Speaker 1: Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr. Back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, I was in the second grade and
Speaker 1: would occasionally watch this show on television called Captain Planet
Speaker 1: and the Planeteers The Power. It was a superhero themed
Speaker 1: environmentalist cartoon considered to be edutainment for kids. It fitted
Speaker 1: well with Bill Nye, the Science Guy and Reading Rainbow.
Speaker 1: Each episode was built around an environmental problem, often perpetuated
Speaker 1: by a super villain. Then the international coalition of Planeteers
Speaker 1: would fight alongside Captain Planet to literally save the world.
Speaker 1: The show was very on the nose. It covered topics
Speaker 1: like littering, pollution, and in one particular episode it talked
Speaker 1: about the whole in the ozone layer that chill Joy.
Speaker 1: Ozone layer blocks out the deadly rays. D fcs eat
Speaker 1: a hole in the ozone layer of Hurd's atmosphere, but
Speaker 1: without the ozone, the Sun's deadly ultraviolet radiation will pour
Speaker 1: down on us exactly. Supervillain Duke Newcombe and its flunky
Speaker 1: assistant who moved factories to Antarctica in order to open
Speaker 1: the backs of refrigerators and microwaves just to release the
Speaker 1: damaging chemicals. Those chemicals called CFC's or chlorofluoral carbons actively
Speaker 1: create the whole in the ozone Again, this is a
Speaker 1: kid show. I first saw this episode when I was
Speaker 1: in second grade, and I remember being really concerned. As
Speaker 1: an adult, I rarely hear about the ozone layer. I
Speaker 1: talked this up to lack of interest and the new
Speaker 1: cycle moving on, but then I realized it's because this
Speaker 1: problem was actually solved. We had this which you might
Speaker 1: call focusing event of this whole in the Antarctic ozone layer,
Speaker 1: which really in the nineties and certainly in the eighties,
Speaker 1: people were very, very interested in this problem. Kids really cared,
Speaker 1: and their parents really cared. Doctor Susan Solomon is a
Speaker 1: real life planeteer. She's an atmospheric scientist whose research into
Speaker 1: CFC's in the nineteen eighties showed that they were responsible
Speaker 1: for the whole in the ozone layer and eventually led
Speaker 1: us all to solutions. Public engagement, you know, when people
Speaker 1: get interested in something and really think about what things
Speaker 1: they can do, is often a very very powerful way
Speaker 1: to solve environmental problems. Now you know here it's solvable.
Speaker 1: It's rare that we talk about problems that have already
Speaker 1: been solved. So let's see what lessons we can learn
Speaker 1: from doctor Solomon and how they can be applied. I'm
Speaker 1: doctor Susan Solomon, and I never thought when I was
Speaker 1: young that we could solve the ozone depletion problem, but
Speaker 1: we did, and we can also solve climate change. I
Speaker 1: know that one of your earliest inspirations was the ocean
Speaker 1: explorer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau. He was a big influence
Speaker 1: on you as a kid. Can you remember the first
Speaker 1: time you saw him at work? You know, it was
Speaker 1: one of those little old nineteen sixties black and white TVs.
Speaker 1: I was probably about ten, so even though it was
Speaker 1: black and white, I just could not believe how beautiful
Speaker 1: the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau actually was, and what
Speaker 1: an incredible thing it was that he was going down
Speaker 1: there to study sharks and whales. And that's when I decided, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a scientist. And I never wavered
Speaker 1: from that view, and I'm so glad that I didn't.
Speaker 1: How did you make the leap from underwater science to
Speaker 1: atmospheric work. I thought at first that I would be
Speaker 1: a biologist, you know, I'd be a marine biologist like Jacque. Right.
Speaker 1: But when I got to college and was, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at biology, I didn't really like biology, but I
Speaker 1: really liked chemistry. What I liked about it was the
Speaker 1: exactitude of it. You measure out exactly how many milli
Speaker 1: leaders of one chemical you combine with another one, and voila,
Speaker 1: you know, you get some third thing and it always
Speaker 1: happens the same way. And I found that to be
Speaker 1: really beautiful. So I kind of fell in love with chemistry.
Speaker 1: Then I found out that there was such a thing
Speaker 1: as chemistry on a planet, not just in a test tube.
Speaker 1: And wow, that's what I decided I would try and
Speaker 1: go for. And it was, I think a fabulous decision.
