Speaker 1: It's nice eyes, Dan Ray, its ongoing you crazy Boston's
Speaker 1: News radio, Susie.
Speaker 2: And you are incredibly kind. Thank you very much. Here
Speaker 2: you and I Susian working on Memorial Day.
Speaker 3: What's wrong with this picture? Thanks very much, Susan. My
Speaker 3: name is Dan Ray. No is with us tonight.
Speaker 2: Rob is off, Marita was off today. But I'm here.
Speaker 3: You're there, and if you're heading on home or heading
Speaker 3: off off the Cape or down from New Hampshire or wherever,
Speaker 3: we'll keep your company.
Speaker 2: I promise again.
Speaker 3: We'll be here from eight until midnight, going to talk
Speaker 3: about during the nine o'clock I was some Memorial Day reflections,
Speaker 3: maybe what you did today? Do you get to some
Speaker 3: ceremonies out there? Do you remember a loved one? Going
Speaker 3: to talk at ten o'clock tonight on why President Trump
Speaker 3: seems unwilling to accept the concessions that have been made
Speaker 3: by Harvard to him already. It's almost as if he
Speaker 3: doesn't want to declare a victory and then we're going
Speaker 3: to talk. How would you like it if your commencement
Speaker 3: speaker was a puppet? That's what happened at the University
Speaker 3: of Maryland. We'll get to all of that, but we
Speaker 3: have four very interesting guests coming up.
Speaker 2: Going to start off with Alan Arnette.
Speaker 3: He is a long time mountain climber and I have
Speaker 3: never desired to climb Mount Everest, but I have stood
Speaker 3: in awe of those who have attempted it, or in
Speaker 3: the those who have actually summited the mountain. Alan, how
Speaker 3: are you tonight? Welcome to night Side.
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me. Dan, Hey, that just shows
Speaker 4: your superior intellect.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about that.
Speaker 3: Is there a list somewhere of the number of people,
Speaker 3: obviously within recent memory who have actually summited.
Speaker 4: Reached it's right at twelve thousand. There's been about twelve
Speaker 4: thousand summits by about six thousand people. So in other words,
Speaker 4: you have a lot of repeats, and typically those are
Speaker 4: the shurpas that are working on the mountain.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, and they're doing I'm talking about people who
Speaker 3: have come there for once. Look, that is a more
Speaker 3: exclusive club than people who have played Major League baseball.
Speaker 3: It's about twenty five thousand people going back the last
Speaker 3: one hundred or so years, one hundred and twenty years
Speaker 3: who have played Major League baseball. So this is a
Speaker 3: pretty exclusive group, and it's not for everyone. I guess
Speaker 3: you would agree on that.
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Qualified works.
Speaker 3: What do you have to do for if you're seriously
Speaker 3: thinking of it, give me some ideas. If I said
Speaker 3: to you, yeah, I'd like to climb evers, what would
Speaker 3: you what would you suggest?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: Number one is that you have to have experience on
Speaker 4: lower mountains like a Denali or some seven thousand meters
Speaker 4: mountains in South America like Akakagua. And the second you
Speaker 4: have to have the physical fitness. I always say that
Speaker 4: you have to be in Everest shape, not the dust
Speaker 4: shape of your life, because that altitude is just makes
Speaker 4: it so so difficult. And then third, most and probably
Speaker 4: most important, is that you have to have mental toughness.
Speaker 4: It's just too easy to give up if you don't
Speaker 4: know why you're there, because it is it's a supper fest.
Speaker 3: I have seen pictures of people who get up to
Speaker 3: the top of Everest, and it looks to me like
Speaker 3: it's a very small and dangerous point when you achieve
Speaker 3: the summit. Am I being misled? Have I looked at
Speaker 3: it different incorrectly?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 4: It's about the size. It's about the size of an
Speaker 4: average you know, maybe living room in a house in
Speaker 4: the US. But you know, you can come up from
Speaker 4: either the Tibet side or from the Nepal site, and
Speaker 4: both of those routes obviously meet at the summit. But
Speaker 4: the biggest issue that you have to worry about is
Speaker 4: wind chill. It can be twenty degrees below zero, and
Speaker 4: if you have a three mile an hour wind, that
Speaker 4: can be a minus thirty wind chill. So you know,
Speaker 4: you wear a down suit and you have special boots
Speaker 4: and gloves and goggles. So as the saying goes, there's
Speaker 4: no bad weather, there's only that gear.
Speaker 3: So and as you're going up, it's you have to
Speaker 3: I assume also at different times use axes or some
Speaker 3: tools to get up. I mean it's not like you're
Speaker 3: walking up a trail or something like that.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, there is a because of the number of
Speaker 4: people in the mountain. In fact, we're just wrapping up
Speaker 4: this spring season and there will be about five hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty people who have summoned over the last two weeks.
Speaker 4: So as a result, there's what's called a boot path
Speaker 4: that you basically a trench in the snow, and you
Speaker 4: don't really need the two handled ice axes because you're
Speaker 4: not climbing a vertical wall. The steepest sections are probably
Speaker 4: sixty degrees, and you're going using a fixed rope. It's
Speaker 4: a thin nylon rope about the size of your finger,
Speaker 4: and you attach a mechanical device called an as cinder
Speaker 4: that has teeth on it, so if you fall, the
Speaker 4: teeth will dig into the rope and keep you from
Speaker 4: falling further.
