortex showed me is that we won't have to wait for a totally collapsed environment to reach that stress point earlier. The key will be correctly identifying how current conflicts have roots in climate.

This storm was in the 70s though. What proof is there that the storm was caused by global warming? I thought the greater effects of climate change have only been occurring for the last 20 years or so.

Not trying to be condescending, just wanted to understand the link between the two.

Thanks for the important question. We are not making the claim that the Bhola Cyclone itself was a result of global warming (it might have been, but no one can prove such a fact). However, we ARE saying that as the globe continues to warm, the result will be more and more storms with the potential to spread catastrophic consequences in ways that are similar to what happened with Bhola.

In other words, as we put it in The Vortex, every storm is a roll of the dice. But with global warming we are rolling those dice more and more frequently.

Oh, I see. The point of the book is to bring global warming awareness, not necessarily to link a cause and effect.

Thank you for your answer!

Yes. We wanted to make climate change as personal as possible.

not saying this isn't true but so far the data doesn't support that hypothesis. for Atlantic hurricanes there are other factors than just temperature and last I heard the worst year for tornado outbreaks was 1974 or 1977.

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I remember Katrina and the one year Florida had like 4 hurricanes in a row. could have been the same year. people were saying this was going to be the new normal and next year was really quiet for storms.

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Same with the Cat 5 storm in florida a year or two ago. the news showed off destruction in panama city but that was the older buildings. a short distance away the construction built to newer code survived just fine.

This is obviously a complex issue, and the question is also how you calculate the damage caused by a storm. For instance, the Bhola Cyclone killed half a million people, but the World Bank made its estimated of damage based on the loss of the value of crop yields--this meant that on a financial level, Bhola wasn't too big of a deal. A storm that, say, hits a bunch of mansions in Florida will be a much bigger financial loss even if no one dies. Also, Bhola was NOT the worst cyclone of the region in terms of overall power/windspeed. It just happened to hit at exactly the right time, in an unprepared region.

What was it like for the two of you to collaborate on such a big project? Journalistic writing and academic writing aren't exactly the same thing.

Jason and I have known and worked with each other for almost 20 years--going all the way back to our time in graduate school together at University of Wisconsin-Madison. We wrote a bunch of pieces together starting about ten years ago--including this story for Foreign Policy that got it all started, where we learned that India had build a border wall all around the country of Bangladesh.

But certainly our skillsets are very different. As a journalist I'm incredibly concerned with the craft of our language and creating a story arc that will draw readers in. On his part, Jason does a deep dive on the research and could find things in archives that I never could. It ended up being the best of both worlds--true Narrative Nonfiction--that reads like a novel, but is backed up by facts the whole way through.

All that said, tell Jason that I'm through with fixing his passive voice--he's banned from using the "to be" verb for at least six months.

How come I've never heard about a storm that killed half a million people and threatened to "destroy the world"? What does that even mean?

That's one of the questions that drove us to write the book. I was a foreign correspondent in India for 6 years, and was only vaguely aware of the events of 1970-72. Many of your questions are answered in my description at the top of this post. The short answer is that the storm killed half a million people--who mostly drowned in the 20-foot storm surge--and then the aftermath changed the course of an election, triggered a genocide, a war and brought the cold war powers to the brink of launching nukes.

Would I be wrong to go out on a limb and say that there's nothing to suggest the storm had anything to do with any "climate crisis"?

I've answered this in a few places already in more detail. In short: The storm was probably not caused by climate change, but it IS a harbinger of the sorts of destruction we can expect in the future where there will be more powerful storms more frequently as the globe heats up;

What’s with the scare tactics? Destroyed the world? Cmon guys…

The Bhola Cyclone set of a chain reaction of events that culminated with the USSR and USA going to the brink of nuclear war. It's in the description above. Titles have a character limit.

Not an expert but heard of the disaster, from what i remember the death toll is estimated between 300'000 and 500'000 people, what makes you sure to point at 500'000 with confidence?

It could have been 300,000. It's almost impossible to know.

You don't think "twisting" the facts to better suit your narrative could have an negative impact? While i from a scientific point 100% agree with you and think this is an important subject. I really dislike when people build a narrative on unconfirmed facts.

The official estimates from Pakistan at the time were 500,000. In addition, an important turning point in the book comes when a general in the Pakistan army says that "That cyclone solved half a million of our problems." So we felt pretty comfortable using that number. However, we do mention in several places in the book that it's impossible to know for sure about body counts.

Sincere question. Let’s say that every countries leaders suddenly agreed that climate change is real, man-made, and urgent - what action do you believe is realistically capable at reducing catastrophic climate risk?

The Bangladesh cyclone wasn’t even the biggest local one that season, and that was before the greenhouse gas escalations over the last 50 years. It seems like a very difficult problem to solve and frankly I see even less consensus on solutions than I do on the problem itself.

Neither Jason nor I are climate scientists, but we absolutely would recommend that you check out Michael Mann's work, or, hell, the IPCC about what a global response should look like. Our focus was on showing the connections between climate (or at least extreme weather events) and conflict, and we are trying to show that the political and military fallout will push us to that stress point where we have to take action earlier (so long as we correctly identify climate as a cause). It is a bit of a tall order, but I have some faith in our collective drive to save life on earth.

