[00:00:00] Michael Hawk: The Joshua Tree is perhaps only rivaled by the Saguaro Cactus as the icon of the Desert Southwest featured on U2's classic album cover, and now the backdrop of countless Instagram glamor shots. Its unique, almost alien look is unmistakable. But for decades, the Joshua Tree was looked at with disdain, even loathing and hatred.

Believe it or not. Today our guest is Barrett Baumgart, author of the new book, Yuck: the Birth and Death of The Weird and Wondrous Joshua Tree

in this book, Barrett explores the Joshua Tree, and you could consider this a part history, part natural history, part cultural criticism, and part ecology book. It's very unique.

And today we delve into the strange and winding tale of the Joshua Tree and its history of evading human preconceptions and assumptions. Living on the edge, it faces a potentially bleak future, but [00:01:00] perhaps it will thwart us once again against all odds. Be sure to check out Barrett on Instagram at Barrett Baumgart and on his substack called Dumpster Fires, and those are both linked in the show notes.

So without further delay, Barrett Baumgart and Joshua Trees. 

All right, Barrett, thank you so much for joining me this, uh, bright and early morning.

[00:01:21] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I'm happy to be here, Michael. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:24] Michael Hawk: And, , I'm sure this happens to you all the time, but I just wanted to show that this shirt I'm wearing, my kids got it for me. It's, um, oh, can't quite see it. There we go. Joshua Tree. So, uh, relevant to the conversation today, I would say

[00:01:39] Barret Baumgart: Well done.

[00:01:39] Michael Hawk: Of course the, main reason why we connected is, a book that you have that just came out recently.

[00:01:45] Barret Baumgart: March 25th.

[00:01:46] Michael Hawk: March 25th, very recently about the Joshua Tree. But before we get into the weird and crazy twists and turns of that story I am, I'm curious how you came. To be interested [00:02:00] in this subject and maybe even going back further, have, have you always had an eye towards nature?

[00:02:05] Barret Baumgart: the more I think about it, mean, as, as a child, uh, I grew up on a, like a large canyon in California. I think at night beyond that fence, there was a lot of activity. Coyotes hauling tarantulas would make it into the yard, rattlesnakes that canyon would drop down to, I guess what is technically the San Diego River, though, that sounds kind of like a oxymoron.

if you're. Familiar with a lot of Southern California. There was an old mission dam there. The oldest construction project in the Western United States is just quietly hiding down there where the Spanish first arrived and yeah, I don't know. The canyon, my mom was kind of a crazy lady. We had tons of pets.

we had a giant hissing cockroach. We had millipedes, Guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, dogs. it was kind of a menagerie. So yeah, early on fascinated with nature, hiking having lots of, lots of strange pets in the house, handling animals, seeing, the lifecycle, the mortality, the fragility, the, the [00:03:00] beauty.

And I, I don't know. I never have like really thought of myself as someone who just loves nature, but more and more as I keep writing these books and engaging with the natural world. Yeah, it started, it started early.

[00:03:10] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I guess maybe that early exposure. It just, it's what you grew up with. It was your baseline, it's what you were used to. So, perhaps it's harder to recognize the interest that all instilled into you. I.

[00:03:21] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I.

[00:03:22] Michael Hawk: So then you know, let's, let's get straight to the Joshua Tree in your book.

Yuck. How did you discover this interesting story or set of stories to tell? I.

[00:03:33] Barret Baumgart: I've always been, um, really curious about the Mojave Desert. My first book, China Lake, which is actually named after a military base, kind of quietly hiding out in the Mojave Desert. my, my mind has kind of been like rooted in this landscape. For a while. And, I've always, been attracted to Joshua Tree.

It's obviously been growing steadily in popularity. You know, what kind of the fastest growing national park. And long story short 2020, I was supposed to get married out there, April, 2020 was already feeling a little [00:04:00] self-conscious, like it was kind of cliche. The place was so hip, so many attractive wedding blogs, photographers, just this whole.

Massive production of this kind of manufactured perfection out there, this Mojave chic aesthetic. It sounds super critical, but yeah, it's quite an, an industry. And I wanted to come up with something something kind of to justify this wedding to myself and then also to guess who'd be flying, you know, from New York and Connecticut, wondering why the hell they just landed in.

Los Angeles, and instead of going to the beach, now they gotta trek out to this wasteland they'd never heard of two hours away. So I was like, let me do a little research dive, do a little digging. I'll come up with something pithy that talks about this tree, which is in a tree that people will know nothing about.

Maybe I'll come up with some wedding vows in the process. Dah, dah, dah, dah. Long story short, again I just started finding really interesting material that was surprising me, and that research project continued to expand as the wedding was canceled by COVID. So I kind [00:05:00] of, you know, it's, it's a, it's a strange story.

I kind of accidentally started this book without any real plan or design. Went from being hopefully a folded two page note to a now 120 page book.

