March 6, 2024 • 37 mins
Nobody knows how to make complicated concepts easier to understand than Bill Nye The Science Guy. In this episode, he and Chris break down tough questions about the science of global heating and how to communicate the answers to others.
Show notes from Chris:
- A big take home message from this week’s show is there is almost complete scientific agreement that global heating is caused by us (humans, if you’re wondering). Recent work looking at nearly 90,000 scientific studies shows that more than 99.9% of scientists agree! Here’s a great summaryfrom Cornell University.
- There are some big myths out there about effective climate action. We really need everyone pulling in the same direction to get the biggest return on all our efforts. Check out this fascinating myth-busting article in The Washington Post, “You’re doing it wrong: Recycling and other myths about tackling climate change”. But remember, recycling does make a real difference to the environment. It’s just that on its own, recycling is not going to get us to where we need to be with cutting carbon pollution. Closer to home, I’m incredibly honored to serve on the Board of the Environment Protection Authority in the state of New South Wales. The EPA is leading the charge in Australia on climate action and recycling. You can learn more about why it matters by clicking here.
- To help keep the planet from dangerously overheating, we will have to drawdown billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. What’s known as “carbon capture” will be terrifically important in the future. There is a lot of confusion about what this means. An eye-watering amount of public money has been wasted failing to show it’s possible to capture carbon at the source of the pollution – think fossil fuel power stations and gas fields – and then bury it underground. But carbon dioxide removal is going to be a big part of the solution. Friends of mine at Common Capital have written a fabulous report on this approach for the New South Wales Government that is free to download. Full disclosure, I’m affiliated with the Climate Recovery Institute (CRI) who supported some of the research.
- You can learn about the short-lived but potent greenhouse gas methane from Bill Nye and the Environmental Defence Fund (including a fantastic video) by clicking here.
- And finally, Maggie mentioned a great article on why humor is so important for engaging people on climate action. Click on this link to find out more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have to believe except work toward the idea that
we are going to address climate change in a way
big enough to preserve the quality of life for billions
of people around the world. If you go into this
thinking we're going to get overwhelmed and lose, then we
will turn it out.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
People.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Ah fucked.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm Chris Turney, and this is unfucking the future. The
world today is full of some pretty bad news, and
it's way too easy to get bogged down by it.
But there are some incredible people working on climate solutions,
and I want you to join them so that we
can fix this crisis together.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Bill Nice standing in the science lab, well, actually it's
John Olives studio. Looks like a size lab in front
of him. He's got a globe, a fire extinguisher, a
bucket of sand, and a blanket.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I've got an experiment for you, safety glasses on. By
the end of this century, if O missions keep rising,
the average temperature on Earth could go up another four
to eight degrees.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
He brings out a flamethrower and lights for globe on fire.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What I'm saying is the planet's on fucking fire.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There are a lot of things we could do to
put it out.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Bill points for a bucket of sand and the fire extinguisher.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Are any of them free? No, of course not. Not
thing's free. You idiots. Grow the fuck up. You're not
children anymore. I didn't mind explaining.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Photosynthenceus to you when you were twelve, but you're adults
now and this is an actual crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Got it. Safety glasses off, motherfucker's.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I don't know who doesn't know Bill Nye, but indulge
me while I brag on Bill a bit. He's an
award winning entertainer and educator, engineer at Boeing and currently
the CEO of a Planetary Society. Bill's TV shows Bill
Nye Saves the Earth and Bill ny The Science Guy
(02:10):
have collected over fifty prestigious award nominations, including nineteen Emmy Awards.
He's written two best selling books on science. Today, he
spends a lot of his time educating a public about
the climate crisis and arguing for action. His latest show
is called The End Is Nigh Now. Something you may
(02:31):
not know is that before there was Bill ny the
Science Guy, there was Bill Nye the stand up comedian.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, I mean I tried, No, I middled. That was
as high as do you know what I'm talking about?
So comedy clubs typically have three acts in a row,
the MC as he or she is called the middle
and the headliner. Middling is as far as I got
in his day. You know, Jerry signed Field would be
(03:00):
the headliner.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Ah see, I ever got to MC. So you're way
ahead of me, and you and you actually believe it.
I'm not the second comedian climate activists I've actually spoken
to for great Adam McKay as well. So I'd love
to ask you, why do you What do you think
makes comedians such great climate activists?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Oh, because we're so much smarter than regular people. Now,
I think what you're the selecting that you're experiencing. There
is people who don't mind talking all the time.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And do you think as well, just given the conversation
and the seriousness of it, that need for levity as well,
to sort of cut from the noise and actually get
people to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Do you think, well, the word you might throw around
is absurd. There's a certain features of the world around
us which seems silly or absurd or why does this
happen kind of thing? Especially where humans are involved. And
a lot of my friends are humans. A lot of
people I spent time the individuals that talk to me
(04:03):
in English generally.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Are that's reassuring, that's reassuring something. So far you never know.
I mean, there's a scientist never say never, right. I'm
always fascinated by how people get to this point in time?
How do people reach a point where they actually talk
about climate change? And let's be honest, it's a subject
and topic that most of us would rather really not
talk about. What was the point at which you reached
(04:27):
where you actually felt I need to talk about climate change?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh, nineteen eighty eight, climate scientists named James Hanson Jim
Hanson testified in front of the US Congress.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
There's good old Jim Hanson again. He's been mentioned by
almost every guest on this show. His testimony to Congress
in nineteen eighty eight was a seminal moment in climate history.
He's still a massive presence in climate science today.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Altogether, this evidence represents a very strong case, in my opinion,
and that the greenhouse effect has been detected and it
is changing our climate now.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And that really raised awareness or motivated me to talk
about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I'm so old.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm so old that I took one class from this famous,
famous astronomer named Carl Sagan, and he talked about what
he called comparative climatology all the time. This would be
comparing the climates of Earth, Venus, and Mars. And all
(05:36):
three of these planets have carbon dioxide, which produces the
greenhouse effect. But on Venus the greenhouse effect has, as
they say, run away.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Every planet with an atmosphere has some degree of a
greenhouse effect.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
That's the great Carl Sagan and the greenhouse effect he's
talking about is a process where certain gases trapped the
heat from the Sun in the fs atmosphere. The greenhouse
effect helps warm our planet to a habitable temperature if
we didn't have it. For temperature with plummet to about
minus fifty degrees. A little bit of greenhouse gas is good,
(06:13):
but adding more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is driving
up the temperature, and that's bad. That's a fundamental issue.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
The most spectacular case by far is the greenhouse effect
of Venus. It's the nearest planet planet about the same mass,
radius density as the Earth, but it is spectacularly different
in several respects, one of which is that the surface
temperature is about four hundred and seventy degrees centigrade nine
hundred fahrenheit.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Doctor Jim Hanson and Carl's sake and our trailblazers. Since
Bill took Carl's class, he's gone on to teach millions
and millions of kids, teens, and adults about the wonders
of science and our Earth, Which is why Bill ninety
is a perfect person to answer some of the big
questions I get as a climate scientists. But to be honest,
(07:04):
I want bills help in answering. Okay, I bought in Amber,
one of the brilliant producers in last show, to share
some of the most frequently asked questions we get Amber,
What have you got for us?
