StarTalk Radio - Extended Classic: Cosmic Queries: Human Impact on Earth with Dr. FunkySpoon

Episode Date: May 13, 2016

Planetary scientist Dr. David Grinspoon answers questions about the human impact on Earth during the Anthropocene Era. Now updated with 13 minutes of Dr. FunkySpoon and Chuck Nice discussing why we must evolve from Homo Sapiens into Terra Sapiens. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. My name is David Grinspoon. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. My name is David Grinspoon. I'm an astrobiologist and a planetary scientist. And I'm here with my co-host, Chuck Nice.

Hey, Dave, how are you? I'm fine. How are you doing, Chuck? Great, man. So I'm happy to see you. And I'm also curious as to where Mr. Tyson, Dr. Tyson is. Oh, I'm busted. Now people know I'm not Neil Tyson. I am sitting in for Neil Tyson, who's off filming Cosmos somewhere, right? Yeah, literally he has left the galaxy. So Neil's off doing the Cosmos as he is wont to do, and we're left here to carry on without him as best we can. And so we will be today doing cosmic queries. Answering your questions. And what's the topic today?

Okay. So today, of course, we call all of our resources and Facebook and Twitter and all of the various outlets where we appear on the internet. And today we have questions about human impact on our very own planet, Earth. Oh, yeah. Earth is a planet, and therefore it's part of space, and so it belongs in StarTalk, right? It certainly does, you know, and there's a lot of things in space that have a big effect on Earth, you know? And so what we have done is we've got all these questions here. You have not seen them. I've not seen the questions.

And I understand that even though you are an astrobiologist, that this is also something that you are a subject expert. Would that be? Well, it's something I've been studying a lot recently. I mean, as a planetary scientist, I've always been interested in Earth. That's a lot of what we learn when we study planetary science is how to think about planets.

So you learn about volcanism, earthquakes, all the things that make Earth tick, the climate and so forth. But we usually apply them to other planets. But what I've been doing recently is saying, well, let's take the techniques of planetary science and think about Earth as a planet and even think about humanity and the human impact as an event on the planet.

What are humans doing to the planet? And if we're thinking as planetary scientists, how would that look, the way humans doing to the planet? And if we're thinking as planetary scientists, how would that look, the way humans are changing the planet? So that is what I've been working on recently. And I think it's definitely a topic for space science. How does that space perspective influence the way we look back at our own planet? And what can we learn about our planet from that space perspective? I'm going to say that what we can learn is that we as human beings suck when it comes... I got a feeling Earth looks at us like we suck. I'm just sorry. That's pretty much how I feel. Well, we've got a lot to answer for. I mean,

we've really been... we've become a major geological force on this planet. And some of what we're doing is a little bit more... like you compare us to things in the past, and you look at the asteroid that came and wiped out 90% of the species. And right now, we're that asteroid, you know. We're causing a mass extinction. We're changing the climate in radical ways. And it's not like we planned to do this. Nobody said, hey, this is a good idea. We're just sort of stumbling into this role. So now a lot of people are saying, well, let's look at this role and figure out, you know, what do we want to be on this planet? So I think we're in this moment of realization of what our role is. Let's hope.

I think you're a bit more optimistic than perhaps I am. I'm a bit more of a cynic, but let's see what our listeners have to say in the form of the questions that they have for you. Our first one is from Kaylin Bugbee. What a great name. From Huntsville, Alabama. We're talking about human impacts on Earth in one of my classes. We have been debating which human activity will lead to the collapse of society as we know it.

We have discussed energy consumption, overpopulation, destruction by technology vis-a-vis robots, destruction by nuclear terrorism, pandemics, and finally water pollution. If you could pick one destructive human force, which one would it be? What a happy question! Wow, we got quite the menu there. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you for that question. I mean, it's a good question, and I would have to say your

question does presuppose a certain pessimism, like which one is going to destroy us? It doesn't leave us the option that maybe none of them will. Nonetheless, the first thing I would say is those are all conflated, because it's what we call a wicked problem, where you can't really separate things out. Population is ultimately related to all those things. Correct. If we weren't pushing 9 billion people come mid-century, then almost none of those other problems of the human footprint would be as big a deal. Not to mention travel, because she says like pandemics, which honestly, that wouldn't happen if we weren't traveling all around to and fro the way we do. Yeah, I mean, those are all related problems.

I would say, you know, out of all of those, the most immediate one is you got to go to climate change because that is one that we know is happening now. It's accelerating and we don't have a clear path to solve it. We have some good ideas and a lot of good intentions. And I don't see that as hopeless. But out of all those other ones, like robots taking over, maybe that could be scary in the future. Right now, it's not the thing that keeps me up at night. So we don't have to fear cyberdyne systems quite yet, huh?