[00:05:11] Michael Hawk: just to give the full title of the book, it's yuck, the Glorious Grotesque History of the Joshua Tree Yucca Brelia. So it, in the title itself, it gives a hint as to. Some of the, the breadth of the coverage that you give to it. From the, the Latin name, there's, you know, a little bit of ecology in here.

There's, uh, a lot of history in here. How would you describe the book? You know, who is the audience? Who were you hoping you know, would pick it up and, take it away?

[00:05:40] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, it's a really good question. It's kinda hard to answer. I mean, broadly, um, it's a hybrid. It's, it's got history, it's got ecology, there's natural history. You know, it starts with kind of a personal Preface. there's, cultural criticism there's biology, I.

I don't know what to call it other than a nonfiction hybrid. And you know, on the page it looks [00:06:00] strange as well. So it's kind of doing a lot. And when I set out, I didn't really have an audience in mind. I think, what usually keeps me moving through a longer piece of writing is if I'm finding things that are surprising me, exciting me, stimulating me intellectually if I'm hooked I can assume the reader might be hooked.

And so what you end up with though, potentially is a, a book that, you know, if someone's diving in, oh, I wanna learn about climate change, or I really wanna learn about, you know, the, the intricacies of this plant, they might be disappointed or they might be delighted when the book takes a lot of twists and turns, as you've said, because yeah, we're not really, we're not hammering in on, on one specific item here.

The book is, is moving and shifting and yeah, a lot of surprising. Transitions, hopefully. But, my goal is to keep it engaging and surprising.

[00:06:46] Michael Hawk: Yeah, it, it was definitely interesting. You know, for sure. I didn't know what to expect when I got the, uh, the review copy. And I, I did enjoy it. You know, the, the twists and turns did speak to me, and we'll get into a little bit. Bit of that here today. I don't want to give away the whole [00:07:00] book, but obviously there's some interesting tidbits that we can talk about.

Since this podcast here, a lot of times we do get pretty deep into ecology, into natural history and the biology. Why don't we just talk a little bit to begin with about what is a Joshua Tree?

[00:07:15] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I mean, a Joshua Tree. Technically it's not a tree. I think a lot of people know that. I don't really hammer that in, in the book, but yeah, I, I, it's been thought, you know, there's a, there's a long debate and we do go quickly through I. The book doesn't go into the full, uh, botanist debate over the years.

But there was tons of names, tons of candidates. Eventually, a guy named George Engelman, I think in 1871, won the prize when he decided it was, uh, Yucca, Bre Folia. Another big contender was Yucca draconis. Uh, which would've been cool if we had, dragon Tree

[00:07:44] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I like that. I like that.

[00:07:47] Barret Baumgart: Yeah. Uh, Bre Folia, short leaved, uh, Yucca, not, not quite as captivating.

technically I think, you know, it's a member of the Lilly family. You might call it a large leaved, uh, monocot. I'm not a biologist, so [00:08:00] I don't go too deeply or worry, um, too much about technically what this thing is. But it is a totally fascinating if you're, if you have, if you're not in California, if you're not in the West, you've definitely seen a Joshua tree.

You've definitely seen a yucca tree. I think the Joshua tree is gonna be probably the strangest, most kind of, grotesque, uh, example of, the, um, yucca formation probably, uh, in the world. And, Yeah, there's so much more to say about it, but in what direction would you like to go from there?

[00:08:31] Michael Hawk: Yeah. Uh, so we'll get into the strange and grotesque here in a little bit. I'll just have to keep the listeners waiting for a moment. But yeah, so, just give us a sense of place. Where are Joshua Trees found?

[00:08:44] Barret Baumgart: primarily in the Mojave Desert, Eastern California, kind of southern as we range up, uh, northeast toward Las Vegas. we're covering an area from you know, kind of near Palm Springs ranging through Death Valley, northward upward, [00:09:00] along the Eastern Sierra Nevada. There's a huge chunk of desert.

Called the Mojave Desert and tends to be higher elevation. These Joshua trees kind of exist in sort of a finite ecological window. It's a little bit cooler up there if you know, Joshua Tree's very famous for, you know, the collision of the Colorado Desert and the Mojave. It's interesting to see that, there's just absolutely no Joshua trees at those lower elevations.

And one of the most exciting things for me and probably a lot of people who love Joshua Trees and and visitors to the Mojave is to, you know, be driving along in a car and come up over a ridge and all of a sudden, whoa, what are these? Things standing out in mass suddenly that it's like we just crossed some sort of invisible threshold and, and there they are might be dozens or it might be thousands on end.

And I think that speaks to kind of the mysterious, the fragile growth of this thing. They just really do exist in a, in a really finite little ecotone right there.

[00:09:55] Michael Hawk: Yeah. And if I recall, I think, I think there's maybe a small stand [00:10:00] on the edge of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona as well, but yeah. So there's just this little patch in the Southwestern United States and.

[00:10:07] Barret Baumgart: Yeah. Mojave outside the Mojave too. Yeah, that's, that's true. You could find them supposedly in Utah. They're in Arizona,

[00:10:13] Michael Hawk: I didn't know about Utah. Wow.

