Science Friday - Our Fragile Moment, Climate Comedy. Sept 22, 2023, Part 1

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

A Week Of Climate Protests, Meetings, Pledges, And ActionClimate Week NYC is wrapping up, where hundreds of events took place across the city (including one from Science Friday), all with the goal of encouraging conversation and action around our climate crisis.The weeklong event takes place alongside the UN General Assembly meeting, where world leaders discussed climate change, alongside other topics, including the war in Ukraine and universal health coverage.While President Biden emphasized the importance of reducing the use of fossil fuels to combat climate change, there was a notable absence of leaders from the world’s biggest polluters, including Biden and president Xi Jinping of China, from the meeting’s Climate Ambition Summit. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that in order to participate, governments need to come with “credible, serious and new climate action.”Large demonstrations also took place across the city, pressuring leaders and companies to take bigger action to end gas, oil, and coal use.Swapna Krishna, a journalist based in Philadelphia, talks with Ira about these stories and more, including a new climate jobs program from the White House, a lawsuit from California against the five big oil companies, new battery recycling rules from the EU, and data from the Parker Solar Probe’s recent flight through a sun explosion. Can Earth’s Past Climate Help Us Understand Today’s Crisis?A combination of factors led to Earth’s climate being able to support life. And changes in the climate some 6,000 years ago created the conditions for human civilization to flourish. It’s a delicate balance on the verge of collapse, due to our reliance on burning fossil fuels.Ira talks with paleoclimatologist Dr. Michael Mann about his forthcoming book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, about the importance of understanding our planet’s climate history, and strategies to get policymakers to take action before it’s too late to reverse some of the worst consequences of climate change.Mann is a professor of earth and environmental science and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Read an excerpt of the book on sciencefriday.com The Climate Movement Should Be FunnierHow do you know that climate change is funny? Even the Antarctic ice sheets are cracking up.The climate crisis is no joke, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh about it. Research suggests that comedy is a powerful way to connect people and get them to empathize with a cause—and the climate crisis is a pretty big one.So what does science say about the power of a good laugh? And how does that fit into the climate movement?Ira talks with Esteban Gast, comedian in residence at the clean energy non-profit Generation 180, and Dr. Caty Borum, executive director of the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University. To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. It's Climate Week in New York City. The UN is holding the Climate Ambition Summit. Experts are speaking on stages and in panels. Climate activists are marching in the streets demanding action. So this week, we're dedicating the entire show to stories about the climate crisis. Later in the hour, we'll have a conversation with climate scientist Michael Mann about what we can learn from climate history and how history gives him hope for the future. We'll also talk about the science of climate comedy. Yes, what makes a good joke and why the climate movement could and should be funnier. But at first, as I mentioned, Climate Week in New York City is coming to a close. There were hundreds of events, including one from Science Friday this past Monday,

encouraging conversation and action around our climate crisis. The week-long event took place alongside the UN General Assembly meeting, and with it came protests demanding world leaders and large companies take bigger action to end fossil fuel use. It's our only hope, the only home that sustains that will rely on. These kids never get tired. When you get tired, we try. To catch up on this week's climate news is my guest, Swapnakrishna, a journalist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Great to have you back. Thank you so much. Nice to have you. Let's get right to the questions here. Tell us about the climate protest this week. What was it like? So with this summit has come some of the biggest climate protests in years, and these protests have been happening globally. But these in New York have had a more narrow focus than usual, which is interesting.

It's not just protesting a lack of action on climate change. These protests are aimed squarely at President Biden. And protesters are asking from him to declare a climate emergency and stop all permits authorizing new use of fossil fuels. So no new oil and gas drilling. It's important to note this would not affect existing. use of fossil fuels. And how did the president talk about climate change at the UN? He referred specifically to the terrible flooding in Libya as an example of what awaits us all if we don't take action on climate change. He specifically cited reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,

which is what these protesters are asking for, and called climate change an existential threat, and called a member country to climate-proof the world. And that's certainly interesting. Climate-proof the world. Yeah, it's a really nice phrase, but we'll actually. and back it up is the question. But the White House did announce a new program related to jobs to help fight climate change, right? Yeah, so this is a really interesting story. The White House unveiled a new jobs training program focusing on climate called the American Climate Corps. It's going to focus on projects like bolstering communities against the natural disasters

that are becoming so much more frequent with climate change and implementing clean energy project. It could employ 20,000 people in its first year. And what would they be doing these people? So the interesting thing is it echoes New Deal era legislation. They'll go into communities and bolster houses against hurricanes, things like that, to prevent damage from these natural disasters that are more frequent thanks to climate change. People will be paid. Participants don't have to have previous experience in climate work.

