The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Why We Need Forests: Their Vital Role in Climate Dynamics, Rain, and The Biotic Pump with Anastassia Makarieva

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

To best understand this episode, please watch this ~2 minute video on the biotic pump.   It's widely known that Earth's forests provide home to countless numbers of species, act as a vast sink for carbon, and provide much of the food, materials, and clean water on which our societies rely. But emerging science shows us that forests may play another critical role: making rain. This theory, called the biotic pump theory, hypothesizes that instead of being passive recipients of rain, forests may actively create the conditions for precipitation over land – a premise that turns modern meteorology on its head. In this episode, Nate is joined by physicist Anastassia Makarieva about the critical yet often overlooked role forests play in maintaining ecological balance and climate stability. Through the lens of the biotic pump theory, she highlights the importance of moisture and rainfall cycles, the dangers of ecosystem tipping points, and the escalating risks of deforestation. Anastassia argues that a paradigm shift is needed – one that redefines how humanity understands and manages forests in the fight against global heating. What would climate models reveal if they fully integrated the Biotic Pump Theory? How might policies protecting against deforestation evolve if societies recognized the irreplaceable role forests play in how water moves on land?  And beyond policy, how might reconnecting with our deep interdependence on forests help us rediscover a richer connection to ourselves as individuals? (Conversation recorded on July 9th, 2025)   About Anastassia Makarieva: Dr. Anastassia Makarieva is a Russian atmospheric physicist and senior researcher at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute. She obtained her Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from St. Petersburg State University in 2000. Makarieva is best known for co-developing the "biotic pump" theory alongside the late Professor Victor Gorshkov. The theory posits that forests play a crucial role in driving atmospheric moisture transport, effectively influencing rainfall patterns over land. Her work emphasizes the importance of intact forests in maintaining climate stability and has challenged conventional climate models to incorporate the dynamic role of vegetation in atmospheric processes.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo group and connect with other listeners  

we are calibrating the models using the most disturbed ecosystems. It is like we go to the hospital where there are very ill people suffering from disease and we calibrate an average human being based on their capacity to do things. But all that they can do is at best survive till the next meeting with the doctor. And this is not how natural forest functions. So our vision of forests is totally distorted and we don't study the most important forests that actually stabilize the climate.

You're listening to the great simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. Today I'm pleased to be joined by physicist Anastasia Makareva to discuss her work researching and educating on the biotic pump.

Dr. Anastasia Makareva is a Russian atmospheric physicist and senior researcher at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute. Anastasia is best known for co-developing the biotic pump theory alongside the late professor Victor Gorshkov. This theory proposes that forests play a crucial role in driving atmospheric moisture transport, effectively influencing rainfall patterns over land. Her work emphasizes the importance of intact forests in maintaining climate stability and has challenged conventional climate models to incorporate the dynamic role of vegetation in atmospheric processes.

She is Russian. The language is a little difficult. I encourage you to watch the intro video, which will link right here on biotic pumps before you watch this, what I consider to be an excellent video. Near the end, I asked my traditional, closing questions and just thinking of her as a scientist, forgetting that she lives in Russia

with the United States being at war. And it kind of stopped me cold the lack of empathy that I had in the moment asking her about those questions when people in her country are dying. My personal view is I have long thought the biotic pump theory is extremely valid and important, and I'm so glad to host her on the platform and hopefully have her back on some sort of a roundtable. I hope you can learn from and enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Dr. Anastasia Makareva. Anastasia Makareva, welcome to the program. Thank you, Nate. Strasvutsi.

I have known of you in your work for a long time. Never fully understood it, but always had a curiosity about it. So I'm glad that we have some mutual science colleagues that introduced us. I've invited you on the show because of your groundbreaking research on forest systems. and their relevance to modeling and understanding planetary dynamics, including climate change. So I expect we're going to take a deep dive into the main tenets of your work. But before we do that, maybe you could share with us how you got involved in this field. First of all, where are you right now?

I am in St. Petersburg in Russia. Okay. And everything started from my teacher, Professor Victor Gorshkov. He was a prominent physicist theoretician who worked in the theoretical physics division in Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, where I also work. And so he was really a prominent physicist, like I'm sure you know Landau and Leveshitz's course and theoretical physics. So it references some of his works that were really high level.

But at the same time, he always had a keen interest in wild nature, in how nature works. So it was something innate. So he traveled a lot in Russia, in wilderness areas, in Siberia. but his research was purely like physics. Then in the 70s, several things happened. First, he saw some, that perspectives in the field that he was doing his research were becoming quite foggy.

And the time has shown he was correct in his work. perception. So he changed his field radically, and his passion for nature began to dominate. So he began to study how the biosphere stabilizes itself and the environment. And it's all happened that in this critical time for him, he also experienced an extraordinary event. When he was a passenger of flight, there was a terrorist who exploded the bomb. So, yes, it was a very unusual, one of the first. terrorist attacks, it was in then Leningrad, and at a certain point he was absolutely sure that

he will die. So it was certain, like, for him, everything on fire. And I think he was denying that, but if you remember Dostoevsky, before his trial, when he was, he knew that he was going to be hanged and after it was a different, right, and a different, like, personality. So I think this was also what contributed. And so, really, he changed very radically his successful career as a theoretical physicist to something entirely different, how natural systems stabilize. themselves, first of all, it's not trivial. We as a civilization has not yet mastered how to stabilize ourselves, but the biosphere knows how to do that, and how by doing that, they also stabilize the

environment and climate, which is like an inseparable part of persistence of the biosphere itself. And so he began this research, which was totally alien to anything that was being done in our theoretical physics division. But his authority and level was very high, even though he never occupied any leading positions. He never directed anybody what to do. He was just people who were saying a cat who is walking by himself. And so he established this direction. and formulated the concept of the biotic regulation of the environment, which quantifies how ecosystem stabilizes our environment and climate.

And so he also lectured in a Polytechnical Institute in then Leningrad, where I was a student. And so I was involved and we became a long-term collaborators. And this totally changed my life. So that's how I was involved. I'm so detailed because it is very important that the ground base for everything I've been doing lies in theoretical physics,

which is like a very comprehensive and unique approach and actually the highest level of intellectual achievements that our civilization can be proud of. So you have developed a passion for this topic, even though you personally didn't have a near-death experience like Victor Gorshov did. No, I didn't have such an experience, but I was asking myself, even when like a teenager still, what I am looking for in the world.

And there were two things. Like, I perceived the world as an mystery as an enigma. I didn't know how the ends meet. It didn't make a picture for me. It was all... I didn't see patterns. Like in history, I'm totally ignorant because I can't see patterns.

It's all for me, like a mess of unconnected pieces of evidence. So I wanted to understand the world. And another thing, which I formulated, that I want to bear the burden. Of what the burden? I didn't specify for myself, but I understood that something is there that is not well.

And I want to partake. So I want to know what is this and like to contribute, to help. That actually seems so benign of a statement, but the fact that you are a Russian scientist and I'm an American scientist and we're having this conversation about something that feels wrong with the natural world is actually a fundamental tenet of the best side of humanity. I mean, this is, I'm like you, I'm curious,

I know something is wrong, and I want to figure it out, and that's what this platform is trying to do. That's why I thought that this will be a very important interview for me. So precisely because I figured it out that you are seeking something that it is, also, I'm also seeking.