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Hey, Chris, it's pretty exciting to be on the other
side of the mic, I have to say. So. This
first one is something we talk a lot about behind
the scenes. How do we keep ourselves and other people
motivated to keep working on the climate crisis when honestly,
the shit is so depressing it feels like it's all
gone to hell. How do we keep people hopeful instead
(07:42):
of feeling like we should all just run to the hills.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
The hills probably is not the place to run to,
by the way now. But and the thing is, I
say the time, you have to be optimistic. I ain't
gonna win anything here in the States. It was the
I guess it was. Is that the World Cup or
semifinals South Africa versus New Zealand and Rugby was.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
On the telly.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I didn't stick around to find out how that game
came out. I got distracted by other sporting events here.
I'm sure somebody won. Along that line, each of those
teams believed strongly that they were going to win. They
were optimistic. They did not go into the match thinking
(08:34):
that they might lose or that they would lose. Rather,
you have to think you're going to win the match,
or you're not going to win it for crying a lot.
And along that line, we have to make big changes.
And don't tell me we can't make big changes. My
(08:55):
grandfather was in France in World War One, and by
all accounts I wasn't there, But by all accounts he
rode a horse. Everybody from his generation knew how to
ride a horse well enough. But twenty five years later,
when his daughter also known as my mother and her boyfriend,
(09:19):
also known as my father.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Were in World War Two.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Nobody who was serious about it was riding a horse,
and so everything changed. In twenty five years, everything changed.
So we got to change everything.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I really like that. So what I'm hearing is we
got to keep obviously basick, but we can actually do
this and believe it and actually that sense of we
know we can do a massive change. We've done it before,
so we just but step all.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We have to accept that it's a massive change. It's
not just screwing around.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's taking that iedgies or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Hope is not a so both of those teams pad hopes,
but they also had plans about how to win the match.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
The other thing for me is to find easy ways
to get activated. It's not enough to say something is
an issue. We have to be solutions oriented when we
talk about climate change. So I'll just give an example
right now in Australia, we've got massive flooding going down
the East coast. But there's not enough to talk about
(10:30):
these things. Try to connect the conversation to what we
can do to solve it. We can't immediately stop the flooding,
but we can have a conversation about how to make
our homes more visilient to flooding. And those kinds of
conversations can make our friends and neighbors feel safe and
less worried about the future, and that in turn can
(10:52):
make people feel motivated to actually do something rather than
wallowing in the worry. All right, Amber, what else ficult fuss?
Speaker 7 (11:00):
Okay, this wants to settle an argument in my household?
Am I supposed to recycle?
Speaker 5 (11:06):
I've been told.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
By a lot of people that I should just not
recycle at all because so much of it doesn't actually
get recycled, which is super disappointing as someone who thoroughly
washes out all my cans, all my bottles, everything so
that it can be recycled.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
So is it true?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
No, No, recycling is not a bad idea, not another tool,
but it's not going to solve everybody's problem.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
It's just there's two things you don't want, or three
maybe you don't want to waste those resources. I mean,
it's so much less energy to make aluminum out from
aluminum cans than it does from box site from the
stuff you mind I mean, it's what is it ninety
percent less energy? Maybe ninety five percent, So let's not
(11:54):
be throwing aluminum cans away. And then the other thing,
you don't want this material to end up in the ocean.
It's a huge problem with plastics it and so there's
a few things about the plastic in the ocean that
are troubling. First of all, there if you're a sea
turtle or somebody eating plastic is not nutritious, then there
(12:16):
is struggling things where the plastic kills you as an
ocean creature. But the other thing that's not known is
all these tiny pieces of people nowadays are called microplastics.
Nobody exactly knows what's gonna what effect that's going to
have on living things in the ocean. But you got
to think it's bad. It's intuitibly it's gotta be bad.
(12:42):
So don't throw stuff away. Let's recycle this remarkable material. Yes,
but while you're doing all that, you're not cutting greenhouse emissions.
I mean, or rather a tiny amount they're cutting greenhouse emissions.
The problem is much much bigger than that. It's all
the stuff we're in the air.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's ultimately what it is is,
I mean one of the things that people can do
day to day lives, basically to try and actually cut
their emissions.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Well, I want people to talk about climate change, so
we do some vot and then.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Vote yeah, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Combining your errands in the States, the biggest investment you
can make to reduce or to address climate changes whatever
car you drive, whatever vehicle you choose.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
To drive, which brings us to our holy fuck segment.
Every year, Americans drive trillions and millions of miles. That's
trillions with a T. In the nineteen eighties, Americans drove
a modest one hundred and thirty five billion miles on
(13:52):
the interstate. That's just the interstate. But in twenty seventeen
they drove two one hundred and fifty billion miles the interstate.
I mean, that's a fucking enormous number. And we're not
asking you to ditch your car completely, but driving less
can make a huge difference. By some estimates, if the
average American drove just thirty miles less per week, that's
(14:15):
ten percent, it would reduce for US's carbon footprint by
about one hundred and ten million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
That's like removing twenty eight coal power plants.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
This is in the US where we have everybody has
bar and roads or everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So pick an efficient car.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And the reason everybody talks about electric vehicles electric cars
is because they are inherently more efficient. Well, if the
electricity comes from a dirty coal fired power plant, you
got I know, yes, you're right, But the car doesn't
know in the anwer from morphic sense where the electricity
(15:02):
comes from. So as we make our electrical generation systems
renewable from renewable electricity, or if you all want, if
you all want efficient nuclear power plants, the car doesn't
know it. The car is still more efficient. And even
driving around an electric car with electricity made in a
(15:26):
coal fired power plant, you still come out ahead in
greenhouse gases because of the efficiency of the car, and
you're not spreading the pollution all over the place. You
can potentially control the pollution at the generation source, you know,
a filter, a bag house they call it.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Okay. I love Bill's point here, and I think we
should all focus on it. You often hear the argument
for the electric cars, it's just shifting which detty carpetsles
are power comes from. So what's the point. But Bill's
absolutely right because the efficiencies are so much higher on
the electric and fossil fuel, everything else being equal, it's
still saving on cop in the missions.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
This is really fun. I feel like I'm letting some
good talking points too. What's next?
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Amba, Yeah, I mean, I'm having a great time, So
bear with me on this one. And I'm just sort
of playing Devil's advocate here. One thing I sometimes hear
from people, especially here in Florida, is that the science
is always changing, that it's not settled, and that we
really don't know for sure that climate change is human cause.
