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CNN This Morning
Great Salt Lake Will Disappear in Five Years; Cardiac Arrest Preparation in Schools; Marc Maron is Interviewed about Returning to the Stage. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired February 10, 2023 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Drink or use to water their crops and animals. It is about the air they breathe. It is about toxic dust. And they're realizing now that if they don't spend billions to put more water into the Great Salt Lake, they could be paying much more forever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEIR (voice over): This is what is left of the Great Salt Lake. They hit record lows in recent months, exposing around 800 square miles of lakebed. But unchecked water use and climate change aren't just threatening the birds and sail boaters. And here the western megadrought threatens a lot more than just snow sports, agriculture and industry.
WEIR (on camera): Because this lakebed holds centuries of toxic runoff. Mercury, selenium, arsenic, some of it natural, some of it manmade mining waste. But if it turns to dust and adds to some of the worst air pollution in the country, this is a threat to the lungs of over 2.5 million people.
BONNIE BAXTER, BIOLOGIST AND DIRECTOR, GREAT SALT LAKE INSTITUTE, Westminster COLLEGE: We've done this experiment in history before. We - we know about dust storms. We know about particulate pollution. We know about heavy metals and how they're bad for humans. This is an ecological disaster that will become a human health disaster.
WEIR (voice over): Bonnie Baxter is among the scientists who recently warned that the Great Salt Lake, as we know it, could be gone in five years, shriveled into fingers of lifeless water before becoming the great toxic dust bowl.
BAXTER: You can kind of see a person standing out there. Like, the water would have been above their head just a few years ago.
WEIR: This is what is known as a terminal lake with no rivers to take minerals to the sea. So, they build up over time, just like Owens Lake in California, after developers notoriously drained it a century ago to build Los Angeles. It both inspired the movie "Chinatown" and forced Californians to spend in the billions to control the toxic dust that remains a threat 100 years later. BAXTER: This lake is 12 to 15 times bigger than Owens Lake. It's right
next to a metropolitan center, which that lake was not. So there are people who will breathe this dust immediately. And we're really, really concerned about that happening here.
WEIR (on camera): Right.
BAXTER: So, we have done that experiment. We shouldn't do it again.
BRIAN STEED, EXEC. DIR., LAWSON INSTITUTE FOR LAND, WATER AND AIR, UTAH STATE UNIV.: There's human choices that led to that catastrophic event, right? We're looking at the Great Salt Lake in a position right now to where we can avoid that a catastrophe, where we don't have to spend those billions of dollars in remediation in the future if we make choices today.
WEIR (voice over): Brian Steed and John Lin are from rival Utah universities. One with a background in state government, the other an atmospheric scientist.
JOHN LIN, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH'S DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES: The thing is, it's bipartisan, right? (INAUDIBLE) we all want clean air.
WEIR: Together they're part of the newly formed Great Salt Lake Strike Team, out to convince everyone that every drop counts.
STEED: For a long time, I don't think that people were sufficiently talking for the lake. Now I think that we have a lot of people interested. The governor of the state, the legislature, who's all very interested in coming up with different scenarios and different solutions so that we don't end up with that catastrophic outcome.
WEIR (on camera): It seems like the path of least resist is for the state to pay farmers for their water rights. Is that going to happen?
STEED: I don't know. It remains to be seen. I mean I think there's a lot of things that we could do that go to that extreme.
WEIR (voice over): Among the signs of change, when U.S. Magnesium wanted to extend canals into the lake, the state said no. And last year, the legislature finally began revising water laws written in the days of the wild west.
BAXTER: Sometimes we feel like we take a step forward and sometimes we take a step back. But, in general, all those pieces of water legislation that passed in 2022 were bipartisan and unanimous. Like, where does that happen anymore?
WEIR: Fingers crossed it keeps happening because the only thing that can keep the Salt Lake great is lots of snow and even more cooperation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEIR: About two-thirds of Utah's population is at risk of this dust right now and -- but they're finally coming around to this. They're finally getting water meters in the year 2023 to really measure exactly how much the farmers are using and they hope knowledge is power to keep that lake alive.