Victor used to teach me that everything good in humans is the same. So it is not a mystery that there are people who feel the same thing. Yeah. So you have argued

and thank you for doing the backdrop of Victor Gorshov's work and how you collaborated together. You and Victor originally have argued that the mainstream climate narrative ignores the importance of forest ecosystems in the climate models and research and maybe underestimating forest damage as a climate change risk. So let's start there. Can you briefly explain what role forests

play in mitigating climate risk or in the homeostasis of the planetary system? So if we look at the forests, we need to understand that these are dynamic systems, not just static objects. So they do things. So they are working based on the genetic information of the species that compose the forests. And so the main thing, that in our opinion is missing from the models is the information processing by forests and what they can do for climate. For example, the most uncertain aspect of climate are clouds.

So why are clouds such a difficult ingredient of climate? because they can both cool and warm. They reflect sunlight, and so they cool, and they trap thermal radiation from the surface, redirecting back to the surface, so they warm. They are part of the greenhouse effect. And these effects are, for example, in the tropics of similar magnitude. So, by, for example, as we know that forests are,

active in generating cloud cover. So by generating clouds of different types and using these levers, forests can impose a significant impact on temperatures, on regional temperatures and in consequence on global temperatures. And when the forest is just represented as a surface with the number of parameters which can be counted on one hand or two hand. So it just doesn't work. I have lots of questions now.

And these are on top of the original questions I had. So how do climate models that look back historically at CO2 and temperature and things like that? How do they account for the different forest cover that we had a thousand years ago? 10,000 years ago, a million years ago, because we don't really know what the forest cover was, or do we? We don't know, but this is a high-level question which climate models just can't address. For instance, my understanding is we have around 3 trillion trees today, and historically for much of the pre-Holocene period, there were six trillion trees. So that has to have a big impact, yes?

That has a big impact. But with the clouds, with the clouds, let me tell you that currently the situation is such that even if we don't speak about forests, but just about the ocean, global climate models completely disagree with each other about the clouds in the last three decades. of satellite measurements, even that.

And if you have heard about these hot models, you know that there are big centers in the world that develop these big climate models with increasingly better resolution and more computing power and all that. And they want to, naturally people want to represent the Earth as good as to the best of their capacity.

So they continuously collect data, incorporate into models based on parameterizations. So what is a parameterization? We don't know the physical law behind, say, the dependence of the cloud cloud on temperature. So we collect data, like draw a line, assume that it is more or less okay, and put this line into the model instead of a law of a physical law.

So that's it. And so people have been working, working, and suddenly in the recent generation of these models, it turned out that certain models, which especially do well with clouds, they began to predict about six degrees of warming per doubling of CO2. Oh, the hot models, you're referring to the climate sensitivity that is with a doubling of CO2. There will be a very high reaction in temperature.

Yes, yes, yes. So among all models, so there was a fifth generation, now there is sixth generation. So in this sixth generation comparison of all models, suddenly certain models went quite high. Yeah. And mainly because of clouds. And they do describe clouds better than others. And what did the community do? They downgraded these models.

They said, no, that can't be. Because you show such a high projection for increase. But in the past, it was. like that. So you can't describe the past. So and so there is this clash. They kind of describe the present, the cloud cover, but do worse than others describing the past. So in this all about 40 years, just 40 years in such a discrepancy among different models. Some predict two Kelvin warming per CO2 doubling and others six Kelvin. So, there is three times discrepancy between models.

And this is just no forests involved. It is just, you know, the simplest system. How do those climate models treat the role of forests, or don't they at all? No, no, no. They do, you know, if we come out and say climate models don't, like, consider forests, many people will get offended because there are because there are like lots of people

trying to incorporate forests and publishing papers with forest in, forests out but you can see forests are much more complicated systems that say the ocean even though ocean

also complicated due to the biotic effects and we simply don't know As you said, we not only don't know what was in, like you say, thousands years ago, but we don't know what's going on now because if you look at the data which I used to calibrate models, they are all collected where there are more scientists. So in the most populated regions of the world, like Europe is very well covered, you know, but they don't have natural forests at all. So there's not thousands of climate scientists in Kamchatka doing research?

Exactly, exactly. Or in Siberia or even the Amazon. The Amazon is like fortunate because it is such a mighty thing that people understand that it is important. So it gets more research. But no Congo, Papua New Guinea, no. So basically, we are calibrating the models using the most disturbed ecosystems. So it is like, as I wrote in my blog and people found it like an apt comparison.

It is like we go to the hospital where there are very ill people suffering from disease and we calibrate an average human being based. on their capacity to do things. But all that they can do is at best, like, take food and survive till the next, like, meeting with the doctor. And this is not how natural force functions. So our vision of forest is totally distorted. And we project these distortions into, like included into climate projections.

So first thing that we don't know, because they are very complex, and second thing, that we don't study the most important forests that actually stabilize the climate. And this is, I can give you an example, how it should be, such an approach should be a failure, and the failure it is. Like, you may have heard about this CO2 fertilization, CO2 fertilization, like more CO2, more biological productivity, and CO2 is being taken from the atmosphere. And based on this, lots of researchers were building models, how the biomass of trees is increasing globally and taking CO2 from the atmosphere.

And as long as the uncertainty of measurements was low, it was okay. So you couldn't, like we have about 400 or 300 gigatons of carbon of three biomass, and when the increment is still below the uncertainty of measurements, you can fantasize what is happening. But as time goes, at a certain point, you must must. see it. And so this year, last year, there was a publication in science which actually looked at that and they found that there is no increment of tree biomass. So all those models got that wrong. Steel carbons is disappearing. It goes somewhere and we just, and you won't find a single scientist who will come out like me because I don't have a hand there.

in this business, I'm not, I say, guys, this is a failure. A spectacular failure of all our modeling. It doesn't work. We don't know how the biosphere works. Let us admit that. That won't happen. I have like hundreds of questions,

but I think we need to start at ground zero and then go out from there. So you and your late colleague, Viktor Gorskov, observed a phenomenon in the forest that you called the biotic pump theory. So for our viewers and listeners around the world who may never have heard of this at all, can you explain this theory and why it is significant to the current climate science and climate situation? So the biotic pump theory or concept can be summarized with two statements. One statement is that the natural forest regulates its own water cycle by regulating the atmospheric moisture transfer. So the forest draws in enough moisture to support itself. And the second statement is how it is doing.

the physical mechanism. And the physical mechanism is based on pressure gradients generated by condensation of water vapor. So this is what we later called condensation-induced atmospheric dynamics. So two things, that the forest plays this active role, and the second thing, how? How does that? So you can prove or disprove the biotic pump concept along, these two lines of evidence. So it can still be that forest regulates the water cycle,

but by some other mechanism. So that's it. And I actually can show you, I prepared this noise that you were hearing. This is basically I want to show you how it works. Okay. Yeah, because it is important that it is not something abstract, but this is a toy, which is called drinking bird,

and what it has in common with the biotic pump, that it is also driven by condensation and gravity. So what's happening? Actually, it is like an imitation of a perpetual mobility. As long as there is water here, it will be moving. You can see, there is this liquid inside, and now it is good. going up this liquid and when it goes up there is like it flips and you can see this liquid

green one it is coming up but why is it coming up it is coming up because the head of the bird is wet and it evaporates and it cools and the vapor inside its head condenses as it cools and the vapor inside its head condenses as it cools And as it condenses, the pressure drops, and that is why the liquid goes up. So you can see, the head cools, the vapor inside it in the head, in the sealed vessel.

Condenses, we don't see it, but we can understand that it is happening because the pressure is dropping and the liquid goes up. And so it goes up, goes up, then it flips, and it gets more water such that it is always wet and the emotion repeats itself. So is the corollary to that when it gets wet, it rains in natural ecosystems and forests? The point is that by the forest, when it transpires moisture, so when the leaves or the stomata open and there is water vapor, going to the atmosphere, it moistens the atmosphere, then in the cold levels it condenses, like in the bird's head. And it creates non-equilibrium pressure gradients, so the air goes up, and there is a shortage of air at the surface, and this creates inflow of moist air from the ocean.