(16:44):
So how am I supposed to respond to that kind
of comment?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Well, it's settled, amazing. I remember being four years old.
But one kid says, is so. The other kid says,
is not? Is not as too?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Is not? As to you.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Climate deny or sorry, science is so settled, it's settled
on top is settled.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Certainly, ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Percent of the world scientists agree, if not one hundred
percent with or how about ninety nine point nine with
a less than point one percent trace percentage of scientists
who are not on board it's just weird. I mean,
in science, you seldom get ninety percent agreement on anything.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I know, right, gravitational constant.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
People don't even probably don't come out with that many
significant digits come on you guys. So and it's all,
as I say, all this doubt has been introduced by
conservative media. And a question I have for conservative me is.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Why are you doing this? Why are you ignoring the facts?
What is it?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And just seeing well they're doing it for the money.
What money we're all going to if you keep this up.
So what I say to Fox News and all the
news Maxis and all these other guys is just cut
it out, just stop it.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I've seen you talk, we've climate denis as well. Have
you ever managed to well, let's call them climate contrarians.
You have you ever mentioned actually ten any of them
mound the tool have any of a comeback to you
and said, oh, I've reflected the way he said, Bill.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It takes you know, I tell everybody, somebody's not going
to change his mind her mind.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Just hearing it once.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
But it is time I think to get back to
we in the States, we have several, of course nutty
climate deniers, but I bet each of these two guys
ten thousand dollars that the decade twenty ten twenty twenty
would be the hottest on record, and they wouldn't take
(18:54):
the bet.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And it was wow, and so they wouldn't. They won't
take the bet. They know better now.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I think that's the troubling thing. They're just hoping it's
not true. But hope's not a plan, people.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
No, it is not a plan. I mean, that was
the warmest decade on record. Each year is getting harder
and harder.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
You often hear this, You hear this fantastic conspiracy fod
scientists are in.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Scientists or in the conspiracy? Have you hung out with
these guys?
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You can't agree with anything.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Honestly, I agree on anything, and I would hope one
of them was rich.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
If I knew, if I had for proof actually this
was not real, I would be singing it from the
actual top of the buildings. I would be out there screaming.
I'd be getting loads of money, maybe a Nobel, maybe
even a Netflix show bill. You never know, right, you
never know, but you would be so famous for proving
it wrong. And I'd love it to be proved wrong. Honestly,
(19:50):
you'd get a Nobel Prize if you proved it it happened. No,
it's just sadly it's not.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I think there are fewer of them than the battle bit. Yeah,
that's right, there's still too many.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
And look, you can't change someone's mind overnight. But that
first thing that Bill said is so important. Over ninety
nine percent of scientists agree that the climate crisis is
human caused, but only twenty five percent of Americans believe
that there's a scientific consensus on climate change. The bottom
(20:22):
line is, the carbon pollution from fossil fuels that we're
putting into the atmosphere is causing the planet to overheat dangerously.
That science is ironclad.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Yeah, I feel like it's so important to lay it
out there like that. Now, this next question is about
how close we are from all of humanity falling apart.
I saw a headline that said we only have ten
to fifteen years to really stop global warming. But something
I hear from my friends is that it feels like
we've been seeing these headlines for years. So first, please
(20:56):
tell me we have more time, And also, why does
it like we've been hearing these headlines for so long?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
The latest study that I'm familiar with is Michael Mann.
You know Michaelman the hockey Stick graph, The lead author. Well,
his latest book is This Fragile Moment, and he, based
on his latest modeling, points out there's almost certainly not
going to be a tipping point.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Just to pause for a second, the hockey stick curve
is a really important piece of climate change science. Basically,
the idea is that there was a warm pier during
the medieval age, and then the Earth cooled down a little,
and now, thanks to all the carbon we're pumping into
the atmosphere, we're on the up and up and up.
(21:43):
It looks like a hockey stick. The thinking is there's
not necessarily a tipping point, but rather the idea is
that the Earth will just get hotter and hotter until
it's totally out of control. Well Bill says it better. Instead,
it's just.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Going to get hotter and hotter and miserable or and
miserable for everybody, or and so it's not like there's
this moment where it clicks. You can make arguments about
one and a half degrees celsius that indeed could be
six years, but it's just if you go beyond, when
(22:19):
we go beyond one and a half, It'll just lower
the quality of life for more and more people. It's
not like there's a light switch and everybody dies. It's
just going to get worse and worse. Which is let's
get to work people, doesn't mean let's relax. It means
let's get to work. In a sense, the situation is
more desperate than ever. In another sense, we have all
(22:43):
the time we'd ever need. It just depends how bad
you want things to get for how many people.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
To me, this kind of mentality is one of the
biggest obstacles standing in that way this whole We've got
five years to turn things around. It's honestly, really unhelpful
for everyone. There's a risk of making people feel like
we don't have to act now, and if we miss
that target, is it really all over? It also makes
(23:09):
people feel like five years from now there'll be some
gigantic tipping point, but as Bill mentioned, it might not
play out that way, and when it doesn't, it could
erode trust in professionals and experts. All right, next one, Amber.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
Okay, we couldn't do this episode without bringing up the
cowburps and the cow farts. Are cowburps really that bad.
What are the greenhouse gases we need to be worried about?
Is it just carbon dioxide? And how about is methane?
Can you just kind of walk me through all of
the greenhouse gases.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Methane is a much much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The reason everybody talks about carbonoxide is it's so there's
so much of it that overall it is still the
most significant one. But and rather, both carbon dioxide and
(24:07):
methane methane are carbon. The carbon with two oxygen's carbon
with four hydrogen. They're both carbon. That's why people talk
about carbon capture, carbonness, carbon net, carbon reduction is because
both of those greenhouse gases have carbon at the middle
of the molecule.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I think people realize that methane is eighty times
more heat absorbing a carbon dioxide. So for you know,
at least for twenty years or so, it's a and
it breaks down and then its.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Carbon dioxide with ultrabiolet light from the sun. But it's
just these got you, guys. These are huge problems.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Okay, if that sounds a little complicated to you, I'm
going to break down bills breakdown of this issue.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Molecule for molecule methane is so much worse for them
farm than carbon. Dark side oil gas and coal mining
all produce as shitloads of me fane gas and a
lot of it comes from leaks. But as we know,
those farting belch and cows are also at fault. Farming
is thought to be one of the largest sources of
(25:16):
me fane gas getting into the atmosphere. The good news
is we can get me fane levels down and fast
if we stop using fossil fuels, we can turn off
a massive tap of mefane. What the fucking talking about?
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Okay, Bill and Chris, let's talk about the new technologies.
This is everything from the vitamins food composter I keep
seeing on my Instagram ads to the giant machines that
are supposed to suck CO two out of the air.