Don. Poppy.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: We hope so.
Thank you, Bill Weir. Appreciate that.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Extraordinary to see.
All right, last month an AED, an automated defibrillator, saved Damar Hamlin's life on the field. Now we're going to talk about how accessible that life-saving equipment is at schools around the country. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has a new report and spoke to a parent whose son suffered the same injury as Hamlin but on a high school lacrosse field.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What if it had happened, you know, a few miles away from here?
PETE LAAKE, PETER LAAKE'S FATHER: It would have been a totally different outcome. You can do CPR till you're blue in the face, and it's never going to restart the heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:38:46]
HARLOW: This past week NFL union doctors said they were optimistic that the Buffalo Bills Damar Hamlin would play again in professional football after having cardiac arrest on field last month. But what if he had still been in high school, right? We asked this in the days after that happened. Where are the resources? Would he have gotten the same treatment?
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead and go over to the Cot. I don't like how he went down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to need everybody. All call. All call.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field in January, Pete Laake immediately thought about his son, Peter.
PETE LAAKE, PETER'S FATHER: It really brought back a lot of emotions, and still does to be truthful. GUPTA: Two years ago, then a high school freshman, Peter Laake was playing defense for the Loyola Dons against the McDonogh Eagles. He was right around the 20-yard line. And what you're about to watch is the exact moment his heart stopped beating.
PETER LAAKE, EXPERIENCED CARDIAC ARREST: I went to the ball, like stepped in front of it, and I just got hit. Like, I've done that many times before.
JEREMY PARR, ASSISTANT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR AND HEAD ATHLETIC TRAINER, LOYOLA: And I kind of even winced in - like just thinking in my head, oh, that one's going to hurt.
GUPTA: Jeremy Parr is the assistant athletic director and the head athletic trainer at Peter's school.
[08:40:04]
That sunny day, he was watching diligently from the sidelines.
PARR: Because this shot was pretty hard, I was watching Peter instead of the course of the action of the game.
PETER LAAKE: And I started looking for what was going to happen next and then just like that, you know, I like got dizzy and I just like blacked out.
PARR: I could hear first. He had some agonal breathing. So it was like this gasping or gurgling for air. He's prone on the ground. I checked for a pulse, and we didn't have one.
GUPTA: The diagnosis, commotio cordis, a rare phenomenon with fewer than 30 cases reported every year.
Now, let me show you what happened to Peter. His heart here is contracting and relaxing. That's a normal rhythm. But at the exact millisecond the heart needs to recharge before the next beat, that's this little bump here, the lacrosse ball hit the left side of his chest. As a result, his heart never got the chance to relax. It starts fibrillating instead. Peter goes into cardiac arrest. And the clock starts ticking.
GUPTA (on camera): What was that like for you?
PARR: Didn't have time to think. With no pulse, no breathing, we needed to get the AED and EMS activated as soon as possible.
GUPTA (voice over): And in Peter's case, it all worked, and fast. Two to three minutes. But watching all this as a parent, I couldn't help but wonder, what if this were my kid's school? Your kid's school? As part of a CNN investigation, we learned that nowadays at least 20 states have laws requiring AEDs. And in reality, about 70 to 80 percent of schools have at least one defibrillator on hand. But how accessible they are, that is the real issue we uncovered.
GUPTA (on camera): What if it had happened, you know, a few miles away from here?
PETE LAAKE: It would have been a totally different outcome. You can do CPR till you're blue in the face and it's never going to restart the heart. It is 100 percent access to an AED within a very timely period.
GUPTA (voice over): Turns out, where you live makes a big difference. For example, in Ohio, in Michigan, more than 70 percent of public schools had AEDs, but in locations that simply couldn't be reached in time. In Oregon, just half of schools had an AED accessible within four minutes of all sports venues. In Vermont, despite 81 percent of schools having an AED, just 16 percent of them had them located at fields or arenas and about half the time they were in the school nurse's office or the lobby.