What if it's very far from the ocean? Oh, well, if there is only one tree, it won't do that. But the forest should start from the ocean. And so every tree, so to speak, draws moisture from the adjacent area. And if we cut the inner forest from the ocean, The process stops. I'm really curious about the scaling of this.

So I live in Minnesota, Wisconsin area, the upper Midwest in the United States. And there's a lot of land here that's been, the forests have been cut down for crops. But there still are some forests left. Where I live, there might be 10 hectares of forest and then a lot of farmland. So does even 10 hectares. have some impact on a biotic pump, or does it need to be much, much more contiguous forest? When we first started to investigate this, we compared precipitation patterns in forested and non-forested regions all across the world. And what we found that in non-forested regions, the precipitation declines exponentially with the

scale of a few hundred kilometers, like 500 to 600, there is an exponential decline, like, by three times. Meanwhile, in a big forest, like Siberian forests and Amazon and Congo, precipitation doesn't decline as we move inland. Regarding very small forests, very small forests, to make any impact since the condensation occurs in the atmosphere and the atmosphere scale height is 10 kilometers. So the horizontal dimension should be at least

the same order of magnitude. So very tiny sports, they don't contribute to this process. What's the problem of proof? Okay, we can see that there is a correlation between forests and, like, penetration of rainfall inland. But we can say that it is just forests grow there. Because for some reason, rainfall and rain and there is such a moisture transport,

and there just grow where this happens. So the conventional thinking is the forests are the byproduct of rain and soil, and not the origin of the water cycle. So the conventional view is that there are geophysical flows of water and wind, and they are indeed, because we live on a planet where most part of which is occupied by the ocean, which has its own condensation and things. So there are geophysical flows. Somewhere, moisture goes far inland, and there, there are often.

forests. So we need to find to somehow disentangle this geophysical flows and biotic impact. And it so happens that the Amazon forest gives such an opportunity. Because if we look at the globe, like at the globe, which I can see behind you, there is like, yes, yes, yes. out of respect. And in the tropics, there is this rain band called in the tropical

convergence zones, which migrate seasonally, going to the northern and to the southern hemisphere, and it brings rain to corresponding regions. So the alternation of dry and wet seasons

in the tropics is related to this migration of the precipitation peak, which is, goes along the parallel. But it's all happened that in the Amazon, in the Amazon, the wet season begins much earlier than the arrival of this geophysical thing, like two months earlier. And it was an enigma. When we formulated the biotic pump, we didn't know anything about that.

So we knew only afterwards, but there were researchers who were motivated by this enigma how this happens. And this was researched by Rong Fu. They did a lot of dedicated work, and they found out that this is related to evapotranspiration to the flux of moisture from the forest itself. and later it was confirmed that indeed this moisture comes from leaves because this can be decided based on isotopic analysis and also it was discovered that at the end of the dry season the Amazon makes new leaves.

So imagine the forest is making new leaves, the new leaves transpire a lot, moisten the atmosphere and kickstart the whole process of condensation, precipitation, load pressure and moisture import from the ocean. What are the differences in rainfall on Earth and drought between forested areas and deforested areas? Of course, we can't compare deforested areas on average, which forested on average. For example, we can, if we concentrate on the Amazon, again. Then what was found is that on the deforested areas, locally, rainfall may increase locally.

If you look like increase with increasing proportion of deforestation. And this is understandable because deforestation creates very sharp horizontal temperature gradients. Explain what a temperature gradient is above a forest. When the forest receives sunshine, it goes to evapotranspiration. So basically to evaporate water vapor from the wet inside of the leaf. And for that reason, because it goes to evaporation, it is not converted to heat immediately.

And that's why if you're like also the surface of a lake, it is cooler than the sand near the lake. At the same sunshine, because when the sunshine hits the sand, it is converted to sensible heat, so immediately goes to warm the surface. And so when we deform, we basically convert, reduce vapor transpiration and make more sensible heat. So, for example, on a deforested area, in Europe, in a European forest, even in autumn,

on a sunny day, the temperature can be 70, of the surface can be 70 degrees Celsius. And so when we have a forest patch nearby and a deforested patch nearby, we may have like a 50 degrees Kelvin, which is international, Kelvin, it's okay, between them on a horizontal dimension. And that's at the surface. What about above it into the sky? Well, what happens in the sky will depend on the circulation that will develop. So it is at the surface what matters. And so when we have such a big difference, so there will be more rigorous circulation,

and there will be moist rising and a lot of precipitation. And this is what is found. But if we look at bigger regions on a bigger scale, then what was found is that rainfall declines with the degradation. of deforestation. So it all goes into this local intense rains, but there is no increase in large-scale moisture transport. Let me ask you some hypothetical, difficult questions,

and maybe I will learn and understand this through these questions. Hypothetically, what if all the forests in the world were cut down? What would happen to our rainfall and climate, everything else being equal. Well, we think that there will be a drastic reduction in inland precipitation. Like, we will convert to this pattern that characterizes deforested areas with a steep decline of precipitation inland. What would happen if we were able to double the forest cover generally on the earth?

What would happen to rainfall and climate? just how could you speculate about that? This is very important because if we just stop the disruption that we are doing now, especially but not limited to the tropics, we can stop the acceleration of climate change. Even with more CO2 coming from emissions and industry? Yes. even with more CO2, because now what is happening?

We can see that this acceleration, this uptick in recent uptick in temperature increase, is not related to more CO2, to a spike in CO2 emissions. It is related to changes in the cloud cover, and the cloud cover is related also to changes in atmospheric circumstances. And we can see that the Amazon, like in 2023, it experienced a major drought. So it was a big hot spot of lost cloud cover. And last year too, I think, in 2024. Yes, yes.

So, and this happened after the years during which, Bolson, And his team were doing everything against the Amazon. Because in the Amazon, there were some successes in bringing deforestation down, but this was all overruled recently. I think that forest can recover. So like a person, it can be ill, but it can be having hard times, but it has enormous capacity to self-recovery. But if we continue to directly destroy it, it won't recover.

And it will be worse. I am so fascinated by this. I literally like have a hundred questions for you right now. But let me mention because we are talking, there is a lot of talk about the Amazon and much less about other major forests. Yeah, right. I agree. The African, Central African rainforest hardly, yeah.

Like, it is like I feel that. Everybody just are scared about talking about that because of the very difficult social situation that is there. But there is also Indonesia. Where in Indonesia right now they're planning massive, massive deforestation, massive. For the sake of growing biofuels. Okay, here's some of my questions. Where the forests are in the tropics. or the north or the south,

does that matter on its impact on the water cycle and on climate? Yes. It matters in different ways, and it is very complicated, and I can't claim that I know all the answers, because it is really a huge topic which many institutes should be researching.

But what is important? In the truth, Tropics, we are receiving most of our sunlight. So what is being done with that sunlight? Like, matters directly. Therefore, these critical forests that are tropical, that the Amazon, Congo, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, these are very important.

It's the highest amount of net primary productivity because of the sun cycle and everything else. Yes, also the primary productivity. But then we also have boreal forests that are still like a natural state, how we define it is a different question, in Canada and in Russia. Like, Russia has enormous areas with forests. And these are also very, very, very. because we know that the Arctic is a hot spot of global warming.