Are the machines going to save us?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
This would be the idea that we would manage the
climate of the planet. Top down technocrats would think deep
thoughts and change the atmosphere, change something radically in the
top down fashion. And the famous thing that people talk
(26:11):
about is putting a compound of sulfur very very high
in the atmosphere, stratosphere sulfur which would reflect which is yellow,
which would reflect sunlight back into space. And this nominally
would work, they say. And furthermore, it would produce diffuse
(26:31):
light like a cloudy day, and farm plants, agricultural crops
respond better to diffuse light than direct light. Really, okay, anyway,
who's going to be in charge of that? Who's going
to put these airplanes in the stratosphere spewing sulfur compounds.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Who's going to control that?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
We're going to put it up over the UK, over
Africa and it's going.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
To blend and blow around the world. WHOA Everybody's going
to be affected? Is that good or bad?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
But with that in mind, I encourage everybody, voters of
all ages, to think of things of the world, a
humankind's relationship to Earth differently than we have thought about
it for centuries. And that is we are in charge. Now,
(27:30):
this was not a job that we went applying for.
But humans, the human race is so big, there's so
many of us breathing and burning this atmosphere so aggressively
that we are changing the climate of an entire planet.
Nobody you can argue We didn't mean to do that,
but we're doing it, so.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
We have to.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
So when it comes to geo engineering, it is nominally
a nutty idea to think that you could spew enough
stuff in the atmosphere to control the climate of a planet.
And if you reflect all the sunlight back into space,
wouldn't that screw things up? Wouldn't that be a bad
just inherent there's less heat, less sunlight. Just intuitively, it
(28:16):
seems like a bad idea, but it may get people argue,
it may get to a situation that's all we got
that aside.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Do not count on it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Now, Look at all that we have done to the
climate by accident.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And then who you're going to put in charge Vladimir.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Putin, Like, who's going to be in charge of doing
sulfur into the atmosphere?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Anyway, you guys, geoengineering is not going to solve a problem.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
On the other hand, this idea that nature is separate
from us is that's an old idea.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
We can't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
When we go camping in the wilderness, we're going just
to a different part of the planet that we control.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I totally agree with Bill that these big pie in
the sky geoengineering ideas are kind of scary and likely
to introduce all sorts of problems we can't predict, not
to mention, they raise a lot of forny political questions.
That said, I do want to touch on what Amber
said about the giant machines that suck carbon dioxide out
(29:21):
of the atmosphere. These machines, along with other natural methods
of capturing carbon, like in coastal restoration projects, might actually
save us at this point. We need to slash our
emissions while also removing a carbon we've already pumped into
the atmosphere, and there are a lot of cool innovators
working on projects that do just this. That's what we
(29:44):
mean when we say carbon capture.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
We're fucking the future. We're a fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Bill sees this has all hands on deck situation. He
says we need to prioritize free things.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Three big ideas clean water, renewably produce electricity, and access
to the internet for everybody in the world.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
When you have.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Access to the internet, you can have education. When you
have education, you can raise the standard of living of
women and girls. When we raise the stand of living
of women and girls, everybody is better off easy to say,
hard to do.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
You might wonder what the hell has to do with
the climate crisis, but it actually has everything to do
with it. We talked about this in the Sabrina Elber episode,
but for gist of it is, prioritizing women and girls
has an outsize impact on our world and for the better.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I would invest in electricity transmission. Someone got to do.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
When I say invest, I'm not just talking about the
engineering and the towers and the lines and stuff, but
the legal right of ways and the deals made and
the financing has all got to be figured out. And
then I am very interested. Yes, let's continue to have
some people messing around with making nuclear fission less scary
(31:16):
where the public will accept it in a way they
won't accept it right now. But also I want people
us it to invest. I'm not joking you guys to
invest in nuclear fusion. There's so many organizations universities working
on this right now.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
This isn't an episode of Bill n I, the Science Guy.
But you watched it in middle school when you had
a substitute teacher in for the day, So we're not
going to get too vol into a nucleifusion. But what
you should know about nucleiffusion is that if we can
do it, we would create unlimited energy without fossil fuels.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I think the next less than twenty years somebody's going
to figure this out, because we can now control magnetic
fields with much faster computers than we ever had in
previous decades. And controlling a magnetic field would enable, hypothetically,
theoretically enable you to control the.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Plasma. This is a gas where all.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The electrons are off on their own, they're not associated
with any atoms. So anyway that's in the background. But
clean water, noble electra and so let's get swind and
solar electrical storage, less efficient, heavier, cheaper batteries in the
basements of big buildings that don't rely on lithium and.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Get or done.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Then also world peace would be good because all the
wars that are going on, you're just inefficient people just
through in the States, just around the expression supply chains,
your supply chain, and you disrupt everything and you it
has knock on effects worldwide.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And so this is all stuff we got to get done.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Let's go, let's get her done.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
And so that leads to very much to the last
bit about what can people do meaningfully to make action themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Become politically active in your community and advocate for climate change.
Vote for people who are going to address climate change.
And here in the US, if you're a third party candidate,
don't do it.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I used to say the most important election in my
lifetime was the year two thousand when in the US
George Bush became president, even though al Gore had more.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Votes popular votes.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
This is an old system, very well intending founding fathers
that things out. It's outlived its usefulness, the system. Anyway,
It's important election ever in history is twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Whether or not you live in the US. Yes, this
is the most important election. You can hate the US
whatever it is, but the US is so influential globally,
It's most influential culture. And so this is it, people,
twenty twenty four?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Is it? Do you want to talk about turning points?
This is the point of turning.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Bill Nye, the science guy, the man is a legend
for a reason. I mean, he told so many of
us about science, but he's now teaching us about how
to teach others about the science of climate change. I
wanted to bring back Maggie Beds discuss how we can
take action on Bill Nye's three Big Ideas?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
What fuck can I do?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Hey, Maggie, Hey Chris Well, I don't.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Know if I could follow Bill, but I will do
my best.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
I'm surely he'll be pretty What of your golfers is wee? Maggie, Chris?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
I was thinking about how Bill so effectively breaks down
complicated ideas into something easy and fun. So in that spirit,
our action this week is to lead with joy. Yes,
the climate crisis is extremely serious, and so bringing in
a little humor to the conversation helps us reach people
(35:21):
and make complicated topics more easily digestible. So if you
would like to try to bring more humor and more
effective communication techniques into conversations about climate, there is a
great article that we will put in the show notes.
Check it out. But it all leads up to the
big takeaway here. Instead of focusing on the doom we
(35:43):
might experience, let's try to envision the better world we
could have. Let's all try to be.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
More like Bill Gosh. I love that, Maggie, thanks so
much on the stay. And that's what the fuck you
can do for this week?
Speaker 7 (35:59):
What fuck? Can I do.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Oh fuck, that's all for this episode. Next time, on
Fucking the Future, we talked to Glennis Humphrey, a fire
a cologist who wants us to use fire to prevent wildfires.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
What we're seeing is different from the past.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
We've seen basically.
