Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - The JRE review of 1259 with David Wallace-Wells

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

David is an author and environmentalist. He is very concerned about global warming and the consequences that will have on the planet and its inhabitants. During his discussion with Joe he paints a dark picture of our future over the next 30 years if we don’t clean up our act. I got a lot out of their talk and really enjoyed reviewing it. Enjoy my review folks! Please email me with any suggestions and questions for future Reviews: [e-mail]

What up folks and welcome to another edition of the JRE Review. Today I'm reviewing conversation Joe had with David Wallace Wells, podcast 1259. He is an author of the uninhabitable earth as story of climate change and he's come on to talk about just climate change and what's going on. And from the sounds of the podcast, and you'll notice it, scared the shit out of Joe too. His book, as you one can imagine from the conversation he has with Joe, is focused mostly on scaring the shit out of people using climate change as a dialogue and it's probably important for a few reasons. One because it sells a lot of copies of a book to be kind of dramatic but also it's like

pointing out you know the major issues that were up against I don't Know 100% About his background. I was kind of looking into it. I don't know exactly how Qualified he is to make a lot of the points that he was making anyway, let's start the review Welcome to the Joe Rogan Experience Review! Where each week I review every single episode of the Joe Rogan Experience. What more do you want? So one thing he talks about is there will be cities that will cook you by 2050, right? So cities in some of the hardest parts of the world he's saying that because of the average global raise in temperature, you know, one to two degrees,

so on, that now that's an average over the whole world, but there's obviously extremes where things are getting super cold and places are getting super hot. He's saying that there will be temperatures above like 130 degrees. That sounds horrendous, but also bear in mind that when Al Gore made his movie about global warming, which was what like almost 20 years ago I think, or little less than that, but anyway, he said that a lot of the world would be underwater already by now now and it's not quite that bad. So there seems like possibly there's a bigger buffer system in place. Does that mean we shouldn't worry about it? No, we should be concerned. Does talk about there is hope, right, is his point, but we need to start acting on it now.

So he says that there's machines that can take carbon out of the atmosphere for about $100 a ton. All right, so it could take a lot of, almost all of the carbon out of the atmosphere for about $3 trillion. Sounds like a ton of money, but I guess we're already subsidizing industry upwards of like five trillion.

So there's a way to pay for it and it can be fixed, right? So technology might be able to sort this out for us. It just can't get so far That the temperature is so high that we're we're just doomed, right? This is kind of where where David's coming from with that and he's saying we need to act now So think about that with your recycling. But there were a ton of really interesting facts that he put, well, I say facts, but things that he was laying down,

I don't know if they're entirely correct, but if they are, it really makes you think about it. So he was saying that half the carbon that we put out in the atmosphere ever, like humans ever put out, happened in the last 30 years. So pretty much everyone that's listening to this about that age, that's our lifetime.

So in our lifetime, half the carbon ever was put out, right? And what we're gonna do moving forward is the key to this, right? And he said that there's some major issues with these temperature ranges increasing. And it's not just that or the all the ice will melt. Me thing will get released. It will continue at a faster and faster rate. And all these this higher temperatures going to change our ecosystem in a really dramatic way, whether it's going to get a lot worse or on. Something he was saying that babies in the womb don't develop properly when they're in the womb,

if the mothers in temperatures that are over 90 degrees. So this is obviously going to affect people in very hot climates and mothers that are trying to stay cool, because really not everyone has air conditioning in the world. Not everyone's able to keep these temperatures cooler. And he's saying that it's only about two degrees hotter in general, really fucks things up. I think what's difficult for people to understand, especially me when I think of these

things is like two degrees doesn't seem like a lot at all. And what I mean by that is think about it. Basically what's happening is, you know, in the morning, it's cooler. And then by midday, early afternoon, it's hot. And then by the evening again, it's cold. And there could be a temperature change of like 20 degrees. And that's just in one day. So when you hear overall, it's only two degrees. You're like, how can that make such a big effect? And it's still really difficult for me to wrap my head around. But I think globally, it's just a question of like, you know, a lot of algae will grow. And then that causes this to happen and that to happen. And it's a chain reaction

event, right? And it's accumulative over time. So just two degrees can make a lot more ice melt. And it's something that you think about. But like individually, what can we do? Like my girlfriend is always wanting me to recycle everything. And sometimes I think hang on, all right. So we're recycling some bottles and things. But what fucking difference is that making? You know, we still drive cars, we still go on flights, we still do things like this. Well, one thing that David was saying is,