We don't quite know what the reasons are, but it is related definitely to the heat transport to the region, so it is not just a local effect. And here forests play an enormous role in cloud cover regulation, in moisture, transport regulation, and so they are also very important. You outlined earlier the importance of the biotic pump and forest to the water cycle and precipitation, but I'm unclear on why more for, why stopping deforestation would actually solve, well, not solve, but limit the temperature rise? What is the link there with global heating?

Yes, this is a different story. It is not directly related to atmospheric moisture transport. But what is the culprit here? When forests transpire, this energy is kept, at the surface, and then water vapor goes up and condenses at a certain mean height, which is in the tropics is about five kilometers. And so what happens? If it is not captured as water vapor, this energy, but is converted to heat at the surface,

then at a thermal radiation, it goes up and this captured by green, greenhouse substances, and so it participates in creating the greenhouse effect. But when it goes up and only is released at 5 kilometers, for example, on average, and turns to heat there, then it can, this energy can be emitted as thermal photons, escaping the interaction with greenhouse, gases beneath this height. What percentage of greenhouse gases are above and below that height, roughly? Oh, actually, all water vapor. All water vapor is below that height.

Because of a water vapor is actually five kilometers, about five kilometers, is the height from which the earth radiates directly to space. It is the so-called upper radiating layer. So if we go, if we emit from there, it goes almost unimpeded to space because the thickness, the optical thickness of the atmosphere is not very, very large. What you're saying is the forests change where the heat is created,

the forest versus a default. If it's all of a sudden there was a forest and it was cut down. Yes. It's going to be like the sand next to a lake. The sun's rays are going to hit it and it's going to instantly heat. And that heat is underneath this five kilometers of greenhouse forcing gases, including clouds. Therefore, it adds to the trapped heat. As opposed to if the forest is intact, it will have this evapotranspiration, biotic pump.

and it gets evaporated, and the heat transfer happens much higher in the sky, and therefore that heat doesn't get wrapped into the greenhouse gas functions the way it would in a deforested situation. Yes. And how is it possible that global climate models don't include what I just said? You know, this is what also was my question. So it is really not very straightforward. Why they don't?

Why they don't? I tell you, because you see, when we, what is going on? If we convert all energy to heat at the surface, and then it goes up through the interaction with greenhouse gases, it is one vertical gradient of temperature. So we will have high temperature here and lower temperature higher in the atmosphere. But now imagine that we take some heat from here

and go up and release it there. Now we will have a smaller difference, okay? Then in the case when all heat is here. So this means that the temperature, gradient, the vertical temperature gradient, decreased. Temperature will be more uniform because we just spread heat from the,

we just take heat from the earth, which is the hottest layer, and brought it up. So we reduced the vertical temperature difference. So it is all about the vertical temperature gradient. And in global climate, climate models, this vertical temperature gradient is subject to what is called convective parametization, which keeps it more or less not fixed, but changes with temperature in a priori-specific

manner. So it is something that people figured out, like, should be, and they keep it fixed. Why? I also, it is not because they are stupid or don't know, but the idea is that if the, if the temperature lapse rate, like, is steeper, then any parcel of air that goes up becomes warmer than this, and it will go up and it will, like, smoothen it. So it is unstable. A very steep gradient isn't stable. It's difficult, I understand. But the idea is that it's all about this vertical temperature gradient. And if the bundles don't get it right, it is an indication that something in what I am saying can make sense, you know? But this is, if someone had the resources and the time and the dedication,

what you're saying could be proven or disproven about what you just described, right? You could have a model that would predict the temperature gradient above a forest somewhere and make some predictions on this. But actually, we do have observations. We do have observations, and we can compare them with model predictions.

So, and these observations, show that indeed this vertical temperature lapse rate is becoming steeper. All around the world. Well, the effect is pronounced over land. You can't just locate it

like I cut two trees and I measure above it. Because it all circulates so it spreads the effect. So it is not as local. But we can see from large amounts of data that this is what is happening. And this is one of the very persistent discrepancies between model predictions and general understanding and evidence. and it is already like three decades that it is in existence. And there were hopes, like I read a major paper in 2006,

which said, we hope that this controversy will resolve, otherwise how models view the water cycle should be seriously reconsidered. Now, 20 years later, it is not resolved, but nobody is going to reconsider. What you're basically saying is, You agree that we face a global heating crisis this century and beyond. But you think that the focus on CO2 maybe not misplaced, but it's ignoring the central importance of forests. And forests are actually something that we, in theory,

could have more human agency to improve or at least stabilize. and therefore a lot more effort and research needs to go into the importance of forests and their role as a biotic pump in reducing this temperature gradient so that it would have less deleterious impact on global heating and the higher standard deviation of droughts and floods. Yes, yes, this is a very correct summary. But also we need just to stop what is already in the making. Like, I can name projects that are unfolding.

Like in the U.S., the Fix Our Forest Act, which is a disaster, basically. So I'm waiting when there is a country or somebody who will become a leader and that. I'm not even aware of that. Fix our forests? What is that? Fix our Forest Act or bill, I don't, I'm not as an expert on the legal system that you have. But from my colleagues in the U.S., who are immensely concerned, this Fix Our Forest Act is what now was already passed through the Congress, I think, or somehow almost. And this was made in the wake of forest fires, which were, like, recently. And this says that we need to cut forests more to prevent. To eliminate fires.

To eliminate fires. And this is very destructive because under this umbrella, you can cut everything. So tell me why this is a bad idea. I mean, I can guess why, but explain why from your perspective why this is a disaster. This is a very good question. This is a very good question. Because if we look how the biotic pump works, the crucial things that is needed is condensation. Like condensation drives everything, all the dynamics.

And for condensation to happen, the moist airmen. must reach the dew point, right? What is the due point briefly? The dew point, when relative humidity is 100%, and you can't add more. Moistrate begins to condense in precipity. And what is important? For example, if we have a forest canopy,

forest canopy, a close canopy, we have the so-called temperature inversion beneath the canopy. because the canopy absorbs sunlight and it is warm and there is shadow and the earth is cool. And this cool surface, cool air doesn't rise. So there is no rise and loss of moist air.

It is like sealed in the forest. The forest keeps moisture. And all moisture that is lost or better to say invested, It is through roots. So the surface remains wet, but moisture comes from the soil, from the roots, via leaves, and this moistens the atmosphere.

Now imagine, so this temperature inversion is important. And the surface, moist surface is important. And dead logs on the surface are important. They are not fuel load. They keep moisture, actually. And there was a study by American ecologists who compared rates of fire in protected forests

with a lot of so-called fuel load and managed forests without this load. And those managed forests, burned more, not less. And this is also because when you have seen thinned forest, there is more wind beneath the canopy. It takes moisture away. So it totally disrupts the capacity

of the forest to store moisture. And I must tell you that the biotic pump is our own thing and we can be wrong. But other people arrived at this independent. And Australian researchers coined the term landscape trap, which is what it is. It is when you, there is a forest which has its own natural fire cycle, like maybe 100, 200 years, a fire, natural fire, which doesn't destroy it. And then you begin to cut, to cut this forest.

And they showed how this newly grown forest is. more fire prone and you cut again and it is even more fire prone and so there is this dead loop which ultimately brings the forest to complete degradation. It no longer can restore itself. And this was established on empirical data. So landscape trap. So basically this fix our forest act is aimed to turn this forest to trap your land into this desert dry state.