Speaker 8 (36:23):
A change in the intensities of fires, the frequencies of
fire that we haven't actually seen before.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
When you see a change where.
Speaker 8 (36:35):
Fires occurring where it didn't occur before, or it's occurring
at a much bigger scale than it did occur before,
I think that's what's alerting us that something is off.
That's a warning to say things are changing because it's
different from.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
The past until then. I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Thanks for joining me and I'm Fucking the Future.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Fucking the Future.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Imagine Audio and
Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted by me Chris Turney.
The show is written by Meredith Brian. I'm Fucking the
Future is produced by Amber von Shassen and Rene Colvert.
Ron Howard Brian Grazer, Carral Welker and Nathan Chloke are
the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse Burton and Katie
(37:28):
Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice. Sound design
and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by Lilly Hayden,
and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton wrote our
theme and all those fun jingles. If you enjoyed this episode,
be sure to rate and review Unfucking the Future on
Apple Podcasts or whether you get your podcasts
We have to believe except work toward the idea that
we are going to address climate change in a way
big enough to preserve the quality of life for billions
of people around the world. If you go into this
thinking we're going to get overwhelmed and lose, then we
will turn it out.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
People.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Ah fucked.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm Chris Turney, and this is unfucking the future. The
world today is full of some pretty bad news, and
it's way too easy to get bogged down by it.
But there are some incredible people working on climate solutions,
and I want you to join them so that we
can fix this crisis together.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
We fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Bill Nice standing in the science lab, well, actually it's
John Olives studio. Looks like a size lab in front
of him. He's got a globe, a fire extinguisher, a
bucket of sand, and a blanket.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I've got an experiment for you, safety glasses on. By
the end of this century, if O missions keep rising,
the average temperature on Earth could go up another four
to eight degrees.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
He brings out a flamethrower and lights for globe on fire.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What I'm saying is the planet's on fucking fire.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There are a lot of things we could do to
put it out.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Bill points for a bucket of sand and the fire extinguisher.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Are any of them free? No, of course not. Not
thing's free. You idiots. Grow the fuck up. You're not
children anymore. I didn't mind explaining.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Photosynthenceus to you when you were twelve, but you're adults
now and this is an actual crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Got it. Safety glasses off, motherfucker's.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I don't know who doesn't know Bill Nye, but indulge
me while I brag on Bill a bit. He's an
award winning entertainer and educator, engineer at Boeing and currently
the CEO of a Planetary Society. Bill's TV shows Bill
Nye Saves the Earth and Bill ny The Science Guy
(02:10):
have collected over fifty prestigious award nominations, including nineteen Emmy Awards.
He's written two best selling books on science. Today, he
spends a lot of his time educating a public about
the climate crisis and arguing for action. His latest show
is called The End Is Nigh Now. Something you may
(02:31):
not know is that before there was Bill ny the
Science Guy, there was Bill Nye the stand up comedian.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, I mean I tried, No, I middled. That was
as high as do you know what I'm talking about?
So comedy clubs typically have three acts in a row,
the MC as he or she is called the middle
and the headliner. Middling is as far as I got
in his day. You know, Jerry signed Field would be
(03:00):
the headliner.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Ah see, I ever got to MC. So you're way
ahead of me, and you and you actually believe it.
I'm not the second comedian climate activists I've actually spoken
to for great Adam McKay as well. So I'd love
to ask you, why do you What do you think
makes comedians such great climate activists?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Oh, because we're so much smarter than regular people. Now,
I think what you're the selecting that you're experiencing. There
is people who don't mind talking all the time.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And do you think as well, just given the conversation
and the seriousness of it, that need for levity as well,
to sort of cut from the noise and actually get
people to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Do you think, well, the word you might throw around
is absurd. There's a certain features of the world around
us which seems silly or absurd or why does this
happen kind of thing? Especially where humans are involved. And
a lot of my friends are humans. A lot of
people I spent time the individuals that talk to me
(04:03):
in English generally.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Are that's reassuring, that's reassuring something. So far you never know.
I mean, there's a scientist never say never, right. I'm
always fascinated by how people get to this point in time?
How do people reach a point where they actually talk
about climate change? And let's be honest, it's a subject
and topic that most of us would rather really not
talk about. What was the point at which you reached
(04:27):
where you actually felt I need to talk about climate change?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh, nineteen eighty eight, climate scientists named James Hanson Jim
Hanson testified in front of the US Congress.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
There's good old Jim Hanson again. He's been mentioned by
almost every guest on this show. His testimony to Congress
in nineteen eighty eight was a seminal moment in climate history.
He's still a massive presence in climate science today.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Altogether, this evidence represents a very strong case, in my opinion,
and that the greenhouse effect has been detected and it
is changing our climate now.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And that really raised awareness or motivated me to talk
about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I'm so old.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm so old that I took one class from this famous,
famous astronomer named Carl Sagan, and he talked about what
he called comparative climatology all the time. This would be
comparing the climates of Earth, Venus, and Mars. And all
(05:36):
three of these planets have carbon dioxide, which produces the
greenhouse effect. But on Venus the greenhouse effect has, as
they say, run away.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Every planet with an atmosphere has some degree of a
greenhouse effect.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
That's the great Carl Sagan and the greenhouse effect he's
talking about is a process where certain gases trapped the
heat from the Sun in the fs atmosphere. The greenhouse
effect helps warm our planet to a habitable temperature if
we didn't have it. For temperature with plummet to about
minus fifty degrees. A little bit of greenhouse gas is good,
(06:13):
but adding more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is driving
up the temperature, and that's bad. That's a fundamental issue.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
The most spectacular case by far is the greenhouse effect
of Venus. It's the nearest planet planet about the same mass,
radius density as the Earth, but it is spectacularly different
in several respects, one of which is that the surface
temperature is about four hundred and seventy degrees centigrade nine
hundred fahrenheit.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Doctor Jim Hanson and Carl's sake and our trailblazers. Since
Bill took Carl's class, he's gone on to teach millions
and millions of kids, teens, and adults about the wonders
of science and our Earth, Which is why Bill ninety
is a perfect person to answer some of the big
questions I get as a climate scientists. But to be honest,
(07:04):
I want bills help in answering. Okay, I bought in Amber,
one of the brilliant producers in last show, to share
some of the most frequently asked questions we get Amber,
What have you got for us?
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Hey, Chris, it's pretty exciting to be on the other
side of the mic, I have to say. So. This
first one is something we talk a lot about behind
the scenes. How do we keep ourselves and other people
motivated to keep working on the climate crisis when honestly,
the shit is so depressing it feels like it's all
gone to hell. How do we keep people hopeful instead
(07:42):
of feeling like we should all just run to the hills.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
The hills probably is not the place to run to,
by the way now. But and the thing is, I
say the time, you have to be optimistic. I ain't
gonna win anything here in the States. It was the
I guess it was. Is that the World Cup or
semifinals South Africa versus New Zealand and Rugby was.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
On the telly.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I didn't stick around to find out how that game
came out. I got distracted by other sporting events here.