[00:10:15] Barret Baumgart: Yeah. I've, I've heard that they're technically touching down in, in Utah as well at some point. So, so people should research that.

[00:10:22] Michael Hawk: Hey, I did look into this a little bit and I had forgotten this, but the Joshua tree used to be considered one species, but I don't know, about 15, 20 years ago, there was a movement to split the Eastern Joshua Tree from the Western Joshua Tree. So those that we see in Arizona and Utah and parts of Nevada are actually part of the eastern species,

Which is Yucca jaegeriana. 

And to your point about the elevation, , I sometimes help out with the local community college. I do a field ecology trip and, part of what we do is we go through the Eastern Sierra, down to the [00:11:00] Mojave, we do visit a couple of different stands of Joshua trees. And last year, in April, it actually snowed while we were standing there amongst the Joshua trees.

So these, you know, you're in the desert, you're thinking hot and dry. But no, they can withstand these, you know, kind of frigid cold changeable conditions.

[00:11:18] Barret Baumgart: that is one of the most exciting things and one of the prettiest things I've ever seen is, is driving through a Joshua Tree Forest with a couple inches of snow and yeah, it's amazing.

[00:11:27] Michael Hawk: And in terms of their place in the ecosystem, can you tell me a little bit about what animals might use them? Who pollinates them? Do you have, uh, any insights that you could share? I.

[00:11:39] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I mean the most fascinating thing to touch on initially is, The mutualism of, the Yucca Moth Joshua Tree relationships. it is, one of, one of the most, kind of well-known, fascinating, symbiotic mutual evolutions. I think, uh, like we know about, um, the Joshua Tree for pollination depends exclusively on a, a tiny moth about the size of [00:12:00] your fingernail.

Comes in the night, lands in the flower lays an egg. In doing so, pollinates the tree tree. Cannot reproduce without the presence of this moth. Um, and those eggs, they hatch, they eat through the flowers. That was a super famous relationship. It, it speaks to, again, the fragility of this tree.

 All the things surrounding it, threatening it behind the scenes, um, you have this tiny little moth, if that thing goes away you know, everything's at stake. So we can touch more on that maybe later. but yeah, I mean, you know, shelter for plenty of bird species lizards, the Joshua Tree, in its early stages, uh, you might be walking through the desert. It's extremely fragile. Most of them get picked off by you know, rodents. Mice, rabbits are gonna be chewing the little tough to grass. That is the first, you know, sprout of the Joshua tree, and maybe 800 years later you see one of these behemoths, hanging out around the gates of the park.

[00:12:52] Michael Hawk: Yeah, you wouldn't even recognize the Joshua tree when it's, when it's new. When it's young, it, it's hard to envision it turning into this massive [00:13:00] woody structure that, uh, that these 800 year old Joshua trees become.

[00:13:04] Barret Baumgart: Yeah. Completely. Yeah. You're gonna it's a tiny sprout. Um, and then yeah, even when it's a few feet tall yeah. Decades. Decades, hundreds of years until you finally, see this, this glorious thing that has become so famous. Yeah.

[00:13:17] Michael Hawk: And how about how do they propagate? Like, okay, so with the, this moth, the yucca moth is responsible for them. From a lifecycle standpoint, but do seeds just drop below or do they get carried elsewhere or do you have a sense of how how these populations kind of move over time?

[00:13:34] Barret Baumgart: It's a good question. Yeah, . They drop, they blow, they get dispersed. There's been a big debate about the role of the Shasta ground sloth that was thought that, you know, back in the day, the Shasta Ground sloth was responsible for eating these berries, dispersing the seeds.

And the Joshua Tree obviously continues to exist, uh, without the Shasta ground slot. but yeah. It's, it's what you would expect. Birds, rodents any scavenger coming through. Dispersing seeds, [00:14:00] defecating,

[00:14:01] Michael Hawk: So I just wanna ask you directly when you say they're strange and grotesque, like what is it that's coming to your mind that causes you to say that?

[00:14:08] Barret Baumgart: It's the anthropomorphic, uh, appearance of the tree. The lack of symmetry. They you know, these, I, it's hard for me not to use the kind of wild outlandish terms that the radical diction that's deployed throughout the book by the Victorian writers that I, that I start off with sampling, in excess.

But yeah, they, these long arthritic arms, they look like monsters in pain. Some of these people say back in the day I personally would not, start out by saying the Joshua Trees grotesque. I don't think most people would say that. But what is it that you know, that that defines them? What are we drawn to?

So much in their appearance and it, it is that it's just so irregular. It's alien, it's strange. We're not thinking of it in, in negative or monstrous terms so much anymore. But yeah, weird. Whatever, whatever words we have, they are strange, they're weird, unique, singular, and they've become, this iconic [00:15:00] symbol of the west, the Mojave Desert, and a kind of an open canvas for, uh, a human.

Projection, they're, they've become a mascot. And yeah, we really do have unique, complex, relationship with them at the moment. And, you know, in, in this book, um, looking further back, yeah, it's, it's been a, a long relationship, not always a, a positive one.

