Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
Welcome to science talk. As uh most of you know that earth is warming, temperature is increasing. Our planet is
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uh heating or overheating. Sea level is rising and we are not doing as much as we should be doing to stop this uh
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madness as a humanmade disaster. Uh well uh don't listen to me or don't believe
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me whatever I have to say but listen uh to my today's guest who is worldrenowned
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climate scientist or sometime he refer himself his introduction as a data scientist who uses data to uh predict
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and and model climate changes and how the earth ecosystem change over time and
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he works at NASA uh at one of the JPL as a lab and he uses satellite data and
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models to study rapidly changing Earth focusing on extreme heat and human health, ecosystem breakdown and severe
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weather. He has a PhD from in physics from Columbia University and BA from
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Harvard University where I'm sitting right now in the Harvard School of Public Health. Uh so without further
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delay, I would like to introduce uh and welcome my guest Dr. Peter Kelmas. And
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Dr. Peter, thank you so much for joining me today and welcome to Science Talk. Thanks for having me. I should say I'm speaking on my own behalf too.
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Yes. So he is speaking on his behalf and these views of course does not represent
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uh NASA or Harvard where I'm sitting right now. It's just our own uh views whatever we have to say in this
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which which is kind of a shame because in my opinion our institution should be taking a firmer stance since the fate of
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our planet is at stake here. Yeah absolutely. I was literally thinking about that. Uh yesterday it's
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like you know what these uh oil and gas companies they pay a lot to their PR
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firms to lobby and to do propaganda and they own that and when we talk about
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climate change our institutions do not own that opinion which is kind of sad as you said. Yeah, it's interesting.
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There's this kind of interesting separation of powers that the formation of institutions kind of facilitate where
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um the status quo is very preserved by this dynamic, right? It's very hard to
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get institutions to make like very quick changes or to respond to something new
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coming that wasn't like wasn't there when they formed, right? So, um, yeah, I
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don't know like you something about the hierarchy and then like the people who are the directors, they're they're kind
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of chosen because they're somewhat conservative in their views and they're stable. They bring stability to the
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institution. And so then you have all these rules where the like the kind of working people in this institution might
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want to blow some whistles, but they're really suppressed. So it is a very interesting
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Yeah. And and that might be the reason that uh the scientists are not very effective convincing people or they do
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not have as much influence because the other side knows that oh these are
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professor bunch of scientists who are going to say things but the institutions do not support that opinion so maybe
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they don't have to act and it doesn't matter much as compared to if the institution itself take a position and
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you know do the same thing right and the institutions I'm thinking of like Harvard's a good example
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recently with uh you know the this Trump administration putting pressure on uh the American Geohysical Union has has
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kind of been very close to the fossil fuel industry for a very long time because some of its members are are geo
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uh scientists who are like involved in drilling for fossil fuels and so forth. And um the institutions the the heads of
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the institutions need to be and this is true of JPL as well of course like they have to be savvy of funding right so
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they have if you're the director of this big institution and you have a few thousand employees it's like a lot of
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mouths to feed and you have to be really careful to make sure the funding keeps flowing. So, you know, you can't piss
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off, for example, an administration or a Congress who might not whether they believe climate change is actually
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happening or whether they just say that it's immaterial, right? Their position is climate change isn't happening and
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they want to tamp down anyone who says that it really is. So, that puts the director of these institutions in a hard
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place, right? Right. And we saw this similarly with with Harvard uh when the administration was saying like you have
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to do X Y and Z otherwise we're going to so it's it's a form of uh extortion right financial extortion essentially
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and it forces these institutions to maybe make not the best long-term decisions for for the planet and
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humanity. Right? We're we're kind of it's like a mob mentality where like in a sense all of humanity is um being
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ransomed by like this class of people very very rich people who don't want to
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change social structures and who don't want us to do something about climate change.