PARR: This is an example of a portable --
GUPTA: We learned that athletic trainers are critical. In schools that had athletic trainers, were more likely to have AEDs. The chance of survival from a cardiac arrest nearly doubled to over 80 percent if an athletic trainer or AED were used. But as things stand now, a third of the country's schools don't have anyone in that position.
PARR: All athletes should be afforded the same resources that we have here, that Division I athletes in college have and professional sports as well.
GUPTA: That's the thing, it's availability and access. Both are crucially important. And it's one of the most important things you can do for your kids. Make sure AEDs are available and accessible in your kid's school. It saved Peter Laake's life and allowed for moments like this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is us with.
I'm so glad you did this reporting because we were all saying, oh my gosh, what if this happened to kids and teens.
GUPTA: Right.
HARLOW: A lot of schools already don't have enough funding. How expensive is an AED?
GUPTA: They're about $1,000 to $2,000 depending on the model. They - but they can last several years. So that's not a yearly cost.
What was striking is that, you know, in the late '90s, no one was really talking about this. So, over the last 20 years, they have put a lot more of these AEDs in schools and in other large venues. If it's a venue over 200 people, you're required to have an AED now. So, it could make a big difference.
What they find in schools specifically, Poppy, is that there should be about one AED for every 500 students.
HARLOW: OK.
GUPTA: And they should be accessible. Not just available, but accessible within two minutes.
HARLOW: Yes.
GUPTA: That ends up being key in terms of potentially saving lives, like you saw with Peter there.
HARLOW: I don't even know if my kid's school has this. So, I think I and a lot of other parents will ask.
GUPTA: I asked at my own kid's school after I saw what happened with Damar.
HARLOW: Right.
GUPTA: I went in and asked the athletic trainers about it. Everybody should do that.
HARLOW: Yes.
All right, Doctor, thank you for doing this piece. Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
GUPTA: You got it. Have a great day.
HARLOW: You can read Sanjay's essay about keeping high-schoolers safe on cnn.com.
LEMON: Yes.
It's -- there was someone in the lobby a couple months ago that had a -- went into cardiac arrest.
HARLOW: Really?
LEMON: And we have one in the lobby. And they came over to borrow ours.
HARLOW: Goodness.
LEMON: And they saved the person. This happened (ph) a while back.
HARLOW: Wow.
COLLINS: It's amazing versus CPR how much better it is.
LEMON: Yes.
HARLOW: It is.
COLLINS: Like, it is - it is astronomically better to do that than a - than CPR.
HARLOW: Yes.
LEMON: OK.
HARLOW: OK.
[08:45:03]
LEMON: Well, during the pandemic, Marc Maron wasn't sure if he would ever do stand-up comedy again, but three years later he's back with his patented optimism and positivity. Sarcasm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC MARON, COMEDIAN: I don't want to be negative, but I don't think anything's ever going to get better ever again.
And don't misunderstand me, I have no hope. I think if you have hope, what are you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) seven?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: See how cheery he is?
HARLOW: Good morning.
LEMON: He's live in the studio to spread joy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC MARON, COMEDIAN: You think you're a better man than me because you have human kids? Like that makes you more responsible, more evolved, a better human? Go (EXPLETIVE DELETED) yourself. I have three cats that I love. And in the best case scenario, I'm going to have to have them all killed.
[08:50:07]
I'm going to have to kill my friends. And I knew it going in. That's how big my heart is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: That was comedian Marc Maron, who is known for his dark but blunt humor. After the loss of his girlfriend in 2020, Maron wondered if he'd ever perform standup again, both because of his emotional state and just the restrictions due to the pandemic. But three years later, the comedian, actor, podcaster extraordinaire is back on stage laughing again and exploring the state of the world in a new HBO special "From Bleak to Dark."