Speaker 1: Doctor Solomon. In the nineteen eighties, you led a group
Speaker 1: of researchers to Antarctica. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: that trip. By that time, I was already a young scientist.
Speaker 1: I was past my PhD. I was working for the
Speaker 1: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And this incredible thing happened,
Speaker 1: which was that some scientists reported that the ozone over
Speaker 1: Antarctica had dropped like a rock. And I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to have the chance to go down there and
Speaker 1: take some measurements not just of ozone itself, but also
Speaker 1: other chemicals that influence it, to try to understand why
Speaker 1: that was happening. And as far as the experience, you know,
Speaker 1: it's often said Antarctica isn't a place, it's an obsession
Speaker 1: because everybody that goes there is so blown away by
Speaker 1: the other worldly nature of this remarkable, cold, remote crystalline
Speaker 1: palace that is Antarctica, and the constant reminders that you
Speaker 1: really are in the most unexplored place that exists still
Speaker 1: on this planet, and also just how small you are
Speaker 1: as a person, and how vast and wild nature is.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no a greater reminder of that than
Speaker 1: when you're in a blizzard down in the Antarctic. Could
Speaker 1: you describe what's that like? Oh? Yeah, I mean down there,
Speaker 1: you don't actually usually call them blizzards. You call them
Speaker 1: herbies because it's a combination of a hurricane a blizzards.
Speaker 1: It became a herbie. It sounds cuter than it is.
Speaker 1: It's very dangerous to go outside in those kind of
Speaker 1: conditions because you literally cannot see more than a few
Speaker 1: feet in front of your face. So if you get
Speaker 1: disoriented at all, and you don't know which way is
Speaker 1: back to the hut that you came out of. You
Speaker 1: probably will die. And I know people who have Doctor Solomon,
Speaker 1: can you tell me a little bit about what ozone
Speaker 1: actually is and why you went to Antarctica to study
Speaker 1: there specifically. Yeah, so it was a real mystery when
Speaker 1: the ozone hole opened up. Ozone is O three, So
Speaker 1: three oxygen atoms stuck together is O three. Oxygen that
Speaker 1: we breathe is O two and very very different. O
Speaker 1: three absorbs certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light that are not
Speaker 1: absorbed by anything else. So it's absolutely critical for the
Speaker 1: evolution of life on the planet. If we didn't have
Speaker 1: an no zone layer, there wouldn't be any life at
Speaker 1: all on this planet, at least not life as we
Speaker 1: know it. If we have less ozone, then we'll have
Speaker 1: more skin cancer, we'll have more cataracts. Those are some
Speaker 1: of the most severe human impacts. But you know, what
Speaker 1: about plants, what about animals? You know, it clearly would
Speaker 1: have massive biological implications because ultra violet light. You know,
Speaker 1: anybody who's ever been sunburned or head cataracts knows that
Speaker 1: ultraviolet light is very damaging. So it was really a
Speaker 1: shock when the British Antarctic Survey reported that they'd seen
Speaker 1: a tremendous decline in the ozone layer over their station.
Speaker 1: It wasn't being seen anywhere else in the world. It
Speaker 1: wasn't being seen over the Arctic, for example. Didn't take
Speaker 1: long for the Japanese at their station to confirm what
Speaker 1: the British had seen, and eventually the satellites came in
Speaker 1: and were able to actually document the full scale of
Speaker 1: the thing. It's twice the size of the continent on
Speaker 1: the United States, I mean, think of that. It's just massive,
Speaker 1: and it opens up every year at the end of
Speaker 1: winter beginning of spring. So this was a huge mystery
Speaker 1: and we went down there to try to help figure
Speaker 1: out what it is by measuring other stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and you could actually see that there was this huge
Speaker 1: bite taken out of the normal layer. So there's normally
Speaker 1: sort of a you know, if you turned it on
Speaker 1: its side and imagine it was a person, it would
Speaker 1: look like a big nose. Right, So there's this big
Speaker 1: layer of ozone and you know, somebody's eaten the nose
Speaker 1: off of ozone's face. Right, It's just it's incredible, So
Speaker 1: we should clarify this is not something you can actually
Speaker 1: see with your eyes right right, So you can't see
Speaker 1: ultraviolet light with your eyes, but we have sensors that
Speaker 1: can measure ultraviolet light. And since ozone absorbs in the ultraviolet,
Speaker 1: if there's less ozone, there'll be more ultraviolet, and you
Speaker 1: can quantify that and say how much it is. We
Speaker 1: could also, and this was really important, measure chlorine monoxide.