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Absolutely. It's a very tough position. Yeah, it is. It is. Uh and that's the irony of our time uh we're living in. Um
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and so uh you you have explained this question in a BBC video in a wired and a lot of other places but like can you
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talk a little bit about like what is in a layman term so people understand what is climate change and why uh our planet
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is overheating. Yeah. So, it's interesting. I um you
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know, I've I've gotten sort of more interested in thinking about the social
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structures and how we can stop this because because I do feel like at some level we have enough science to know
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what we should be doing and we're not doing. But at a very basic level, uh when you burn fossil fuels, so oil, gas,
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coal, you're combusting that with oxygen and creating they're these carbon chain
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molecules, right? this stored energy basically stored energy of the sun like
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locked up in these carbon chains you you combust it with oxygen turns into carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere
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and the carbon dioxide molecule um interacts with infrared radiation quantum mechanically so just the
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vibrational modes of the CO2 molecule which is you know one carbon two oxygen
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in a certain configuration vibrates in a particular way um interacts with infrared radiation that's coming out
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from the Earth, right? So, if you think from the planet's point of view, there's two big ways that the planet interacts
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energetically with space, right? You've got the sun, you got sunlight coming in,
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and that heats the planet up, of course, cuz the planet's absorbing that sunlight, and then the planet emits
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infrared radiation in what's called it's what's called a black body. So anything with temperature is emitting like our
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bodies if you look at our bodies with an infrared camera we're emitting infrared radiation because um a particular body
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at a particular temperature emits radiation following a particular spectrum right so that infrared
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radiation coming from the earth's surface coming from the atmosphere coming from the clouds is going back out
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into space but those extra CO2 molecules trap that outgoing infrared radiation so
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not as much of it gets to space some of it gets gets remitted back down to Earth, right? So, you got the same
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amount of sunlight coming in, less infrared radiation going out. The temperature of the planet has to get has
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to increase. And then the hotter planet is going to emit more infrared radiation. So, you'll come back into
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equilibrium with the sunlight, but at a hotter temperature. But, of course, we're not at the point of coming back
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into equilibrium yet because we're still burning more fossil fuels. So, that's that's how the science works in a
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nutshell. And we've known about this uh since the 1800s. So um it's
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and we and we keep emitting those uh carbon emissions into the air and space.
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We're not stopping because if we want to reverse uh the climate change impacts, we have to take that um emission out of
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the uh out of the space which we already Yeah. And it's much much harder to do
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that than the fossil fuel industry would lead you to believe. So they talk about things like direct air capture, carbon
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capture, like uh basically using energy inputs to to pull carbon out of the
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atmosphere. Uh you would essentially there you know a few years ago um there
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was a big facility and I think Iceland that they made to pull carbon out of the
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atmosphere and they I think I'm not sure if it's still up or not. I haven't really kept tabs on it, but at the time,
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you know, it opened to much fanfare and uh I you know, they said how much CO2
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they could pull out of the atmosphere. And I was like, in one year, this thing is going to pull out 3 seconds worth of
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carbon emissions. So what humanity emits in 3 seconds, it would take this thing a
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whole year to pull out of that atmosphere. So you need millions and millions of those facilities. So that
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lets you know the scale. And then there's, you know, I I don't see many people point this out, but there's a
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huge uh ethical problem with this, right? It's like it's like you're going
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out to dinner with your grandchildren and it was really fancy, sumptuous
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dinner and then you just walk up and leave and like leave them with the bill because it's like saying we can admit
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now because our kids and our grandkids are going to spend most of their uh
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money, most of their economic activity is going to have to be in building these, you know, like millions and
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millions of these carbon plants to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Um, and that's going to be hugely expensive for
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them, but it means we can admit now. So, we're going to like keep partying and just like leave the next generation with
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the bill. It's deeply deeply irresponsible. And the the kids, the
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children, the next generation, the grandkids, they're going to be have to, you know, pay this bill at the same time
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that the earth is breaking down around them because of the party that we had. So, they're going to be having more hurricanes, more fires, more heat waves,
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more floods, right? their crops are going to be failing more because of the planet being hotter and yet we're
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expecting them to build all this this huge carbon capture infrastructure. So, it's it's so uh you know, it's pretty
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evil. Uh the thing the lynch pin for me on how evil it is of the fossil fuel
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industries to suggest this as you know is is it's a cynical ploy because it
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sounds good to a lot of people, right? So, it's a form of propaganda. Yeah. Sorry, I had to do that.
