Something You Should Know - What Makes Things Funny & Really Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know About Water

Starting point is 00:00:00 The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready?

Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, how do spiders get into your house in the first place? And how do you stop them? Then, what makes something funny? Why do we love to laugh? And why are some people not funny at all? One thing that has surprised me is how difficult it is to get people to be funny.

Starting point is 00:00:51 Like try to create a funny advertisement, try to write a funny story, try to write a joke. Most people can't do it. Even like I study humor, but if you ask me to be funny, I'm going to fail. Also, when is the best time to exercise? Morning or evening? And water? Is there really a water crisis? And is bottled water better to drink? I've been involved in lots of bottled water taste tests with tap water. And frequently, mostly, people can't really tell the difference when there's a blind taste test. You know, it depends on where you are. But bottled water is

Starting point is 00:01:24 no safer than tap water in general. All this today on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests,

Starting point is 00:01:50 but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Starting point is 00:02:21 Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

Starting point is 00:02:48 And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. And we start today talking about spiders. Because sooner or later, your home, as with every other home, will have spiders in it. How do they get in? How do you get spiders in your house? Well, they come in on clothes, they come in on packages or in packages. They can also come through the windowsill, cracks in the doorway.

Starting point is 00:03:22 They find a way. Here are some ways to keep your home less inviting to spiders. First of all, remember that spiders like to hide and be left alone. So if you have piles of old clothes or other junk, that's heaven to a spider. Don't leave food out. Spiders like to hang around food, not because they eat it. You see, spiders eat other bugs that are attracted to food, so they hang out by the food and wait for their prey. Spiders love porch lights, again, because other bugs are attracted to porch lights. If you can keep the porch light off, all the better. Spiders love cardboard, and spiders hate furniture polish. The vacuum is a spider hater's best friend.

Starting point is 00:04:07 If you vacuum frequently, vacuum up webs and eggs and other spidery material, you'll have fewer spiders. And that is something you should know. I imagine that every day you laugh, at least a little, or you smile because you saw something or read something funny. Laughter, humor, funny, it's all part of life. But what purpose does this serve? Why do we laugh? What is it that makes something funny? Is laughter the best medicine?

Starting point is 00:04:43 Why do we seek it out? Why do we go to comedy shows, watch comedy movies? What does it all do? Well, as you might imagine, laughter is actually a serious area of study. And one of the people doing the research on this is Caleb Warren. He is an assistant professor at Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, former assistant professor at Texas A&M University, and lead author of a study called What Makes Things Funny? Which, if you'd like to read it, there's a link to it in the show notes. Hi, Caleb. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. Thanks so much for having me today.

Starting point is 00:05:20 Sure. So people obviously know what funny is because we all laugh all the time. We all like to laugh. I think we all like to laugh. But why do you study it? Why is this important to study? study is that humor, comedy, laughter are a reaction that we have often when something seems wrong or off, or there are cultural differences or miscommunications or misunderstanding, something is potentially wrong. And it would be really easy to get overwhelmed by all of these often minor or inconsequential, or sometimes really even more major bad things that are happening to us personally and in the world. And humor is one of the tools or at least one of the responses, a more adaptive and positive response that we can have to the either minor inconveniences or sometimes even more major problems that we encounter. So what is it that makes something funny? I mean, you just kind of alluded

Starting point is 00:06:25 to it, but people laugh at the oddest things. They laugh at things that are clearly meant to be funny, but they also laugh at things because they weren't meant to be funny. So what is it that makes funny? Yeah, this is one of the main questions I've been studying for over a decade now. And I want to begin with a wrong answer. And there was this whole website. I'm not sure if it still exists, but when I started called The Secret to Humor is Surprise. I think that fits with a lot of people's intuitions like, well, what makes something funny? It needs to be unexpected.