And the Biden administration is working on making it easier for these climate corps members to enter the federal government workforce after their service in the process. program. And this encourages disadvantaged communities to take part, right? Yeah. So that's one of the big differences from the New Deal era legislation. This is specifically focusing on disadvantaged communities and trying to recruit members from these communities, which is really interesting, because these are also often the communities that are most impacted by climate change. And the Inflation Reduction Act, which helps fund climate resilience projects, it's also helping to conserve endangered whales, right?

Right. So North Atlantic right whales have unfortunately been declining in population for years. Because our oceans are warming up, it's changing the migration pattern of these whales. And there was a significant and unexpected reduction in the population in 2017. Now experts estimate there's only about 340 left. But NOAA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received an $82 million grant, which is part of the Inflation Reduction Act to help protect and track these right whales. Because they're, are they endangered?

Yes, so they're very endangered. But also, one of the challenges here in tracking and protecting these animals is that climate change has affected their migration patterns. So you can't track them if you don't know where they are. And one interesting tidbit I found was that they'll use $36 million of this $82 million grant to help develop program to monitor these wheels, including an AI satellite tracking program. Whoa. Okay. Speaking of the sea, tell us about this story of researchers trying to store carbon dioxide at the bottom of the Black Sea. This sounds really interesting. Yeah, this is a weird one, and I like it. One way we're trying to combat climate change is by capturing

carbon dioxide and storing it somewhere to avoid it being re-released into our atmosphere. It doesn't really feel like a forever solution, but the less CO2 in the atmosphere, the better. So we can call that a win for now. Usually this process involves removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, compressing it, and then storing it underground. But now a company called Rewind is trying to use a more natural approach. They're taking plants that have absorbed vast amounts of CO2, shipping them out to the Black Sea, and then sticking them in the depths of the water. And what happens down there in the depths of the water? So usually what happens is as plants, die and decompose, they release the CO2 they've stored back into the air. And the idea is to prevent

this release. And the Black Sea is specifically good for this because of its shape. Its geological features means that it doesn't allow oxygen to mix between the top layers and the deeper layers of the water. And that means photosynthesis doesn't occur. The plants are actually preserved in the deep water. So it's a natural solution to storing the CO2. And the company estimates that it can remove up to a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. And for context, according to the UN, we emitted 36.6 billion tons of CO2 globally in 2022. You know, this makes sense because they've always talked about if we want to take CO2 out of the air, we would suck it out mechanically.

But this is what the plants do, right? They make a living out of sucking CO2 out of the air and storing it in their wood or their fiber. So we just take that and we sink that. Exactly. It's a really innovative and natural solution that wouldn't cause further harm to the environment because a lot of these solutions, it feels like, you know, you're trading lower CO2 levels now, but we're going to have to deal with it later. This is a more natural solution.

My question is what happens when the plaquesie fills up. Yeah. How much can you actually put in there? And what plants are good for it, right? You'd have to figure out which plants store the most CO2, and I imagine they're looking at that also. Exactly. Yeah. Let's move over to the EU.

They just introduced new battery recycling rules. Why is that a good thing? Well, so one of the things we talk about a lot in the move away from fossil fuels, which is, again, what the protesters we talked about at the beginning of this are asking for, is we want to switch to EVs from gas-powered cars. But something we don't talk about as much is that mining the materials required to make these batteries damages the environment. It's very harmful to the environment.

And these discarded batteries, once they're done, generate a lot of weight. So the EU has adopted a rigorous set of battery recycling rules. They require manufacturers to accept use lithium ion batteries for recycling, but not only that, lithium ion batteries that are produced new have to contain a certain amount of recycled material. Oh, wow, because there's probably a lot of good stuff still to be recycled in those used batteries. Exactly. And the metals required for these batteries, we're talking lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other ingredients.

They're hard to access and mine to get new. So recycling solves both an environmental problem in terms of ensuring these batteries don't just get thrown out, but also ensures there will be plenty of supply of these metals for future battery manufacturers. Yeah, so you sort of create a closed loop, right? Exactly. It's making the entire switch to EVs, electric bikes, other battery power devices, much more sustainable. Yeah. Let's move over to California, where there's a new lawsuit this week against the five big oil companies.