Speaker 1: And in my own group we measured chlorine dioxide, which
Speaker 1: is related to chlorine monoxide and that absorbs in the
Speaker 1: visible So all these different kinds of measurements by independent methods,
Speaker 1: they all showed that the chlorine was completely out of wack.
Speaker 1: And that was very suggestive certainly, and infect it really
Speaker 1: strongly pointed toward the idea that something about the chlorofluoricar
Speaker 1: in chemistry over Antarctica was different, and we knew that
Speaker 1: that was a potential cause, and it indeed it turned
Speaker 1: out to be the cause. So chlorofluorcarbons we call those
Speaker 1: CFCs as well. Would you talk about CFCs and remind
Speaker 1: listeners what those are. Chlorofluora carbons are a man made chemical.
Speaker 1: There's no natural source of these molecules at all. We
Speaker 1: make them in the lab. They were first discovered in
Speaker 1: around the twenties for use in refrigerators, and they're actually great.
Speaker 1: They're what makes the compressor able to cool the refrigerator.
Speaker 1: They're a great insulator. So styrofoam, for example, was blown
Speaker 1: that way back in the day. Home insulation panels were
Speaker 1: made that way. But the most important use at the
Speaker 1: time of the discovery of the ozone hole was still
Speaker 1: in spray cans, so the propellants that get the stuff
Speaker 1: to come out of the can. Now, the ozone hole
Speaker 1: wasn't discovered until nineteen eighty five, but in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four two scientists Malina and Rowland wrote a paper talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that these molecules might actually destroy a
Speaker 1: little bit of ozone someday. And they were talking about
Speaker 1: a small effect, a few percent far in the future,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred years from now, kind of like
Speaker 1: the way people used to talk about climate change until
Speaker 1: maybe the past year or two or three, when climate
Speaker 1: change has become more obvious. But back in that day,
Speaker 1: you know, there was no observation that said it was
Speaker 1: already happening, but there was this theory and Americans were environmentally,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say very conscious and realize
Speaker 1: that they could do something really simple, which was go
Speaker 1: to their medicine cabinet and get rid of the spray
Speaker 1: on deodorant and buy the roll on next time instead,
Speaker 1: and that's what they did. It created an enormous kickstart
Speaker 1: because with seventy five percent of the use being for
Speaker 1: spray cans in nineteen seventy four, the American chemical companies
Speaker 1: suddenly found themselves, you know, in a terrible position. There
Speaker 1: was no market, you know, I mean it's like, whoa,
Speaker 1: The bottom dropped out of everything that they were trying
Speaker 1: to do with these chemicals. So from the point of
Speaker 1: view of the US manufacturers, the old stuff wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: going to sell. So consumer action really was a fantastic
Speaker 1: kickstart when they had a huge effect on industry, had
Speaker 1: a few huge effect on the viability of that product.
Speaker 1: It's just, I think a wonderful testimony to the power
Speaker 1: of people. And I agree with that because I remember
Speaker 1: in the nineties, early nineties, I was in first or
Speaker 1: second grade, and I remember when that was all people
Speaker 1: talked about. They were like, hey, we got to save
Speaker 1: the ozone layer. Don't use CFCs, don't use spray cans,
Speaker 1: and they mobilized us children to go home, mommy, daddy,
Speaker 1: you gotta get rid of all the spray cants stuff.
Speaker 1: You can't use this anymore, especially if it's a CFCs.
Speaker 1: And I've remember on cans stuff used to say no
Speaker 1: CFCs if they didn't have it. It It was very popular
Speaker 1: at that time. And I remember we used to talk
Speaker 1: about the ozonel or a lot. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of buzz in the nineties about ozone depletion, But the
Speaker 1: climate conversation seems to have shifted. We're not necessarily talking
Speaker 1: about ozone depletion as much anymore. And I'm wondering how
Speaker 1: tightly linked are ozone depletion and climate change. It's not
Speaker 1: the major reason why the planet's getting hotter. The climate
Speaker 1: issue is mainly caused by our burning of fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: which produces carbon dioxide, and that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared light.