Starting point is 00:06:57 And that's just not the case. There are many instances of things that are unexpected that are not funny. Like if you were to get hit by a car or your loved one were to die. And then there are plenty of things that are expected that are funny. So the writers of South Park killed the same character in 77 of the first 78 episodes, and people presumably continued to find that funny. Comedians often do callbacks to earlier jokes. And in studies that have

Starting point is 00:07:25 systematically looked at this, when they had some people, they showed them standup routines of people like Phyllis Diller and Bill Cosby before we knew he was a monster. And they would have, they'd have one group of people say, all right, what do you think the comedian's going to say next after stopping the tape right before a joke and another group say how funny they thought the joke was when they heard it through and the more predictable the joke was the less surprising it was the funnier it was so this is sort of where i started looking at this question so that if humor is not about what's surprising then what is it And the answer we came to is that humor tends to occur when something appears to be wrong or off, but at the same time, you think it's okay. So we call these benign violations. Maybe one of the more universal examples of humor or laughter is tickling.

Starting point is 00:08:19 A tickle is sort of usually a light touch to a body part vulnerable from attack from someone you trust. A tickle is basically like an attack. There's a violation, but at the same time, it's benign. You know it's okay because it doesn't actually hurt and it's from someone you trust. Tickling doesn't lead to laughter. The same touch doesn't lead to laughter if you try to do it to yourself because there's no threat, there's no attack, there's no violation. Tickling also doesn't produce laughter if it's not someone you trust. If some creepy dude in the street comes up to you and tries to tickle you, probably you would not laugh. You'd probably run away in fear. So that's one example of more of a physical type of violation. But violations can be linguistic. So many puns, one used in humor studies, like when is a door not a door when it's ajar. So there's a logic violation. A door isn't

Starting point is 00:09:20 ajar like the object ajar, but there's a second meaning of a jar, which does apply to the door. So there's a linguistic violation mistake, but at the same time, it seems correct according to an alternative interpretation. Is there some sort of evolutionary benefit, do you know? I mean, doesn't it seem that humor kind of takes the edges off the day, that humor kind of brightens the day, that laughter is the best medicine, that there's some sort of therapeutic effect here that it's other than just, you know, it's not serious, so it must be funny. The evolutionary story behind humor and amusement and laughter and why they evolved, it's still debated. So one piece of evidence is you see laughter before you see language. Babies laugh before

Starting point is 00:10:12 they can speak. And laughter is also far more common when other people are around. So it suggests that some form of communication, that it might serve a communication function. And if it does, then what would you want to communicate that would be so important that it would be one of the first things to communicate? I mean, sort of crying, sort of help me, is one of the first things, at least with babies, happen. But laughter happens after and before words, so it's probably still something important. And if we look at when people laugh, a lot of times it's when there's something that seems like it's a threat, that it's wrong, but it's not. And my sense is laughter is a way to signal something that could be bad is actually okay. And this is useful in a number of situations. When you hear other people laughing,

Starting point is 00:11:02 you know, okay, there's no, you know, that wasn't actually a bear. It was actually just a funny, it was actually just a shadow. It can help people sort into different groups. If you appreciate the same type of humor, then you can know like, all right, they're more likely to be on my side. They're a better alliance partner, a better friend. So I think humor can have multiple adaptive benefits. But my belief is the most likely reason humor initially involved was as a way to communicate that something that seems like it could have been a problem is actually OK. So you can relax. I've always thought it was interesting how, as you just talked about, how you can watch something, say, at home on TV. And it's funny, but you don't laugh.

Starting point is 00:11:46 But if you're in a group watching that same thing, people seem much more likely to laugh because there are other people in the room. And I've always found that interesting and never really understood why. Yeah, that's absolutely the case. There is a researcher, I believe he's passed, but he did fantastic research on laughter. And he basically went out into, rather than studying jokes, which is what, you know, 95% of humor researchers do, he went out and with a microphone and like recorded when people actually laugh and he did diary studies or I don't know. He did a number of things to get where people were actually laughing rather than either where they said they laughed or looking in a lab where it's not a natural case for people to laugh. And by far the best predictor of whether someone's laughing is when they're with someone else.

Starting point is 00:12:38 And usually it's at these really mundane comments like, Hey, I'll see you later. Which kind of, I think suggests that laughter serves some sort of social function. Um, and even if you take some of the same things, like, like a joke from a standup routine, for example, that make a person laugh and you put it, you know, you might read it on your own in text when there's no one else around, you might think, oh, that's funny, but you're a lot less likely to laugh. So that that's repeating what you said. But I think the reason is that because humor serves these social functions, it helps show like, look, we don't need to worry here or look, we're on the same page.