Is it true? I think it is that the Sahara Desert was created by hand axes and goats back in the day. Like the deforestation that led to that and then there was a positive feedback and it was created into a desert. Is that valid? Well, regarding Sahara, of course, there is a, a lot of evidence that it used to be much wetter. But this is like we always have this uncertainty, and there is the geophysical view

which relates it to changes in the Earth's orbit, which are also very real. But nobody has ever demonstrated quantitatively that a given change in Earth's orbit will turn a forest into a desert. So we can always ask if there were no human impact, maybe the same orbit change

wouldn't create anything, any harm to the forest. But there is another example. It is Australia. Australia used to be a green continent. a green continent. How long ago? Like about 50,000 years ago.

And they are finding now in the desert, like in the dry desert, they are finding remnants of three kangaroos. Three kangaroos, it is very cute things, 20 kilograms or something, I may not remember correctly, which now their relatives live in, the tiny remnants of tropical rainy forests in Australia there. They were across the entire continent. Three kangaroos.

What happened to the forests? Yeah, what happened to the forest? There is research showing that approximately when the first humans arrived, after that, like 40,000 years ago, there was a drastic change in the composition of vegetation. towards this dry state. And this is not parallel to any geophysical catastrophes that somehow happened around.

Just they said the monsoon ceased to penetrate inland and never recovered ever since. So this is because the humans that arrived there chopped down the forest for timber and fuel and building? No, they didn't chop it down. they were burning. So you burn and you catch the wildlife that is escaping. This is one thing.

And another thing is that you burn for there to be early successional vegetation, which is often more palatable for and invites more wildlife and you catch them. So burning. And if they were living at the, the coast, fishing and all that, and burning at the coast. So they cut the biotic pump of the inner forest from the moisture source, and it was over. In no time. In no time.

So, and you can't find even traces of this, why this happened. It was almost instantaneous when a tipping point was crossed. I mean, one of my fears is that, and you, you. don't know a lot about my work is that this abundance and moonshot of economic growth that our species has experienced the last 150 years is because we're mining this ancient sunlight in coal, oil, and gas, and it's supporting this lifestyle and expectations, but this stuff is finite. It's non-renewable. And when we run low on fossil hydrocarbons and that it takes more energy and resources to get them out of the ground, we will then turn again to forests as fuel and timber like we did in the 2009 financial crisis where the country of Greece had to hire army members to protect the northern forest for people that would cut them down. for firewood. So I worry, when you're telling me the story about how things are working now,

in my head, I'm thinking, unless we have some change in consciousness, and you suggested some countries take the lead, I'm hoping it could be the whole world on the maintenance and even growing of our forest cover, because the default is we're going to do the fix our forests globally, that's not ecologically informed, that's not systems informed, and we're going to turn the whole world into a desert, not so metaphorically. What are your thoughts on all that? First of all, it is not just like your perspective, but there are very good data showing how the decline of forests in the U.S. and in Russia were stopping. when the fossil fuel consumption went up.

You were 50 years ahead of us. It was in 1970 or something. And we had it in the beginning of the 20th century. So literally, as controversial as it might sound, fossil fuels did a lot to save what we still have. So, yes, I totally share your concerns. I really like you as a person, as a human, as a scientist. This is a hard topic to understand, but I can tell that you're so passionate about it.

And it's so important in your life, but in all of our lives. So I'm going to just, I hope you don't have a deadline on this conversation. I want to keep going because I have a bunch of small questions that will be. build to the larger questions. So when we take a forest and it's just X number of hectares, how does the biotic pump function differently depending on the type of forest? So an old growth forest compared to a young forest or even a monoculture that they use, like in Spain, there's a lot of heavily forested areas, but they're all monoculture plantations.

does how the biotic pump function, does that change depending on the type of forest? The biotic pump has evolved, like it is an evolved feature of natural forests. So like by definition, natural forests that are native to a certain region run the biotic pump most efficiently. Now, when we begin to change the ecosystem, arbitrarily. Like replacing one species with another, we can't expect anything good from such a

rearrangement. And we can pinpoint very specifically what can go wrong. As I said, it is crucial that the forest transpires the right amount of moisture in the right time. Like for the Amazon forest, for example.

there is a dry season and the forest doesn't transpire a lot. It is dry season. It only begins to transpire in the late, when the dry season ends. Why? Because when it is too dry, the forest transpires into this dry atmosphere.

No condensation occurs because it is still too dry. And all this moisture is just ventilated away and it is a lost, like so to speak, lost money. The forest transpired, but there is no condensation and no return of moisture. So the Amazon forest, natural forest, is tuned to the natural geophysical conditions, and so it begins to transpire

when the situation is such that this added moisture can trigger additional condensation and moisture import. When we just go to a dry place like modern Spain and place some trees of arbitrary species, they just transpire everything they have into the dry atmosphere. And they just waste away soil moisture. So, and that's why many people are convinced that if you plant a forest, you will have less moisture. You will have less river runoff. It will, like, take your moisture, especially from the field, especially if there is irrigation. So there is this competition between trees and people.

And so, and this is indeed when you are in this landscape trap and you are. and you are trapped in the dry regime, then just planting trees will make the situation worse, not better. So when you kill the ecosystem, to resurrect it may not be very easy or even possible at all. So the point is to not kill it in the first place. Absolutely. This is the first point. And I am very cautious every time.

I have many friends in regeneration field, like, let us regenerate the earth and all that. But when we say let us regenerate, it like presumes that we can degenerate, degrade, and then we will regenerate. It's okay. But it is not okay. So we didn't degrade for no reason.

we degraded these lands because it was very cheap. It was cheap just to take from them until they were dead. But to regenerate is extremely costly and may not be even possible in many places. Like when a person is dead, he is dead. Right, you can't, there's no regeneration. Yeah, there is no regeneration. Fortunately, with ecosystems, it could be better, but like that. So, by the way, in your country, there was this term coined proforestation.

Proforestation, not aforestation, not reforestation, but proforestation. By Bill Mumav and Susan Massino and colleagues, what is proforestation? It is when you see that a forest can self-recover and you keep it. just keep it because it is a life source. Like every population of any species, you can see that there are things, population, sinks, and population sources. So there are places where their population reproduces abundantly.

So it has all the resources. And there are things which is only sustained by migration from the sources. Like cities have always been population. thinks, as I recently learned. People didn't reproduce well there. So we need to keep those life sources. They're our utmost treasure.

It is not just about biotic pump. It is life itself. If we lose this matrix, which still works, it's still there. It is alive. But if we lose this matrix, we are done. No hope. I'm a little speechless after that, which doesn't often happen.

Let me ask you a question I plan to ask you, and I'm going to come back to the implications of what you're suggesting. So I don't know if you know Carlos Nobri, but he was on this show a few months ago. And he spoke about the Amazon rainforest is approaching a tipping point where it could turn into a self-driving savannah due to the deforestation. Destation disrupting the moisture recycling, kind of what you're describing here. So how does your biotic pump theory support or extend what Carlos warned about on this show? Of course, I know this work because it is a very famous work, and it is based on a different mechanism of changing albedo, the reflectivity of the surface. So when there is less sunlight coming, so there is less energy available for evapar transpiration, and this call causes drying, if we put it simple.

So less energy available due to forest is darker, the forest land is brighter, it reflects more sunlight, less is available for evap transpiration, and there is drying. So that's only based on sun's reflectivity. mostly, yeah, yes, yes. And not, okay. Not on moisture transport. But Carlos talks about the flying rivers in the Amazon, which are the water vapor flowing through the air,

so it has something to do with moisture. You know, actually, I'm very close to this story of flying rivers because Carlos' brother, a younger brother, Antonio Nobre, is my very close friend and colleagues since 2004. And they are two brothers who, have diametrically opposite views on the biotic bumper, which Carl is being strongly opposing from the beginning. And Antonio is like, actually Antonio was the one who wrote to us in 2004 saying that you

guys are developing nice theories about biotic regulation of the environment, that the ecosystems control their own environment. But here we have the Amazon and it's water cycle. and please do something to show that it regulates its own cycle. So it was a challenge from him, which we took and which set us on this way of investigating the water cycle, because we were doing other things at the time. So, and Antonio, he's an extremely dedicated person to the task of saving the Amazon. But originally, it was Antonio who was doing a lot and back the scenes.