[00:15:21] Michael Hawk: the word that would've come to mind for me that doesn't paint such a picture, is just. Unique, but I think that what you said that really resonates as alien because you, you were talking about like coming over a hill in the desert, and generally these hills are gonna be pretty barren.

There's a lot of dirt visible, maybe some low shrubs. Perhaps now, unfortunately some non-native grasses coming in. But then all of a sudden you have these how tall can they get? Uh, 30 feet or

[00:15:49] Barret Baumgart: They can get really tall, I think. Um, I think, yeah, they've been measured to like 60,

80 feet. 

[00:15:54] Michael Hawk: Even taller. That's huge.

[00:15:56] Barret Baumgart: Those were cut down. Yeah.

[00:15:59] Michael Hawk: yeah, just [00:16:00] suddenly these things appear and they don't look like any other tree.

As you said. They aren't technically a tree. Then again. What is a tree anyway, that's still you know, sort of a, uh, judgment call when it comes to botany. You know, where do you draw the line between a shrub and a tree and other forms of growth. So yeah, that's really what stands out to me is just like this contrast of.

You know, you're in a desert. Not many things grow tall in the desert. Maybe if there's some water somewhere, you might have some trees along a riparian area, but, but here they are out kind of in the open growing to such heights.

[00:16:34] Barret Baumgart: Yeah.

[00:16:35] Michael Hawk: So you, you started to touch on these terms of the Victorian era rider, and I think the other thing that.

It really comes to my mind of that era is like, it's, it's an era of colonization and it's the era of, uh, you know, we even had the Bureau of Reclamation, they wanted to reclaim a lot of these lands, and when they say reclaim, like turn it into agriculture, turn it [00:17:00] into places where people can live. How did that feed into this narrative about the Joshua Tree?

[00:17:07] Barret Baumgart: I think it's constantly in the background. Yeah. There's no way to understand our relationship to to Joshua Tree and Western Lands without, yeah. The background of manifest destiny westward movement reclamation. So yeah, I mean, in, in confronting something alien monstrous, I mean, we could throw out mo more terms.

I mean, they've, they called it demon maniacal, they called it infernal. Yeah, I mean, literally sentence sentences like grotesque monsters in pain as compared to images from. Po. Edgar Poe Gustav Dore, you know, just the most fantastical wild imagery possible. when people confronted this thing I think there was a need.

It's obviously large, it's an anomaly on the landscape like you're describing. If suddenly there's this 60 foot tall biomass that. You find hideous. and you have very little resources. You're in a [00:18:00] hostile environment. It's, it's foreign to you. You're coming in a covered wagon with your grand piano and all your wedding dresses and all this crap that you're not gonna need.

When you get to the shores of California, you're gonna have to throw it all away. You're coming through you, you want to, you wanna see, hey what, what can we do with this thing? How can we make this of use? To, to psychology it a little bit too. If you're suffering out there and you need water and you're outta hope, and there's this thing in kind of human outlines just looming over you offering out, absolutely no help other than, you know, this, these, the Spanish called it, um, Otte de dto, desert Dagger.

You know, it's just reaching out with these, sharp sword like fronds. That'll put your eye out. You might not have, um, a lot of, yeah. Warm feelings towards the tree, so. There was immediately a desire to, to make some use of it. And, uh, maybe, it sounds crazy, but if you read statements in this book, it sounds like there was almost a desire to, to punish it in some way.

and people made fast [00:19:00] use. They tried, um, many, many means to wipe this thing out or put it to some, you know, practical, practical use, and they, none of them succeeded, which is so fun. You know, in hindsight today, um, maybe not for the people who, who tried, but yeah, we definitely sought to extract and transform that tree into something practical and, and we, we have not succeeded yet.

[00:19:23] Michael Hawk: Do you have any favorite failures that you learned about in researching this book?

[00:19:26] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I mean, the biggest one was paper. You know, for a time the tree was even referred to as the paper tree. So many names were blowing around the Mojave Desert. I don't think it was guaranteed that Joshua Tree would win out at all. , But there was actually a series of paper mills that were constructed at the edge of LA County.

I. Capital funding came supposedly from as far away as London. and they set to work chopping these trees down. I found statements, you know, referring to a an army of Chinese Cooley dragging these trees. You know, the, the whole thing started with the chopping down of the largest tree known. It's kind of like a.[00:20:00]

Like a, a circus kind of atmosphere. I think, you know, celebrating the fall of this tree, there's statements like, fall, the, the parched specters, the demon maniacal spect of the, of the planes.

[00:20:10] Michael Hawk: It just seems so foreign. Like I, I know there are still, like in, in traditional logging, you know, loggers often want to go for the old growth trees but even then, like the, the biggest trees are, are still, you know, set aside often even in those environments. I know not every time, but just thinking about this, like, oh, let's, let's take down the biggest one first.

That, that really helps give a perspective as to how people were thinking about this at the time.