Tell us about that. So the state of California is suing the big five oil companies, Exxon, ConocoP, Philips, B.P. Shell and Chevron because of their role in perpetuating climate change. The complaint states that these companies knew about the correlation between fossil field production and climate change and perpetrated a decades-long campaign to mislead the public and hide information. And so what does these suit seek? They want an abatement fund established, which would pay for recovery efforts from climate change generally, but also specifically to pay to repair damage from weather events and natural disasters related to worsening climate change.

You know, this sounds a lot like the tobacco lawsuits that came out, right? It does. It follows on the model for previous cases against opioid and tobacco companies. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens here. But the oil companies have responded individually, but they point out that climate change is a huge issue that requires an international response, unlike tobacco and opioids. and it can't necessarily be solved through an individual lawsuit. Yeah, well, we've heard this kind of logic before, and we'll see how that turns out. And finally, a not climate change related, but certainly sun-related, the Parker Solar Probe, flew through a coronal mass ejection last year, and now we have data from it.

What is a coronal mass ejection and what does the data show? So a CME or a coronal mass ejection occur as a result of the twisting and realignment of the sun's magnetic. field. And it's this huge solar storm, also been called an explosion on the sun, and that's an accurate description. So the Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to ever fly through a CME, and it got some footage from it. Well, it's good that it survived that, right? Yes. So Parker Solar Probe has an innovative carbon heat shield that's made of sandwiching carbon fiber between layers of carbon foam. So during this event, even though it was flying through this explosion on the sun, the internal temperature of the probe never rose.

That is cool, so to speak. What do they hope to learn from this? So this actually occurred a year ago on September 5th, 2022, but there's a new paper in the Astrophysical Journal about what we learned. This event may have confirmed a decades-old theory about CMEs, that these solar weather events push dust away from the sun. And so scientists found that this particular CME threw the dust along a 6 million mile-long path away from the sun, sort of like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.

And, you know, we were always worried about destructive solar outbursts because they can disrupt, what, power grids, satellites, communication? Yes. Yeah, these, the biggest solar storm we have on record is the Carrington event, which occurred in 1859. And if that were to happen again, it would disrupt power grids, it would mess up our satellites, it would be a big deal. And so we are always keeping an eye on solar weather because of,

that. Wow, that's great. Thank you for bringing us all this great news stuff. Of course. Swapna Krishna, a journalist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We have to take a break, and when we come back, a conversation with Michael Mann about his optimism for the future based on climate history of the past. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. It's Climate Week in New York, complete with lectures, demonstrations, and climate protests. I would venture that perhaps no public figures save Al Gore is associated more with our climate crisis than climatologist Dr. Michael Mann. And according to Mann, understanding our planet's climate history shows us that it's not too late to take action to reverse some of the worst possible outcomes of the climate crisis.

And that is good news. And it's all in his forthcoming book, Our Fragile Moment, how lessons from Earth's past can help us survive the climate crisis. Dr. Mann is prepared. of Earth and Environmental Science, Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Welcome back to Science Friday. Thanks, Ira. It's always great to be with you.

Nice to have you. I want to start with the title of the book. What is our fragile moment? Yeah, you know, we now have more than 8 billion people living on this planet, and we have this massive societal infrastructure that we've created to support that global population. And that infrastructure was built over a period of several millennia where the climate, the global climate, was remarkably stable.

And so that infrastructure is sort of dependent on the stability of the climate. And what we are doing right now is, of course, we are creating instability. We are dramatically warming the planet. rates unlike anything we've seen in the past. And that's what makes this moment so fragile. Because if we leave that sort of envelope of variability within which our infrastructure can exist and continue to function, if we leave that range of climate variability during which we built our civilization, then that threatens our civilization.

And we're getting closer and closer to the point. where we've warmed up the planet and created climate impacts, extreme weather events, wildfires, heat waves, floods, super storms like we've seen this past summer. That threatens this fragile moment that we are still in, where if we can get the problem in hand, if we can rapidly reduce our carbon emissions, we can still remain within that envelope that supports us and a global civilization of more than 8 billion people. Now, you've brought up a very interesting question there. You use the word, if we can do these things.

I mean, how do we get people to do these things? We've seen climate activists ramp up their tactics recently. I mean, earlier this week, protesters blocked the Federal Reserve Bank, calling for an end to banks lending to fossil fuel companies. Climate activists disrupted the U.S. open semifinals. one person glued their feet to the floor. I mean, are these kinds of tactics effective in change and ringing alarm bells, getting governments to implement more aggressive climate policies?