So he didn't get any public recognition for that. But flying rivers, how is it related to the biotic pump? Flying rivers is a very strong symbol or concept. or notion that draws attention to the fact that there is a lot of water vapor flying above our heads and above the forest. And so it is like an artistic message, flying rivers above the Amazon. While the biotic pump explains how these flying rivers actually why they are there and why they are above the Amazon forest. And also what is important, when the forest, the forest has evolved to maintain, to sustain itself with water. So it draws in moist air, takes as much as it has, it needs, but it doesn't care where the rest of the water goes.

So apparently the air can't stop just because the air circulate. So it goes further, for example, and since it goes from the moist forest, it brings moisture to areas downwind. And there is research, and Antonio is involved in that, and he has prepared now a new paper on that, showing that basically the Amazon forest serves as an ocean on land. and the regions adjacent to it receive moisture from it, which facilitates agriculture, and where there is flow from the forest, you may get two harvests instead of one, if you are outside of this river.

And also rivers themselves, it is also like what forest disposes of. So rivers are not important for the forest, as forest is important for the rivers. So without forest, there would be no or much smaller rivers, but for the forest, it is just the excess of or inevitable loss due to gravity. So and as the Amazon goes to the ocean, so are those flying rivers that pass over the Amazon to the agricultural regions in Brazil.

they are just what the excess of forest functioning in terms of water. Are there atmospheric rivers in Siberia and in Central Africa? Of course, of course. And this is also not our own research, but there was a famous study which showed that, for example, China also receives a lot of moisture that resocculate, and goes through Siberia and goes then to China. So not just from the Pacific Ocean, but from the east.

I am hearing and feeling from you that humans and human scientists misunderstand and underappreciate the role of forests in the stability of our ecosystems and in the climate models themselves. earlier in this conversation, you mentioned the concept or the phenomenon of climate sensitivity, which is how much Earth's surface temperature would rise if atmospheric greenhouse gases would double. You and your research, I believe, have proposed what you call a three-legged model for understanding this, which is not just CO2 and albedo or reflectivity, but this vertical temperature gradient above the forest.

So can you walk us through the framework on how the forest influence these three variables and what this implies for the climate sensitivity that is in the literature today? Yes, I don't think that this three-legged something scheme can be accepted. This is just refers to a diagram which shows indeed three lines that you can conceptualize climate change. But we have already mentioned that, first of all, there are greenhouse substances that wrap thermal radiation and increase surface temperature.

So the more we have greenhouse substances, is the higher the surface temperature. Then there is how much sunlight the planet absorbs and how much it sends away back to the space. This is what is called reflectivity or albedo. So climate research focuses on that. But another thing is that is this temperature, a vertical temperature gradient?

And this vertical temperature gradient actually describes what? happens at the surface? Because the balance, the balance is between how much energy. The planet always, in a

steady state, it will receive as much sun, it will emit as much radiation, as much thermal radiation as it receives sunlight, just from meta-conservation. But what will be at the surface depends on this vertical

temperature gradient. What are the implications on the 4C to 6C climate sensitivity numbers if we incorporate the work of biotic pump theory? I can tell you

what I think that including generally not just biotic pump, but generally the idea that natural ecosystem contribute to climate stability, it can explain this hot models paradox.

How? Because hot models, they describe the current climate using the most recent data, satellite data on clouds. And the models that have lower climate sensitivity, they are better fitted to the past. So if we take this research, outside face value, we can see that past climate was less sensitive to CO2 than current climate.

And there was a sharp increase in sensitivity during the last decades. And what happened in these decades? Massive destruction of natural forests. So we, and this explains that all the models keep, it lower sensitivity and more advanced models fit it to more recent data already reflect this more destroyed biosphere. And if this is so, and this is, as I know, this is the only explanation because current climate community just doesn't, as my understanding is, they don't have any explanation and any idea what to do with those hot models.

and how to explain this discrepancy. But the idea is that we are losing natural ecosystems, we are losing stability. We don't know how. We can figure it out. Of course, like with the 2023, we lost a lot of cloud cover over them. But generally, 10 hectares here,

hundreds of square kilometers in Siberia, fix our forest. in the U.S., now plans for self-sustainable forestry in Canada, big plans for bio-way fuel in Indonesia. So we are eating away these pillars of our climate stability, and then we are surprised that indeed there is an uptick, and there is an uptick in temperature, and the models become violent,

and climate sensitivity will rise soon to 10 degrees to CO2 doubling. Possibly it could, but not for the reasons that the models say, it's possibly it could be 10C if we denude, if we do a 21st century version of Easter Island after fossil fuels decline, like we talked about earlier. Like I'm reading between the lines of what you're saying, and I'm a little depressed right now, because I didn't really fully understand this.

In fact, we had a conference in Munich last year, embracing nature's complexity about this stuff. And people who participated noted on the contrary, that this is a positive message. It is not because, honestly, our success in fighting with CO2 emissions are exactly zero. But our success on forests might not be zero. Might not be zero.

And it is still there and they're alive. So let me take an aerial view here. What would accepting the biotic pump theory and the central importance of forests, if the general thrust of yours and Victor Gorskov's work was integrated and accepted, what would that mean for current climate models and climate activism generally? There are two questions that you ask for climate models and for climate activism. In my view, climate models currently have a major problem that they try to describe what is possible.

But indeed, many things are possible. And you know, if there are like official models that are accepted by IPCC predict from 2 to 6 Kelvin's such a big discrepancy, actually what has not been tested is what can't be modeled by these models. Like nobody tried, like there is a model which predicts just 2 Kelvin. Is there a model, at least they all agree in the sign

that more CO2 means warming? But probably we could come up with other models that predicts something different. And with respect to the water cycle, which is not their focus. I must tell you that when these models deforest the world, and they did make such experiments, they predict totally different answers.

So no robust response. Some say there will be more moisture transport to land, more precipitation, some say there will be less moisture transport, less precipitation. And it means that there are no constraints. are totally blind on this matter. And so what I think, and this is my idea that I've been entertaining

for a couple of years already. What could be done? They like to compare us with the spaceship Earth. Like we are all on the spaceship, we need to take care of it. But when people construct spaceships, they plan for the worst scenario. So they try to expand the range of things that can happen, not to like let us concentrate on the most probable scenario and discard the least problem.

No, expand what is at all possible. So instead of trying to make models, that mimic the reality and confirm the major role of CO2, let us build a different model, just forget about CO2, and which assigns the main role to force. And let us parameterize as much as we can and try to see whether such a model is possible.

Because if it is possible, then we are on equal grounds. But it has never been made. You're saying the climate of Earth is incredibly important, but maybe if instead of optimizing for CO2 as the driver, we should just set that aside for the moment and redo it, build it from scratch, focusing on forests as the main driver and see what is the output of that. Yes, yes. And CO2 would be one of the variables, but not,

but forest would be the central one. Yes, just task a group of scientists with that. The problem, I would say, that scientists, I think it is a global problem, especially when you call for something like don't do, don't destroy, it goes against economic interests of many people. So it is not like you can, you are free to say what you are saying, but who will listen. And this is the problem, but not only in.

my country, but everywhere, I think. Of course, because the science is good until there are recommendations and implications from it, and then it's suddenly questioned. So what do we do about that? Like, what is your hope for science and humanity in coming decades? We were very much concentrated on our research, and Victor died in 2019. after a long, like he was ill for about a year and a half, and it was very tough, very tough time.