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No, absolutely. I I think that that's a great point to kind of having those discussions with the family members and
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with loved ones and you know because a lot of time we work as a scientist but like even our own families do not
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believe that we're going to leave that bill for the future generations, right? So like like we're not telling them like
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oh like we're going to having a party and this is like the the bill you're going to pay but it's like oh we'll deal
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with that when the time comes, right? So like how do you kind of talk with people
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within your own family who do not believe in climate change and who do not believe in that bill because they
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haven't seen that bill yet? Oh, excellent excellent question. Um sadly um I haven't made a lot of
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progress. So I am not I have not convinced a lot of people who are deep
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in climate denial to come out of that climate denial. It's surprisingly hard
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to get somebody to change their mind when they don't approach things like a
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scientist. So, yeah, by that I mean uh if they're if somebody is not willing to let new information
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cause them to change their mind, it's very very hard to get them to to change their minds. So, um I am I'm hoping that
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um you know that farmers, for example, they tend to be more on the conservative
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side, but they have to be on the vanguard of conservatives who realize
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that climate change is really happening, right? Because they maybe they can't grow the same crops that they used to
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grow or maybe now the planting dates have changed by several weeks, you know? So, uh I I'm kind of hoping that they'll
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start speaking up pretty soon. Um yeah, that's a great point. Uh because I just had actually last night a
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discussion with somebody uh we have a climate action week uh this week in at Harvard and one of the attendees she he
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was talking about he's like you know what where we should start about climate change is the farmers. It's like why is
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that? He's like because they're seeing that the crop they're not able to grow the same crops. the crops are not you
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know like holding up to the extreme weathers. So they are the one who some of them are like really educated some of
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them who are not educated but they see the impacts of climate change because they've been doing the same work over
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generations or over 30 40 years. So they see oh like for example I was not able
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to like you know grow these crops because of the change in pattern and like flooding and all these things. I
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was like, "Oh, that that's actually a great point." But as you said, they're not like we're not seeing much information coming from farmers saying
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that we are seeing this on social media, on mainstream media. It seems like that's the ignored part. And that may be
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because of the mass production of corporate farming and you know, we don't believe in this like you know those um
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farmers who used to grow their crops and everything and now it's like everything is corporatized kind of way that we it's
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a mass production of things. Yeah. Yeah. And the elephant in the room is the Trump administration and the
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Republican party. So if um you're a Republican farmer
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and you're like hearing all of this frankly propaganda, these lies from the
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Republican party about climate change not really happening and it being like a liberal or a Chinese hoax or whatever.
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Um that's a kind of gaslighting, right? because they're saying they're telling
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you don't believe your own eyes. So my question is to these to Republican
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farmers like when do you start believing your own eyes and saying and saying the emperor has no clothes, right? That you
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guys are full of crap because I'm seeing the temperatures increasing. I'm seeing changes in rainfall patterns. Um I, you
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know, have to change my farming methods and it's not just a one-year thing. It's
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been a trend over several decades. Um, so yeah, I'm really curious about that.