I mean, you've been talking about this for 20 years. Isn't it frustrating? How do we get people to actually act? Yeah, you know, it is frustrating at some level that we haven't seen the sort of action that we had hoped to see. And, yeah, I've been at this now. for, I guess, two and a half decades, two and a half decades ago when we published the now famous hockey stick curve, and that sort of thrust me into the center of this larger debate.

And, you know, I had hoped that we would get the problem in hand, that policymakers would be listening to the scientists, and that would lead them to pass enlightened policies that would help us decarbonize our economy. Part of the problem is there's some powerful vested interests, fossil fuel industry that profited greatly from our reliance on fossil fuels, and they've pushed back quite a bit. And at a time when we are just witnessing these unprecedented extreme weather events, it's actually quite difficult for polluters or those promoting the fossil fuel agenda to deny that something's happening. So we've seen them turn to various other tactics to keep us addicted to fossil fuels. And doomism is key among them because, ironically, if we become convinced it's too late to do anything about the problem,

and as you allude to, young folks in particular are vulnerable to that because they've seen so little progress, and they are the ones who will inherit the worst impacts of our carbon emissions today. They're the ones who will bear the brunt of the climate change that we are generating. Some of them have gone to court, though, right? Well, yeah, so, you know, absolutely. And so the youth climate movement has been so critical. The Montana court case, youth climate activists brought a case against the state, which was not supporting the needed climate policies and the court found in their favor. So they've been a game changer. And what I worry is that they will, some of them or many of them will fall victim to doom. Like, oh, you know what, it's too late to do anything about the people. problem and you see some of that. You feel some of that out there today. And so one of the things that I try to do with the book is to make it clear that the paleo-climate record, the past climate events, past, you know, extinction events, if you understand in detail what drove them, they do not tell us

that it is too late today. We do not necessarily have to be part of the next great extinction event. but there's a shrinking window of opportunity, and the paleo climate record speaks to that at well. It speaks to both the resilience that the climate system has to a point and the fragility of the climate system once you go beyond that point. Well, let's talk about that paleo climate record. Let's focus on a few important moments in our planet's climate history. In the book, you talk about another period in our planet's warming due to a CO2 release, But this one was way before human causation, right? Yeah.

So one of the episodes that I talk about, for example, is the end Permian extinction. It was the boundary between the Triassic period and the Permian period about 250 million years ago. It's actually the largest recorded extinction event in geological history. 90% of all animal species died off. 96% of all marine species in the ocean died off. And so some people look to that event and they say, oh, it was driven by a massive release of methane from the seafloor as the planet warmed up. It started with carbon dioxide venting through volcanoes.

It was a natural injection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through a heightened volcanic activity that tapped into carbon-rich geological reservoirs. And of course, we are increasing carbon dioxide today through fossil fuel burning at a much faster rate, mind you. And the argument goes that, and that caused the seafloor to warm up and release the methane that was stored there. And methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. So this sort of created an almost runaway effect where the methane made and it's the atmosphere, it warmed the planet even more, and some of the sort of doomers, as we call them, say, and that's what's happening today because we're warming up the Arctic, and we've released methane gas from the permafrost, and it's a runaway warming event that we

can't do anything about, and it will cause all life to go extinct within a decade, no matter what we do. Now, that is not true at all, and what troubled me was that I was seeing the paleo-climate record, these past events misrepresented not by climate change deniers, which is something that we've confronted in the past. Here, it was those who argue for inevitability, for doom, who were misrepresenting the science. And so I go through that episode, and it turns out that, you know, there wasn't a massive release of methane from the sea floor. What warmed up the planet is the same thing that's warming up the planet today. It's CO2 that we are generating even faster from fossil fuel burning. And so that's one of the reasons why you say we have hope, right?

Yeah, that's right. And so what the science tells us today, when we use climate models, comprehensive Earth system models, what they tell us is, yeah, the warming is caused by the CO2 we're producing primarily, and that warming will continue until CO2 emissions cease. Now, that's a really important point because IRA you probably remember in the past there was this notion of sort of delayed warming or committed warming if we stop carbon pollution now that the planet would continue to warm up right right right right yes and that's half of the story but we weren't getting the other half of the story which is that the oceans are actually absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so if we stop adding carbon pollution to the atmosphere CO2 levels actually start to drop in the atmosphere

And that offsets the committed warming. So the result is you get a flat line. In other words, when you stop adding carbon pollution to the atmosphere, the surface of the planet stops warming up almost immediately. And so we have agency. It's not too late for us to prevent that warming. That is good to hear. You also write about the role of climate change in the rise and fall of ancient civilizations. What can we learn from human civilizations, let's say, in Mesopotamia that you talk about?