every time you fly, just one time, flying a plane, and I guess it does depend on how far you fly, but he doesn't really specify distance. He says that that's like driving a car for eight months. Well, that's substantial. Eight months, so you could be an Uber driver for eight months and then also you could be a person that doesn't even have a car. And then you go ahead and fly once and that's it, that's eight months of pollution. It just seems, that seems crazy,

but I mean, if you think about it, the plane's a massive. Now, is he counting your portion of the plane? I mean obviously if there's 200 people on there you need to divide that fuel pollution by 200 times. Who knows? He doesn't really get into like what numbers he's picking and I'm showing some ways. He's cherry picking to make it seem more dramatic possibly than it is. Maybe not. Who knows? But it will make sense that he would do that because the more shocking these things sound, the better they stick in your mind and then you start thinking, okay, what am I going to do? What am I going to do

as an individual to kind of help this? An interesting point that he brought up, something that really stuck with me is that not every country will be negatively impacted, right? So, countries that the equator for sure are going to be fucked with this. Shit's going to get too hot, it's going to be a mess. But places like Russia, necessarily, it won't be necessarily all that bad. It might actually be beneficial. For example, their agriculture may improve. So temperatures in areas that are usually kind of permafrost or frozen will now be good for agriculture, for farming, for growing food, and producing different types of crops. And when you look at the size of Russia, it's massive place, a lot of it really isn't usable

for agriculture because it's so cold so much at the time, but at the temperature heats up and they start to get better rainfall, it's going to work in their benefit. You know, so why are they going to give a shit? They want to improve their power. They're going to keep pumping out as much carbon emissions as they possibly can. And that's kind of interesting because even if you believe in it, you know, well, my point is I think that the way Russia is supposedly been fucking with our elections, imagine if they now start pushing out the agenda that global warming is in real, like plenty of Americans already believe, and they kind of add to it knowing full well that it is, or whether they believe it is, just

because they know it overall benefits them, and they're trying to get Americans on their side. I mean, that's a sneaky, tricky, you know, bullshit move, but you'd imagine they be up to it. If they're willing to mess with our elections, that might be something that they'd think about. And not to mention all those terrible things, some of the last major points that David was bringing up that I really enjoyed too. Well, I enjoyed him because they were interesting. I didn't like the idea of it happening, but he's saying the bacteria and diseases are kind of frozen in ice, in the permanent ice. Right? So when the ice starts melt, this bacteria and diseases can be released and start killing things.

It gives the example of some animal that had anthrax and when it froze out, some deer, some kid died. Right? So who knows if that would be happening a bunch, but it could, right? Things could be released. And it's something to think about. I'd never heard that dialogue really put out before. And he's saying that it could be like ancient bacteria and diseases the we're not used to that could start affecting us. I don't know how true that is. And I don't know what his background and understanding of this is. I would assume that if it's like an ancient bacterial disease, because we evolved through those times, even though we haven't been exposed to it recently, our immune system should be better at dealing

with that, but I don't know, who knows, these things are not what I understand all that well. But also he said that There was some example of a deer or some sort of creature that went completely extinct recently And it's been around for hundreds of thousands of years because something in its stomach bacteria changed and they think it might be to do with Overall temperature and some some like stomach flora do with overall temperature. And some stomach flora bacteria that live just fine inside this creature for many thousands of years, all of a sudden changed and wiped that whole species out.

Now, obviously that's an extreme example, but maybe extreme temperature changes globally could destabilize those sorts of things. Stomach bacteria changes and we're susceptible to it and all of a sudden good bacteria becomes bad bacteria. That could be a really big problem too. The only issue is I've never heard of anything like that. I've never heard of anything being referenced like that or any major concerns, so I'd like

to know more about it. But it makes you think. You know, in some ways though, the big takeaway from me, from this is that David said, overall he hasn't really changed his carbon usage habits. Right? He, you know, it's not like he's recycling more, driving less and not flying at all, which would make more sense. He's just writing books and getting the word out there.

He thinks it's more to do with like government and policy on a big scale than it is what individuals can do because the impact is so minor when you change things just yourself. But in a way, I think that's kind of hypocritical a little bit, right? I mean, you should just at least do your part there. Even if it doesn't do a lot, but it's just a habit, you know, you're making a point that you give a shit. Um, I don't know, you know, it's, if this is like the, the thing that the rock he wants to die on or whatever that expression is, then maybe he should represent it a little differently. But either way, I found the conversation fascinating. I learned a lot from it. I want to look into it a bit more because it sounds scary and I don't want the next 30 years

living on this planet being a fucking disaster. So we'll find out. Hopefully it's not as scary as he's been saying. But thanks a lot for tuning in guys. I really appreciate it. Peace.