Speaker 1: It's because we've increased the carbon dioxide by oh, you know,
Speaker 1: the natural level that was there, say around eighteen hundred,
Speaker 1: would have been around two hundred and seventy parts per millions.
Speaker 1: So when a millionaire molecules, you'd find two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy carbon dioxide molecules. Now we have something close to
Speaker 1: foreign fifteen. So you know, we've we've made a big
Speaker 1: change in the amount of carbon dioxide. And the one
Speaker 1: thing actually that the ozone depleting chemicals have in common
Speaker 1: with carbon dioxide is that they have long lifetimes of
Speaker 1: the order of fifty two hundred and fifty years. Carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide is even longer. Some of it goes away fairly
Speaker 1: quickly into things like plants and the surface layer of
Speaker 1: the ocean. But in a thousand years, twenty percent of
Speaker 1: the carbon dioxide that you or I know put in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere today by driving, for example, will still be there.
Speaker 1: Twenty percent of it will still be there, continuing to
Speaker 1: warm the planet. You know, to me, what matters in
Speaker 1: solving environmental problems is first and foremost the action of people,
Speaker 1: the interest of people. With enough public interest, politicians who
Speaker 1: care can get engaged with the problem because you know,
Speaker 1: they've got popular support, and in fact, they can force
Speaker 1: their opponents to get engaged. And that's that's happened already
Speaker 1: in both problems. I personally am very optimistic that the
Speaker 1: kind of public concern and power of the people movement
Speaker 1: that you're seeing is going to have a huge effect.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, there's a role for science.
Speaker 1: I always say that science alone is never enough to
Speaker 1: solve an environmental problem, but it's always always necessary. So
Speaker 1: it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. You've got to
Speaker 1: be able to understand the problem. And I think that
Speaker 1: we do our best job in solving environmental problems when
Speaker 1: they're personal, when when people really care about them. You know,
Speaker 1: we cared about skin cancer. It was personal, it was perceptible.
Speaker 1: It was easy to see these beautiful images of you
Speaker 1: know how big the ozone hole is, you know, eating
Speaker 1: all of Antarctica. And we found practical solutions. We didn't
Speaker 1: have to give up having dealnorant You know, we could
Speaker 1: have roll ons and we didn't have to give up
Speaker 1: spreak cans. You know, we could we could actually put
Speaker 1: other stuff in the can. And we don't have to
Speaker 1: give up refrigerators. We'd have to give up any of it.
Speaker 1: We just had to develop practical solutions. And I think
Speaker 1: when you look at climate change, it's becoming way more personal.
Speaker 1: It's why there is this level of public engagement, way
Speaker 1: more perceptible. You know, the summers are warmer, for sure,
Speaker 1: and definitely it's dryer, and of course the fires in
Speaker 1: the West are terrifying, the flooding that happened this year
Speaker 1: in so many different parts of the world, whether it's
Speaker 1: China or Europe. So personal, perceptible, and the solutions are
Speaker 1: becoming practical. You know, I really think we are on
Speaker 1: the road to fixing this problem. I appreciate optimism. I
Speaker 1: do want to talk more specifically about the ways in
Speaker 1: which these movements happened. In the eighties, the same year
Speaker 1: you were doing research in Antarctica, the United Nations created
Speaker 1: the Montreal Protocol. Would you tell me about that time? Sure,
Speaker 1: the original Montreal Protocol was very clever. All that it
Speaker 1: required was that the growth of global use of chlorofloric
Speaker 1: carbons stops. So, in other words, they weren't saying you
Speaker 1: had to phase these molecules out right away. They were saying,
Speaker 1: don't make more next year than you made this year.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't that threatening to you know, things
Speaker 1: like refrigerator manufacturers or other users of these molecules. Yet,
Speaker 1: and it gave a mandate to the scientists really and
Speaker 1: the technologists report back to assess the state of the science,
Speaker 1: the state of understanding of what you could do instead,
Speaker 1: and when the diplomats met again in nineteen ninety, by
Speaker 1: that time it had become clear that the depletion over
Speaker 1: an Arctica wasn't unique, that we were actually seeing significant
Speaker 1: depletion over mid latitudes too, So you know, over Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Over London, over all the different places in