Speaker 3: It sounds it sounds like a Harrold experience. I mean,
Speaker 3: what is the average length of time to go from
Speaker 3: the base camp to the top? I mean, in reasonable conditions,
Speaker 3: and I guess none of the conditions are truly reasonable.
Speaker 3: But how long does it take the average hiker who's
Speaker 3: going to Summit to summits?
Speaker 2: A couple of days at least or more.
Speaker 4: Well, this has changed dramatically over the years. So there's
Speaker 4: two parts of that question. One is how long does
Speaker 4: an average expedition take?
Speaker 2: And this year there was.
Speaker 4: A team from the UK that did it in one week,
Speaker 4: but typically it lasts around four to six to eight weeks.
Speaker 4: Traditionally it was two months, but there are techniques now
Speaker 4: people are using to shorten that now. But your question
Speaker 4: specifically is how long does it take to go from
Speaker 4: base camp to the summit, and that's a multi day effort.
Speaker 4: You go from base camp to Camp two, where you
Speaker 4: spend two nights, then you go to Camp three where
Speaker 4: you spend the night. Then you go to Camp four
Speaker 4: where you spend about twelve hours, and then you take
Speaker 4: about anywhere from fifteen to twenty four hours to go
Speaker 4: from the high camp to the summit and back to
Speaker 4: the high camp, and then you take go back down
Speaker 4: the camp too, which is another day, and then back
Speaker 4: down to base camp. So all in all, it's about.
Speaker 2: A week and you're in tough conditions. Why is it?
Speaker 3: This is it that our spring, you know here in
Speaker 3: the US, seems to be the best season for climbing.
Speaker 4: I love that you asked that question because I'm just
Speaker 4: fascinated by this. Mount e Versus is so tall at
Speaker 4: twenty nine thousand feet that had put the summit pokes
Speaker 4: into the jet stream, and you know that's the winds
Speaker 4: that are going one hundred and fifty hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 4: and that jet stream is present on Everest throughout the
Speaker 4: entire year except for two short windows, one in the
Speaker 4: spring and one in the fall. The one in the
Speaker 4: spring is when everybody climbs it because that's when it's
Speaker 4: the warmest. The one in the fall is typically a
Speaker 4: little colder. But there are cyclones that build up in
Speaker 4: the Bay of Bengaul around May May fifteenth, and this
Speaker 4: has been consistent since nineteen fifty three, and those cyclones
Speaker 4: will create a low pressure or a pressure system that
Speaker 4: pushes the jet stream off of the summit just for
Speaker 4: about two weeks, and then it goes away and the
Speaker 4: jet stream comes back. So that's why everybody goes at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable when people do reach the summit and they
Speaker 3: and they dissent. Is there some sort of This is
Speaker 3: a dumb question, but I get paid good money to
Speaker 3: our stuff. Questions are you given some sort of a souvenir,
Speaker 3: a metal, a plaque. I kind of imagine a more
Speaker 3: harrowing experience. Most of us could voluntarily subject ourselves during
Speaker 3: our lifetime, and you have to have something you could show.
Speaker 4: I assume you know it's a fascinating subject. Because mountaineering
Speaker 4: is a sport that has no rules. Everybody does it
Speaker 4: on their own way, and there's no trophy, there's no reward,
Speaker 4: there's no mento. You might get a summit certificate from
Speaker 4: the government, and that's about it. But you do come
Speaker 4: home with immense pride for what you did, knowing that
Speaker 4: you've done something that a few other people have done,
Speaker 4: and depending upon what your reason was. I climbed to
Speaker 4: honor my mother, Ida, who died from Alzheimer's, and for
Speaker 4: me being able to honor her from the summit of a
Speaker 4: Mount Everest was the most important thing I ever did
Speaker 4: in my life.
Speaker 3: Do people bring things with them to leave in the summit?
Speaker 3: I would hope not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're not supposed to technically, but a lot of
Speaker 4: people will bring pictures of loved ones, or they'll bring
Speaker 4: a little momento and just set it on the summit.
Speaker 4: It doesn't stay there very long because it's so windy.
Speaker 2: The window just blown away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, wow wow.
Speaker 3: And what got you involved? Was it just in memory
Speaker 3: of you mom? Or was this something that you had
Speaker 3: thought about before and when she passed you decided what
Speaker 3: better way.
Speaker 2: To honor her?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It started when I came to Colorado as a
Speaker 4: twelve year old and saw the mountains, but I put
Speaker 4: that away until I was thirty eight, and then I
Speaker 4: started climbing. My first big peak was Mont Blanc in Europe,
Speaker 4: and then I did a tract to Everage base Camp,
Speaker 4: and then I did a major expedition every year for
Speaker 4: the next thirty five years.
Speaker 2: And Dan is just.
Speaker 4: Something that gets inside of you. Often say that if
Speaker 4: you fall in love with mountaineering, it's an expense of
Speaker 4: addiction for which there is no cure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I in reading my prep here for this interview,
Speaker 3: I guess it's it can be thousands, tens of thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars if you're going to do it properly in
Speaker 3: the company of guides and things like that. This is
Speaker 3: not something that you do.