Yeah, it's really interesting. So, you know, civilization, human civilization arose about 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. It was the first city-state. You know, where Mesopotamia is located today, it literally means the plane between the two rivers. And those two rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And what happened was the climate was slowly getting drier. And that has to do with changes in Earth's orbit relative to the sun, which shift rainfall zones and drought zones slowly over time. And over thousands of years, the Middle East was getting drier.

And it was getting more and more difficult to support agriculture. And so you needed some sort of technological innovation, for example, irrigation, where there wasn't much rainfall, but if you could tap in, into the water supply from these two rivers, then you could continue to maintain viable agriculture. And so civilization basically arose out of the need to have specialized workforces, including those who could engage in these massive water engineering projects, that would allow the continuation of agriculture, our ingenuity, our engineering capability, in this case, irrigation allowed us to continue to maintain, a large, you know, population by being very clever about how we made use of water resources

in a drying climate. And that provided stability, having, you know, specialized workforces, provided so you could move water and food around within the civilization from where there was a surplus to where there was a deficit. And so I sometimes liken civilization. It's like a catamaran. A catamaran is very stable in the presence of relatively small waves, more than a, or single-hulled boat. But it becomes completely unstable for large enough waves. And so civilization is the same way. It provides stability to a point. But you hit it hard enough. And that hit came in the form of a massive volcanic eruption about 4,200 years ago, which created a sudden drying in that region, which put far more stress on water resources. And all of a sudden, you had parts of the empire. This was a very

empire with divergent needs and divergent resources and the parts of the empire that were driest. There was conflict between them and the wetter regions over those water resources. And so climate change created conflict over water. And there was even a wall that was built to keep part of the population out, those who were suffering from the climate-related water stresses. If that sounds like a cautionary tale for what we're seeing today, it's because it is. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. If you're just joining us, I've been talking with climate scientist Michael Mann about his new book,

Our Fragile Moment, How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis. As we run out of time, I want to make sure we hit some of the points that are very important. And one of those things, those points is politicians. You sort of talked about how no one can deny what they're seeing, right? With the way the weather has reacted to the climate. And obviously, no one's going to be walking in with a snowball into the Senate like the senator from Oklahoma did years ago and say, this is just not happening. As you point out in your book, you actually quote an anecdote I said years ago about Senator Muskie. wanting a one-handed scientist instead of having one hand, there's this, on the other hand,

there's that. Are they still looking for these one-handed scientists and government? Yeah, it's a great story. I love telling it, Ira, because I thought you laid it out so, so well. We often say, you know, scientists, we tend to lead with uncertainty, because that's where the interesting science is taking place at the sort of horizons of our knowledge, at the limits of knowledge. And so we spend all our time in the areas where there is uncertainty, and it's easy for us to lose sort of track of the wealth of information that is well established. And when we're communicating to the public, of course, we need to lead with what we do know. And it's important to couch that in uncertainty and caveats and to provide nuance. But we lead with what we know.

that's what policymakers need to hear. And sometimes there's unavoidable uncertainty. And so, you know, you're not going to find that one-armed scientist. You've got to look on the one hand and on the other hand because there is uncertainty. And uncertainty is not our friend here. And I'll just give one example. One of the major developments in climate science over the last decade and a half has been our ability to better model ice physics. And so our ice sheet models, the models of the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet are far more comprehensive and realistic than they once were. And as our models become more comprehensive and we start to remove some of the uncertainty that existed when our models were cruder, what are we finding?

we're finding that ice sheet collapse can actually happen faster than we thought, not slower. So when you hear a politician, you know, including that senator who appeared on the Senate floor with a snowball in Washington, D.C. in the middle of the winter to somehow disprove climate change, when you hear, you know, a contrarian, a politician who favors an agenda of climate inaction, when you hear them say, well, there's uncertainty, so we shouldn't act. It's just the opposite. Uncertainty is actually a reason for more concerted action because if anything, as we've learned more, as our models have become more comprehensive, we've found that ice sheet collapse can happen faster. Sea level rise can happen earlier. And the weather events that we're seeing are more extreme already than we expected them to be at this point. So much to talk about. I wish we had more time. I want to wish you a good success with the book. It's a great read. Thanks so much, Ira. It's always a pleasure to spend any time.