[00:20:33] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, there wasn't a lot of love. Yeah. And you know, I, it's an irony I point out in the book that I, that I kinda love, it was. Boiling this tree. Like technically, the, the elasticity of the fibers was not suitable for paper. So they tried. They tried, they tried. And so this tree that would bend to absolutely no purpose was saved by, in this case it's elasticity in the boils.

So yeah, that venture failed. Tons of money went into it. They cut down tons of [00:21:00] trees, I think. That's, that's probably my favorite example. Another great one was supposedly the bark was shipped to the Theater of World War I and was used as a splint. I guess it, it'll bend one way and not another.

So it's pretty hideous to think of. This tree that's been demonized as this just ghoulish infertile monster. And then they're shipping, you know, its skin off to World War I, where men are dying in mass and these trenches, and I, I shouldn't get too colorful here, but yeah, they used, Joshua Tree bark as a, as a splint.

And I'm, from what I could tell, um, because it couldn't be sterilized I don't think, it just, it wasn't a great, a great substance. People were just getting infected. It wasn't good for medical use. It's another crazy one.

[00:21:42] Michael Hawk: and I, I neglected to ask, uh, what is the origin of the name Joshua Tree? We talked about the Latin name, but not the common name.

[00:21:49] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, that is, you know, I've learned a little bit. It's debated. So I, I think there's still more work to be done on that historically. But yeah, technically, um, Mormon pilgrims crossing the [00:22:00] desert, the Mormons are, are kind of an outlier here. They've, I guess, kind of been an outlier throughout American history, but, uh, yeah, they're an outlier insofar as they are.

The only group, it seems that it seems to have a, had an, an optimistic interpretation of the Joshua Tree. They saw these trees as a symbol of potentially the coming. Promised land. So the story goes and you know, saw the tree with its arms, uh, lifted to heaven as a, a symbol of Joshua. And, in the lore, I guess a, a little cloud scattered through the sky and stopped in just the right place, as Joshua commanded and brought them, uh, just enough shade at the right moment to, uh, to help their pilgrimage along.

So the story goes.

[00:22:40] Michael Hawk: we're already, I think. The tide's turning a little bit in our discussion right now with a slightly more optimistic point of view from the Mormons. Uh, and you contrast that to today with the immense popularity of Joshua Tree National Park and Joshua Trees in, in particular what started to shift the tide [00:23:00] in the public's eye towards these trees or towards these yuccas.

[00:23:05] Barret Baumgart: a good question. And as I've been discussing this with more and more people, uh, it's. The people in the best position to know more than me, I don't think have a, a, a clear idea either. But I think it was 1960s counterculture, the U2 album, the Joshua Tree. If we think to the 1960s creative ferment.

LSD tons of musicians in LA making treks out to the desert. There's obviously gram Parsons has a lot of Joshua Tree lore, but suddenly this place became kind of hip and I a counterculture destination. Slowly, gradually. But, uh, the current popularity boom. I mean, like I start off, saying at the start of yuck, 15 years ago, I mean, you'd go out there, when I was younger and, and camping in Death Valley and throughout the Eastern Sierra, Alabama Hills, Joshua Tree, there's kind of nobody out there. Like the, the idea of making a reservation for a campsite [00:24:00] kind of didn't exist. So even with, U2 and whatever you wanna say, I mean like 15 years ago.

These places were not like booming at all. There's been a single bar in the town of Joshua Tree until the past couple years. you think of the millions of people going through there. There's just been, you know, one place to, to get a drink. So I don't really have the answer. It's, I think it's a, something that deserves more like cultural study.

Like why is this area become so popular

[00:24:26] Michael Hawk: Well, well, maybe the answer is there isn't an answer. It seems like there's a lot of step by step. Growing of you know, in the public consciousness from the counter-cultural LSD binges out in the desert to the U2 album, to realization these trees are threatened to, uh, you know, like step by step by step.

Perhaps it's just that. But yeah, it's it seems like a ripe area for, for another story, another book. 

[00:24:52] Barret Baumgart: And it's a, it's a good thing. Yeah. I mean, I feel conflicted about it, but it is a good thing. I mean, you, you get out there, you see all this traffic, tons of people, if you can, [00:25:00] people that live out there and, and people that remember when it, when these places weren't so crowded can get a little frustrating.

But again, I mean, I think it is positive that Americans have, Rediscovered their parks and some of these places that were kind of, seen as, Hey, there's nothing to see there. I mean, you're, you're super wrong. To think that, there's death valleys a waste, then that's one of the most epic, beautiful, astounding places you can stand in the United States.

[00:25:24] Michael Hawk: Yeah, for sure. , I think another big part of like, now the. The immense popularity that we're seeing these days. A lot of people attribute it to social media and to Instagram. And you hinted a little bit at it with your you know, with the weddings that occur there.

Again, do you have, do you have any insights into why did this unique place take such, a viral hold on social media?