Not quite yet. I mean, I think it's smart to be aware that our world will change rapidly as computers get smarter, and some of those changes might not be completely to our liking. It's good to have that on our radar. But let's face it, climate change is happening right now. We don't all agree completely about the extent of it, but most scientifically literate people now recognize that it is happening and that there is a large degree of implication of humans and that if we're not going to be the stupid species that soils its nest and dies, or at least destroys its civilization, then we ought to really be applying our intellect to dealing with that now.

Well, there you go, Kalen. There's your answer. One, don't poop where you eat. And two, There's your answer. One, don't poop where you eat. And two, we're looking forward to terroristic, nuclear terroristic robots that cause climate change. That is the biggest fear that we should have. No, that's great. Okay, climate change. That makes a lot of sense.

All right, let's move on. So the next one from Tommy Mains from St. Charles, Missouri. I'm reading Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants. One hypothesis in the book is that technology was inevitable from the point of the Big Bang. Do you find this to be true? If so, can we now harness technology to heal our environment? So did the Big Bang create technology? And how do we heal our environment? Well, the laws of nature were set in motion with the Big Bang.

And those laws seem to be conducive to the evolution of life on some planets. And I think on some of those planets, that complex life will lead to technology. So in a certain sense, technology was ordained by the Big Bang, not exactly on this planet. So kind of roundabout, in a roundabout way. Yeah, the capacity for technology. And yes, I think technology can be used to heal the problems we have. Not technology alone, a lot of it's going to come through self-knowledge and us being able to manage ourselves more wisely, but that knowledge of self has to go hand in hand with knowledge of nature and knowledge of how to manipulate nature, which is technology. So technology, yes, it was ordained in the Big Bang, and yes, it will be part of the solution.

Yes, our savior, technology ordained in the Big Bang, and yes, it will be part of the solution. Yes, our savior, technology. Thank you, Big Bang. All right, well, we've got to take a break now. More StarTalk Radio. I'm David Grinspoon. I'm an astrobiologist sitting in here for Neil Tyson with my co-host, Chuck Nice. Hey. And we're talking about the human impact on earth and its space dimensions

here so um let's see what do we got for another question we got some more questions coming your way let me just uh reiterate that uh you have not seen these questions you're just answering them uh as if the person were here as if we were all the annoying guy at the bar, you know? I've met that guy before. Yeah. Oh, my God, you're an astrobiologist. Okay, how do I power the planet with poop? All right, you got to buy me a drink first, and then maybe we'll get to that. All right, here we go.

This is from Saba Nagy from Budapest. Do you agree with George Carlin that we exist because Earth wanted plastic but didn't know how to make it? It's a pretty funny joke, actually. Just imagine looking at the Earth with a microscope and seeing all this mold, us humans, growing, living, spreading as a byproduct, making plastic. Clearly, she despises humanity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now the real question here. It's a good question, yeah.

Yeah, the real question here is because she's making a joke, but So now the real question here. It's a good question, yeah. Yeah, the real question here is because she's making a joke, but here's the real question here. Would we be considered kind of a virus, a bit of a scourge on the face of the earth? And the second, I'm going to make an addendum to her question coming from me personally. Do we belong here? Because it kind of seems like we don't.

It seems like the only people that aren't in sync with what's going on on Earth is us. So are we a virus? And do we belong here? Those are great questions. Thank you, Saba. And Chuck. Yeah, and thank you, Chuck. I want to stand up for the human race here a little bit, though.

I mean, it's like, sure, it's obvious in some ways we're like a virus. You look at the pattern of our growth, and you look at a virus in an organism, and it just reproduces to the point where it makes its host ill or kills its host. But, of course, a successful virus doesn't kill off its host, right? Of course, a successful virus doesn't kill off its host, right? And a successful species may get to a certain point of over-reproduction and then have some self-preservation instinct and decide not to kill off its host. And, you know, if you look at the long history of life on Earth, we're not the first species to come along and sort of screw up the planet. There have been catastrophes that have come along before that have been caused by species of life. The cyanobacteria 2.2 billion years ago evolved photosynthesis, and they thought, oh, here's a great energy source, sunlight. This is wonderful.

And they started polluting the air with oxygen, which caused a catastrophe and wiped out most of the species that were alive then. So, interestingly, we're not the first species to come along in the quest for an energy source and screw up the planet. we're not the first species to come along in the quest for an energy source and screw up the planet. That's not to get us completely off the hook, because we do have supposedly intelligence and foresight and consciousness. But it's to say, okay, this, you know, life interacts with the planet in complex ways. And it's our turn right now, and we're interacting with the planet in this way that so far has been this sort of exponential growth and this exponential perturbation. And yeah, if we don't change some of our patterns, then we will be like that virus and just destroy our own civilization. And that would be too bad. But we're having this conversation.