Speaker 2: On a lark.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I often just make it really simple and say it's
Speaker 4: the price of a car, and it can be it
Speaker 4: can be a Ugo, or it can be a Mercedes.
Speaker 4: The median price this year at twenty twenty five was
Speaker 4: around fifty thousand dollars. If you went with an Apoly company,
Speaker 4: a Scherpa owned company. If you went with an American
Speaker 4: company or an Austrian or a New Zealand com company,
Speaker 4: that medium price jumps to seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Wow, I've learned more about Mount Everest than in this
Speaker 3: t ten minutes or so than I ever learned before.
Speaker 3: Who was the first person was it? Who was the
Speaker 3: first person who climbed Everest?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: It was on Tempany Norgay he was and it was
Speaker 4: a key Lea from New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary, and
Speaker 4: they were with a British expedition and.
Speaker 3: Sir Edmund Hillary, if I'm not mistaken, did that sometime
Speaker 3: in like nineteen fifty.
Speaker 4: Two, right, fifty three?
Speaker 3: Yeah, fifty three. And I believe that Hillary Clinton had
Speaker 3: made the comment at some point that she had been
Speaker 3: named after Sir Edmund Hillary, but she was born a
Speaker 3: few years before he achieved.
Speaker 4: Trimy. I haven't heard that.
Speaker 5: That's great.
Speaker 3: True, Oh true, she said, she said that when she
Speaker 3: was ready for presid as she was caught in I
Speaker 3: guess we would call it a biographical error.
Speaker 4: Yeah, interesting, Alan, I.
Speaker 3: Really enjoyed this conversation. How could folks get more information?
Speaker 3: I know you have a blog here that we I'd
Speaker 3: love to have you give you the opportunity to publicize.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Just go to my website as Alan Arnett dot
Speaker 4: com is a l A n A r n e
Speaker 4: t t e dot com all one word and from
Speaker 4: there this links to go to my consulting business, into
Speaker 4: my blogging, to my coverage amount Everston more things than
Speaker 4: you ever wanted to know about me.
Speaker 3: Well, let me tell you that's it's a great name.
Speaker 3: Reminds me of running back for the Rams in the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties. John Aren't played at USC and then at
Speaker 3: the Rams. You can look it up a different spelling
Speaker 3: than your name he had. You got a couple of
Speaker 3: extra letters there, probably related Alan, Thank.
Speaker 2: You so much.
Speaker 3: All right, thanks day appreciated likeadbye. All right, we get back.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about sleep, your sleep with a
Speaker 3: sleep expert from Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School,
Speaker 3: doctor Rebecca Robbins. We've got a good lineup of guests
Speaker 3: for you tonight. Trust me stay with us.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 1: It's night Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back everyone. We're joined by doctor Rebecca Robbins.
Speaker 3: She's a sleep expert at the Mass General Brigham and
Speaker 3: also at Harvard Medical School. Now, doctor Robbins, I like
Speaker 3: sleep a lot, but I'm not a sleep expert and
Speaker 3: as I understand it, uh, we're going to talk this
Speaker 3: evening about those of us who like to get an
Speaker 3: extra ten minutes or so.
Speaker 2: Sleep when we wake up.
Speaker 3: Naturally, not a great idea, dear, as signis, did that
Speaker 3: good evening and welcome?
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me. Great to be
Speaker 7: with you.
Speaker 3: So those of us, I don't hit the snooze button.
Speaker 3: I just fall back to sleep and wake up twenty
Speaker 3: minutes later. I have an internal clock, I hear, but
Speaker 3: it's it's the same principle, correct.
Speaker 7: Mm hmm, that's right. This paper that came out this week.
Speaker 5: We're so excited.
Speaker 7: It's really interesting because this area of research is very
Speaker 7: kind of limited. Not many people have looked at using
Speaker 7: this snooze alarm, and it sounds like something so trivial,
Speaker 7: but believe it or not, our research found that in
Speaker 7: among the users of a very popular sleep tracking application,
Speaker 7: a smartphone app that individuals will use to track and
Speaker 7: monitor their sleep and also as an alarm in the morning,
Speaker 7: we found that in the individuals that are tracking their sleep,
Speaker 7: over fifty percent of every sleep session that was logged
Speaker 7: on the app ended in a snooze button. And what
Speaker 7: we're referring to is one alarm going off and then
Speaker 7: another alarm being pressed is set four or five ten
Speaker 7: minutes to go off again after that first alarm, and
Speaker 7: we refer to this as snoozing or using the snooze alarm. Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 7: that sleep that you might get in between that first
Speaker 7: alarm going off and your snooze alarm is not very
Speaker 7: good quality sleep because that first alarm often will wake
Speaker 7: us up from sometimes the most restorative sleep of the
Speaker 7: night because rapid ims mid sleep predominates in the second
Speaker 7: half of the night, and if we're not getting enough
Speaker 7: sleep and that first alarm wakes us up before we're
Speaker 7: kind of we've gotten what we need for the night.