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I, you know, before this administration came back into power, I was sort of
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thinking that there would be some point in the near future where the
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conservatives, the Republicans would start to say like, hey, um, our leaders are wrong about climate change. It's
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really happening. And then suddenly the like Republican politicians would start,
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you know, would stop telling them these lies. But that certainly hasn't happened yet. And if anything, we're in an even
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deeper hole in terms of uh you know the ultimate distraction to worry to
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thinking about climate change and to wanting to solve it is to you know basically for you to feel that democracy
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is threatened. So I don't think very many people are talking about so like yeah I mean I wanted to ask that
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question later but like now it's a good transition to ask that question. It's like, yes, we know the climate deniers
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are in power and they're not going to believe it and they're going to spew that propaganda. But on the other side,
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if we look at the Democrats, if we look at Democratic Party, they do not have a very progressive, very active agenda on
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climate adaptation or mitigation either. So, where do we go? Honestly, like I've been like talking to other people. I
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think you had a chat with uh Dan Miller on a climate chat a while ago. He was also talking. He's like, I'm not like
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super optimist or hopeful from a Democratic party either. So, it's just not the one side, but the other side is
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like also they're just using it, but like they're not doing anything. Yeah, Muhammad, this is the hell I've
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been living in for 20 years basically. So, even when we've had Democrat presidents, they have done very, very
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little to stop climate change. Um, President Obama after he left office, he
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actually bragged at a lecture that he was the guy who incre increased uh the
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production of oil and gas in in America. So I think his exact quote was like that
16:34
was me folks or something like that. So he wasn't interested after eight years of being in office, President Obama was
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not interested in taking credit for, you know, doing something about climate
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change. he was much more eager to take credit for in for making climate change worse by increasing oil and gas
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production in the United States. And then President Biden, I I would write oped after oped um urging him to declare
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a climate emergency and that never happened. Um, I am pretty I'm convinced
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personally that the recent Democratic presidents just didn't really understand
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at a core level how serious climate ch change actually is for the future of
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humanity. So, in other words, they just didn't get it. Um, and and you know,
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maybe it's to put yourself into their shoes like they have they they I think
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they're kind of forced to think in terms of the short term. Um, and they have,
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you know, all these corporate donors, so they have to think about winning elections, right? Um, so it's very hard
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for them maybe even if they did care at a personal level, which again I don't really think they did, but if they if if
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you know you were Democratic president, for example, and you really really wanted to do something about climate
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change, it might be I think you could do more than recent Democratic presidents
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have done, but I think your hands would be pretty tied in a lot of ways based on this the system as it's structured in
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the United States right now, which is a huge shame. Yeah, it's I think one of the potential uh
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reason or probable reason is that somebody was saying the other day um talking about climate change that
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politicians hate uh fundraising and when it comes in a in a chunk like 2 million
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3 5 million from anyone from corporate sector they love it but they hate asking you for 10 bucks 20 bucks 2,000 5,000 so
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it's easier for them to take money from these corporations and you know oil and gas companies and not to think about
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like you know voters who going to donate 10 bucks or 15 bucks because they don't like that. So maybe that's part of the
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reason that like you know I don't know but like maybe um that they they go with that always regardless in the power.
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You see this with mainstream media too, right? So um again it's like what we were talking about at the beginning this
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sort of institutional inertia. You see the New York Times, for example, running all kinds of ads all the time for fossil
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fuel corporations. Um, which I think causes them to be bi more biased in
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their reporting. Um, and so I don't feel like they typically, even the New York Times doesn't typically tell the whole
19:24
truth about climate change when they're reporting on, for example, a devastating flood. They don't typically say the
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reason this is happening is because the planet's getting hotter. the reason the planet's getting hotter is because of the fossil fuel industry. The fossil
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fuel industry has been intentionally blocking action, which is why we're in this predicament, which is going to get
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much worse. Right? So, so I always say there's there's three really key parts to any climate change disaster story,
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which typically get left out by journalists, even respected institutions like the New York Times. Those three
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things are um this is caused by the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel
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industry has been lying for decades and blocking action intentionally, right? Which is part of the story. That's why
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that's a big part of why this disaster happened. Context. Yes. Right. Yeah. Say there's a huge hurricane that wipes out a city. Like
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the reader is going to want to know why. And the article doesn't even talk about fossil fuels. Doesn't talk about the
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fact that the fossil fuel industry has been lying and blocking action, which is maybe if they hadn't been lying and blocking action, that hurricane would
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have happened. Would not have happened, right? And then the third thing that they typically don't say, sometimes they do say this third thing, but they need
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to let readers know that let the public know that this is going to get worse and worse obviously until we stop burning
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fossil fuels. And I want your listeners to know that uh and I don't think this is well appreciated by the public that
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when you burn fossil fuels, you can think of it as like a ratchet. like every little bit that you burn, every
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piece chunk of coal, every gallon of gas, it's like a little ratchet making the planet a tiny bit hotter effectively
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permanently, right? So, so however hot the planet gets is pretty much how hot
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it's going to stay to first order. Um, and the more as we burn more and more
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fossil fuel, that's that that temperatures it's going to go up. So, it's not a question of reducing our
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fossil fuel use, it's a question of ending it completely, right? which is why this is such a hard problem.