Thank you for doing the AMA, will be picking up your book to read shortly.

Do you think that the East Pakistanis would not have voted that drunk despotic idiot out if the storm hadn't happened? Could there have potentially been another stimulus that would eventually lead that asshole to attack and commit genocide?

Great question, and it's one we asked a lot while we were in Bangladesh--often with conflicting answers. At the time Yahya Khan and the PPP (West Pakistan's most important party) knew Bengalis hated the almost-colonial rule from the West, but they figured that the vote would get split between lots of small Bengali parties. And, as long as that happened, the PPP would stay in power. More than anything else, the cyclone served as a unifying force for all Bengalis to unite behind the Awami League and pull off a stunning electoral upset.

That said, I believe that East Pakistan might have eventually found a path to freedom--either through an election or a revolution, but it's hard to really know how history would have unfolded differently. There was always discontent on the ground, but it takes a catalyst to move history forward.

how would you compare the current war in ukraine to the cold war era, especially in terms of its potential global ramifications (environmental impact included)?

thank you for your time:)

This is an important question. We started thinking about the scope of the book back in 2015--long before the Trump administration was even a thought, and as we wrote the book and delved into the stories of Pakistan's dissolution--where Pakistan's president Yahya Khan first ignored the results of an election, and then started a genocide to stay in power--we were shocked to see history repeating itself here in the United States where a similarly unqualified president, attempted to overturn the electoral process. Thank god Trump was not as effective a military strategist.

Of course, there is also the present war in Ukraine where just like back in 1971, a small group of resistance fighters are waging a desperate defense against a much more powerful adversary. In 1972, the Liberation War for Bangladesh escalated to the point where the USA and USSR very nearly launched nuclear weapons at each other. And that's same threat that Putin is using to protect his genocide.

What's so important to remember is that in our interconnected world, things that seem small--a deadly storm--aren't contained to just that one moment in time, but the ramifications can spread out in uncontrollable and violent ways. The Bhola Cyclone didn't almost destroy the world because of the damage it wrought when it made landfall, but because of how humans responded to that damage. That's the real danger of climate change.

Wow. Just.. wow. I’m absolutely blown away. You know... this is slightly off-topic ..but not really: I have some thoughts, if you’d bear with me, please...

I am currently reading the “Jakarta Method”—

I am sickened and astounded to learn the underhanded and dirty shit MY GOVT.. yes, the glorious USA, who I always believed was righteous —and the “worlds big brother and savior” —is actually a slimy, dirty, shit-stirring and crisis-causing bunch of agencies -esp the CIA..that have literally fomented and outright CAUSED so many wars and awful terroristic actions it’s unspeakable. They have FAKED terroristic actions in other countries to make one faction mad at another— to cause wars!! Millions have died! And WE supplied the weapons for one side to kill the other!!

I have never heard of this particular crisis! (The cyclone and the resulting chaos) ..and I here i thought myself well-schooled in ‘what history teachers don’t tell you” stuff.. but I’m learning about more new atrocities every day...

... it is far FAR darker ..and and far far worse than I ever could have imagined. After reading TJM, then finding this... it’s like an epiphany to me. Every American on earth should read these 2 books. Then talk to me about “righteous patriotism”.

Ty so much for bringing this to my attention. I’m getting this as soon as I can get my grubby little hands on it.

Yes. If we don’t wake up now we are past the point of no return .. yet everyone is worried about Will Smith?

Lastly.. I can’t fathom the work you guys must have invested into gathering material for an event that occurred this long ago.. but I appreciate it deeply.. and I, along with everyone who loves TRUTH ABOVE ALL.. thank you from the bottom of our/my hearts. It’s this kind of journalism I love and respect the most. Kudos and ovations!

Thanks so much for this. Learning about how Nixon funneled guns to a genocidal regime in order to secure relations with china was absolutely sickening for me. And yet, the Jakarta Method was a masterpiece.

Did you know that the pollution generated in the US directly effects the rain season in India?

I did not, but I certainly believe it.

Is it available in an audio format?

It is! Check out audible

But this isn’t just another dry history tale.

Is this the biggest understatement of the century? Just the synopsis was a page turner.

More proof that the good things Nixon did were by accident. Did you find anyone in your investigations who you thought was a bad guy who ended up being a better person behind the scenes? Who is the most surprising character?

EDIT: changed to make it a better question.

Thanks! Spending hours listening to the Nixon tapes was a revelation, and not in a good way. The way that he and Kissinger would spew their racist bile back and forth while people outside the White House lauded them as 'great strategic thinkers' never failed to disgust me. The amazing book 'Blood Telegram' by Gary Bass was a real inspiration for us and goes into Nixon's nastiness in deeper detail.

I too went through a time where I thought; "wow, Nixon wasn't so bad. He opened up to China and pushed for the EPA to be founded."

But, since then it's been "holy shit!" To coin it in a modest and diplomatic way.

Are there any people you think were wrongly painted by history, and people who should have been given a worse reputation?