Speaker 7: You might be in this vital stage and you might
Speaker 7: feel like you need a little bit more sleep and
Speaker 7: reach for that snooze alarm, but if you do fall
Speaker 7: back asleep again, it's likely going to be low quality
Speaker 7: or poor quality sleep. So the best thing is to
Speaker 7: set your alarm for the latest possible time and doing
Speaker 7: your best to get out of bed at that time.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, now you are with the division of sleep
Speaker 3: as you can disorders medicine at Brigham A Women's Hospital,
Speaker 3: and you're an expert on this. I was surprised to
Speaker 3: find out that most of the snooze alarm activity was
Speaker 3: not on weekends. It was during the week which to
Speaker 3: me seems counterintuitive that when that alarm goes off in
Speaker 3: the morning, you got to get to work, you got
Speaker 3: to get the day going. The time to hit his
Speaker 3: snooze button is on Saturday or Sunday, But it seems
Speaker 3: as if the practice was just the reverse.
Speaker 2: What's going on with that?
Speaker 7: You know, I see what you're saying, but you know, interestingly,
Speaker 7: we just found that there was much less use of
Speaker 7: the snooze alarm on the weekend. And I think because
Speaker 7: people aren't setting on alarms, many of us have the
Speaker 7: luxury of being able to wake up maybe when our
Speaker 7: kids wake us up, or when our dog wakes us up,
Speaker 7: when we wake up naturally and we don't have to
Speaker 7: worry about an alarm to get us out of bed,
Speaker 7: or you know, even the snooze alarm reaching for that
Speaker 7: in the afternoon after that first alarm goes off. So
Speaker 7: we did indeed find the most snooze alarm youth between
Speaker 7: Monday and Friday mornings, and we found on average, it's
Speaker 7: not a long period of time, but individuals are snoozing
Speaker 7: on average for about eleven minutes, which again can seem
Speaker 7: a little bit trivial. But if we do the math,
Speaker 7: if you're snoozing every day for anywhere between ten and
Speaker 7: fifteen minutes, that catches up pretty or gets pretty quickly
Speaker 7: to about an hour of sleep. That would is really
Speaker 7: kind of low quality or poor sleep. And so if
Speaker 7: we all commit to setting our alarm, say you have
Speaker 7: to get to work at eight o'clock, it takes you
Speaker 7: thirty minutes to get there, it takes you thirty minutes
Speaker 7: to get ready. Okay, seven o'clock would be your alarm,
Speaker 7: But if there's any way to maybe get everything you
Speaker 7: need to do to get ready and out the door
Speaker 7: done a little bit faster, there's any way to set
Speaker 7: a little bit later alarm and commit to not snooze.
Speaker 7: Think about that. That could be ten or fifteen minutes
Speaker 7: more each and every night, and for many of us,
Speaker 7: that could be a lifeline if you're not getting enough sleep.
Speaker 7: That supports all of the very rich and nuanced areas
Speaker 7: of our lives that are impacted by our sleep.
Speaker 3: Okay, so here's a question. This is sort of off
Speaker 3: we're going to talk about. I'm a big proponent of
Speaker 3: power naps. I got up at five point thirty this morning,
Speaker 3: had to drive back to where we live, spent ninety
Speaker 3: minutes in the car, and this afternoon decided to watch
Speaker 3: a little bit of the Red Sox game, and I said,
Speaker 3: you know what, you need a little power nap here.
Speaker 3: So I sent my clock for forty five minutes. Got
Speaker 3: a great forty five minute power nap in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: which I don't often do.
Speaker 2: But I am a huge believer because I got a.
Speaker 3: Broadcast tonight until midnight and I have to stay awake
Speaker 3: until the end of the show at least. Are you
Speaker 3: a proponent of power naps under those circumstances or no?
Speaker 7: Absolutely, that was the perfect scenario. That was a perfect
Speaker 7: storm for a little sleepiness in the afternoon. If I'm
Speaker 7: hearing this correctly, yes, you were up earlier than usual.
Speaker 7: You got, if I'm hearing this correctly, about five and
Speaker 7: a half hour of sleep and far below what your
Speaker 7: brain and body needs.
Speaker 3: I went to bed, No, and in all honesty, I
Speaker 3: got I went to bed at nine thirty last night
Speaker 3: and slept till five dies, so I got eight hours,
Speaker 3: but I still really go to midnight.
Speaker 7: Was that earlier than usual, was five thirty earlier than.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, dramatically.
Speaker 3: Earlier, usually up until twelve, up until one, and then
Speaker 3: I sleep until maybe eight in the morning.
Speaker 2: I am a seven hour.