We're becoming aware of our role on the earth. And so I actually think that that makes us different from the cyanobacteria. role on the earth. And so I actually think that that makes us different from the cyanobacteria, and maybe we'll get to the point where we have enough of that conversation and we can start to actually sort of self-consciously alter our role. That's my wish, and actually that's my expectation. I think we've got a lot of learning to do, but we are a species that alters our world and learns and changes our behavior. And I'm actually optimistic about the human experience on Earth. And I can see why people think we are like a virus. We have been like a virus.

But most viruses don't talk about the fact that they're like viruses. True. And we do. We're talking. We're a self-aware virus. Yeah, exactly. So it makes us a little different. A little different.

So there you go. There's your answer. Human beings, a little bit better than the cyanobacteria. So that's great. Slightly better. Slightly, just slightly better. A little bit better than slime. That's it. Just a little bit better than slime. Smart slime. That's our new motto. We're slime, but we're smart. There you go. All right. Let's move on to Rob Wilkinson. And Rob is from Jacksonville, Florida. With pollution problems such as the Pacific Garbage Patch, how viable is using the magma of subduction zones to break down garbage, especially plastic, to reduce the number of landfills? This guy's thought about this question just a little bit.

What's his theory? Wow. Does it hold water? That's pretty wild. I mean, first of all, yeah, Pacific Garbage Patch, there's a big zone of garbage, of plastic that has been found in the Pacific. It's kind of scary because it's this huge zone, you know, hundreds of miles across that's all of our stuff that's sort of collecting there in the Pacific and slowly breaking down. So it's, you. So it's big. The human impact on Earth is not subtle any longer.

Now, specifically this notion of using the magma in subduction zones, for those of you that don't know, a subduction zone is a place where Earth has plate tectonics. The plates, the crust, the solid part of our Earth is split into these 13 or so plates that are sliding around and crashing into each other. And some of them are crumpling up into mountains and other ones are getting pushed underneath. And the places where they get pushed underneath deep into the earth are subduction zones. And that is a place where material gets taken down into the earth and broken down into its constituent, you know, elements or at least small molecules. And so if you could take all the plastic and put it in the right place, yeah, that would get rid of it for sure and break it down. I don't know how feasible it is. I'd like to, like the Beatles said, I'd like to see your plan, you know, but I wouldn't rule it out.

I mean, that's the kind of creative thinking that we need you know how do you really get rid of plastic sure put it on a sub in a subduction zone and send it to the mantle of the earth i'm all for it if i could see the details uh i wouldn't wouldn't rule it out i would i would you know before i invested in this i'd need to see see a little more uh a little more of the uh but in theory he's got a pretty decent plan there so yeah i mean there's nothing that there's nothing that sounds wacky about it to me it A little more of the details. But in theory, he's got a pretty decent plan there. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that sounds wacky about it to me. It sounds, you know, like, and maybe there is a well-developed plan for this that I just don't know.

Give our trash to the Morlocks. It's their problem now. Really? There you go. They might even like it. Okay. Here, let's move on to Yusef Vetmark Esparza. What a great name, huh? Regarding these recent earthquakes in Texas, are they really attributed to places in the country where we have seen seismic activity where we otherwise have not, and there is also fracking. Of course, the people who frack say there's no connection. No, no, there is a connection.

It's pretty well known, and it's understood physically how it works. When you pump large amounts of water underground, you loosen up some of those faults, and they move, and you get earthquakes. Fortunately, the earthquakes you get from this tend to be shallow and rather small. And there's even the argument that that's good because they're relieving tension on the faults, which otherwise would build up and eventually result in a larger earthquake. So there have been fracking-related earthquakes. There haven't been like massive catastrophic ones. It does speak to the fact that there are unintended consequences when we start doing these major

engineering projects and like altering the earth in intense ways in our greater and greater effort to extract those last bits of fossil fuels from the earth in intense ways in our greater and greater effort to extract those last bits of fossil fuels from the earth. And, you know, there are different opinions about fracking. It's giving us fuel at a time that we need to reduce our foreign dependence on oil. It's making America great. Well, natural gas is better than coal, but in the long run, it's only at best an interim solution because we've got to move our energy supply away from fossil fuels. I mean, we have to, whether we're worried about climate change or not, because they're going to run out.