Starting point is 00:13:19 We have the same understanding. We have the same goals. I'm friendly. I'm not threatened by you. So it has all these, I think, social signals. And what about that phrase, you know, laughter is the best medicine? I've always felt that laughter has some benefit, physiological benefit that you just don't get from anything else. I don't think laughter is the best medicine in most situations. Well, right. I mean, if you have heart disease, a few laughs isn't going to help you much. Yes. But there does seem, you know what I mean, though, that like when you have a really good laugh,

Starting point is 00:13:58 there's something that just feels good, even afterwards, that there's a lingering, the stressless, God god that was funny yes i think there's two caveats to this laughter is the best medicine um the first one is it really depends what you're trying to cure and so if we're talking i don't know if you just had a heart attack there are better cures to you know get someone's heart beating again. But caveat two is it depends on what you're laughing about. And so there are many different types of humor. When there's no victim in humor, when there's no target, when there's no butt of the joke, it's a lot more likely to benefit someone's health. The third caveat to this laughter is the best medicine. There is

Starting point is 00:14:46 incredibly strong evidence that as people cope with loss, as they get over, say, the loss of a loved one, they laugh more often. The evidence for the causal direction is less clear. So it could just be that humor is more like a thermometer, meaning like once you've already coped with something that's bad, you're able to laugh about it. Or it could be that laughing about something bad that's happened makes you feel better about it. It helps you cope with it. Most likely the effect goes in both directions, but it's unclear which is stronger. humor absolutely helps, even mental health, where I think the effects are strongest and most promising, is not airtight. We're talking about what makes things funny.

Starting point is 00:15:33 And my guest is Caleb Warren, assistant professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. And he is lead author of a study called What Makes Things Funny. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the

Starting point is 00:16:08 Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

Starting point is 00:16:49 and one I've started listening to, called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson,

Starting point is 00:17:16 discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So Caleb, when you think about the people you get along with, one of the things that bonds people to get them to get along is having a shared sense of humor. That, you know, if you just sit around and talk about war and disease, you know, it's hard to connect with somebody. But over something funny, it's easier to connect.

Starting point is 00:18:00 Absolutely. But even, you know, the war and the pandemic can be sources of humor after some distance time. So distance, psychological distance, which can come from time, reduces threat. So using the language I talked about earlier, it can make these threats or violations seem more benign. And that's why a lot of times when we're talking about, you know, war stories is sort of the genre name, people are often laughing about them. Like these terrible things that happen when you're recounting them years later, in part because the distance has helped cope. But to go back to another point you made, like, you know, when we're meeting with friends or people we connect with, there's, you know, we often laugh, we want to laugh. I think that's very true. And I think one reason humor is particularly effective, whether it's a sort of measure of that you've bonded or a tool for helping people bond, is it does signal you have

Starting point is 00:18:51 similar beliefs and similar values. So if what we laugh at is something that we see as wrong, but also we're okay with, it sort of gives you double information about what this person's beliefs and values are in the world and what they think is okay and what they don't think is okay. So it can help you sort into these groups of people who share the same values, beliefs and goals. Right. Because how many times have you been with someone who has said something that they think is funny and it's just not funny to you. It's, it's inappropriate or it's, it's too soon or something. And man, you, you just, it's like a punch in the face that I want to, I want nothing to do with this person.

Starting point is 00:19:36 Absolutely. I mean, you start hearing someone tell jokes that they think is funny. And I mean, like for me, they sound super racist or sexist. I'm like, Ooh, I don't know that I want to, ooh, I don't know that I want to, I don't know that I want to be friends with this person or at least I question their beliefs in this area. And humor, like one of the downsides of it is it often provides cover for that.

Starting point is 00:20:00 It can provide cover for really nasty behavior and someone can just say, oh, you know, I was joking. And maybe they were, but that is one of uh, like even the playground, playground bullies, like they'll keep down weaker, uh, weaker kids by, you know, by laughing at them, by making fun of them. And it sort of helps keep that social structure in place where the dominant class of people, um, can sort of, in some ways, socially oppress others and say, like, oh, it's not really oppression, it's just a joke. You know, we don't really mean it, but they do.