[00:25:48] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I, I think that's, that's a good question. that's why this is so fun to write about this topic, um, in some ways is it feels mysterious. I mean, we, we've used the word weird, alien, [00:26:00] unique, strange, it's like a, it's a permanent, like photogenic backdrop. I mean, all these weird alien Dr.

Seuss trees there's endless music videos. Like, I remember someone was playing some song like Ache, like nasty or something, some viral song from a summer ago, and I'm watching it. I'm like, dude, are you kidding? Like these little alien AI cams or shooting around this hot lady who's like dancing in the desert.

And it, it's literally just like, what does this have to do with Joshua Trees? Like there's just. In the background. So I don't know what it is. It's, it's become a symbol for millennials. Gen Z as, a necessary pilgrimage. There's something hip there, there's something sacred. I think authenticity.

Is, something that gets thrown around a lot. There's, um, just, it's, it's a symbol of some authentic, like desert quest, and social media obviously, you know, if you get a photo of yourself in front of a Joshua Tree, your friends, if they don't know what it is, hey, that's really cool. I want to go there and, all the stylized photos all the [00:27:00] experiences shared on social media, it just, it, it continues to snowball. It goes viral, it builds but it is really mysterious. Like why is this such a cool place to get a pick? Why are there so many commercials? I mean, this Johnny, Johnny Depp, Dior commercial, you know, like, like, look that thing up.

It is so weird. I don't know what it is. It's close to la There's that, so

[00:27:21] Michael Hawk: Yeah, that

[00:27:21] Barret Baumgart: wasn't an easy shooting location.

[00:27:24] Michael Hawk: that's interesting. You know, and, and as obvious as that is, I hadn't really thought about that before because like to, to me, I, I, I live in Northern California. I occasionally go down to la It's not exactly convenient though to get to Joshua Tree, but. If you live in LA and you're looking for new, unique things to do, it's, easier to get there than it is to Death Valley or Vegas or you know, other places.

So, uh, yeah, I could, I could definitely see that.

[00:27:47] Barret Baumgart: Yeah.

[00:27:48] Michael Hawk: Thinking about the national park and that's something I want to stress, we talked about it a bit earlier. So there's Joshua Tree National Park, close to LA and that park has a lot more to offer than just the [00:28:00] Joshua trees as well.

So I think people come out there to look at the stars and to see the rock formations and there's little OACs with native palm trees and lots of really cool things to see there. But that's not the only place that you can find amazing desert landscapes. Amazing Joshua Trees. There's the oh,

there's a, like a preserve, a Mojave Preserve. Do you know the name of that one? Just

[00:28:26] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, the Mojave National Preserve.

[00:28:28] Michael Hawk: Yeah. Okay.

[00:28:29] Barret Baumgart: Probably,

[00:28:30] Michael Hawk: So yeah, I mean there, there's the Mojave National Preserve you talked about Eastern Sierra stands. There's uh, you know, like I mentioned some in Arizona, maybe Utah like you talked about.

So yeah, you don't have to go to the national park. And maybe that's something that if people are looking to see Joshua trees, but they want to avoid the crowds, they can try some of these other areas and help, you know, disperse these dense crowds a little bit. 

[00:28:53] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, definitely.

[00:28:54] Michael Hawk: So looking ahead a little bit, or a lot, uh, I suppose [00:29:00] depending on your frame of reference, you highlight in the book some of the dire scientific predictions about the Joshua Trees future.

You know, it's, it's definitely threatened by a number of different things. Can you tell me a little bit about, what you found in your research for the future of Joshua Trees?

[00:29:18] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, it's bleak reading. The most, significant thorough studies that have come out have predicted the Joshua Tree is basically likely to go extinct by the end of the century. Um, and. You know, that's due to a warming world. So the scientists say warming planet less rain harder for this thing that's already apparently hanging in there.

It seems that, I mean, it, you see thousands of 'em, it doesn't seem that way, but as we've been discussing, I mean, it's, it's a long process to get a mature Joshua Tree. So, yeah. Less rain, uh, drier less likely to flower less flowers. Yucca MO is gonna be struggling. Yucca moth struggles, Joshua Tree cannot reproduce.

Fire I think is going to probably [00:30:00] be one of the, maybe the biggest deciders. We, we just had a fire in Joshua Tree over the weekend. And, you mentioned grasses nitrogen in the atmosphere, um, invasive, um, non-native grasses, you know, provide tons of fuel where, the Joshua Tree didn't evolve.

With those kind of grasses, they're not supposed to be there. Now we have. Dryer planet, a bunch of grass hanging between these stands of trees. Um, you know, any, any spark you're gonna, you're gonna have wildfire that burns the trees. And the trees did not evolve with fire. So if they're not adapted, they don't make it at all.

So the predictions are dire. And it's been thought. the news is bad. It's been thought that there's, um, you know, we can isolate these refugia areas at higher elevations. People won't be, as likely to go up there. It's gonna be cooler. It's gonna be a little wetter. But we've already seen, these places that's scientists we're studying.