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Yeah. Um Yeah. And the the last thing your prompt made me think of is that, you know, it's
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very hard to see right now uh how we're going to get strong laws
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in the near future from Congress in the United States that will directly do
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things to transition us away from fossil fuels and towards say electric powered
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vehicles and other alternatives that will end our our our reliance on fossil
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fuels. But what's kind of encouraging is that I think uh the technologies that we
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need to transition away from fossil fuels, for example, solar panels and and
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uh battery storage, they've gotten so much cheaper, so much more quickly than
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anyone predicted, say like 10 years ago, that now it's insane to to like produce
22:22
electricity really any other way, right? And China gets this. So, so China is
22:28
eating our lunch right now because the economy of the future is not going to run on fossil fuels. It's going to run
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on electricity produced by solar panels, right? And so that's the thing I think
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that's ultimately going to limit how hot the planet gets from uh from uh global
22:47
heating. Um, and right now, unfortunately, we have an administration
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that like like little toddlers throwing a tantrum. They're doing everything they can to block the adoption of these
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technologies which are obviously superior in every way and they're even cheaper now. Um, and I think it's mainly
23:07
because um, well, it's for a lot of reasons, right? So you have legacy billionaires who want fossil fuels to
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continue because that's why they're so rich in the first place and you know their families go back many generations
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that if everyone can make their own electricity if it's like distributed then that
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that's sort of a loss of control right um so you know maybe that's me just being a little bit
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absolutely yeah but that's but to me that's one of the great things about it is that you know it's it's something that anyone can
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control you don't have to worry about some other entity like shutting off your power. So
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yeah, I I think like the Congress right now is like too busy like kind of uh trying to protect free speech and is
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burning a flag constitute a free speech or not. They're like too busy doing that kind of stuff but not worried about the
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hurricanes and flooding and uh you know heat waves we're seeing more frequent and more intense. For example, right now
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um I'm I'm originally from Pakistan and we have a huge devastating flooding right now where millions of people are
24:11
displaced and you know like we saw like the worst flooding in 2022 where like
24:17
33% of the country was underwater. Unbelievable. And then again after 3 years we still
24:23
again underwater. It's a huge amount of water and like there is no way because like literally those river beds are
24:30
gone. The rivers were dry and now all of a sudden monsoon and like you know cloud burst we see never saw that before and
24:38
when you were a kid did was it like this at all like what was it like when you were a kid? Oh my goodness. No like it was not like
24:44
that at all. It it like used to rain and pour like for days and days and now we don't see rain for months. And I I'm
24:52
from like I grew up at a farm like we had a a piece of land where we used to grow a lot of different crops but we're
24:58
not able to use grow the those crops anymore. And it's kind of like so like kind of sad to see how like the
25:06
government and people like especially the you know vulnerable especially women and children like literally dying and we
25:13
see videos kids are literally uh like towing their bodies of their like dead
25:19
mother in the water like by themselves like 8 10 years old and it's there is no
25:24
help because the countries like almost there's a report says like by 2050 you
25:29
have to spend 20% of your GDP on tackling climate change and there is no action uh unfortunately. So it's like
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kind of so sad to see uh in terms of policy makers and media and those entities not like kind of you know who
25:43
are like kind of it seems like a nexus like not to do anything and block everything. So I just want to ask like
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on on a media part because I do a lot of uh kind of uh analyze how media talk
25:56
about climate change and yes the they have more frequent attributions that is
26:01
climate change is happening but like again there are a lot of pieces missing from these stories especially contextual