Starting point is 00:20:50 But there's also this, you can't say that culture that we live in today. People are so easily offended that it makes it hard to know, you know, what's funny, where's the line, and comedians complain that they're being silenced to some degree. A lot of comedians, even ones that I see as kind of benign, like Jerry Seinfeld, have been complaining like they won't perform on college campuses anymore because there's a lot of people who are not accepting this is just a joke. I think in many cases it's a very good thing, but it can also go too far. And who gets to decide where the line is is one of the problems. But comedians who are joking about things that they see as innocent or they're not punching down,

Starting point is 00:21:40 others will see as, oh, you're making fun of community, or that's not okay to hold that belief. And it's, it's really difficult to say, it's impossible to say where that line is, because everyone has a different, everyone has a different view of what's, what's okay, and what's not. And that often comes out with humor. If you're laughing at something, there's somewhere there where you you're signaling, like, that's okay with me. And if you're not, and the violations clear, as it is, if there's sort of a joke making fun of somebody, laughter signals a bit about your beliefs about what's okay and what's not for that reason. What is it about this topic that in your research, because you, you know, most people don't explore this as deeply or as seriously as you do,

Starting point is 00:22:22 that you found or that you find or that people ask you about that is so surprising? Anything? One thing that has surprised me is how difficult it is to get people to be funny. Like when you prompt them, like try to try to create a funny advertisement, try to write a funny story, try to write a joke. Most people can't do it. And there's and I mean I should have this is one where I could have internalized like even like I study humor but if you ask me to be funny I'm gonna fail comedians spend years honing their crafts and it's not like athletes where they peak in their young 20s or mid-20s like most comedians peak much later because it takes so much longer to both learn the skills, but even learn the material. Most comedians, they have sort of an empirical approach to building their sets.

Starting point is 00:23:13 Like they try something out and if people laugh, they keep going with it. And if they don't, they scrap it and come up with a new idea. So I guess one of the surprising findings to me is that there's this idea that if we can create more laughter and comedy and amusement in the world, the world will be a better place. And I don't disagree with that, but I think it's very hard to do. And it takes a lot more than just encouraging people to be funnier. And one of the places where I think this idea is most dangerous is the workplace. So there's consultants and some scholars peddling this idea like, oh, we need to encourage people to use more humor, more comedy in the workplace. I'm very skeptical of this idea.

Starting point is 00:23:51 Although workplaces where people laugh tend to be happier and workers and managers because encouraging people to try to be funny, if they're not already funny, is more likely to fail. And when people try to be funny but aren't, there can be huge consequences. My go-to example is a woman named Justine Sacco who wrote this tweet trying to be funny about before she got on a plane to Africa. And by the time she landed, the tweet had blown up. Going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white, was the tweet. And it was her attempt at a joke. And we don't know how many people found it funny.

Starting point is 00:24:38 But even if it was only like 10% who didn't find it funny, they blew up Twitter. And people were like, this is so racist. You know, how could you say such things? And she was fired from her job by the time she landed. And this sort of thing, I think happens fairly regularly. Even if half of the people appreciate your joke, half might be offended. And the costs of trying to be funny and failing are huge. And it's really difficult to try to be funny. And even the people who are funny, who are successful in the workplace, it's probably not because they're trying to be funny more. It's probably because they have higher intelligence, higher creativity, a better understanding of the

Starting point is 00:25:12 culture. They have these other skills that in addition to making them be funny are also making them good managers or not good managers because they're funny. One thing I'd like quickly to have you talk about is humor in advertising, because it's used a lot. And we hear stories that it fails a lot. It may be funny, but it didn't really sell the product. So can you talk about that? There are all sorts of caveats. One, people laugh at the funny thing, but they're less likely to pay attention to everything else in the same environment. So if you have an ad where you're like, you do a joke and then say, oh, by the way, buy my product, people will remember the joke. They won't remember your product. That's problem one. Problem two is most attempts to be funny fail. Now advertisers will hire agencies who are very good at creating humor. But even then,

Starting point is 00:26:01 a lot of them, even if they're funny to some of the audience, it's likely to upset other people because in order to create humor, you need this violation. And not everyone's going to see it as benign or funny. And when that happens, and even when people think it's funny, they can dislike the brand or the advertiser as a result. So in one of our studies, Volkswagen has these very dated old ads where they show this crunched car and everyone's okay. And the message is it's, you know, it's a safe car, but the way they deliver it is they say sooner or later, even your wife's going to drive this home. The implication is drawing on this sexist stereotype that women can't drive. And presumably men found that funny. And we did an