Speaker 1: the world. You know, we have dozens of stations where
Speaker 1: ozone has been measured, So that of course created a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of impetus to do more. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that was happening, and I think this is really important,
Speaker 1: is that just the fact that the protocol existed really
Speaker 1: sent a strong message to industry. You know, it said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you've we've frozen this stuff now. But
Speaker 1: it's clearly sending a message that this is not going
Speaker 1: to be a growth industry and it might actually be
Speaker 1: a shrinking industry. So maybe, you know, the smart money
Speaker 1: is on substitutes. So for example, the chloroflora currents. At
Speaker 1: one time, we're used as solvents, and it was found
Speaker 1: that you could actually substitute lemon juice in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases. So, you know, it was just amazing how
Speaker 1: quickly industry pivoted. You know, the chemical industry is can
Speaker 1: be very nimble when they're forced to be. So it
Speaker 1: was the perfect problem. And that it affected humids, we
Speaker 1: could see how it affects humids, we immediately reacted to it,
Speaker 1: whereas climate change, we're really saying, at some point, this
Speaker 1: is going to happen to the planet, and that happening
Speaker 1: to the planet then affects us, which feels like it's
Speaker 1: harder to make that appeal to humans. So I'm asking,
Speaker 1: how are you still optimistic about this? Helped me be
Speaker 1: more optimistic. Okay, let me also say, by the way,
Speaker 1: you're right, I think ozone was kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: it was the Goldilocks problem as far as having everything
Speaker 1: just line up perfectly for it to be very, very solvable.
Speaker 1: But it's not unique. Actually, when you look at lead
Speaker 1: in pain, leading gasoline acid rain, how good a job
Speaker 1: we did on dealing with smog in this country. You know,
Speaker 1: it had a lot of the same elements, a social movement,
Speaker 1: politicians who really hugely supported it, options for practical solutions,
Speaker 1: namely the catalytic converter in your car. I mean I
Speaker 1: could name another half a dozen issues, all of which
Speaker 1: follow that same pattern of personal, perceptible, practical and people.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's the fourth pee is people. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to climate change, I am optimistic. And the reason
Speaker 1: is because you know, say ten fifteen years ago, people
Speaker 1: would say to me, well, you know, climate change, it's
Speaker 1: just not that personal to me. And I think the
Speaker 1: waiting is over, I really do. I don't see how
Speaker 1: anyone can look at the pictures of people drowning in
Speaker 1: subways that was in China this summer, and churches in
Speaker 1: Europe that have been there for hundreds of years getting
Speaker 1: swept away, and wildfires destroying the volume of the size
Speaker 1: of the state of Rhode Island in California, and the
Speaker 1: air pollution from that being horrendous. I just don't think
Speaker 1: you can realistically look around and say climate change isn't here.
Speaker 1: Climate change is here. It is personal, and people are
Speaker 1: not heartless. I mean most people, actually, you will do
Speaker 1: something to help their fellow man as long as it's practical.
Speaker 1: Support for alternative energy has come a long way, particularly
Speaker 1: development around solar and wind has yielded tremendous benefits. And
Speaker 1: here's the amazing thing. If you're going to build a
Speaker 1: power plant in America today, the cheapest type of power
Speaker 1: to produce is solar and wind, So you won't build
Speaker 1: a coal plant in America today. Every thing that President
Speaker 1: Trump tried to do to prop up coal, you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't work. There have been lots of retirements of
Speaker 1: coal plants in the years of the Trump presidency and
Speaker 1: maybe maybe nuts. Not even talk about presidents, let's talk
Speaker 1: about GM. GM has announced that they are going to
Speaker 1: only make electric vehicles by twenty twenty five. So what
Speaker 1: is that telling you? They're getting the message right, I mean,
Speaker 1: industries got the signal, Doctor Solomon. How has the Paris
Speaker 1: Climate Agreement worked similarly to the Montreal Protocol in terms
Speaker 1: of influencing industry Because of the tremendous amount of money involved,
Speaker 1: No nation is going to comfortably sign up to a
Speaker 1: big cut in emission if it's a binding agreement. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Montreal Protocol could be binding because of the nature
Speaker 1: of those chemicals, but this had to be a voluntary agreement.