And if we go to extreme lengths to get those last little few percent remains of fossil fuels, we could do a lot of damage. You know, the tar sands and tabletop, mountaintop mining. There's a lot of like really horrible things you could do to get that last bit of fossil fuels. Maybe fracking goes into that, maybe not. I think there's ways to do it safer and there's a lot of danger to the water supply and so forth. So I have mixed feelings about fracking, but the earthquakes are real and they do speak to the fact that we're not smart enough to anticipate all the unintended consequences, and ultimately, we know we got to go beyond fossil fuels. So we really ought to be putting our creativity and our ingenuity into those new energy supplies that we're going to

need no matter how much fracking we do. So the answer is, without a doubt, these earthquakes are real. Oh, yeah. And we pretty much need to stop fracking. Yeah, in the long run. In the long run. Absolutely. Okay. And you do realize that's never going to happen. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. A lot of money we're talking about. Well, eventually it's got to happen because we're going to run out of all that stuff. You know what? Now, that's the day I'm looking. A lot of money we're talking about here. Well, eventually it's got to happen because we're going to run out of all that stuff. You know what? Now, that's the day I'm looking forward to. You know, the day we get off of fossil fuels is the day where there are no more fossil fuels.

That's kind of sad. That's one way to look at it. But one way or another, you know, a thousand years from now, probably a hundred years from now, we're not going to be using fossil fuels. There you go. All right. Well, let's take a break and we'll come back in a little bit, and we'll have some more StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio.'m david grinspoon i'm guest hosting sitting in for neil tyson and i'm here with uh with chuck nice that's right host and um let's uh let's do a

little uh self-promotion here chuck what's what's your uh twitter handle for the folks my thank you david that was so kind of you. You can find me at ChuckNiceComic on Twitter. So if you'd like to follow me, I'm more than happy to have you. That's so interesting. You know, I've got a Twitter handle, too. And what would that be? That would be DrFunkySpoon, at DrFunkySpoon.

That is awesome. Yeah. DrFunkySpoon. I love it. Yeah, yeah, thanks. And my website is funkyscience.net. Funkyscience.net. And the StarTalk website is startalkradio.net. That's correct.

So you can find all kinds of more cool stuff at that address. Anyways, let's get back to doom and destruction. And it seems like we've been on this riff of, you know, everything about the human impact on Earth isn't like negative and destruction and terror and doomsday. But it seems like that's what people associate with the topic. That's true. Yeah, it's understandable why. It is.

Only because, you know, you really don't see lemurs screwing up the environment. So, you know, we we got to own that. Given enough time, the lemurs would evolve to the point where, you know, they would be causing horrible industrial damage too, I'm sure. Daggone those lemurs. Eight million years from now, you just watch what they do to the planet. Exactly. You love your lemurs so much. All right, here we go. Let's go to Libby Powell Crowe, who said,

The solution to pollution is dilution. Is it? That's basically what she wants to know. Is the solution to pollution dilution? I just want to say that all over. The solution to pollution is dilution. I think he's got it. That's good. That's good.

That's good. Yeah. Well, it's a great question, and it's catchy, too. You know, superficially, yes. I mean, you know, everybody's, let's face it, taken a leak in the ocean at some point in their life, and you don't think too badly about that because the ocean is huge, right? And it's like, what's the problem?

But hopefully you don't do it in a hot tub, right? Because that's like little. But ultimately, of course, the world is more like that hot tub. And, you know, on any given scale, I mean, the hot question these days is Fukushima radiation. And that's like a whole, you know, hot button question. But the fact is you can put a lot of radiation in the ocean at one point, and by the time you're talking about the whole ocean, if you look at the numbers and you get to the other side of that ocean, then you're down in the noise.

You're down in, you know, the natural variation level where you really don't have to worry about it. So in a certain— It's not harmful. Exactly. So yeah, the solution to pollution is dilution, but you can't use that as a cop-out and figure because the ocean isn't infinite. And one thing we've learned, I think historically, people thought the world was infinite and the West, we could just keep expanding forever,

but hey, you get to the end at some point and you come back and you encounter yourself. And so ultimately, no, the solution to pollution is not dilution. It's a short-term fix for an awful, horrible problem that you should probably look to something else other than the dilution. Yes. But it is catchy. But it is catchy. I do like it.

And you know what I've learned from this question? Why no one wants to get in my hot tub. That's right. That's pretty much in my hot tub. That's right. That's pretty much what I've learned. That's right. Hey, I'm not saying I do that. I was just using an example. No, I'm saying I do, and that's the problem.

Okay, let's move on. This is from Drew Willis from Davidson, North Carolina. What impact did the Industrial Revolution in America slash Europe have on the current climate now? There are pictures of smokestacks and children in soot, etc. Are we now developing industrial aspects of Asia going through the same thing now? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, when did this problem really start? Right. It was in the 80s that people first started really talking about global warming as this might be, you know, something we really need to pay attention to. Some people warned about it 100 years ago, but, you know, it wasn't considered a mainstream worry. But now people are looking at what we call the Anthropocene era, which is this

study of the human impact on Earth, looking at it as a geological period, you know, the time at which humans are changing the Earth. And it's an interesting question. When did that start? Some people say it was the Industrial Revolution. That's when we discovered the steam engine. We started using a lot of fossil fuels. That's when we started pumping CO2 into the air. Some people say it started even before then, by the way, with agriculture. Yeah, I was going to say it kind of starts with agriculture with a lot of cow farts.