Starting point is 00:26:41 updated version of this only with men as an audience. And men do think it's funny. And they look at the ad and they find it funny, but they're less likely to like the brand that uses this sort of sexist advertising, even when they think the sexist advertising is funny. And I think this is also true socially. If you're using sort of put-down or aggressive humor or even self-defeating humor, people might be laughing, but they're not going to like you anymore. And it's also true in advertising. Well, I don't think I've ever taken such a serious look at something so light as humor, but it's fun to do it. Caleb Warren has been my guest. He's an assistant professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. And he's the lead author of a study called What Makes Things Funny. And in the show notes for this episode, there's a link to that study. Thanks for being here, Caleb. This was fun. Thanks so much for having me on and for taking this topic seriously.

Starting point is 00:27:36 Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows.

Starting point is 00:28:15 In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. What is one thing that you desperately rely on every day, several times throughout the day,

Starting point is 00:28:56 and yet you totally take it for granted? Water. Without water, there's no life. There's no you. There's no me. There's no nothing. And yet, as important as water is, there's a lot about it you may not know. Here to explain is Peter Gleick. He is co-founder and president emeritus and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and security in Oakland, California. And he's author of a book called The Three Ages of Water, Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. Hi, Peter. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me. Certainly today, people are aware of how important water is, how important it is that we have access to clean water.

Starting point is 00:29:41 But at what point in history, going back, did people say, you know, we got to really pay attention to this water thing because without it, we're screwed. So when did people start to go, yeah, we need to keep our eye on this? So that goes back almost to the beginning of humanity, that the evolution of Homo sapiens depended on water. We had to find water where we could, and we had to figure out how to survive during dry periods and thrive during wet periods. And water really helped define even when Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa. And so I think really early civilizations knew how important water was. And you know, you can see that in the ancient legends and ancient stories of the time. And you can see

Starting point is 00:30:30 it in the ancient religions that talk about the about water and the gods, how the gods manipulated water for humanity. Well, and obviously, people figured out and if you look at a map, you'll see people are where the water is. I mean, that's kind of that that's yeah that's exactly right the earliest empires the earliest civilizations really formed where the big rivers were the rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates and Mesopotamia the places where there was reliable water were the places where the earliest empires formed and so we have as much water as we have, and it more or less seems to be working. So why, what's the concern? I mean, we understand that we pollute water,

Starting point is 00:31:15 so we got to fix that. But what's the concern here? You can't really run out of water, can you? Yeah, no, that's exactly right. We'll never run out of water. Water is a renewable resource. The planet has as much water today as it had billions of years ago when Earth was really formed. The challenges associated with water today, what I would describe as the water crisis, part of it is that we have massively growing human populations. There are 8 billion people on the planet today and no more water than there was when populations. There are 8 billion people on the planet today and no more water than there was when there were just a few million people on the planet

Starting point is 00:31:50 or even fewer. We contaminate our water resources. We're destroying the ecological health of our aquatic ecosystems. We're beginning to fight over access and control of water resources. As you mentioned, we're contaminating much of the water that we have with human wastes or industrial wastes. And now, of course, we're actually literally changing the very climate.

Starting point is 00:32:14 And as we change the climate, we're changing the demand for water with rising temperatures. We're changing when and where we get water with changing precipitation patterns. We're changing the intensity of extreme events like floods and droughts. All of those are pieces of what I would describe as the water crisis today. What about this whole topic of water? Do you think that people don't get or they have a misunderstanding or a misconception about, if anything? You know, though, it depends on where you are and who you are. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to grow up in a rich, developed country

Starting point is 00:32:51 mostly take water for granted. You know, we get up in the morning, we turn on our taps, we take showers, we wash our clothes and dishes, we make our tea or coffee, and we take for granted the fact that incredibly pure and incredibly cheap water comes out of our taps. But that's not the case for much of the world. There are billions of people worldwide today that don't have access to safe water and sanitation. I don't also think we are fully aware of the ecological and environmental consequences of our water policies, of the fact that we take a tremendous amount of water out of natural ecosystems, and those

Starting point is 00:33:30 ecosystems are beginning to suffer. We're drying up wetlands. We're drying up our rivers. We're wiping out aquatic species at an incredibly disturbing rate. And a lot of that is hidden to us. We don't see it in our day-to-day lives or our day-to-day actions. These sound like big issues, like big policy, government policy issues, much more than they are issues that I can do anything about or I can really have any kind of significant effect.