I'm sure somebody won. Along that line, each of those
teams believed strongly that they were going to win. They
were optimistic. They did not go into the match thinking
(08:34):
that they might lose or that they would lose. Rather,
you have to think you're going to win the match,
or you're not going to win it for crying a lot.
And along that line, we have to make big changes.
And don't tell me we can't make big changes. My
(08:55):
grandfather was in France in World War One, and by
all accounts I wasn't there, But by all accounts he
rode a horse. Everybody from his generation knew how to
ride a horse well enough. But twenty five years later,
when his daughter also known as my mother and her boyfriend,
(09:19):
also known as my father.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Were in World War Two.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Nobody who was serious about it was riding a horse,
and so everything changed. In twenty five years, everything changed.
So we got to change everything.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I really like that. So what I'm hearing is we
got to keep obviously basick, but we can actually do
this and believe it and actually that sense of we
know we can do a massive change. We've done it before,
so we just but step all.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We have to accept that it's a massive change. It's
not just screwing around.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's taking that iedgies or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Hope is not a so both of those teams pad hopes,
but they also had plans about how to win the match.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
The other thing for me is to find easy ways
to get activated. It's not enough to say something is
an issue. We have to be solutions oriented when we
talk about climate change. So I'll just give an example
right now in Australia, we've got massive flooding going down
the East coast. But there's not enough to talk about
(10:30):
these things. Try to connect the conversation to what we
can do to solve it. We can't immediately stop the flooding,
but we can have a conversation about how to make
our homes more visilient to flooding. And those kinds of
conversations can make our friends and neighbors feel safe and
less worried about the future, and that in turn can
(10:52):
make people feel motivated to actually do something rather than
wallowing in the worry. All right, Amber, what else ficult fuss?
Speaker 7 (11:00):
Okay, this wants to settle an argument in my household?
Am I supposed to recycle?
Speaker 5 (11:06):
I've been told.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
By a lot of people that I should just not
recycle at all because so much of it doesn't actually
get recycled, which is super disappointing as someone who thoroughly
washes out all my cans, all my bottles, everything so
that it can be recycled.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
So is it true?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
No, No, recycling is not a bad idea, not another tool,
but it's not going to solve everybody's problem.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
It's just there's two things you don't want, or three
maybe you don't want to waste those resources. I mean,
it's so much less energy to make aluminum out from
aluminum cans than it does from box site from the
stuff you mind I mean, it's what is it ninety
percent less energy? Maybe ninety five percent, So let's not
(11:54):
be throwing aluminum cans away. And then the other thing,
you don't want this material to end up in the ocean.
It's a huge problem with plastics it and so there's
a few things about the plastic in the ocean that
are troubling. First of all, there if you're a sea
turtle or somebody eating plastic is not nutritious, then there
(12:16):
is struggling things where the plastic kills you as an
ocean creature. But the other thing that's not known is
all these tiny pieces of people nowadays are called microplastics.
Nobody exactly knows what's gonna what effect that's going to
have on living things in the ocean. But you got
to think it's bad. It's intuitibly it's gotta be bad.
(12:42):
So don't throw stuff away. Let's recycle this remarkable material. Yes,
but while you're doing all that, you're not cutting greenhouse emissions.
I mean, or rather a tiny amount they're cutting greenhouse emissions.
The problem is much much bigger than that. It's all
the stuff we're in the air.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's ultimately what it is is,
I mean one of the things that people can do
day to day lives, basically to try and actually cut
their emissions.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Well, I want people to talk about climate change, so
we do some vot and then.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Vote yeah, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Combining your errands in the States, the biggest investment you
can make to reduce or to address climate changes whatever
car you drive, whatever vehicle you choose.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
To drive, which brings us to our holy fuck segment.
Every year, Americans drive trillions and millions of miles. That's
trillions with a T. In the nineteen eighties, Americans drove
a modest one hundred and thirty five billion miles on
(13:52):
the interstate. That's just the interstate. But in twenty seventeen
they drove two one hundred and fifty billion miles the interstate.
I mean, that's a fucking enormous number. And we're not
asking you to ditch your car completely, but driving less
can make a huge difference. By some estimates, if the
average American drove just thirty miles less per week, that's
(14:15):
ten percent, it would reduce for US's carbon footprint by
about one hundred and ten million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
That's like removing twenty eight coal power plants.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
This is in the US where we have everybody has
bar and roads or everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So pick an efficient car.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And the reason everybody talks about electric vehicles electric cars
is because they are inherently more efficient. Well, if the
electricity comes from a dirty coal fired power plant, you
got I know, yes, you're right, But the car doesn't
know in the anwer from morphic sense where the electricity
(15:02):
comes from. So as we make our electrical generation systems
renewable from renewable electricity, or if you all want, if
you all want efficient nuclear power plants, the car doesn't
know it. The car is still more efficient. And even
driving around an electric car with electricity made in a
(15:26):
coal fired power plant, you still come out ahead in
greenhouse gases because of the efficiency of the car, and
you're not spreading the pollution all over the place. You
can potentially control the pollution at the generation source, you know,
a filter, a bag house they call it.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Okay. I love Bill's point here, and I think we
should all focus on it. You often hear the argument
for the electric cars, it's just shifting which detty carpetsles
are power comes from. So what's the point. But Bill's
absolutely right because the efficiencies are so much higher on
the electric and fossil fuel, everything else being equal, it's
still saving on cop in the missions.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
This is really fun. I feel like I'm letting some
good talking points too. What's next?
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Amba, Yeah, I mean, I'm having a great time, So
bear with me on this one. And I'm just sort
of playing Devil's advocate here. One thing I sometimes hear
from people, especially here in Florida, is that the science
is always changing, that it's not settled, and that we
really don't know for sure that climate change is human cause.
(16:44):
So how am I supposed to respond to that kind
of comment?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Well, it's settled, amazing. I remember being four years old.
But one kid says, is so. The other kid says,
is not? Is not as too?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Is not? As to you.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Climate deny or sorry, science is so settled, it's settled
on top is settled.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Certainly, ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Percent of the world scientists agree, if not one hundred
percent with or how about ninety nine point nine with
a less than point one percent trace percentage of scientists
who are not on board it's just weird. I mean,
in science, you seldom get ninety percent agreement on anything.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I know, right, gravitational constant.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
People don't even probably don't come out with that many
significant digits come on you guys. So and it's all,
as I say, all this doubt has been introduced by
conservative media. And a question I have for conservative me is.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Why are you doing this? Why are you ignoring the facts?
What is it?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And just seeing well they're doing it for the money.
What money we're all going to if you keep this up.
So what I say to Fox News and all the
news Maxis and all these other guys is just cut
it out, just stop it.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I've seen you talk, we've climate denis as well. Have
you ever managed to well, let's call them climate contrarians.