And in 2019, I was like, I just opened my eyes, and I saw that the world has changed. Something I felt very acutely, and I remember writing to Uga Bardi about that, what happened? It was like I was totally disconnected with my other, with this dramatic things. And something happened. So I felt it.

I saw it. So I'm trying now to figure out. And still, when I look into the future, I don't get any signals, I confess. But at the same time, more recently, like something, I feel that. there is an opportunity. Like maybe there is an opportunity. Because changes are so strange what's going on. Many things are going really strange.

So I really hope for a phase transition. When suddenly the priority in competitive interaction that drives our society will change. But we need to have something. preserved by that time. I agree. So is there anything that people around the world listening to this show can do with respect to the protection and the maintenance of existing forests? Like, what sort of recommendations do you give on that front?

There are in every country. There are people on the ground that fight for each particular place. So if you have an opportunity, just support those local efforts. Besides that, I think that we really need a global movement for this. And we need to energize governments to lead. Because it is a very, it is a field where it is easy. to lead and to be seen as a very good, like a real leader. And in this sense, when I see it this, what you are having now, like this, make America great again, it is good.

But if you destroy what actually makes your land alive, it won't make America great again, it won't make America great again. Maybe this could be communicated to people. You're the first guest I've ever had from Russia. Do they teach basic ecology to 10-year-olds in grade school and high school in Russia? Yes, there is, of course, it is not ecology. It is, I think, on the biology course. Because most people in this country are never required to take economic.

unless it's an elective in college. So we really are ecosystems blind generally. Like Fixar Forest is like an Orwellian term because it's going to do the opposite, like you said. So I think there's an ecological education and awareness that is a foundational step first. Unfortunately, the situation is worse that you are saying, because there are, as I'm a little bit acquainted with the literature. There are many scientists paid directly by industry

and they are scientists and they are teaching this that forests should be cut to reduce fuel load. So this is a the situation is more like more grave. In Russia

we have a different thing that basically nobody cares. what you are saying. So it is like... What do they care about? No, no. I mean, in the U.S., what I see, as I see,

the industry is paying scientists that they are saying something that they... They're giving conclusions that are friendly to the industry. To continue to cut. In Russia, it is like not needed because the industry has, like, can do that. So in this sense, the industry, and this is what in the West, is more like advanced in doing these tricks. You know, to be honest, you're world famous on your work on the biotic pump and all the implications that has on climate and the other systems. Part of me wishes I could have just had this

two hours with you to talk about Russia. Tell me about a favorite forest that you have. in Russia. I'm sure there's lots of them and can you just describe it for a bit? I traveled for many years to the White Sea. White Sea is about 700

kilometers north from St. Petersburg. It has a very high tide like about one meter and a half, which makes it difficult to develop the coast. And that's why it is

more or less wild. And so I spend a lot of time, like I calculated, six years, like 70 months, between forest and sea. And this is absolutely transforming. This is like you come there and in three weeks, not immediately, in three weeks, you become a different person.

like you are rebalanced, retuned somehow. And you see, Victor was saying that it is exceptionally important for a theorist to be immersed into the forest. Because a lot of things you estimate by order of magnitude. So you just have an idea how things fit together. like productivity, like rainfall, like soil moisture, and you see it all, and you see the complexity of things. What we are missing, the main thing, is the complexity of nature.

Complexity, it is more complex than our civilization, which is just a big thing, concentrated resources. Which is also complex, but I agree with you. on nature. Yes. So we are underestimating that. And since 2020, with Andre,

Niford of my partner, collaborator, we are traveling to Siberia, to the Eni Sea River, which is where the biotic pump actually started, because, when Antonio told us that we should develop something about the Amazon,

the first thing Victor thought about was the Yenisei River, where he traveled a lot. And he said, how is that that this river being so many thousands of kilometers from any of the ocean is such a big river? How all this rain gets there? So that was our starting point, how we began to think about that. indeed the Ennis River is a very mighty entity, very mighty phenomenon when you see it. In the north of Russia?

Yes, mostly we are on approximately the same latitude as St. Petersburg's there. Just out of curiosity, what sort of megafauna are there? What sort of animals or fish or birds might you see? Yes. well, first of all, bears, moose. These are the biggest. And also, regarding fish in the Uynecy,

there is like very precious fish, which is prohibited fish. But there is a lot of very good fish also there. It is called the white fish. So I'm sorry to get so esoteric, but it's beyond dinner. time where you are. Have you had dinner yet tonight? Yes, yes.

What did you have? I have cabbage soup. Cabbage soup. Yes. Well, that's... Very delicious, very delicious soup. It is called shi in Russia. Okay.

So I don't know that you've watched any of my episodes, but I usually close the interview by asking some of the same questions to all my guests. So I work on something that we call the metacrisis, which is not only climate change, but inequality and energy depletion and artificial intelligence and economic growth and how all those things fit together, the unfolding of our times. Do you have any personal advice?

Well, first of all, is metacrisis? Is that a thing in Russia? Did people talk about the metacrisis or the polycrisis? People are dying, so this is now overshadows, other discussions. But generally, in Russia, people are more optimistic about global warming. I must tell you, because many people think the warmer, the better. The warmer the better for Russia. Yeah, for Russia.

So there is a lot of, like, I would say, a lot of skepticism regarding the danger. Well, plus the most of the country is a forest, so it's not like you're deforesting Russia at a rapid pace. No, no, we are deforesting Russia at a rapid pace. Really? I didn't know that. No, you should know that the rates of deforestation are really, really very high. And also, as we have discussed, when you log, it is followed by fires because the water cycle is disrupted and there are also more people can come because there are roads.

So there is more ignition. So I'm sure you heard about huge fires in Siberia. So it is all interconnected. So basically there is forests are under threat in Russia and this will matter for the world also. So

that's why I'm talking about international effort just let us bring up a new culture because you know forest, okay, I agree pharma industry is very powerful. They're thinking

money from everybody killing people, very difficult to do something. But forestry industry is not that powerful. It is not a fossil fuel industry. So it should be possible to overcome this relatively minor segment

of economics which makes a disproportionate destruction for all. And people are just not seeing that. Because even for the farm, even for the fossil fuel, these barons or whoever, or for everybody, these people who are cutting forests, who are promoting, building skyscrapers from wood or whatever. Also, I must tell you, this topic about plastic package is very specious. because if we replace plastic package with paper, it will be a global disaster.

Because we will have to chop down so many forests. Because we will chop down everything. So what we are proposing, actually we are proposing here, the notion of climate regulating forests. Let us protect the climate regulating forests, the self-regenerating forests, and let do forestry on plantations. Don't pretend these are forests. Don't pretend.

Call them something else. Call them something else and let us cut what you have grown. Don't go to nature. So they could even be paid. So the state could even like contribute some investments for these plantations. Like my crazy dream would be like the Chinese,

we were in December in China on the Eco Summit about eco-civilization of the future. And the Chinese are really very serious about ecology, about trying to do something because their situation is very difficult in ecological terms. But while they are trying to restore something in China, they are cutting everything in Russia, in the forest, all grows forests.