Starting point is 00:34:02 They are big issues. You know, who their problems for depends sort of on who you are. You know, if you care about water resources, and people do care about water resources tremendously, as the polls consistently show, ultimately they can be our water problems. They may not be our water problems right now if, again, you can turn on your tap and great water comes out. But again, that's not always true for everyone. As we've seen, for example, with the water disaster in Flint, Michigan, where a very

Starting point is 00:34:35 well-developed urban water system collapsed because of mismanagement, because of lack of adequate investment. We've seen this in Mississippi in recent months, when all of a sudden the water that you took for granted, you can't take for granted any longer. Or it becomes an issue when extreme events like floods and droughts affect how much water you get or affect the flooding that all of a sudden destroys your neighborhood or destroys your water system or destroys your community. So, you know, we take water for granted until all of a sudden we can't.

Starting point is 00:35:10 And that's increasingly a challenge around the world where more and more of these water problems are becoming more and more urgent to deal with. I know living in Southern California, I know that people are tired, in many ways, of hearing all the cry wolf stories about water. That we're going to run out of water. That we don't have enough water. That you've got to cut back on water. We're in a drought. But the rain comes. The drought's over. Everything's okay. The amount of water I use is nothing compared to what, you know, we hear almond farmers use in California. That's the problem. It's not my water use. And people get real tired of hearing this over and over and over again. It's certainly true in a place like

Starting point is 00:36:01 California where we have so many different water challenges that addressing them often leads to burnout. People do hear about this over and over again, in part because California has been hit by a succession of incredibly severe droughts. We had the worst five-year drought on record from 2012 to 2016. That was followed by the wettest year on record in California in 2017, which was then followed by three more years of intense drought that, again, just ended this year with an incredibly wet year. We have to learn how to manage these extreme events. And some people might get tired of hearing about it. But the reality is when we do hear about it, people do step up. People in Southern California have done a good job of improving their water use efficiency, of cutting their water use during droughts. There's a lot that we still need to do.

Starting point is 00:36:59 And simply saying that we get tired of hearing about this really sort of ignores the fact that these are problems that we still have to deal with, that we're going to have to deal with, and that we do deal with when there's a crisis, when we get the information about what we need to do. You know, these aren't fake problems. They're real problems. And, you know, you might be tired about hearing about it. But the truth is, it's not that I get tired of hearing about it so much as I get tired of the threats that if we don't do this by this date, the world will end. Your tap will run dry and it never does. It never does. Well, certainly if there are exaggerations of the problem, that's not helpful. We have solutions to our water problems.

Starting point is 00:37:44 We can move to a more sustainable future. We see all around us successful examples of farmers growing more food with less water, of water districts and individuals who are using water more efficiently, in part because of the information that we get during these crises. You know, we see Southern California moving toward

Starting point is 00:38:03 recycling and reusing more of their high quality waste water rather than treating that water and throwing it away southern california has its first big desalination plant and it's a very expensive plant and it has environmental challenges but that's also a solution that doesn't require that we take more water out of our natural ecosystems i wanted to because I know you wrote a book about bottled water, and I wanted to ask you, like, what, there is an obsession with bottled water. People love bottled water. I like bottled water. I mean, there's something about bottled water that seems to appeal to people. Yeah, people, people do like bottled water. They like it for the convenience. They think they like it for the taste in places where they're concerned about the taste of their tap water. But they've also been

Starting point is 00:38:49 fed years and years of arguments about fear, to fear their tap water, to fear what's in the tap water, mostly by companies that want to make a profit by selling bottled water. The majority of bottled water is just reprocessed tap water. They reprocess it, they re-bottle it, and they sell it for thousands of times more than the cost of our tap water. And I think that's partly a reflection on the ability of marketing and advertising. It's partly a reflection on some of our tap water doesn't taste very good or people don't like it. But it's partly a reflection on the fact that we're not investing in our tap water system the way we did 100 years ago when we built a wonderful tap water system. And in many parts of the United States, we've let that system deteriorate.