Let's be honest. You got a lot of cow farts. And clearing the land. Clearing the land. Deforestation. Deforestation. Yep, changing the carbon cycle and changing the climate thousands of years ago right so it accelerated in the industrial revolution of

you know 1850 and it's really accelerated in the last 30 years with what we call the great acceleration where everything's going exponentially off the charts. So is it also, too, because now we're all doing it? You know, before it was just Europe and America. That's right. Now it's Europe, America, China, Russia, all of brick. You know, it's like everybody's doing it. Yeah, the developing nations now, one of the ways in which they're developing is they're mimicking our success in really messing up the atmosphere.

And who are we to say they shouldn't do it? Because we did it. But we're all in this together. All they're going to say back is, I learned it from watching you. Exactly. But hopefully, it's in our interest to help them do their technology better. It's in everyone's interest. So yeah, in a certain sense, they've got the right to pollute because we've polluted.

But in another sense, we've all got to solve this problem because there's only one atmosphere and we're all breathing it. Cool. Now, very quickly, what was that era you said again? The Anthropocene era. Human. Human. The Anthropocene era. Just remember that, Drew, because there's the answer to your question.

It's all of us at all times. Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, we'll be back in a few minutes with more StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm astrobiologist David Grinspoon, sitting in for Neil Tyson, and I'm here with Chuck Nice. Yes, yes. And we're doing cosmic queries, talking about human impact on Earth. And Chuck has all these great questions sent in by listeners, and let's have another one.

Let's jump right back into it, okay? And this one from Marco Horvat. This one from Marco Horvat. Now, Marco says, do you think the climate change debate would be different if global warming was branded as climate change from the beginning? Well, that's a tough question. You know, it's like so much not a science question. It's a marketing and psychology question. I mean, it's very interesting. And I think those of us in the science community, we kind of get down on ourselves and say, oh, we've handled this wrong. There's all this anti-science and people are confused and

against. If only we had used this word and not that word. And I don't know. I think the resistance comes from the fact that... That there's a great deal of money being thrown at the problem by energy companies who want to confuse the issue, maybe? Yeah, money exploiting human psychology. And the human psychology is to not be able to believe that we are actually affecting the earth in this way. I mean, after all, it's the earth and we're just us, right? And how could we possibly be messing up the entire world? And so there's a natural human disbelief in this. And that's been exploited, I think, by those who do have an interest financially in saying, oh, you know, global warming, ha-ha. And then, of course, we respond to these short timescale things.

So there'll be like a cold spell or a snowstorm, and people will say, oh, where's your global warming? And, of course, it doesn't work that way. In fact, you can have years of cold temperatures and global warming is still happening because there's natural fluctuations superimposed on the long-term trend. But it is a marketing problem getting people to accept this. So you can wonder, okay, what if we hadn't used global warming? Did we make some horrible mistake? I tend to think no. It's like it's more a question of getting people to kind of grow up and face reality. Good luck with that.

Well, good luck with that. But I don't think we made some horrible language choice by calling it global warming. Yeah, maybe climate change is better in a certain sense in that it's more complex than just, oh, things are getting hotter. It's all these changes, rainfall, storms, moisture, temperature, all these connected changes. I heard somebody say once we should call it global weirding, because really it's more about extreme weather patterns, not just climate or, as you say, temperature or not weather, but extremeness of the weather. Absolutely, absolutely.

Global weirding, because there are certain locations, of course, that will get warmer and certain locations that won't as much for a long time. And certain places will be winners and losers, and there'll be changes in precipitation patterns. It's much more complex than just a change in temperature. So global weirding is not bad. Of course, it doesn't roll off the tongue. Yeah, it kind of makes Earth seem creepy, right? Yeah. Just like, hey, what are you wearing that the global weirding that's maybe not the best or getting weird well you know what here's a follow-up uh to marco's question from daniel heed or head i'm gonna go with heed are climate changes really climate changes okay are we look like we call it climate change is it really climate change?

Well, what else would it be? I mean, okay. I think he means like on a permanent basis. Like permanent. Is it permanent change? Is it like a permanent change? Well, no. Not just crazy weather patterns.

It's not permanent what we're doing because the Earth has these long-term cycles where, in fact, the carbon is regulated without our interference at all. Long before we got here, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere went up, it went down, and due to all kinds of complexities in the Earth's system and changes in the orbit and solar radiation and positions of the continents, there's all these things that over the long term change climate. And Earth has a natural mechanism that regulates CO2 and regulates climate. In the long run, because of volcanoes and because of chemical reactions that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and make limestone and all that, the Earth returns to normal and the climate will return to normal.