So, joining us now is Marc Maron, who is also the host of the "WTF" podcast.
It premieres tomorrow.
MARC MARON, COMEDIAN: Yes. COLLINS: Did you - did you think that you'd - you'd be here, you'd be in this position and that you'd have this premiering?
MARON: Sitting on a CNN show in the morning?
COLLINS: Sitting on a CNN show at 8:15 in the morning.
MARON: I never could have dreamed that I'd be on CNN at 7:00 in the morning.
LEMON: I love you. I so relate to you.
COLLINS: It's 8:50.
MARON: It's 8:50?
COLLINS: Yes.
MARON: Oh, I don't know, I just got up. How about guys?
HARLOW: I wish.
MARON: No, I - I -- did any of us know what was going to happen? I didn't know where we would be.
HARLOW: No.
MARON: I have a hard time really kind of, you know, thinking about tomorrow, let alone the future. But I didn't know the - the -- not doing comedy thing was real like cause during the pandemic I really just didn't -- the weird thing was is I didn't miss it. And I've been doing it all my life. But the only thing I thought was, maybe I don't need it anymore. Maybe I'm all better. So that kind of was a weird framing of it. Like, I'm not really -
COLLINS: But you're not, clearly, since you're doing it still?
MARON: No, not better. But as soon as other people started doing comedy, I'm like, all right, here we go, the race is back on. So, it just started again. And I just started at it a couple years ago building new material.
LEMON: Yes. That's kind of - that's what I do, I was telling you, I watch -
MARON: Yes.
LEMON: Like, I watch Sam Morril, Mark Normand, also their podcast, "We Might Be Drunk." Like, I just -- we need humor in this time.
MARON: Sure.
LEMON: And I think the more sort of irreverent it is, the better.
MARON: Yes.
LEMON: Because I'm kind of sick of people like, we can't say this, we can't say that because --
MARON: Yes, I don't - like, you know, you can say whatever you want really.
LEMON: Yes.
MARON: But I do like - I think I'm just naturally a dark comic.
LEMON: Yes.
MARON: And I need to do that to feel better. So, if it helps other people feel better -- I'm not saying I'm for everybody -
LEMON: Yes.
MARON: But, you know, I - I can get it through.
LEMON: Well, let's listen to some of it -
MARON: All right.
LEMON: Because you're in the politically correct culture, you talk about.
MARON: Let's see what - oh, goo.
LEMON: Let's see.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARON: But I don't always know that I'm getting older. I don't always feel it. Because I think - it's a few reasons, because I don't have kids. I think if you have kids you can kind of see you're dying in your kids. I mean, maybe that's cynical and I don't really know, but I have to imagine at some point you're like, happy birthday, son. How old are you today? Seventeen? (EXPLETIVE DELETED) I'm dying. I'm sorry, I meant to say, have fun today. I don't know, I guess I was thinking out loud a little bit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARON: Yes, no kids. Are you checking your phone, Don?
LEMON: No, I was checking to - to - I was checking to make sure that I had the comedians that I love right because I want to get people's names right.
MARON: Well, Mark Normand, yes, he's great.
LEMON: Because I think - yes, but I think comedians like, you know, in this moment they're helping us and I want to make sure that I give you guys some love. That's what I'm doing.
MARON: Well, I think it's - yes, we all need help to - to get through whatever's happening, because it's not going to end well, Don. I don't want to - COLLINS: Spoil the ending?
MARON: Yes. Yes. Yes. But we -- none of us know what's going to happen, but we can kind of feel that it might not be great.
LEMON: But Poppy is sitting here - Poppy is the most optimistic and upbeat person. And I come in and I'm like ahhh. I'm more like you.
HARLOW: He growls at me some mornings.
MARON: Are you - like, are you like annoyingly optimistic?
COLLINS: He'll be -
HARLOW: I'm -
COLLINS: No.
HARLOW: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: No, not at all.