26:07
based uh information that why they don't frame it like you know why thematic
26:12
framing is still missing why we are seeing this and why uh how we can stop this uh but I I wanted to ask like about
26:19
cops a little bit about loss and damage fund and you know like how the rich global
26:25
north countries can uh you know or cannot do anything about helping those
26:32
global south countries which pollute less uh you know the environment and
26:37
clim like kind of contributing less uh CO2 uh emitting less but they're seeing
26:42
more uh extreme effects of climate change. So, how do you see cops? Do you think it's just a show that like all of
26:50
thousands of people just fly over and get together and like we put a CEO of a fossil fuel industry guy and then expect
26:57
something different as a result? Yeah, unfortunately that's exactly what I think it is. Um, I don't believe we're
27:04
going to have any meaningful progress at the international level until they
27:12
say no more fossil fuel corporation participation. And a year ago, I happened to meet John
27:19
Kerry, uh, the Secretary of State at the time, at an event, and he was, you know,
27:25
I think somehow involved in organizing the the comps. And I was like, hey, like
27:30
the the, you know, the biggest dele I kind of was talking to him like, you know, the biggest delegation at at the
27:37
conference of parties meetings is the fossil fuel industry. And I'm, you know,
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I'm a climate scientist. I'm really worried we're not going to make progress until they stop calling the shots at
27:48
these meetings. It just seems really obvious to me they're not, you know, they're not good actors. They they're not acting in good faith. He got really
27:54
mad at me. He was like, um, what are you talking about? Uh, we've gotten more out
27:59
of the fossil fuel industry, this last cop, than we ever have before. Um, like they're an instrumental part of this
28:05
process or something like that. And my then then then he left. Like I just had a few seconds to chat with him and and
28:10
my mind was blown. And I'm like, I I had this similar feeling to when uh two
28:16
years into the first Obama term, so two two years into the Obama pres presidency when a light bulb clicked and I
28:23
realized, oh, he doesn't share my agenda. He does not share my progressive agenda
28:28
on climate change and that's why he's not doing anything. And it was the same thing with John K Curry. I'm like, oh,
28:34
like he doesn't he doesn't see the fossil fuel industry as a problem. uh which is crazy to me because there's
28:40
such a a huge mountain of evidence now, a huge paper trail, all these documents
28:46
that show that they've been uh systematically colluding with each other. Uh they they've been hiring some
28:53
of the best PR PR people in the world, the best lobbyists. They literally got together and said, "Okay, how can we the
29:00
public will start to to want to to transition away from fossil fuels when they realize that we're irreversibly
29:07
destroying the planet that they live on? So, how can we keep them from seeing that? How can we lie and prevent and how
29:14
can we undermine the scientists and make it seem like there's more doubt than there really is?" So, they've been
29:21
incredibly dishonest for decades. They haven't paid any price for that yet. They have not been held accountable for
29:27
what I think is probably the greatest corporate crime in the history of
29:32
humanity because it's like you you were talking about what's happening in in in Pakistan which is already in present day
29:40
incredibly horrifying and sad. What I'm trying to let everyone know is this is still just the beginning. It's going to
29:45
get worse and worse. I really believe that if we stay on the track that we're on, we're on in the process of seeing
29:53
billions of deaths. not millions of deaths, but billions with a B that because we're we're going to start
30:00
seeing crop failures. We're going to start seeing increasing famines. I mean, it's just it's sad to be talking about
30:06
this like this. Then we're going to we're going to see like the undermining of geopolitical stability which which I
30:13
feel is already starting to happen like already happening. Oh yes, absolutely. that Pakistan and India there are always
30:18
constant tension because India flood the water like they leave the water and it's going to like you know like increase the
30:25
level in the rivers in Pakistan and there's always like oh should we build the dams it's like we have indust water
30:32
treaty they always violate sometime they tell that we're going to release this amount of water sometime they don't so
30:37
there's always like a geopolitical tension between these two nuclear countries because of water because of
30:42
the weather patterns yeah I agree and and probably increasingly because of food, which is the same thing as water. Water basically
30:49
equals food. If you have water, you can grow food and if you don't, you can't. Increasingly,
30:55
heat's going to be more of a part of that equation, too. Like even if you have water, it might start to get too hot.
31:00
Yeah. In 2015, uh 1,500 people died in one city in Pakistan because of the heat
31:06
and the temperature goes like really 120 Fahrenheit degree in in uh and sometime it goes even 126 130 in some parts of
31:14
the country. And then, you know, you're you're kind of like your average white
31:19
person in the United States feels like it can't happen here, and they're wrong.