Speaker 7: Person because of course you're working until twelve and you
Speaker 7: need to unwind and get ready for bed. So I
Speaker 7: think what might have been going on and what the
Speaker 7: truth is. We talk a lot about sleep duration, getting
Speaker 7: enough sleep, but believe it or not, the consistency of
Speaker 7: our sleep is as important, if not more, And that
Speaker 7: all comes down or comes back to a principle called
Speaker 7: our circadian rhythm, and it's one of the driving forces
Speaker 7: behind our sleep, and that system of hormones being secreted
Speaker 7: or kind of retreating, and that all operates really in
Speaker 7: this beautiful symphonic way, and our internal circuitry of our
Speaker 7: circadian rhythm and those the hormones are associated with our
Speaker 7: ability to know when we're tired when we should be alert,
Speaker 7: though that process does not change on a dime. We
Speaker 7: truly are not built to make sleeping changes to our
Speaker 7: sleep schedules from one day to the next. So when
Speaker 7: we find ourselves in a different sleep schedule than normal,
Speaker 7: it is very common to maybe if you're falling asleep
Speaker 7: or waking up earlier or lier than usual. That can
Speaker 7: be challenging. If you're falling asleep or you know, or
Speaker 7: if you're waking up earlier than usual, that can of
Speaker 7: course cause some sleepiness, likely because you're probably not getting
Speaker 7: enough sleep. And so in those circumstances when you're not
Speaker 7: able to get enough sleep, or you find that you
Speaker 7: have a schedule that is mismatched with your typical routine,
Speaker 7: that can cause some sleepiness. And so I think it's
Speaker 7: a terrific idea that you took a power nap and
Speaker 7: that can pay back some of your what we call
Speaker 7: sleep debt some of the basically when we take time
Speaker 7: away from our sleep that doesn't dissipate into thin air,
Speaker 7: and we refer to this as our sleep debt.
Speaker 3: And I'll bet you I'm going to be able to
Speaker 3: stay awake until midnight tonight as a result.
Speaker 7: There we go, perfect strategy.
Speaker 3: Then, how can folks get more information from you? There's
Speaker 3: an article that you're referred to. Can we can you
Speaker 3: direct folks to that?
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you so much. Was published in the journal
Speaker 7: Scientific Reports. My colleagues and I are are excited that
Speaker 7: that is out in the peer review literature, and it's
Speaker 7: an open science journal, so you don't have to pay
Speaker 7: for it. You can go right to them. If you
Speaker 7: any any search engine, use the term Snooze Alarm and
Speaker 7: Scientific Reports. You should be able to find the article
Speaker 7: and you can find our research also at the Brigham
Speaker 7: and Women's Hospital. We're in the division of Sleep and
Speaker 7: Circadian Disorders.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Doctor Rebecca Robins, thank you for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 7: It's great chat with you.
Speaker 2: I love your enthusiasm. That's what's that's what's great.
Speaker 3: The people who I talked to us, it's just so
Speaker 3: enthusiastic about exactly what they do, and I really it's
Speaker 3: it's it's very obvious. Thank you, Thank you so much,
Speaker 3: and that I'm sure makes you a great sleep expert.
Speaker 3: We'll talk again.
Speaker 7: I hope you're very kind down. Thank you all my pleasure.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me. Great scouting with you.
Speaker 2: Back, catch you bye bye. When we get back.
Speaker 8: Right after the news, we're going to talk about scouting Boston.
Speaker 8: There are no more boy Scouts and Girl Scouts ht
Speaker 8: Scouting Boston, and we're going to be talking with the
Speaker 8: CEO of Scouting Boston, John Judge on the other side.
Speaker 8: By the way, if you haven't pulled down the new
Speaker 8: and improved iHeart app, do it now and make WBZ
Speaker 8: your first preset, so we will only be a fingertip
Speaker 8: away from you on whatever device you have us pulled
Speaker 8: down on, wherever you might be in the world. Back
Speaker 8: on Nightside, right after this.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Ray, Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everyone. A little change in our line.
Speaker 3: If some of our guests sometimes kind of nod off,
Speaker 3: I think so. We have been delighted to move up
Speaker 3: in our batting order tonight. Doctor David Hill. He's a
Speaker 3: member of the Lung Association's National Board, the American Lung
Speaker 3: Association's National Board of Directors, immediate pasture of the Northeast
Speaker 3: Regional Board of the American Lung Association, and a practicing
Speaker 3: pulmonary and critical care physician, Doctor David Hill, you're pinch
Speaker 3: hitting well, actually you're just moving up to batting number
Speaker 3: third from cleanup.
Speaker 2: How are you this evening?
Speaker 5: Very well?
Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks very much.
Speaker 3: Where do we find you tonight? Are you a local
Speaker 3: guy in Boston? And we have you from somewhere in
Speaker 3: a far flung part of this country, great country of ours.
Speaker 5: Not far away from the great state of Connecticut.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's the Nutmeg State of course, next door neighbor, Okay.
Speaker 3: So essentially we're always trying to get better air quality.
Speaker 3: And as I understand it, at this point, about one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty six million Americans, many of whom are
Speaker 3: on the East Coast, are living in areas that they
Speaker 3: the air quality is not what it should be. Those
Speaker 3: of us who grew up, you know, in this seventies
Speaker 3: and the eighties, we remembered the smog of Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: and that was the place where poor air quality was.
Speaker 2: So what's happened, Well, you know, a.
Speaker 5: Lot of this has to do with changing climate. We've
Speaker 5: seen the wildfires of the last several years an issue
Speaker 5: on the West coast, but a few years ago Canda
Speaker 5: sending their smoke our way. And you know, over the
Speaker 5: last couple of years, even here in the Northeast, there
Speaker 5: have been significant wildfires, all of which lead to increased
Speaker 5: particle pollution, which worsens air quality. And then they are
Speaker 5: concerns about ozone pollution, which comes from automobile exhaust and
Speaker 5: from factory pollution, and particularly here in the Northeast, that
Speaker 5: pollution tends to travel up on the jet stream and
Speaker 5: land around us. So all of those have led to
Speaker 5: worsening air pollution definitely connected with warming climate and change
Speaker 5: just due to that.