You have you ever mentioned actually ten any of them
mound the tool have any of a comeback to you
and said, oh, I've reflected the way he said, Bill.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It takes you know, I tell everybody, somebody's not going
to change his mind her mind.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Just hearing it once.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
But it is time I think to get back to
we in the States, we have several, of course nutty
climate deniers, but I bet each of these two guys
ten thousand dollars that the decade twenty ten twenty twenty
would be the hottest on record, and they wouldn't take
(18:54):
the bet.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And it was wow, and so they wouldn't. They won't
take the bet. They know better now.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I think that's the troubling thing. They're just hoping it's
not true. But hope's not a plan, people.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
No, it is not a plan. I mean, that was
the warmest decade on record. Each year is getting harder
and harder.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Now.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
You often hear this, You hear this fantastic conspiracy fod
scientists are in.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Scientists or in the conspiracy? Have you hung out with
these guys?
Speaker 4 (19:21):
You can't agree with anything.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Honestly, I agree on anything, and I would hope one
of them was rich.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
If I knew, if I had for proof actually this
was not real, I would be singing it from the
actual top of the buildings. I would be out there screaming.
I'd be getting loads of money, maybe a Nobel, maybe
even a Netflix show bill. You never know, right, you
never know, but you would be so famous for proving
it wrong. And I'd love it to be proved wrong. Honestly,
(19:50):
you'd get a Nobel Prize if you proved it it happened. No,
it's just sadly it's not.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I think there are fewer of them than the battle bit. Yeah,
that's right, there's still too many.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
And look, you can't change someone's mind overnight. But that
first thing that Bill said is so important. Over ninety
nine percent of scientists agree that the climate crisis is
human caused, but only twenty five percent of Americans believe
that there's a scientific consensus on climate change. The bottom
(20:22):
line is, the carbon pollution from fossil fuels that we're
putting into the atmosphere is causing the planet to overheat dangerously.
That science is ironclad.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Yeah, I feel like it's so important to lay it
out there like that. Now, this next question is about
how close we are from all of humanity falling apart.
I saw a headline that said we only have ten
to fifteen years to really stop global warming. But something
I hear from my friends is that it feels like
we've been seeing these headlines for years. So first, please
(20:56):
tell me we have more time, And also, why does
it like we've been hearing these headlines for so long?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
The latest study that I'm familiar with is Michael Mann.
You know Michaelman the hockey Stick graph, The lead author. Well,
his latest book is This Fragile Moment, and he, based
on his latest modeling, points out there's almost certainly not
going to be a tipping point.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Just to pause for a second, the hockey stick curve
is a really important piece of climate change science. Basically,
the idea is that there was a warm pier during
the medieval age, and then the Earth cooled down a little,
and now, thanks to all the carbon we're pumping into
the atmosphere, we're on the up and up and up.
(21:43):
It looks like a hockey stick. The thinking is there's
not necessarily a tipping point, but rather the idea is
that the Earth will just get hotter and hotter until
it's totally out of control. Well Bill says it better. Instead,
it's just.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Going to get hotter and hotter and miserable or and
miserable for everybody, or and so it's not like there's
this moment where it clicks. You can make arguments about
one and a half degrees celsius that indeed could be
six years, but it's just if you go beyond, when
(22:19):
we go beyond one and a half, It'll just lower
the quality of life for more and more people. It's
not like there's a light switch and everybody dies. It's
just going to get worse and worse. Which is let's
get to work people, doesn't mean let's relax. It means
let's get to work. In a sense, the situation is
more desperate than ever. In another sense, we have all
(22:43):
the time we'd ever need. It just depends how bad
you want things to get for how many people.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
To me, this kind of mentality is one of the
biggest obstacles standing in that way this whole We've got
five years to turn things around. It's honestly, really unhelpful
for everyone. There's a risk of making people feel like
we don't have to act now, and if we miss
that target, is it really all over? It also makes
(23:09):
people feel like five years from now there'll be some
gigantic tipping point, but as Bill mentioned, it might not
play out that way, and when it doesn't, it could
erode trust in professionals and experts. All right, next one, Amber.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
Okay, we couldn't do this episode without bringing up the
cowburps and the cow farts. Are cowburps really that bad.
What are the greenhouse gases we need to be worried about?
Is it just carbon dioxide? And how about is methane?
Can you just kind of walk me through all of
the greenhouse gases.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Methane is a much much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The reason everybody talks about carbonoxide is it's so there's
so much of it that overall it is still the
most significant one. But and rather, both carbon dioxide and
(24:07):
methane methane are carbon. The carbon with two oxygen's carbon
with four hydrogen. They're both carbon. That's why people talk
about carbon capture, carbonness, carbon net, carbon reduction is because
both of those greenhouse gases have carbon at the middle
of the molecule.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I think people realize that methane is eighty times
more heat absorbing a carbon dioxide. So for you know,
at least for twenty years or so, it's a and
it breaks down and then its.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Carbon dioxide with ultrabiolet light from the sun. But it's
just these got you, guys. These are huge problems.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Okay, if that sounds a little complicated to you, I'm
going to break down bills breakdown of this issue.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Molecule for molecule methane is so much worse for them
farm than carbon. Dark side oil gas and coal mining
all produce as shitloads of me fane gas and a
lot of it comes from leaks. But as we know,
those farting belch and cows are also at fault. Farming
is thought to be one of the largest sources of
(25:16):
me fane gas getting into the atmosphere. The good news
is we can get me fane levels down and fast
if we stop using fossil fuels, we can turn off
a massive tap of mefane. What the fucking talking about?
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Okay, Bill and Chris, let's talk about the new technologies.
This is everything from the vitamins food composter I keep
seeing on my Instagram ads to the giant machines that
are supposed to suck CO two out of the air.
Are the machines going to save us?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
This would be the idea that we would manage the
climate of the planet. Top down technocrats would think deep
thoughts and change the atmosphere, change something radically in the
top down fashion. And the famous thing that people talk
(26:11):
about is putting a compound of sulfur very very high
in the atmosphere, stratosphere sulfur which would reflect which is yellow,
which would reflect sunlight back into space. And this nominally
would work, they say. And furthermore, it would produce diffuse
(26:31):
light like a cloudy day, and farm plants, agricultural crops
respond better to diffuse light than direct light. Really, okay, anyway,
who's going to be in charge of that? Who's going
to put these airplanes in the stratosphere spewing sulfur compounds.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Who's going to control that?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
We're going to put it up over the UK, over
Africa and it's going.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
To blend and blow around the world. WHOA Everybody's going
to be affected? Is that good or bad?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
But with that in mind, I encourage everybody, voters of
all ages, to think of things of the world, a
humankind's relationship to Earth differently than we have thought about
it for centuries. And that is we are in charge. Now,
(27:30):
this was not a job that we went applying for.