31:24
You're completely wrong. Um, yes, like I think extreme heat will get worse in the
31:30
subcontinent first. But it's going to get bad everywhere around the whole
31:35
planet, um, including in the United States. There's going to be, you know, I think in our lifetimes, uh, maybe even
31:43
relatively soon, we will start seeing heat waves with death tolls in the
31:49
millions. Yeah, we have never seen that before. What What do you suggest or think that
31:55
um because you you're a very strong activist and there are like very few voices unfortunately who are like have
32:01
some voice and they're not raising their voice. Um but what do you suggest or
32:06
recommend to uh scientists or institutions or academics to kind of do
32:13
more just not because it's more comfortable to do produce research you know like keep it in your desktop move
32:19
on get the grants get your life that's it it's more it's less comfortable being
32:25
arrested being you know raising questions being you know kind of able to protest so how do you kind of see that
32:32
as activism as an academic mix and how we should be doing things and what we're getting wrong and what we should be
32:39
doing more. Well, I would love to see a ground swell in scientists, especially climate
32:46
scientists speaking out a lot more. First of all, speaking really clearly and, you know, not telling the public to
32:54
stay calm, right? I think that's the wrong message right now. I would love to see more climate scientists really
33:01
directly explaining uh that this is a human-caused problem and that you know
33:07
fossil fuel executives and fossil fuel corporations have been lying for decades. That's really really important
33:12
for the public to know. Um I think there's a huge if if there's a chain
33:17
like that will lead us to responding to this problem in a rational way. there's a really big broken link which is that I
33:25
don't think the public knows that. So, let's say you're a person and you you realize that it's getting hotter and
33:31
you're worried about climate change. Um, you know, in in general, I don't think the public has enough awareness that
33:38
this problem is because of fossil fuel industry. Like, I've heard way too many
33:43
people tell me that like they they say like, "Oh, I like are are you worried about climate change?" And they're like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Well, what do you
33:50
think we should do to stop it?" and they tell me we should recycle more. Yeah. Right. Like and my mind is just blown.
33:56
They don't say like, "Oh, we have to end the fossil fuel industry and transition to different forms of energy." Right.
34:02
Which is the correct answer. We don't even convince policy makers to adopt rational policy.
34:09
This is how irrational we are as as a kind of society right now, right? So the
34:15
contract is scientists, you know, funded largely by the government, government
34:20
grants are supposed to understand reality and if they see a problem,
34:25
whether it's like a pandemic or uh the earth getting too hot or, you know,
34:30
whatever it is, they sound the alarm and they go have, you know, the the most senior scientists go have meetings with
34:37
the president. This is like in the movies, right? And the president says, "Oh gosh, like this is a real problem."
34:42
And then, you know, maybe it's in the movie, it's too late. So, there's these disasters. But at least they they try to
34:48
do something about it. They don't say like, you know, oh, like, you know, screw you scientists. I don't believe
34:54
you. I'm going to like do my own research. I'm going to listen to these deniers. I'm going to like put somebody in charge of vaccines who's antivax.
35:01
Right? That's not supposed to happen. So, the contract has been broken, right? So, so scientists have to realize if
35:09
they care about this planet and if they care about their children, and I know they do, they can't wait for somebody
35:16
else to save us. And I I feel like scientists as a group, as a collective,
35:21
we would have a lot of power if we all with one voice started to to say what
35:28
was really going on. started to call out the fossil fuel industry and the politicians both in the Republican party
35:34
and the Democratic party who aren't doing enough um but especially the the actual climate deniers and you know
35:42
started and and then you know were able to let our emotions show a little bit so
35:48
that people who aren't scientists knew how serious we think this is right and
35:54
then potentially even engage in civil disobedience like I have and a few other scientists have. Um the civil
36:01
disobedience I've done uh has been the most effective way of communicating to
36:07
the public that this is actually an emergency. Uh it's better than writing
36:12
books. It's better than writing articles. It's a lot better than writing uh research articles about, you know, uh
36:19
coral reefs dying, for example, which is also behind the pay wall most of the time. But most of the time, yeah, increasingly I
36:25
think earth scientists are are publishing their work outside like outside of the pay walls. But but yes,
36:31
um but the public's not really going to sit down. You have a very small fraction of the public who's like reading
36:37
Scientific American listening to the Science Friday podcast, right? And they they kind of get it. they they they
36:44
might they might not read some of them may read the actual scientific papers, but they're going to be reading um you
36:51
know the New York Times article about the scientific paper. So they they get it. They probably understand that fossil
36:57
fuel industry is the main culprit here of of why the planet's getting hotter, but that's a tiny fraction of the
37:04
population, right? Or or maybe they or maybe they will read uh Fox News twisted headline from a
37:10
paper which has, you know, like very different meaning. But yeah, right. So this is my mom. So you asked
37:15
earlier like, "Have I convinced climate deniers in my life to that climate change is real?" So she thinks that I've
37:22
been brainwashed by the left to to believe in climate change. And that's so
37:27
I haven't made any really any progress with her cuz she does watch Fox News. Um
37:33
so yeah, Fox News is not going to probably have me on to talk about climate change um or or other scientists
37:40
like me. They they'll have there's a very small handful of of very either
37:46
misguided or uh greedy people with scientific credentials who
37:53
tell lies about climate change or minimize Yeah. or minimize dangers.