Starting point is 00:39:34 Why? Why has that happened? Oh, it's happened in part because we're reluctant to spend money on infrastructure. You know, we spent a lot of money building a tap water system, but we're not investing in maintaining it and upgrading it because water utilities don't, you know, they'd rather not spend the money. When you say that a lot of the bottled water is just reprocessed tap water, but it's the reprocessing of it that I think appeals to people is that you're taking stuff out. Maybe you're making it taste better.

Starting point is 00:40:07 That's not insignificant. Yeah. So that's the argument of the companies. You know, we've I've been involved in lots of bottled water taste tests with tap water. And often, frequently, mostly people can't really tell the difference when there's a blind taste test. You know, it depends on where you are. But the bottled water is no safer than tap water in general. Again, in the book that I wrote about bottled water, I talk about all sorts of problems with the quality of bottled water.

Starting point is 00:40:38 Bottled water recalls, bottled water contamination. You know, there's no guarantee that bottled water is any safer than tap water. But that, you know, that's a myth that's pushed by the bottled water companies that, again, make a lot of money selling their product. Well, and a lot of people, even if they have tap water and drink it, put it through a filter at their home that they, you know, filter they buy at the store that supposedly makes their water taste better and filters out gunk. Yeah, supposedly. Sometimes it improves the taste of the water.

Starting point is 00:41:11 Sometimes it filters out things that aren't actually in the tap water. You know, they make claims for, you know, this filter will filter out this contaminant or that contaminant. But people don't really know if those contaminants are in their water. And municipal water systems are tested daily. The water quality standards under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act are very strict. And sometimes they're tap water problems, and we hear about them right away because that's the legal requirement. But we don't hear about the problems with bottled water quality because the requirements for testing and for reporting aren't the same.

Starting point is 00:41:51 Is water water? Is all water pretty much water and some of it has a little of this and a little of that and maybe it smells different or tastes different, but there's nothing special about any particular kind of water or from any particular place. Yeah, water is water. I mean, it's obviously H2O, two molecules of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. But what's special about water is water absorbs minerals wherever it is. So pure water without any minerals, you can't drink. That's distilled water.

Starting point is 00:42:20 And it's actually bad for you if you drink it, because distilled water has no minerals. It tastes terrible, but worse, it actually leaches minerals from your body. So all the mineral, all the water that we drink, water and tap water, even water and bottled water has minerals in it of different kinds, small amounts of salt, small amounts of different kinds of minerals. And the different levels of minerals determine the taste of the water. I never knew that, not that I drink distilled water, but I have distilled water in my house and I never knew that drinking it could be harmful. Why do you have distilled water in your house? For my iron. Yeah. Okay. So that's a good example. Distilled water is appropriate for

Starting point is 00:43:03 your iron because you don't want those minerals to come out on your clothes. And distilled water is very good to clean your contact lenses, for example. They recommend that because it has no minerals in it. But it's absolutely not to be drunk. Address this issue that I think a lot of people who are told that, you know, you have to conserve water and take shorter showers. The real issue, the real use, heavy use of water is agriculture. It's not residential use. Yes, that's absolutely true. 80% of the water that we use in California goes to the agricultural

Starting point is 00:43:37 sector. And interestingly enough, it's about the same worldwide. About 80% of the water that's used by humans goes to grow food. And about 20% is industrial, commercial, and residential water use. I would make the point that if we can use water more efficiently in our homes with smarter washing machines and better toilets, that lets us do the things we want, but use less water. And that saves us money. It saves us energy. It saves water. And the trend has been in that direction. You know, urban water use in California has been going down for the last several decades. This is something you may not know and your listeners may not may not appreciate. in urban California is less today than it was 40 years ago, even though our economy has grown and our population has grown. And this is true in the United States as well,

Starting point is 00:44:29 because we become more efficient in our water use. We're doing what we want with less water. The idea of taking a shorter shower because there's a drought emergency, that's sort of a temporary behavioral thing that we're asked to do when there's a severe drought. But that's a little different. That's conservation rather than efficiency. Efficiency is doing what we want with

Starting point is 00:44:49 less water. Conservation is cutting back our water use in an emergency. Well, it's interesting that you said, you just said that, you know, that water use in urban areas in California has dropped and that I may not have heard about that. And I may not have, and I hadn't heard about that, but I've, I always hear about how we use too much water. I always hear the gloom and doom. I never hear the good news.