Speaker 3: Now my sense and I live in Boston, I live
Speaker 3: in New England. I'm a lifelong New England resident. My sense,
Speaker 3: again it's non scientific, is that the ear that I'm
Speaker 3: breathing is better today than it's been in the past.
Speaker 2: Is that just a psychological.
Speaker 3: Belief that I'm caring and that science would prove me wrong.
Speaker 5: I think that you know, the Cleaner Act has been
Speaker 5: very successful.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty three, right.
Speaker 5: Right, improving certain forms of air pollution, but particularly ozone
Speaker 5: pollution and particle pollution have been worsening more recently, and
Speaker 5: the driving factor behind that being climate change and having
Speaker 5: unhealthy air can be hard to detect, so we all
Speaker 5: kind of feel it on hot, humid days. But here
Speaker 5: in the Northeast with high traffic carters and with that
Speaker 5: jet stream pollution that can that can be significant, and
Speaker 5: by the time the air quality is bad, you may
Speaker 5: not be aware of it, so it's.
Speaker 2: Not not too much.
Speaker 3: I guess that we can do about the wildfires in
Speaker 3: the Great Canadian Northwest. How long does it take before
Speaker 3: that bad ear to dissipate?
Speaker 5: It really depends on what's happening in local weather systems,
Speaker 5: So it's important to pay attention to air quality. The
Speaker 5: federal government has an AirNow dot gov site that you
Speaker 5: can look up your local air quality and see what's
Speaker 5: going on. There may be times of day that air
Speaker 5: quality is better. It tends to be worse in the
Speaker 5: hotter portions of the day when there's more traffic and
Speaker 5: it's it's very variable depending on where you live.
Speaker 3: So okay, okay, So let me ask this for those
Speaker 3: of us who are baby boomers, and I'm a baby boomer, Okay.
Speaker 2: Era did we breathe? Was the ear the.
Speaker 3: Cleanest during our lives? So I'm talking about people who
Speaker 3: were born post World War Two? Did the ear quality
Speaker 3: get better after the Cleaner Act of sixty three and
Speaker 3: then we've let it slide? How would you if you
Speaker 3: would have put it on a spectrum for us? What
Speaker 3: was the best decade? If there was a best, there
Speaker 3: had to be a best or the least worst?
Speaker 2: When? When? When?
Speaker 3: When were we moving in the right direction? And when
Speaker 3: did we stop moving in the right direction?
Speaker 5: You know, I think we were moving in the right
Speaker 5: direction late late seventies and early eighties. Part of this
Speaker 5: is us being aware of the science and knowing that
Speaker 5: air quality levels we may have thought were safe in
Speaker 5: the past, we know are more dangerous based on improving
Speaker 5: scientific data. And definitely over the last several years, the
Speaker 5: worsening air pollution has become a big issue. And I
Speaker 5: think you're right to say, we can't control what happens
Speaker 5: with Canadian wildfires, but we can do what we can
Speaker 5: to minimize air pollution from other sources and minimalize activities
Speaker 5: that are driving global warming and meeting to these fires occurring.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me ask you this is always my
Speaker 3: toughest question, and that is this.
Speaker 2: I look at the map of.
Speaker 3: The world and I look at us, and I see
Speaker 3: that New England's like this little speck in the world.
Speaker 3: And I know that there are countries all over the
Speaker 3: world that have no controls like we have environmental controls India, Pakistan, China,
Speaker 3: and probably a lot of countries that you know that
Speaker 3: people haven't even heard of, Kazakhstan or whatever. How can
Speaker 3: we win this battle if we, you know, do everything
Speaker 3: we can here, But China, India, Pakistan and the other
Speaker 3: big pollutas around the world don't get their act together
Speaker 3: because it all, it doesn't just stay over those countries
Speaker 3: that are big polluters, It migrates towards us.
Speaker 5: Well. I think it requires a combination of both national
Speaker 5: action and international action. The model I talked about ozone
Speaker 5: being a bad pollute net ground level ozone is good
Speaker 5: up in the stratosphere, you know. So we came to
Speaker 5: gather together internationally when the whole on uzone that level
Speaker 5: was occurring to have international changes to help fix that.
Speaker 3: That closed up right that that actually has closed up
Speaker 3: of the sun as I understand.
Speaker 5: That was international global action to deal with a global problem.
Speaker 5: We've attempted that on a global level, you know, with
Speaker 5: the Paris Accords and other action on climate. We haven't
Speaker 5: been a successful one getting consensus, and we need to
Speaker 5: work towards that consensus. And I think part of it
Speaker 5: is leading by example, and part of it is by
Speaker 5: pressuring our international partners to follow that lead, you know.
Speaker 5: So it's you know, a complex situation, but I think
Speaker 5: we can't look to the rest of the world to lead.
Speaker 5: We need to be able leaders in progressing towards a
Speaker 5: healthier planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope that they will follow. I know when
Speaker 3: I try to set good examples for my kids, sometimes
Speaker 3: they followed that. Sometimes they didn't clean up your room,
Speaker 3: you know, clean up, take your plates to the sink.