37:58
Yeah. The the sort of crank scientists and Fox News will have them on because they have the like PhD and they have
38:06
they were formally they have expert cues so people going to believe them. Yeah. But yeah, like for every one of
38:12
them, there's like 10,000 other climate scientists who uh who who say yes,
38:17
there's a huge amount of evidence that says the planet's getting hotter. That's what's causing the flooding. That's what's causing all this stuff. It's
38:23
going to get worse. It's caused by fossil fuels, right? So Fox News won't have them on.
38:28
So then how do you, you know, and even people who don't watch Fox News don't
38:33
really, you know, there's just so much confusion about the the planet getting hotter? Is
38:38
it getting hotter? What does that mean? How do we stop it? What where's this going to take us? And it's very hard
38:45
to get that to get the real information to a large number of people.
38:50
True. Um so like you're having me on your podcast. That's big struggle. That's why I
38:55
started like this work as a my outreach. I like you know what I'm writing papers. I'm trying to you know like talk to
39:02
people but maybe it's a good idea to raise awareness. I think like 10,000 people listen to me, 5,000 people listen
39:08
to me. Even they're not convinced, but I shared something, you know. Uh just keep like kind of inviting people, keep
39:14
talking about it with as many people as possible. Uh it's better to talk with one person than not talking to one
39:20
person, you know. Um and you never know. But before Yes. Go ahead, please. Well, I also the other piece like I
39:27
don't have access to to talk to a lot of those people. Like I don't have a that big of a microphone. Um, I used to have
39:34
a like a mediumsiz microphone on Twitter until Elon Musk bought it and uh but but
39:40
even if I did like for somebody to actually hear what I'm saying,
39:45
they would have to decide they trust me. And right now I I would say that
39:51
the the working class left and the working class right have essentially been divided by the wealthy class, by
39:57
this billionaire class which owns a lot of the media, right? And so so I will be
40:02
perceived by people on the right as someone as one of them as on the left.
40:08
Right? So it's very hard for me then to which is why like I would love to start
40:13
talking to I think some of the farmers uh who maybe already understand that the
40:19
earth is heating up because they could be really good messengers to people on
40:24
the right who would actually trust them. Yeah, that that's a good point. So before I let you go, um I just want to
40:30
ask one last question is what are some of the things or maybe one thing we're not talking about as a society? It can
40:37
be related to climate change or something else. Probably I would say we're not talking enough about how the the earth getting
40:46
hotter is leading to more far right uh kind of movements in various countries.
40:53
So, I think there's actually a connection between global heating and
40:58
the rise of fascism. Like this this xenophobia, wanting to close borders, for example, this like general sense of
41:05
fear that things aren't going well, which makes a populace susceptible to authoritarianism. And so, I think that
41:12
should be studied by a lot more academics, that connection, cuz I think we're going to see a lot more,
41:18
unfortunately, a lot more authoritarianism in the in the future as the planet heats up. Absolutely. Thank
41:23
you so much again uh Dr. Peter Kmas. It was honor uh absolutely honored to talk
41:28
with you and thank you for your time. Appreciate that. [Music]
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