But that takes a few million years to happen. So that will not help us. Oh, there you go. The Earth will return to normal without but that takes a few million years to happen. So that will not help us. The earth will return to normal without us. So nothing's permanent. But on the timescale that we worry about, on our timescale of our civilization, it's what we're doing will last for thousands, tens of thousands of years. So for your purposes and my purposes, it's pretty permanent. Gotcha. So here you go. Catastrophic for us, nothing to the earth. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're not threatening the Earth. People say, save the Earth. No, no, no. It's not save the Earth. The Earth will be fine. It's save the humans. Right. So basically, when you talk about these debates, it's about our own carcasses. Well, and all the other species that were taken with us.

You know, I really don't care about them, David. I got to tell you the truth. Well, you should, because we need them. I got to tell you, I'm a little partial to human beings because I happen to be one. But try to be a human being on Earth without those other species

and we're hosed. All right, we're gonna take a break now. We'll be back in a few minutes with more StarTalk Radio. In the meantime, you can visit us on the website

at startalkradio.net. Follow us on Twitter at Startalk Radio and check it out on Facebook on the Startalk Radio Facebook page. And check it out on Facebook on the StarTalkRadio Facebook page. We'll see you in a few. Hi, welcome back to StarTalk Radio.

I'm David Grinspoon. I'm an astrobiologist filling in for Neil Tyson. I'm here with my co-host Chuck Nice. Yes. And we are now ready, hopefully, for the lightning round. This is where we quickly get to a lot of the questions we didn't get to before and give succinct but highly incisive and accurate answers. That is correct, sir. And whenever you are done with your answer to alert me that it's time to move on.

I'm going to do this. And there we have it. Oh, that felt good. That doesn't feel good? Yeah. All right. Let's jump right into it. All right.

This is from Susan Minobi. from Susan Manobi. To combat global warming, besides reducing our production of greenhouse gases, is there any way to reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth? I'm thinking ring world shadow squares around the Earth rather than around the sun. Oh yeah, there are schemes that people have come up with

where we could block some solar radiation by putting things in orbit, big shadowy squares, massive engineering schemes. In the long run, humanity might want to do something like that. I'm wary of that in the short run because that's sort of an abdication of our responsibility to just like get control out of our energy and our emissions. to just like get control out of our energy and our emissions. But I think we should put that in the parking lot, as they say, and consider it for some future time when we know what we're doing a little bit more with space technology and we may ultimately need to because the sun's getting warmer. And in the future, we're going to have to take more drastic measures.

So yeah, maybe ultimately we'll do that. Let's go for another one. Ooh, yeah. There you go. All right. This is from Mark Wright on Twitter. Is nuclear power maybe our best real choice morally? Chernobyl placed territory beyond human use, but plants and animals thrive.

The morality of nuclear power is a lightning question. Sure, that's easy. You know, it's a tricky question. The more concerned you are about global warming as an emergency, the more you have to consider other power be seriously considering nuclear as part of the constellation of solutions that we need to come up with. But it's not going to be the whole answer, and it's probably not something that should be completely off limits. There you go. Also from Twitter, Rachel Fender says, what would the consequences of a sudden decrease in greenhouse gases versus a gradual decrease?

Ah, good question. Very good. Because everybody's worried about climate change, more and more CO2 getting hotter. What would happen if the CO2 went away? Right away, today. Which, by the way, when you talk about some of these solutions, like let's geoengineer something, let's design some organism that sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere, what if we're too successful and we can't turn it off and all the CO2 goes away?

We would die. We depend on the fact that we have a couple hundred parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere to keep Earth warm enough. So a sudden decrease in CO2 would be just as bad or worse, maybe even, than a sudden increase in CO2. You need a certain range of CO2 and you don't want to go too far out of that range in either direction. Awesome answer. I love it. Yeah, but would it help if we just all hyperventilate it? You know. It may help you. All right, here we go. This is from Ben Ratner,

also from Twitter. What have we learned about life in space that we have been able to use to improve life on Earth? Well, I mean, in an overall sense, the perspective of thinking about life in space and how life works on planets in general has given us a lot of new perspective on life on our planet. But more specifically, we've learned about things about how radiation affects organisms. We've learned how to think about closed environments. If you're going to design a space station, you need to recycle everything. Well, ultimately, we're realizing now that our own Earth is a closed environment. We talk about Biosphere 2. Well, we're here in Biosphere 1. Biosphere 1 is a closed environment. We talk about Biosphere 2. Well, we're here in Biosphere 1. Biosphere 1 is a closed environment. And so just the thinking about how you would

design space systems, I think, really has made us smarter about realizing that in a certain sense, we are in a space system. We are life in space. Our planet is Spaceship Earth. And so some of those design problems turn back around and help us conceive of how we're going to survive for the long term on this spaceship that we happen to have evolved on. Awesome. Great answer. All right. This one is from Beth Grace. The risk we are taking with our planet reflects certain mindsets we have about natural resources and our relationships with other life. What lessons do you think we need to learn before we colonize other planets in order to avoid transporting the same patterns of mismanagement to other worlds? It's a really good question because