time with you at all. And I look forward to the next opportunity. Always happy to have you with us. Dr. Michael Mann, author of the forthcoming book, Our Fragile Moment, How Lessons from Earth's Past can help us survive the climate crisis. He's professor of Earth and environmental science and director of the Penn Center for Science Sustainability and the media at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. We have to take a break. And when we come back, how comedy can help us understand the climate crisis. Science Friday. I'm Ira Flito. You want to hear a joke I heard this morning? Here it is. How do you know that climate change is a joke? Even the Antarctic ice sheets are cracking up. I don't know how well I told that, but I know that climate crisis is certainly no joke, but that doesn't necessarily

mean we can't laugh about it. Research suggests that comedy is a really powerful way to connect people and to get them to empathize with a cause, and the climate crisis is a pretty big one. So today we're talking climate comedy. What does science say about the power of a good laugh? And how does that fit into the climate movement? Let me introduce my guests. Estabon Gast is a comedian in residence at the Clean Energy Nonprofit Generation 180. He's joining us from New York. And Dr. Katie Borum is executive director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University in Washington, D.C. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Thanks, Ira. Big fan of the show. Yeah, I hate her. Estabon, let me start with you. I'm laughing already. Why did you start including climate jokes in your stand-up? I think I was doing comedy for a while.

When you're doing stand-up, you're just really trying to bring on stage the things that you're thinking about in the world around you. And I think I was nervous for a long time to talk about things that felt a little bit deeper. Like I was like, okay, I can stick to dating. I can stick to my, you know, my parents are immigrants, and I'm the youngest child. And it was a few years ago, I was like, you know what I'm thinking? The way I'm on stage doesn't really reflect what I'm doing during the day, which is I'm like going and trying to be involved in environmental movement and activity things and education, social change. And then I'm like forgetting that on stage. So I think a little bit ago, I was like, what if I just connect all these parts of myself?

And on stage, I'm owed up to the fact that I'm reading these very nerdy, environmental news things. And I'm very anxious about climate change. And I feel like a hypocrite, but I don't know where to express that. So it was just like a natural expression of the comedy that I wanted to create. I just think it took a while for me to, like, build up the courage. If that makes sense. Well, let's listen to one of your jokes. Let's hear a joke.

This is you talking about that quiz that tells you your purpose. that tells you your personal carbon footprint. It just, you like, they're like, do you drive a car? And then you say yes. They're like, do you pollute? They're like, do you pollute? They're like, do you pollute? So it's this list that makes you feel guilty.

That's the only, I grew up Catholic, so I'm like, guilt, baby, bring it on. So it's this list, and it makes me feel guilty. I did it in high school. I just found out the list was invented and created by BP, the oil company. Isn't that wild? Isn't that wild? BP known for spilling oil into the ocean. Was like, do you drive a car?

Whoa, that's bad. You're BP. Wow, made by BP. I had no idea. Yeah. I found that out that the personal carbon footprint, a genuine thing that I took in high school, was created by specifically BP

and supported by the fossil fuel industry to shift blame onto, individuals. And that just blew my mind. I was like, I need to talk about this. Right, right. Katie, you study science and comedy. Tell us what makes this joke work. Yeah. So a couple of things that Esteban is doing there, which is fun, because Esteban and I actually work together. So I'm just going to analyze his joke right in front of him, which is very exciting. Part of how we're persuaded through comedy about civic and social issues, including comedy, is actually the affection for the speaker. So we're persuaded in a couple of different ways in basic messages. One is through our cognitive

minds that tell us like, oh, I'm weighing the merits of the message and do I agree with that message and does it match with my identity and all kinds of different things that we're doing on our brains. But then when it comes to comedy, it's also about the entertainment value. And it is very much about the affective persuasion, the heuristic persuasion meaning, do we like the person telling the joke. So Esteban has this really lovely, self-deprecating, funny way of delivering comedy. So when we like him, we're more willing to find him authentic and interesting. Probably the most important thing that we always think about with comedy as a force for social change and social good comes from its kind of original definition from Aristotle,

which was comedy as a form of social critique. So Esteban, by taking a little bit of a poop on BP is encouraging us to find a little social critique there. So I would give Esteban an A for that joke. This is, I wish listeners could understand how uncomfortable I was hearing all of your compliments. But thank you so much. And it's such a public forum. You know what? Not all your jokes, Esteban. Give me another one. I'll kill it. Yeah. Yeah. This is carefully added it to make me look good. Well, we want to make you look good. Your recent book, Katie, is called the Revolution will be hilarious. So what do you mean by that?