It's like, okay, this is gonna be a holdout. We're gonna do everything we can. To keep this area clean of grass. You know, this is gonna be, um, sort of a stronghold where the species will survive. Even some of those places that have been identified have [00:31:00] actually already burned. So, yeah, I hate to say it, but yeah, it's not, things are not looking great.

Joshua Tree, who has never helped us, um, needs our helping hand.

[00:31:10] Michael Hawk: I think the story when I first started learning about the Joshua Tree, it was all about climate change. And, and the warming temperatures. And, and you know, kind of as the short story goes, the shortened story with the warming climate, these trees would have to migrate to higher and higher elevations, but at some point you run out, like there's no higher elevation to go to and they don't reproduce fast enough to keep up with the climate change.

And now, yeah, I'd say in the last, just like so much of the west in the last decade or so, the reality of, of wildfire. Fueled largely, I mean, there's so many reasons. It's climate change, but also these invasive species that now provide a fuel load that didn't exist historically. So, you know, one fire can just, destroy an entire stand of these trees.

And that's the thing that really I [00:32:00] think concerns me the most, you know, as, as you point out, because it's, it's entirely new. You can't control it. And yeah they're in trouble. Are, are there, did you find hope? Did you find ways that

Creative people, scientists community efforts, you know, have come up with, to help, fend this off?

[00:32:21] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I mean, well maybe before we hop into that, I think, I think it's important to note too that another piece of this puzzle too is, is just funding for the parks. I mean, it's been cut. You know, if these, if these parks and if our, if, if, if we had more people working in conservation, uh, in and outside government, I mean, the more more could be done.

So with more resources, more people, uh, on hand, I think we could, could improve, um, the chances here. So it is worth noting that like, yeah the defunding of parks and federal agencies certainly not helping. We could find some hope if we could reverse that process. But in terms of hope, I mean, I think.

I think if I had written this book like today, I might not have ended the book on such a bleak note. The more I've been [00:33:00] talking about it and processing it and looking back a little bit, if I do find some hope, I think it lies in the fact that the Joshua Tree has always frustrated human beings at every turn and every time we've, we've tried to, you know, transform this thing into something practical for our use it has let us down and frustrated our efforts.

And while this isn't like a scientific claim I think just continuing that logic, i'm somewhat hopeful that the Joshua Tree might frustrate the predictions of scientists. Um, and not that anyone is, is hoping this thing will suffer or go extinct any longer. Quietly irrationally.

I, I'm hoping that, uh, our best scientists might find that, their methods and predictions were once again wrong and, and. Crazy weird grotesque, Joshua endures, but I, the science is not, not saying that.

[00:33:50] Michael Hawk: Yeah. You know, I guess, uh, riffing off of what you just said with this organism frustrating people over the decades, over the centuries, the [00:34:00] thought that came to mind again, kind of like brainstorming optimism here, is we have these separated populations and, people who study biology recognize that when populations are separated, they often, um.

 They're, they're kind of on a path of speciation, almost like they're, their local pockets of DNA are drifting away from each other, so. My hope is that maybe there's an isolated population somewhere that just through pure coincidence is more adaptable to these changing conditions and could potentially be a source of, of recolonizing or if it comes to that, like of course we don't want it to, get to a point where you have to recolonize.

We'd prefer that, that all of these populations just sustain. So perhaps there's some, back to your point of funding, research, funding the parks and, and so forth. You know, maybe there's some, some evolutionary advantage out there because these populations are separated from each [00:35:00] other and, and kind of drifting away from each other in a, in a way that's just me riffing.

So who knows if any of that's true, but I hope it's true. I.

[00:35:09] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, that's a great thought. And I think we need to, yeah be optimistic and creative and resourceful and, and not simply throw up our arms and, and say that it's doomed. Despite the very bleak headline I. Lines and conclusions of the scientists. Um, yeah. The future is not guaranteed and there's work to it for sure.

[00:35:27] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I love that quote. The future is not guaranteed. I have to remind myself of, uh, of that constantly. It's easy to get, you know, get on these little rat holes and, and, believe that everything is set. So given everything you've learned, everything we've talked about today, do you have any other, any other thoughts about.

Joshua Trees, the history, the future you know, some, you know, anything that you really wanted to talk about that we didn't cover.

[00:35:53] Barret Baumgart: Well, I could, I could mention one of my favorite parts in the book that I think is was, um. Is fun and bleak and [00:36:00] hilarious and provides maybe one exception to, to what we've been saying. And it was kind of the one example in which the Joshua Tree maybe was able to provide some use to human beings, and that that is in inside the Puente Hills Landfill.

That, if you remember that part. Yeah. So, as Los Angeles has, obviously been, expanding horizontally across the Southern California landscape forever. You know, in, in the outlands of Victorville, Lancaster, where, where the, the metropolis does occasionally hit Joshua trees.

Many of those were bulldozed, you know, 1980s, 1990s, early two thousands to make room for, new McMansions out in these like bedroom communities, outskirts of la., There is in the, in, you know, kinda the center of Los Angeles, there's quietly hiding the largest landfill in the world.