But humans, the human race is so big, there's so
many of us breathing and burning this atmosphere so aggressively
that we are changing the climate of an entire planet.
Nobody you can argue We didn't mean to do that,
but we're doing it, so.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
We have to.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
So when it comes to geo engineering, it is nominally
a nutty idea to think that you could spew enough
stuff in the atmosphere to control the climate of a planet.
And if you reflect all the sunlight back into space,
wouldn't that screw things up? Wouldn't that be a bad
just inherent there's less heat, less sunlight. Just intuitively, it
(28:16):
seems like a bad idea, but it may get people argue,
it may get to a situation that's all we got
that aside.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Do not count on it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Now, Look at all that we have done to the
climate by accident.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And then who you're going to put in charge Vladimir.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Putin, Like, who's going to be in charge of doing
sulfur into the atmosphere?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Anyway, you guys, geoengineering is not going to solve a problem.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
On the other hand, this idea that nature is separate
from us is that's an old idea.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
We can't do it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
When we go camping in the wilderness, we're going just
to a different part of the planet that we control.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I totally agree with Bill that these big pie in
the sky geoengineering ideas are kind of scary and likely
to introduce all sorts of problems we can't predict, not
to mention, they raise a lot of forny political questions.
That said, I do want to touch on what Amber
said about the giant machines that suck carbon dioxide out
(29:21):
of the atmosphere. These machines, along with other natural methods
of capturing carbon, like in coastal restoration projects, might actually
save us at this point. We need to slash our
emissions while also removing a carbon we've already pumped into
the atmosphere, and there are a lot of cool innovators
working on projects that do just this. That's what we
(29:44):
mean when we say carbon capture.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
We're fucking the future. We're a fucking the future.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Bill sees this has all hands on deck situation. He
says we need to prioritize free things.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Three big ideas clean water, renewably produce electricity, and access
to the internet for everybody in the world.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
When you have.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Access to the internet, you can have education. When you
have education, you can raise the standard of living of
women and girls. When we raise the stand of living
of women and girls, everybody is better off easy to say,
hard to do.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
You might wonder what the hell has to do with
the climate crisis, but it actually has everything to do
with it. We talked about this in the Sabrina Elber episode,
but for gist of it is, prioritizing women and girls
has an outsize impact on our world and for the better.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I would invest in electricity transmission. Someone got to do.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
When I say invest, I'm not just talking about the
engineering and the towers and the lines and stuff, but
the legal right of ways and the deals made and
the financing has all got to be figured out. And
then I am very interested. Yes, let's continue to have
some people messing around with making nuclear fission less scary
(31:16):
where the public will accept it in a way they
won't accept it right now. But also I want people
us it to invest. I'm not joking you guys to
invest in nuclear fusion. There's so many organizations universities working
on this right now.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
This isn't an episode of Bill n I, the Science Guy.
But you watched it in middle school when you had
a substitute teacher in for the day, So we're not
going to get too vol into a nucleifusion. But what
you should know about nucleiffusion is that if we can
do it, we would create unlimited energy without fossil fuels.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I think the next less than twenty years somebody's going
to figure this out, because we can now control magnetic
fields with much faster computers than we ever had in
previous decades. And controlling a magnetic field would enable, hypothetically,
theoretically enable you to control the.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Plasma. This is a gas where all.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The electrons are off on their own, they're not associated
with any atoms. So anyway that's in the background. But
clean water, noble electra and so let's get swind and
solar electrical storage, less efficient, heavier, cheaper batteries in the
basements of big buildings that don't rely on lithium and.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Get or done.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Then also world peace would be good because all the
wars that are going on, you're just inefficient people just
through in the States, just around the expression supply chains,
your supply chain, and you disrupt everything and you it
has knock on effects worldwide.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And so this is all stuff we got to get done.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Let's go, let's get her done.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
And so that leads to very much to the last
bit about what can people do meaningfully to make action themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Become politically active in your community and advocate for climate change.
Vote for people who are going to address climate change.
And here in the US, if you're a third party candidate,
don't do it.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I used to say the most important election in my
lifetime was the year two thousand when in the US
George Bush became president, even though al Gore had more.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Votes popular votes.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
This is an old system, very well intending founding fathers
that things out. It's outlived its usefulness, the system. Anyway,
It's important election ever in history is twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Whether or not you live in the US. Yes, this
is the most important election. You can hate the US
whatever it is, but the US is so influential globally,
It's most influential culture. And so this is it, people,
twenty twenty four?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Is it? Do you want to talk about turning points?
This is the point of turning.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Bill Nye, the science guy, the man is a legend
for a reason. I mean, he told so many of
us about science, but he's now teaching us about how
to teach others about the science of climate change. I
wanted to bring back Maggie Beds discuss how we can
take action on Bill Nye's three Big Ideas?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
What fuck can I do?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Hey, Maggie, Hey Chris Well, I don't.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Know if I could follow Bill, but I will do
my best.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
I'm surely he'll be pretty What of your golfers is wee? Maggie, Chris?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
I was thinking about how Bill so effectively breaks down
complicated ideas into something easy and fun. So in that spirit,
our action this week is to lead with joy. Yes,
the climate crisis is extremely serious, and so bringing in
a little humor to the conversation helps us reach people
(35:21):
and make complicated topics more easily digestible. So if you
would like to try to bring more humor and more
effective communication techniques into conversations about climate, there is a
great article that we will put in the show notes.
Check it out. But it all leads up to the
big takeaway here. Instead of focusing on the doom we
(35:43):
might experience, let's try to envision the better world we
could have. Let's all try to be.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
More like Bill Gosh. I love that, Maggie, thanks so
much on the stay. And that's what the fuck you
can do for this week?
Speaker 7 (35:59):
What fuck? Can I do.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Oh fuck, that's all for this episode. Next time, on
Fucking the Future, we talked to Glennis Humphrey, a fire
a cologist who wants us to use fire to prevent wildfires.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
What we're seeing is different from the past.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
We've seen basically.
Speaker 8 (36:23):
A change in the intensities of fires, the frequencies of
fire that we haven't actually seen before.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
When you see a change where.
Speaker 8 (36:35):
Fires occurring where it didn't occur before, or it's occurring
at a much bigger scale than it did occur before,
I think that's what's alerting us that something is off.
That's a warning to say things are changing because it's
different from.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
The past until then. I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Thanks for joining me and I'm Fucking the Future.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Fucking the Future.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Imagine Audio and
Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted by me Chris Turney.
The show is written by Meredith Brian. I'm Fucking the
Future is produced by Amber von Shassen and Rene Colvert.
Ron Howard Brian Grazer, Carral Welker and Nathan Chloke are
the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse Burton and Katie
(37:28):
Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice. Sound design
and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by Lilly Hayden,
and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton wrote our
theme and all those fun jingles. If you enjoyed this episode,
be sure to rate and review Unfucking the Future on
Apple Podcasts or whether you get your podcasts
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