people tend to have this utopian view of, oh, we'll just go colonize other planets and everything will be fine. But of course, we're going to bring our same mindsets and patterns there. And ultimately, do we want to just turn Mars into a giant strip mall and, you know, strip-mined disaster zone? No, of course. You know, I'm all in favor of humans going into space and exploring and living elsewhere. But we can't escape ourselves. And ultimately, the lessons of how to live sustainably on a planet

are ones that we're going to have to learn and carry with us wherever we go in the universe. So there it is. Get it right at home first, then take it on the road. Welcome back to StarTalk. You've been listening to one of our classic episodes originally recorded for Season 5 of the podcast. But now I'm back in the studio to give you a little bit more, and I'm with my co-host, Chuck Nice. Chuck, thanks for joining us. Hey, hey, Dr. Funky Spoon.

How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing well, man, doing well. What's happening? Anything good going on? Anything new and exciting in the life of Dr. Funky Spoon? Oh, you know, just doing what I do, going around the solar system and solving problems for people.

I've just emerged from the process of finishing up my book, Earth in Human Hands, which is going to drop later this year. Nice. Very nice. That and trying to just, you know, stay alive. And I know your book is about, you know, it's almost self-explanatory in the title, but Earth in Human Hands. It's how we affect this planet and our behavior, what it does to the planet long term. And what is your prognosis right now? I'm taking a planetary science view of the problem, which means looking over billions of years and trying to see our current moment in that deep timescape.

And I actually, I think that gives me a little bit more of sympathy for us than maybe some other people express in the sense that, you know, there's really something very unusual happening on Earth now. Go ahead. There's never before been a geological force aware of its own existence. So we're actually trying to do something really hard. Here we are, we're finding ourselves altering this planet and realizing we have to sort of manage this planet. But we don't know how to manage a planet.

We don't have a manual. And we're sort of almost surprised to find ourselves here. It's like waking up in the middle of driving a big rig down a road, and you have to say, whoa, I better figure out how to drive this thing in a hurry. That's our situation on Earth. So it's easy to get down on ourselves. David, I got to tell you, I just have to tell you, that is one of the scariest situations that you could describe. Waking up in the middle of driving a big rig, 16 gears and all, that's

horrifying. What are you talking about? That's scary as hell. Yeah, but the thing is we've done similar things before in the sense that human beings, if there's one thing that differentiates us as a species, we're problem solvers and we're inventors. And we've gotten out of some tight jams in the past. If you take an evolutionary look at us, there have been times in the past when the human species almost went extinct. There was a time 190,000 years ago when we were in Africa and there was climate change and ice age and human species almost got wiped out. We survived by inventing new technologies and inventing new ways of cooperating and working together and solving problems. And I think that's what we do.

So you're saying that the innovations that we are capable of may be the answer to our survival. So the fact that we were able to survive the ice age. Now, let me just ask you, since you bought up the ice age, when you look at climate change now, you know, we've seen all the pictures, of course, in elementary school of the ice age and human beings being a part of the ice age and, you know, us wearing our pelts and our, you know, fur skins and all that kind of stuff. Of course, we found fire. There were different things that we did that were able to make shelter became part of what we did. Now, when you look at that, the difference is we're never going to have another Ice Age, if I'm correct.

We're going in the opposite direction. What can we do to survive that? Because now you're looking at drought. You're looking at food shortages. You're looking at geographic changes in the topography of the earth because there are some places that are going to disappear because of the rise of sea levels. So, you know, what are some of the things that we're going to be able to do to survive that? Well, first of all, let me clear up a possible misconception, because you talk about the Ice Age like it was one thing. In reality, if you look at the history of Earth, Earth's climate, it's gone from ice age to hot house to ice age to hot house.

And the last 10,000 years have been kind of unusual in that our climate's been pretty stable and pretty warm. And we've been lucky. We've flourished in this artificially, not artificially, but unusually stable, warm climate period. unusually stable warm climate period. And so the challenge, the immediate challenge we have right now, as you say, is to deal with this warming and sea level change and drought and all these things that are happening as a result of our emissions of fossil fuels. But, you know, that's temporary. One way or another, that's temporary.

It can't go on very long. The bigger, longer picture is that the Earth does go through climate fluctuations and will, yes, go through another ice age in another 50 or 100,000 years or so. Left to its own devices, natural climate change would do us in eventually, but I don't actually think there's going to be any natural climate change anymore. And I think in the long run, that's a good thing. Once we get over our immediate problem of sort of stumbling into this climate change that we're forcing, we'll learn a more thoughtful way to interact with the planet's climate. And in the long run, that will mean we'll prevent the next ice age and we'll prevent other disasters from happening.