Speaker 3: I find that sometimes as much as we might try,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really work.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hill.
Speaker 3: Really enjoyed talking with you, and I would love to
Speaker 3: get back and talk about the impact that this has
Speaker 3: on diseases in this country and whether or not are
Speaker 3: we're being any more successful fighting diseases that are you know,
Speaker 3: lung diseases and other similar diseases. But I think we'll
Speaker 3: save that for our next conversation.
Speaker 5: If that's okay, that sounds great. Look forward to talking
Speaker 5: to you in the future.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, doctor David Hill. Remember the Lung
Speaker 3: Association's National Board of Directors and Immediates Past Yere of
Speaker 3: the Northeast Regional Board of the American Lung Association. Appreciate
Speaker 3: your time to sevening, doctor Hill.
Speaker 2: Thank you again, Thank you. Thanks.
Speaker 3: We'll be back for one final segment. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if Noah has Las sued our prior guest or not.
Speaker 3: Noah talked to me here do we have the prior
Speaker 3: guest as he checked in, Okay, then we're working on
Speaker 3: that even as we speak. The entire night Side staff
Speaker 3: is working out on that right now. They have their
Speaker 3: people across the country is alerted, and if not, I'll
Speaker 3: be able to give you a little preview of what's
Speaker 3: coming up tonight, beginning at nine o'clock and on for
Speaker 3: the balance of the evening.
Speaker 2: So stay with us here on Nightside, coming right back.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side, Boston's News Radio. Hi, you're on night
Speaker 1: Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Well, our third guest, John Judge, the CEO of Scouting Boston,
Speaker 3: is a no show tonight. Now that's a little disappointing,
Speaker 3: but that can happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: We'll figure that out. That was confirmed for us earlier today.
Speaker 3: Not my producer's fault, that is for sure, but not
Speaker 3: a good not a good look.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 3: If you're out there tonight, many driving and I don't know,
Speaker 3: I hope you're okay, hope nothing bad has happened to you.
Speaker 2: But that leaves us.
Speaker 3: With a few minutes here, and what I'm gonna do
Speaker 3: is take advantage of that few minutes to just go
Speaker 3: over what would what we're gonna do for the rest
Speaker 3: of the night. During the eleven o'clock hour tonight, I
Speaker 3: heard a story over the weekend which I thought was
Speaker 3: really interesting. You know, you send your children off to college,
Speaker 3: or or maybe you go after college yourself, and you
Speaker 3: spend four years working very hard, and you're looking for
Speaker 3: the graduation day when you're going to walk across the
Speaker 3: stage and.
Speaker 2: Get your ceremonial diploma.
Speaker 3: And whatever it is a Bachelor of Arts or a
Speaker 3: Bachelor of Science, or I don't know, it could be
Speaker 3: a master's or a doctorate. So you always are interested
Speaker 3: who will be the person who who would speak at
Speaker 3: your graduation, your commencement. Well, I read over the weekend
Speaker 3: and found out that Kermit the Frog was the headliner
Speaker 3: of this year at the University of Maryland's graduation ceremony.
Speaker 3: We will talk about that later on tonight. Apparently the
Speaker 3: University of Maryland has a connection with the late great
Speaker 3: creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson, who was a graduate
Speaker 3: in the class of nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: So this would be.
Speaker 3: That this would have been his what forty sixty sixty
Speaker 3: fifth year as a graduate of nineteen a graduate of
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty, and they decided it was a good idea
Speaker 3: to have Kermit the Frog join that commencement speech. So
Speaker 3: we'll we'll talk about that later. And then at nine o'clock,
Speaker 3: or rather the ten o'clock I going to talk about
Speaker 3: Harvard University's fight with President Trump, or I should say
Speaker 3: President Trump's fight with Harvard University, and there is a
Speaker 3: I'm amazed that the President wants to pick this fight
Speaker 3: and is not willing to accept the concessions that Harvard
Speaker 3: has made. And the next hour, at nine o'clock, we
Speaker 3: got to talk about your reflections on this Memorial Day.
Speaker 3: A solid day, but a day in which we honored
Speaker 3: the memory of a lot of American heroes. I'm told
Speaker 3: by my producer, I believe he was talking in my ear. Noah,
Speaker 3: do we have our guests? Our fourth guest, Okay, without
Speaker 3: any further ado, we're going to go to John Judge.
Speaker 3: He's the CEO of Scouting Boston. John, we almost missed you.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 4: Great?
Speaker 6: Thanks Dan, Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we were supposed to talk to you at
Speaker 2: eight thirty.
Speaker 3: What happened was it a miscommunication on our end or
Speaker 3: what I.
Speaker 6: Just oh it was it was my fault. It's my
Speaker 6: nine year old daughter's birthday and my in laws came
Speaker 6: in and yeah, one thing led to another.
Speaker 3: I gotcha. Okay, Well, thank you very much. Confession is
Speaker 3: good for the soul, So thank you very much. But
Speaker 3: we want to take whatever time we have left to
Speaker 3: talk about Scouting Boston. You're the CEO of Scouting Boston.