LEMON: Yes. No.
HARLOW: Can we talk -
COLLINS: It's like ambitious and lovely.
MARON: Well, I'm going to start -- I feel like I'm starting something. I'm glad I'm here to --
HARLOW: Love. Can - can we talk about Lynn, though?
MARON: What? Yes, of course.
HARLOW: Because I know this is all fun, but like a part of the reason you didn't know you could come back to comedy, you lost the love of your life.
MARON: Yes. Yes.
HARLOW: Lynn was a very talented director. She was, what 39?
MARON: No, 54.
HARLOW: Fifty-four. Why did I say 39.
MARON: Yes.
HARLOW: But she looked 39 is what we're going to say.
MARON: Yes, she looked great. Yes.
HARLOW: But you lost her so young.
MARON: Yes. HARLOW: And - and I was reading something you said about grief. And
you said, grief is a strange thing, you hear about it all the time, but then all of a sudden you're in it.
MARON: Yes.
HARLOW: Can you talk about coming from that to here.
MARON: Well, yes, I mean, it was -- it happened very quickly and it was very tragic and it was not expected and she had some underlying condition that we didn't know about.
HARLOW: I know.
MARON: It was in the middle of Covid. And because of the nature of just that, you know, people couldn't really come over. It was - it was kind of isolating. And when you hear about grief but no one really talks about it. But when you have it, it kind of -- it never goes away and it's sort of -- when you're in it at the beginning, it's like a PTSD quality and you can't really stop the emotions, even though you want to stop them. And then you wonder, like, is it ever -- you want relief. But ultimately what happens, I think, because, you know, we're people and I think people are designed to sort of deal with loss, because we do, everyone's going to, it kind of grows with you and it's always there. Like, you know, you can kind of tap into it. You can experience the feelings.
But I just never heard it talked about. Comedically or any other way.
[08:55:02]
And I - I - and I don't think there's a real big cultural dialogue or not.
HARLOW: Yes.
MARON: So, it was important for me to honor her and also to, you know, to get the discussion out into the world about it and have some humor about it. I hope she likes the jokes. This is in the special.
HARLOW: Yes.
MARON: There's these weird things that started happening when I was doing - when I was talking about her. I was in Ireland, where we spent one vacation together. And I was doing this stuff about her passing and - and the light started going on and off.
HARLOW: Really?
MARON: In the theater.
HARLOW: Yes.
MARON: And I was sort of like, all right, hi, Lynn. You know, like, and -
HARLOW: I -
MARON: You know, it's crazy. I talk about it in the special.
HARLOW: I think you feel people in certain ways.
MARON: I'd like to believe that.
HARLOW: I -
MARON: I mean, yes, I definitely address it in the special with the hummingbird.
HARLOW: Can - can we shoutout to her foundation Of a Certain Age, right?
MARON: Of course. Yes.
HARLOW: So, there's that. And I can't wait to watch.
MARON: OK.
HARLOW: Thank you.
COLLINS: It premieres tomorrow, right?
HARLOW: For all that.
MARON: It does. I believe so. This is Friday, yes.
HARLOW: Yes. It's Friday. It's 8:00 a.m.
LEMON: Yes. I have to ask people what day it is and date as well.
MARON: Yes.
LEMON: Yes.
HARLOW: Wait. Move the prompter back. What is it, premiers tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, on HBO. Streaming available as well tomorrow on HBO Max.
Congratulations.
MARON: Thank you.
HARLOW: Thank you. Thank you.
COLLINS: Thanks for previewing it with us.
MARON: Yes.
LEMON: Marc, it's good to see. Thanks for coming in.
COLLINS: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.
MARON: Yes, yes, absolutely. LEMON: It was a pleasure.
MARON: Sure.
COLLINS: Thank you all for joining us. We hope you have a lovely weekend. CNN "NEWSROOM" starts right after this break.
LEMON: See you next week.
COLLINS: Thank you, Marc.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