And by doing so, they are disrupting the moisture flow and disrupting regional water cycle. To China. To China, yes, to China. So maybe to cooperate with China, let us do a plantation, because on a plantation, you can forget about ecology

and you can just grow as we grow on the field. So there would be a tree forest or a tree plantation, and they're run by different rules. And the summary of this podcast, conversation with you, and thank you for your time, is one of the biggest no-regret strategies that we humans have as a species going forward

is to protect the existing remaining forests on Earth for their ecological functioning and services. that they stabilize all sorts of things. Yes, it's a climate regulating, for their climate regulating function. And for what we discuss less, also for their function, for providing us with a reference

that makes the sense of life, the meaning of life. Are there activists who aren't scientists like you, but are there entities in Russia that champion the causes that you are discussing here? You know that indeed Russian people are, there are many people who are concerned about forests. They are a minority as in any other population,

but it is normal, I think it is normal. But they are less concerned about climate, like big climate, but they are concerned about forests and their argument are very, I would say you would love them because they are multidimensional, multi-perspective, from all perspectives, from the perspective of health, of knowledge, of like, from everything, including local climatic benefits,

also. Like, for example, everybody understands that forests smooth as temperature extremes. So just from a marketing standpoint, it would be much easier for the world to adopt, protect, and save our existing forest than it would to save climate change. It's just way too complex. The latter is way too complex and counter to industry and and everything else. I actually think forest and what they do for climate regulation and other things is a better story for people to actually respond to because in my work, I call the economic superorganism is going to want more and more emissions and fossil fuels.

The problem is, is once growth stops, what do we do then about forests? and that's something that is a big question on my mind. It is actually an existential question because, and in the biotic regulation concept, it refers to the problem or the curse of abundance. Because when you have an abundant resource, you can't arrange competitive interaction such that those who preserve out-compete those who take away. It is like the tragedy of comments,

but it is a very, very fundamental problem. And I've been thinking how to overcome that. And the only thing, I think, it is a taboo. There should be a taboo, but not superstitious, like something, which is,

It used to be in some indigenous societies, like Antonio is saying that the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, they know that if you destroy forests, there will be no rain. How do they know? They know from the spirits. We don't know that, but we can formulate this global taboo based on science, because it is for the first time in human history that we have been able to look at the globe as a whole.

We know global precipitation. We know what forests are doing. We can measure it. We know River Ranof and all that. So based on this, we can forever just set them aside and return to this green corridor where we can do whatever we want, developing our civilization further. when the population level stabilizes at the like below one billion, there won't be any problems if we also preserve electricity.

So there are chances, I think, and unique chances for the first time. Maybe this global crisis is our global chance. Because it is so boring, Nate, it is so boring. time one and the same. Big civilization collapse. Big civilization collapse. Have we learned something? Can we stop this or minimize these

very silly things? And all the time for the same reason. For the same reason. Stupid people go up and destroy everything, then everything is destroyed. Clever people come up, repair, or nature grows, itself and this is all the same.

And now, when this is global, maybe we can stoop it. Well, that's my hope and why I have this platform. Here's a question I ask all my guests. I don't know that you've heard this, but if you had a magic wand and you could wave it and there was one thing you could do,

there was no personal risk to you or your decision, what is one thing you would do to improve the future for humanity and the biosphere? Well, I would, of course, ban any further forest exploitation everywhere, just from tomorrow or from today. So it is pretty clear. And it is also personally, people are so wounded. You know, you were asking about my travel.

What I learned in that travel? what is the feeling of your territory, that you, it is the territory of yours, you own it, it is your home. But with this, which we don't actually experience in such a cute manner when we live in the urban environment, because we are sharing with many people whom we don't know, but when you see it is like yours,

like you are part of it, But with this comes this acute tragedy of, no, no, very acute suffering of when it is destroyed. When it is, when somebody comes and you lose control. So when I thought, it made me rethink and understand the sufferings of people who were, colonized when our civilization was, it is something that people don't understand who didn't experience it. It is an immense suffering,

like crush, like total collapse of something. Yeah, it's like a violation of something sacred. I feel what you're trying to articulate. Yeah, yeah. So lots of people are wounded when forests are being cut. Of course, it doesn't matter for many. Many people are also being killed and nobody cares.

But this is something that we need to preserve. Thank you. I agree with that. I'm going to give you a chance to make a closing appeal to our listeners. But let me ask you this. You are obviously a polymath of sorts. You have a scientific mind and a curiosity. If you were to come back on this show next year, say, what is one topic, and it might or might not have to do with forests, what is one topic that you personally are very interested and passionate about that is relevant to human or planetary futures that you would be willing to take a deep dive and unpack?

You know, I have lots of scientific interest, which I can't pursue because my research that I'm now doing, I think it is most important. But early in my career, I did some genetic research on the genetic variability in mammals. And I think a very important problem of our species is the increasing mutation load. So that we don't have a proper natural selection operating, and we are continuously genetically degrading, basically. And this is not properly... We don't have even a discussion about that. but this is important and this also relates to a normal environment.

So this is a very complicated topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine. I mean, I'm also interested in that. And another topic, which is also very interesting from my point of view, is how what would be the right? how can we arrange a good life on the planet for the humanity in terms of ecology? So how many should we be or how should we behave to be in balance? And are there any natural guidance on how many on our numbers which we could use?

because if you look at the distribution of energy consumption in natural forests, you will see that the biggest animals consume the smallest proportion of energy. All animals, all big animals, meaning all mammals, beginning from mice, consume less than 1% of primary productivity. 10% goes to invertebrates, like including insects, And 90% is what is decomposed by bacteria and fungi. Who are the pillar of the stability? I didn't know that.

So all 6,000 mammal species together consume 1% of NPP. In natural forests. If you have degraded, you can, like in somewhere in savannah, which is very unstable, you may have a much higher, population density, which is, by the way, why savannah is unstable. But for stable ecosystems, we have this. And Victor was the first person who established that. And this is basically what he formulated as a limit,

as what you would say, as biospheric boundary for our species. And that's important because, this has to do why is this so and this has to do with the size when you have a big size the size surface and volume ratio

diminishes and you are mostly concentrated on your inner side and your impact on the environment is reduced to very simple things you take and you return excretor.

And this has many parallels in model world. Like when a firm a company is small, it is very competitive, it is like doing good things, and then it undergoes what is now the coin,

the term, it is this enshittification or something like that, when it grows big, and it begins to absorb in its own internal problems and doesn't care about external consumers. So it is a very and that's why because they are

so inefficient these big things including us. Nature strictly suppresses their share of consumption such that they don't are not allowed to make a big impact. And this picture stands in sharp contrast

with the idea that some people, anthropocentric idea, that big animals are engineers of ecosystems. They're This is not so. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah.

So thank you so much for your important work, your lifetime of dedication to this work and your time today. Do you have any closing comments for the viewers around the world watching and trying to understand the importance of the biotic pump and the Earth's forest? Do you have any closing words of advice to the humans? following this story. Yes, I would say that we need to listen to each other and try to overcome this disruptions that are coming our way. Because really there is a more connection between the good in many countries and in all countries there is the evil near the good.

So we need to connect rather than be disrupted on a formal ground that somebody is from the wrong country. So thank you, Nate, for listening. Thank you. Thank you. Anastasia Makareva. Thank you. And to be continued, my friend. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of the Great Simplification, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

You can also visit the Great Simplification. for references and show notes from today's conversation. And to connect with fellow listeners of this podcast, check out our Discord channel. This show is hosted by me, Nate Hagen's, edited by No Troublemakers Media, and produced by Misty Stinnett, Leslie Battlutz, Brady Hyann and Lizzie Siriani.