Speaker 1: China and the US are not going to sign up
Speaker 1: to that, so it's voluntary. We make a promise, we
Speaker 1: say we're going to phase out this much by twenty
Speaker 1: thirty or twenty forty. That's huge. The message that sends
Speaker 1: to industry is enormous, and I think the Paris Agreement
Speaker 1: is a master stroke for that. So, um, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a patient woman and I'm very optimistic. Is any of
Speaker 1: this optimism fueled by the fact that the ozone layer
Speaker 1: has started to heal and you can directly attribute that
Speaker 1: to the type of work that you were doing in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. I mean, what my feeling when
Speaker 1: I see that is behold the awesome power of we
Speaker 1: the people. That's what made this happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: my grandmother made it to one hundred and one. So
Speaker 1: if I do also, then I will actually get to
Speaker 1: see the ozone hole completely closed. And I've already seen
Speaker 1: it start to heal, doctors, all of it. That's exciting.
Speaker 1: That's that's exciting. There's a couple of things you've said.
Speaker 1: You said that you're you're patient, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes a kid get lost in the climate fight,
Speaker 1: the urgency that is spoken versus the work that is
Speaker 1: being done and the moves that are being made. So
Speaker 1: it's really good to hear you say that, and you
Speaker 1: are awarded the National Medal of Science in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: the Blue Planet Prize in two thousand and four. You
Speaker 1: shared a Noble Peace Prize in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: with Al Gore as a member of the IPCC. You
Speaker 1: were inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, all related to your work on CFC.
Speaker 1: So that's you have an incredible track record here. Is
Speaker 1: there anything about your work that people get wrong or miss?
Speaker 1: Because it's so exciting to congratulate you on the big
Speaker 1: public wins. We would not have gotten where we got
Speaker 1: to about the ozone hole if people hadn't stopped using
Speaker 1: spray cans. So I wish they would congratulate themselves, not
Speaker 1: me more often. I know that sounds corny, but I
Speaker 1: really truly do feel that way. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: one to two things that listeners can do today to
Speaker 1: help slow down or reverse climate change? If they want
Speaker 1: to be involved in being a part of the people
Speaker 1: of the four piece that you said, Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: such a great question. So the first thing that they
Speaker 1: should be doing is writing letters to their congressmen, and
Speaker 1: if they can going out there and holding a sign
Speaker 1: being part of peaceful you know, and non violence demonstrations
Speaker 1: to make their opinions heard in whatever opportunities they have
Speaker 1: to do that. They should also be talking to people
Speaker 1: in their churches or you know, their clubs or their
Speaker 1: schools or whatever. The more we talk about it, the
Speaker 1: more people will will get engaged. As far as personal actions,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I personally have
Speaker 1: done is to cut down on meat in my diet.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you know that the production of meat
Speaker 1: and particular is a significant source of greenhouse gases, so
Speaker 1: cut down a little bit. It's actually good for you too.
Speaker 1: And another thing that you can do is use any
Speaker 1: single use plastic that you get at least twice. So
Speaker 1: if you get a plastic bag, you know, use it again,
Speaker 1: wash it out, use it three times. Better not to
Speaker 1: use it, but if you do have to use it,
Speaker 1: and you know, even like water bottles of course, are
Speaker 1: another great example where there's you know, we have good
Speaker 1: water in this country by and large, it's better to
Speaker 1: bring your own water. But if you forget and you're
Speaker 1: at the baseball game, you know, I get dehydrated. Okay,
Speaker 1: buy buy a bottle plastic water but then don't throw
Speaker 1: it away or even you know, recycle it right away,
Speaker 1: wash it out well, but you know, use it. You
Speaker 1: can use them probably ten times, but at least double
Speaker 1: down and think about reducing the market for single use
Speaker 1: plastic by a factor too. Wow, that would be huge,
Speaker 1: Doctor Solomon, I shate you for being on the show today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for asking me. It was a thrill. Doctor
Speaker 1: Susan Solomon is a professor of environmental studies at in
Speaker 1: my T. She was awarded the National Medal of Science,
Speaker 1: the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, shared a Nobel Peace Prize
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven with Al Gore, and was
Speaker 1: inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine and Solomon. Glacier and Antarctica is named after her.
Speaker 1: Solvable is produced by Joscelyn Frank, research by David Jack,
Speaker 1: booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias,
Speaker 1: and our executive producer is mio Lebelle. I'm Ronald Young Junior.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.