Starting point is 00:45:16 I never hear because no one's telling people it's always cut back. You've got to cut back. You're using too much. You're using too much. Well, that's some good news. You just, you cut back. You're using too much. You're using too much. Well, that's some good news you just shared that I'd never heard before. There are all of these successful things going on out there in bits and pieces, and that we could do much more of them. And if we were smarter about our water policies and our

Starting point is 00:45:38 water use and our water technology and our economics, we could really solve our water problems. Despite all the improvements that we've made, I think what you sometimes hear during a severe drought is that there's still things that we could do better. It would seem that one way to solve all the water problems would be to desalinate water from the ocean. And yet we always hear, well, that's very expensive. Why is it so expensive? And why can't somebody figure out how to do it cheaper and then we wouldn't have to worry I do hear that

Starting point is 00:46:10 all the time we do know how to desalinate desalination is a pretty well understood technology and there have been great improvements in recent years and it's a lot cheaper now than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago it's still more expensive in most places compared to smarter conservation and efficiency, better toilets and washing machines, better irrigation systems that permit us to grow more food with less water.

Starting point is 00:46:35 Those things are still cheaper than desalination. And the reason is, there are two reasons. One is the technology is just expensive. It's infrastructure, it's expensive reverse osmosis membranes that have to be replaced and cost a lot in the first place. And it takes a lot of energy. Even with the improvements in recent years, it takes a lot of energy to take salt out of water. And so for those reasons, it's still more expensive than the alternatives. And the places where desalination has really gotten a foothold, the Middle East, Israel, Singapore are places where a lot of energy and effort has gone into conservation and efficiency already. Well, I would imagine too that you not only have to get the salt out of the water, you then have to get the water where you need it to go.

Starting point is 00:47:23 Oh, excellent point. That's right. It's not just the cost of desalinating it, but it's a cost of, exactly as you've just pointed out, getting the water where you need it. Now, in urban areas on the coast, that's relatively easy. We have our water systems, we can build pipelines that aren't very long that then inject that water into our water systems. But it's another reason why water is never, desalinated water is never really going to be cost effective for agriculture because first of all, you'd have to move it very far. But second of all, farmers pay far, far less for water than we do for the high quality water that comes out of our taps. Why? Why do they pay less? Well, they pay less in part because

Starting point is 00:48:06 they're not using high quality potable water, but they also pay less in a place like California because of the way we've built our water rights system. Well, most of us use a lot of water every day and we don't really consider and think about all the things that we've been talking about here for the last 20 minutes, all the ramifications and implications of our water use and what it'll mean for the future. And so it's really interesting to hear your insight. I've been talking with Peter Gleick, and the name of his book is The Three Ages of Water, Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. And there's a link to that book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:48:43 Thanks for being a guest here today, Peter. Okay, Take care. When is the best time of day to exercise morning or evening? Well, studies show that if it's cardio you're doing, it doesn't really matter much in terms of performance or results or anything else you can measure. Time of day does matter for strength, flexibility, and power training. Later in the day, your body temperature is warmer and you perceive exercise to be easier, especially when it comes to really hard weightlifting. But unless you're doing that, the time of day doesn't make all that much difference. It's more important to do it at a time of day where you're actually going to do it. What does seem to be true is that people who work out in the morning

Starting point is 00:49:29 are more likely to stick with an exercise program. Why? Well, a lot of it just has to do with preference. But think about it. If you do your exercise first thing in the morning before you do much of anything else you're more likely to get it done before the day gets the better of you. And that is something you should know. We've come to the end of this episode, and usually around this time I like to ask a favor, and that is to help spread the word about this podcast. Tell somebody you know about it and help us grow our audience. It's the best way to support the show. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today

Starting point is 00:50:05 to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

Starting point is 00:50:36 The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce.

Starting point is 00:51:10 That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - What Makes Things Funny & Really Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know About Water

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.