Speaker 3: There is no more Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I
Speaker 3: mean the terrain has changed, correct.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah they so, Boy Scouts of America is now
Speaker 6: Scouting America. In that that's cub Scouts Scouts BSA, which
Speaker 6: is the eleven to eighteen year old program which a
Speaker 6: lot of people know culminates in the Eagle Scout rank.
Speaker 6: And then there's a career program called Exploring, which is
Speaker 6: very popular, especially the police Exploring, Exploring with different careers
Speaker 6: including we've got a new aviation post at Logan Airport
Speaker 6: with about twenty Chelsea High School students participating in that.
Speaker 3: So just to try to get a sense of this,
Speaker 3: and I know I'm a little rushed here, which you
Speaker 3: kind of understand. If a girl, if a young girl
Speaker 3: wants to join Scouts. Is Girl Scouts still in existence
Speaker 3: or is Girl Scouts in Boy Scouts now combined in
Speaker 3: Scouting America.
Speaker 6: Now that's a great question. Girl Scouts is still in existence.
Speaker 6: So Girl Scouts USA and then Scouting America went co
Speaker 6: ed back in twenty fifteen twenty sixty, and.
Speaker 3: So therefore young girls could either affiliate with Girl Scouts
Speaker 3: or they could also affiliate with Scouting of America.
Speaker 2: They have the.
Speaker 4: Choice, that's right.
Speaker 6: Fact, girls are attaining the Eagle Scout rank, which is
Speaker 6: really impressive for any teenager to get to. The girls
Speaker 6: are doing it in about three years, while the boys
Speaker 6: are taking an extra year to do it. So the
Speaker 6: girls are coming in and really doing amazing work. That
Speaker 6: we've got just about eight thousand young women who have
Speaker 6: become Eagle Scouts far.
Speaker 3: So that either that proves girls are just smarter than
Speaker 3: young boys at that age or the boys are just
Speaker 3: goofing off of that. Yeah, but worth to go thatw
Speaker 3: My understanding is one of the things you were going
Speaker 3: to mention tonight was you're going to be recognizing two
Speaker 3: community leaders at the forty fifth Annual Salute the Scout
Speaker 3: in Gala.
Speaker 2: On June fourth.
Speaker 3: Former Boston Police Commissioner Willie Gross, great friend, former Scout
Speaker 3: Explorer leader, will be your master of ceremony and you
Speaker 3: will be recognizing a couple of I think individuals here
Speaker 3: in Boston, But the one that I probably would like
Speaker 3: to mention is Bob Rivers. Also investments pioneer Amy Dumini.
Speaker 3: But Bob Rivers is the president of Eastern Bank and
Speaker 3: an Eastern Bank, I believe it has been very supportive of
Speaker 3: UH Scouting Scouting Boston or Boston more more specific, but
Speaker 3: I guess it's Scout. Yeah, it's Scouting Boston and UH
Speaker 3: and and Bob and Eastern Bank have been big supporters
Speaker 3: of your group. And you guys are going to honor
Speaker 3: honor Bob Rivers. And I know him very well, and
Speaker 3: so I want to make sure he gets a congratulations
Speaker 3: from me. Tell us about your relationship with Bob Rivers
Speaker 3: in Eastern Bank. Oh?
Speaker 6: Thanks, Bob, is you know he's an incredible community leader.
Speaker 6: And when you think about, you know, the top three
Speaker 6: corporations in terms of corporate social responsibility and the community
Speaker 6: work that they do, the volunteerism that they do, I mean,
Speaker 6: Eastern is at the top. Of any list. It's and
Speaker 6: it's driven by Bob's cheer of Eastern Bank. You know,
Speaker 6: he's a he's a stone Hill grad, Stonehill College grad.
Speaker 6: He's a local guy and just never forgot, you know,
Speaker 6: the community that he came from, and it certainly has
Speaker 6: been very involved in the work of inclusion and access
Speaker 6: working in cities. He's doing a lot of work now
Speaker 6: in Brockton with that the new minor League.
Speaker 5: He's fought a little a.
Speaker 2: Little bit of work with the Boston Rocks.
Speaker 3: Will do me a favorite Bob as a dear friend,
Speaker 3: and please tell him that that. I just wanted to
Speaker 3: send Mike ngratulations on and also UH send I don't
Speaker 3: know Amy uh Dominie, but I'm sure she epitomizes the
Speaker 3: leadership and community service uh and values that are inherent
Speaker 3: in the in the Scouting program.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: And of course Willie Grosse is just an incredible individual.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: And also himself grew up in the He led the
Speaker 3: Boston Police Boy Scouts Explorer program.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 3: I hate to do this to you, but time tempest
Speaker 3: has fugit. The temp is fugit, as the Latin has say,
Speaker 3: and so we will have to you know, I hope
Speaker 3: we've got a little bit here, but uh, we'll get
Speaker 3: back to at some point and we won't hold this
Speaker 3: against you for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks very much.
Speaker 6: Getting your scouting Boston dot org. If you want ticket
Speaker 6: or information.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to give you a demerit on your
Speaker 3: your your attendance record, okay for being tardy. Those of
Speaker 3: us who went to Boston Latin School back in the
Speaker 3: day know what a demerit on our tarty list looks like.
Speaker 3: So it's it's not you know, it can be a
Speaker 3: rased at some point. Don't worry about it. Okay, thanks again, Joe,