It's called Puente Hills. I think it's like eight stories taller than city hall in downtown Los Angeles. It's like a engineering marvle. It is, uh, like a manmade mountain. Finally made the term [00:37:00] landfill misnomer. It is this vast bulge that's hidden amongst other hills near Whittier.

In researching this book, I, I had to conclude that, uh, this vast repository for, the Southern California landscape for 60 years, there has, there has to be within there a strata of Joshua trees buried and quietly decaying and providing, Power for 50,000 homes in Southern California because, uh, the methane captured off of that, that vast landfill of Puente Hills, um, is burned every day to supposedly power 50,000 homes in Los Angeles.

So in that regard the, the Joshua Tree has finally provided some use to us as we capture. The toxic gas of its decay.

[00:37:44] Michael Hawk: Yeah, 

[00:37:45] Barret Baumgart: fun fun part, fun part of the book. But that was the only thing I that, and t-shirts like you're wearing Michael. Um, the commodification of it as a symbol, a symbol of what we do not quite know. And, uh, it's petr cash, ification, it's [00:38:00] practical uses there.

[00:38:01] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I mean, it, it's telling that the, that the sort of, kind of fun story from the book is, uh, is also a morbid one. I think it fits right along with the theme of, of this history of this tree and unfortunately where, uh, where we're going or where we seem to be going. But as you said the future is not guaranteed.

Hopefully with efforts like your own and the growing popularity, continually growing popularity of these places you know, we can turn the tide, we can take things in a different direction. Before, before we in for today, uh, you know, I'm curious. You know, you seem to have a, a kind of a history of some interesting storytelling between China Lake and this book, and, uh, you have a substack with some, unique essays.

So I, I, do you have any other upcoming projects you wanna highlight? are you going out touring with this book at the moment? Like anything that you wanna promote about, uh, about yourself and your work and, and yuck in particular?

[00:38:55] Barret Baumgart: yeah I have an event coming up in Los Angeles June 26th, I think, at the Philosophical Research [00:39:00] Library. An event planned in San Diego for later in the summer. You can check my website for a date on that. And yeah, follow my substack. Dumpster Fires is the name of that I used to live.

An apartment that had a, a, a dumpster fire in the alley every day but yeah, my window on the world, Los Angeles and, uh, yeah the history of Southern California that I'm constantly researching. But, thing that I have been working towards for years right now is a book about, a meltdown that happened in Los Angeles. There's actually a, a nuclear meltdown that happened at the end of the San Fernando Valley that not many people know about, um, in 1959. And it's thought to have possibly released like 400 times the radiation of Three Mile Island, which would make it, by far the largest nuclear.

Meltdown in United States history, and, uh, it was technically covered up by the federal government for 20 years only exposed in 1979. And, um, there's a lot to say about it, but yeah. Continuing the kind of, yeah, just weird research that I do. Yeah, there's a, there's a book, um, that I've been [00:40:00] working on that just has a lot of crazy, kind of almost unbelievable history related to rocket research, nuclear research, there's also a Native American rock art site, a massive cave just beneath like a NASA rocket test stand up there. Saying too much about it, but yeah. A, a book about a nuclear meltdown of Los Angeles,

[00:40:19] Michael Hawk: , I'd never heard of it. So I'm, I'm now curious to

[00:40:22] Barret Baumgart: the Santa Susanna, Santa Susanna Field Laboratory is what it's called. Yeah.

[00:40:26] Michael Hawk: Okay. Well, uh, let's stay in touch. I'll keep an eye out for it and when it comes out I'll be sure to pass it along to the audience as well. And I already mentioned the substack, so we'll be sure to link to that in the show notes.

And, uh, you have a website as well that I'll link to any other places people can follow your work or follow you and your projects.

[00:40:49] Barret Baumgart: Um, yeah, you can follow me on Instagram constantly posting you know, reels related to some of this content and, um, some of my other research. Yeah, so Instagram's a great place to see what I'm up to and what I'm writing as well.[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Michael Hawk: Sounds great. And, before we end this session for today, do you have any other, anything else come to mind that you wanted to get off your chest before we hang up?

[00:41:10] Barret Baumgart: Ooh.

Check out. Check out my other book, China Lake. I would say. That is, uh, you know, I, when I start talking about these research connections, I, it, I start to sound crazy, but yeah, that is a wild, wild, uh, book about climate change. The Mojave Desert with some really, similar like we were describing earlier.

Fascinating jarring twist twists and turns throughout that book that, uh, depending on your, your readerly temperament, you might really enjoy or be terribly confused by. But it's a, that's a fun book.

[00:41:38] Michael Hawk: Yeah. Uh, those are the best books. Alright, well thank you again so much for taking the time this morning. And, kind of accommodating my schedule. Usually I try to do the opposite, but I'm in a unique place here at the moment where, uh, I'm, I'm a little more pinched for time, so I really appreciate it and I appreciate the work that you've done here and I appreciate you.

So [00:42:00] thank you so much.

[00:42:01] Barret Baumgart: Yeah, it's my pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.