That will mean we'll prevent the next ice age and we'll prevent other disasters from happening. So the flip side of having to get a handle on our own behavior right now is that we're coming to understand the way the planet's climate changes much better. And that's going to save our butts. So what I hear you saying, because now listen, I know you. I know you, Dr. Funky Spoon. I know that you, my friend, are an eternal optimist. You are always looking at the best case scenario. It sounds to me like you're saying that the problems that we have presented ourselves, we've created these problems, but these problems may be the impetus for much greater success and sustainability of the human race going forward. We're going to be forced to deal with something

that may end up helping us much further down the line. Am I right to hear you say, is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. In fact, in my book, Earth and Human Hands, I call this the twisted gift of global warming. It's obviously a tragedy in the short run. In the long run, it's a gift because we have no choice but to learn how to be planetary operators. If it's not climate change, it's other technology we're developing. We can't put the genie back in the bottle and not have planet-changing technology, so we have to get good at it. And global warming is forcing us, forcing that reckoning. And in the long run, that's going to empower us not just to save ourselves, but to save

other life. Even though we're right now causing this mass extinction, or possibly causing mass extinction, I think in the long run, humanity can prevent a lot more extinction than it will cause. There's not going to be another asteroid impact, and there's not going to be another ice age. Those things kill a lot more species ultimately than we're threatening now. So I'm not trying to get us off the hook. We have to, as quickly as we can, change our current behavior. But I do think in the long run, we can also see potential for us to learn how to actually be the kind of constructive players on the earth that we should be and actually conserve and protect

life once we get over our current problem of this sort of flagrant emissions that we have to curtail. So what you're saying kind of like, because I don't want people, what I don't want is for somebody who's a climate denier to hear this and say, see, it doesn't make a difference anyway, because it's a good thing for us. Exxon is helping us, okay? Don't you understand? Exxon is saving us without even knowing it. But what you're saying is in the vein of necessity is the mother of invention. Once we're presented with these problems, we're going to have to come up with a solution. And so the inspiration for a solution building will be there. But that notwithstanding, we still have to make sure that we take care of

this problem. And one of the ways that we are going to that we take care of this problem. And one of the ways that we are going to have to take care of this problem is to get off of our dependency on fossil fuel and move towards sustainable, renewable energies that do not cause the rise in sea levels and global warming. Yeah, exactly. Basically, we have to grow up. warming. Yeah, exactly. Basically, we have to grow up. We've been able to get away with the earth is pretty big. And we've, you know, until recently, haven't completely taken it over. And so we've been able to get away with throwing stuff away as if there wasn't a way, but there is no away, right? We realize that it's finite. And part of maturity is realizing the limits and learning how to work within those limits. This is a time when the human species has to gain that maturity to really see clearly the situation we're in.

And global warming is the problem that is forcing us to really understand the nature of ourselves as a species on a planet that is altering that planet and that if we want to survive and we want to be good citizens of this planet, we have to take a new look and reassess and reintegrate ourselves in a healthy way into the functioning of that planet. We no longer have the luxury to not be a part of the way the planet functions. As shocking as that seems, our cognitive systems, our technology, are now, I think, permanent parts of the way the Earth operates. You know, unless we blow it, which we could,

but there's also a possible future where we learn how to do that well and we integrate gracefully into the functioning of the planet. And that's what I'm trying to push here. And that's, by the way, I have a name for that state and I call it Terra Sapiens. Terra Sapiens. Which means wise earth. Yes. I think Terra Sapiens is what we have to try to achieve.

We are homo sapiens, supposedly wise apes. And we need to now recognize ourselves as a planetary species and build Terra sapiens, apes on Earth guided by wisdom. That's the equivalent of us growing up. So that's what a grown-up Homo sapien is. When you grow up, you become a Terra sapien. Yes, and your planet, that's also a name for the planet. Because the point is we're becoming one with the planet. We're becoming integrated into it.

So Terra Sapiens is what we have to become, and it's also the kind of planet we have to build. And we have to realize that the boundaries between what we consider natural and artificial are sort of shockingly no longer there. It's all one. Awesome, man. I wish we had more time for this. Well, one thing I'm taking away from this is Terra Sapien.

I want to be a Terra Sapien. I'm already a Terra Sapien. I don't know about anybody else. I'm already a Terra Sapien because I'm sold in. I'm sold in. Sitting there floating in front of that galaxy, Chuck, you look like a Terra Sapien to me. That's right. I'm representing all terastapians.

Check it out. Oh, man, this is great, man. Great talking to you again. I wish we had more time, but it looks like we're done on this one, man. Thanks so much. All right. Well, thank you. This has been Star Talk, and I'm astrobiologist David Grinspoon with my co-host Chuck Nice,

and thank you very much for listening.