My biggest 180 was on Churchill. A boorish racist who the British PR made into a legend because they needed someone to seem impressive for morale purposes.

Nixon basically traded opening up relations with China for the lives of millions of Bangladeshis. American weapons committed the genocide, and Nixon was more than happy to send them into the country the whole time.

Hey Scott, long time no chat! Crazy to think it was more than a decade ago that we were running around shooting guys in Team Fortress. You've certainly kept busy! I think the last time we caught up you were just finishing up The Red Market! Still finding any time to sneak some games in edgewise?

Hey Ulti! It has been a LONG TIME, indeed. You know what, I was looking to procrastinate the other day by playing TF2, but it turns out that when Macs went to 8 Bit (or 16 bit, or whatever happened that changed the bits), TF2 is no longer compatible. It's probably for the best that macs are terrible at running games or I wouldn't have nearly as much time to write books. Great to hear from you!

why is henry kissinger such a dickhole?

A better question is how Kissinger got his reputation as a foreign policy genius. If anything, our research showed how bumbling and inept he really was.

Is it really a climate crisis? wouldn't the rising sea levels just develop over years of ice melt and gradually cause land loss. Or it's out something that will just suddenly happen one day? I'm confused about it

The climate crisis isn't just about rising sea levels, damaged ecosystems and reduced food supply--its the accumulated effects of what happens when those things smash into political and economic systems. Some things happen fast. Some happen slowly, but the overall effects are gigantic.

Does Roland Emmerich know about this? Good stuff for a movie ;/

I hope so, too.

I heard your interview on npr this morning on the way to work, and bought the audible copy as soon as I got to my desk.

What was the most surprising thing you found out when researching for the book?

I knew so little about this time period in South Asia that just about everything was a surprise. The thing that still sticks with me is how willing Nixon was to protect Yahya Khan and provide cover for a genocide. I mean, I knew Nixon was bad, but I had no idea how bad.

Do you have someone already for the French translation?

Not yet! But we would love to have one

Yahya Khan, cared little about the Bengalis in his Eastern province (see map). Even with an election just three weeks away, Yahya refused to help the survivors. One of his generals said “the cyclone solved half a million of our problems.” After all, dead Bengalis couldn’t vote.

Galvanized by Yahya’s hate, Bengalis won enough votes to throw Yahya out in a landslide. But instead of accepting defeat, Yahya blamed the “fake-news media”

Why does this sound so familiar? I can't put my finger on it.

Yes. There does seem like there are some parallels.

Where were y’all when I had to do my climate change presentation about how we’re doomed?!?!!?

Sorry, we tried to tell your professor/teacher about our book release date, but he/she jumped the gun.

Do you think the major hurdle towards being proactive on Climate Change human migration problems is ignorance, or a basic lack of caring about the people they think will be most affected?

I think the major hurdle is that we in the developed world don't really feel the effects of climate change in a real way yet. Sure, we complain about higher temperatures, but we just pump up the AC. We watch move vulnerable areas get in trouble from the comfort of our sofas. But soon the stakes will tumble over borders and we will have to act.

That said, some things, like India building a border wall around Bangladesh, or Trump's wall on the American border with Mexico, are more cynical than they will be effective. We're not going to islolate our way out of the climate crisis, we need to start working together. Luckily, I believe that will happen naturally when we have no other choice.

If you have some spare money -- I'd recommend grabbing some URLs for "Firenado" or "Burnicane" -- because I think we will see combination of weather disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes in the middle of forest fire seasons. That way you can monetize your poignant stories on things that REALLY bring home climate change.

A lot of people don't know that the Siberian "permafrost" is on fire. Tens of millions of acres. I think there is a good chance that fire won't go out for a decade (although, I haven't been checking on it).

People who work as forest rangers have to scramble to keep track of the new flora and fauna that migrate and change their parks these days. Meanwhile, South Carolina banned "sea level rise" in their government documentation so they have to attribute it to "persistent coastline flooding."

Probably need a website just for "ClimateCoping" -- both the heroes and zeroes stories of people finding ways to mitigate and hide the problems.

LoL, I almost spat out my coffee. "Burnicane" is a keeper.

1-10, how screwed is mankind?

maybe a 4? Definitely between a 4 and a 7.

Oof failing to yield to an election loss and then blaming it on the fake new media. Where have I heard that before…? 🤔

Yes. Seems familiar!

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The hope is that the way we tell the story where the focus is on individuals and their struggles in a dramatic moment will get people to pay attention. It's hopefully a positive step.

Are you for treating those who paid to propagandize us and lie about climate change as war criminals, and calling for seizing their assets to pay for what it will take to SOLVE this problem?

Because, I certainly am. These people should be running scared rather than paying for people to promote the next new nonsense AM radio will peddle.

I think certain fossil fuel companies could stand to have a comeuppance of some sort. Not sure if they're war criminals, they're not currently part of the solution. I will note, however, that in The Vortex, a Shell Oil executive is one of the heroes--he donates the company's facilities to get aid to the most desperate and underserved areas.

Big storm in heading.

Talks sht about pakistan in majority of the message.

Dafk is wring with you fkwits these days?

Storms land in places.