So the revolution will be hilarious is really all about the ways in which comedy already works as this really potent, cultural and persuasive force in encouraging us to be attracted to think about issues that are complex and dire. Comedy is a way to make messages memorable. It has a sleeper effect. We can hold on to messages.

We're much more likely to share messages that come through comedy, which means it's amplified across culture, those of us who dedicate our work and professional lives to trying our little part to make the world more just and equitable and kind and better, you know, when we think about all the forces that are at play that do that work, so science, journalism, sometimes we forget about comedy. Yeah. And I'm not sure why. So that really is, the revolution will be hilarious. Don't forget about the comedians because they've been doing this for thousands of years.

Tell us why comedy is a good way to think through a tricky topic like climate change. Yeah. So when we're thinking about, again, social and civic topics that are complicated and let's just isolate climate change because that is why we are here. So climate change is so technocratic. It really is very. very complicated, to put up mildly. One of the things that comedy does really well, because a joke is not funny, if you cannot isolate the essence and the simplicity of a scenario, a joke never works when you have to have too many layers or too much explanation, like you've completely lost your audience and you're not going to get the laugh, so you're not going to succeed.

So just at a really, really basic level, when we think about people trying to understand, sort of regular people trying to understand climate change. People don't like to admit that they don't understand the science and the technology. And by the time you sort of tune in even to the best journalism about this, you're already kind of like midstream in the story. Like, I don't understand two degrees. What does that mean, right? So comedy can really say without saying it, like, hey, I'm going to break this down for you

and kind of de-wankify it for you and get it to the essence. of what we're talking about. So it's really helpful as a force for kind of translation and simplification among many other powers. When you talk about climate change, do you worry about getting into the weeds too much and that that's going to stifle the joke? I mean, how do you know how much the audience is willing to take, like Katie says? Yeah. One of the things that I do is I always frame things like I'm along on the journey with them. So even if we go back to that carbon footprint joke, I'm not saying, hey, I'm here to deliver information with you.

I'm the expert. If you notice, I go, oh, my gosh, I did this. And then I found this out. And then I had this emotional reaction to it. In that wild? Like the difference between me and a scientist delivering that, the difference between me and Al Gore who's clicking through slides is Al Gore goes, and this was created for this.

Next slide. And then this did this. And I'm sitting there being like, okay, I was sitting where you were sitting, and I totally understand what you're thinking, and I was totally confused. And then I learned this. And then my mind is blown, and I'm here so we can think about this together. Yeah, yeah. And I think that helps.

I do find comedy in small places. I'm what they call an emerging comedian, I'm right, which means I perform in very small comedy clubs. So I'm not doing Radio City, you know. Not yet. Not yet. We'll get you there. But after Science Friday. things are going to change. You get the sci-fri bump. Katie, Katie, what about doom and gloom? How do people react to that

versus something that's more hopeful? Yeah, great question. And I really appreciate that one. You know, there are some kind of watchouts when it comes to comedy and climate change, although I will say, my disclaimer is I am a big, big fan and believer in creative and artistic freedom for comedians. I believe this is where true comedic innovation comes from when you don't stifle people right away. But we do know from research, since you've asked, that there are a couple of areas that are important to think about if you're making jokes about climate change. So one is that we know from lots of scholars' research, when we end up doing comedy that really picks up on the parts of climate change that have become unfortunately politicized and partisan

with a capital P, when you tell jokes that. for example, take a partisan cue like climate change deniers, for example. That's become, that's a very, very partisan cue. It registers to everyone who you're talking about. Where's the in-group? Where's the expert? And you're kind of calling them idiots in your joke. It might feel really good because who's still denying climate change. But it actually has a backfire effect. It's actually a boomering effect. So what that does is send people further into their ideological camps and make them kind of on even more strongly to where they began. So that can be part of the doom and gloom. As we know, where we are in the climate change movement more broadly is a lot of people now believe and

understand that climate change is real and that it is at least partially caused by humans. We know this from lots of public opinion data from Yale and Pew and lots of other places. But the issue is still one of efficacy. The idea that people still need to know what to do. We can know a lot about climate change, but that still might not inspire action. So back to the doom and optimism question, we know from some research about climate change and comedy that when we make people feel hopeful and efficacious and from a social norms perspective, the idea that people actually really care about this, we're much more likely to inspire people to do something than inspire them to just check out because

the issue is so impossible. So if we're just telling jokes, for example, about terrible earthquakes or fires or whatever, I don't even know how you make that funny, but someone can, all we're doing is really implying to people and outright saying there's actually nothing you can do about it. So just sit back and watch it. And that's not what any of us want when it comes to climate change. Well, how do you use comedy then to go in that opposite direction to instill hope in people? Well, one of the things that you can do is tell jokes that really, imply to people that there are social norms that are really at work here. So when we talk about something like electric vehicles, for example, you should incorporate something that is a positive

social norm like, hey, electric vehicles, they're so hot that I'm going to use, this, by the way, this is why I'm not a comedian. I'm about to riff on a joke that's terrible. It's not even a joke. But I'm going to get a hot date from my electric vehicle, whatever. There's a social norm there that's positive rather than like, I don't know where to plug this thing in and I'm never going to be able to make it work. It's very subtle, but we know from lots of social science that that's meaningful. Everybody go tell jokes about EVs. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. In case you're just joining us, we're talking about climate comedy. I have another joke from one of your stand-up, So let's hear that now.

There actually is hope. There's actually hope. I don't know if you know this a little few months ago, a little bit ago, the Biden administration signed this thing called the Inflation Reduction Act. It's the most, it's the most meaningful climate bill ever passed, like the biggest and most comprehensive ever passed in U.S. history. And it's called the Inflation Reduction Act. How good is that?

We've been trying to pass bills and then we just had the branding wrong. You know what I mean? I just love that we can't, like it has to be inflation reduction. Like you go and you go like, hey, should we save the earth? And Republicans are like, no. And then we go, should eggs cost less? And they're like, yes. That's an example of what you were talking about.

Also, Ira, should we point out that that legislation is also named after you? IRA. Sorry, sorry. I don't know. I hope that makes it into the cut. Yeah, shout out Ira. That's a great example where people don't know about the inflation reduction actually, right? So they do in some of the places.

But I think there's places where people don't know that that happens. So they go, oh, what has the government done for me, a Biden administration? What have they done? And obviously, I want them to do more and more and more. But I'm also like, hey, guys, there is a win we can celebrate. And let me bring it up in a silly, sassy way. But there is a win we can celebrate. Yeah.

That's interesting. Are there any topics where you think, oh, no, you can't joke about that? Or is it all fair game? I would say the short answer is, no, all topics are fair game. The long answer is it just depends if it's a good and thoughtful joke, right? Are you punching up? If you are making a joke and the butt of the joke is about whatever climate migrants, then that just is not a good joke.

I would say that that person just comedically is not. But comedy has forever taken on the most serious topics. You know, if we think climate change is dark, I mean, there's specials recently about divorce and death and racism and racism and everyism. And they do it brilliantly. Some people do it brilliantly. It's less of what topic they touch and more of how they approach it.

Katie, is the future of the climate movement, funnier, do you think? Yeah, look, I think that we should say that everything that we are doing is not entirely working. And so we might as well invite comedy in. There are a lot of really great pieces of evidence about how comedy works on us socially, culturally, psychologically to really get us to pay attention and pass along the message. And the comedy punching up is a really, really, really important part of this. Psychologically in groups, we feel bad when we laugh at someone's misfortune. There's a lot of exceptions to this, of course. So getting the laugh is really easier to do when you're punching up at institutions of power. And of course, that's what comedy has always

done well. So yes, I would say invite in the comedians. They're really good at getting people to think differently. Well, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today. Thank you. It was fun. Thank you, Ira. Esteban Gast is a comedian in residence at the Clean Energy Nonprofit Generation 180. And Dr. Katie Borum is Executive Director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University in Washington, D.C. One last thing before we go. Science Friday is heading to Chicago.

And if you live in or near the Windy City, join us for a live recording of your favorite nerdy show at the Studebaker Theater on Sunday, October 29th. We've got some great stories about behavioral science. So your behavior should be to go grab a ticket before they're gone at ScienceFriday.com slash Chicago. That's science Friday.com slash Chicago. And that's about all the time we have for this hour. Here are some of the folks who help make this show happen. Charles Berkwist is our director. John Dan Koski is our director of news and audio. Daniel Johnson is our executive director. B.J.L.L. and composed our theme music. I'm Ira Flato.