WEBVTT - The Ghosts of Evolution 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.080 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.680 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.360 and we are, as usual, podcasting to you from the 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:24.520 eleventh floor of a building here in Atlanta, Georgia. Big 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.800 concrete and glass structure shooting up into the sky, surrounded 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.600 by mazes of concrete. There's a giant highway just right 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:38.080 outside the window that's continually built with a stream of traffic. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.120 There's noise, there's some greenery, but it's difficult to argue 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.559 that this is in any way, shape or form a 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:50.440 natural environment. And yet it inhabits a natural environment if 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:52.040 you think about it. I know we're way up on 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.240 the eleventh floor, but all around us there are ghosts, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.040 ghosts of chemicals of years past, and we forget that 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.920 even though we're up here and these rarefied airs of 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.600 the Buckhead region of Atlanta, um, we are very much 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.319 tied to the earth below where. Of course we know this, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.160 but we take it for granted. Many things existed before us. 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.800 There are ghosts of fauna and flora all around us. Yes, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.440 ghosts in a metaphorical sense though, I would love to 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.640 see a giant sloth made out of ectoplasm on my 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.920 train ride to work some morning. But indeed you haven't 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.280 seen that on Marta, not yet. But it's just a 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.039 matter of time. Okay, all right, you just wait. But indeed, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.240 I mean that when when you start looking at the 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.319 details and you start looking at the fossil record, you 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.920 see the shadows, You see these ghosts of the environment 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.320 that came before the natural environment that came before the 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.559 rise of man. Yeah. I think one of the best 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.960 examples of this is actually in Trafalgar Square. That's not 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.240 to say that you will find hippos and elephants roaming 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.440 around Trafalgar Square today, which is this incredibly compact area 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.440 of London. Right. Well, the only time I was there, 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.520 I couldn't see it because there was a Scissor Sisters 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.320 concert in Square, right, But any other day you would 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.519 see the hippos and elephants. But actually, excavation of various 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:19.480 sites in London, including Square, found remains from the last 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.240 ice age of these animals. We're talking about a hundred 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.400 and ten thousand, twelve thousand years ago. So again here's 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.040 a good example of this. You know, extremely densely populated 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.959 area which does have some classical elements of human history 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.680 woven throughout it, which makes it feel really historical. But 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.600 when you think about these mega fauna roaming around, you know, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.200 a hundred ten thousand years before, you really begin to 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.880 get this sense that, um, everywhere we are we are 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:51.679 surrounded by this deep history. We forget how very rich 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.360 it is. Yes, and we're talking about about creatures of 0:02:55.400 --> 0:03:00.000 all sizes, including mega fauna, the the the ultra large creatures, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:05.200 the king sized creatures that have have subsequently vanished from 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.200 from much of the world. Yeah. In fact, there's more 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:12.239 evidence from remains that monkeys and rhinos were also native 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.320 to Britain during another period about six thousand years ago, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.920 with a climate that's similar to the one we have today, 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.320 which has had some people say well, hey, why don't 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.880 we bring back monkeys to the UK. And we'll get 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.800 into that in a bit, but it does bring up 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.640 this idea of these these ghosts of the past and 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.760 what they mean to our current ecosystems. Yeah, and the 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:40.520 ecosystem is key here because, especially in our urban environment, 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.960 with our fancy towers and our highways, we we often 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.480 think of ourselves as detached from the ecosystem. We think 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.119 of here's the city, and beyond the city, well, that's 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.400 that's the nature. And if we have some some nature 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.400 here in the city, you know, and some pocket plants 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.839 and a little little garden here in a park here, 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.240 well that's all fine and good, but we don't think 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.240 of it in term. We don't think of ourselves in 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.880 terms of being a part of the of the ecology itself. Yeah, 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.240 and a lot of this is because more and more 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.240 of us are living in urban centers in a way 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.120 from farmlands, in a way from nature. And we've talked 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.320 about this before in several podcasts having to do with 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.480 um just inhabiting cities, which is vastly different even from 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.400 the eighteen hundreds. So what happens here is that you 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.320 get yourself a little bit divorced from the reality of 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.479 nature what's going on out there, and then you also 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.880 have this sort of storybook reality that was created for you. 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.920 And John mu Alum, who wrote The Wild Ones, talks 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.560 about this a lot that we are raised on all 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.599 these sort of parables that deal with animals and this 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.559 idea that there's this luxurious amount of animals out there 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.960 for us to just revel in, when in fact we 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.359 know that if we want to see an animal, a 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.280 wild one, particularly one that is exotic, you gotta get 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.359 to the zoo. Right. And so again this is just 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.880 kind of underscoring again how very far away we are 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.560 from from true nature, and it starts to get into 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.000 this idea of well, if we're that removed from our 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.840 own ecosystems, then perhaps we're that removed from understanding how 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.880 we affect them, and that we may even be entering 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:27.040 into a period of ecological collapse as a result. And 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.240 by that we're talking about the just the overall crippling 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.160 of an ecosystem and a drastic reduction in its ability 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.320 to support the organisms that are a part of it. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.560 And and and force again we hear organisms that are supported 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:41.400 as a part of it. We don't exist outside of it, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.599 we we exist within it. Uh. And ecological collapse is 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.920 often a permanent event um with with drastic consequences including 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.839 mass extinction. Yeah, if you think about it, there's a 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.279 certain carrying capacity to humans, right, And so we have 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.280 all this junk with us, we have all this need 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.400 for resource is we have limited amounts of land, we 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:04.719 have global warming going on, and we have a population 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.720 that is just bursting out of control. And we've talked 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.640 about this. By twenty fifty, there are some um stats 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.520 out there that say that we may get to ten 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.200 million people on Earth. Yeah, which is a bad thing. 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.800 I read an editorial not too long ago where an 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.440 individual was saying, well, it's not necessarily a bad thing. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.039 We need to start stop thinking about it is a 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.480 bad thing, because then they were making a case for 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.320 for a very optimistic case for the education of people 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.560 and the changing of people, and which is all well 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.160 and good, but when you're looking at the facts, when 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.719 you're looking at the sheer numbers, it's very hard to 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.599 uh to see that as as any kind of a 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.120 positive outcome for the planet. Yeah, and I think we're 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.200 so good at kicking the cam further into the future 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.480 anyway and saying we'll deal with that when we get there, right, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.440 and oh, technology that will save the day. But or 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.760 we're just getting better. You know, we're more enlightened. Enlightenment 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.960 will save us, even if they are even more of us. 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.839 But we know that's not necessarily true. When when the 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.560 road meets the rubber, rubber meets the road, not everybody 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:10.760 is acting in a way that would be helpful for 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.520 the impactor. Glad you mentioned the road again, because the 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.120 road ends up is a part of this. We have 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.360 this massive, continuous concrete asphalt thing that is basically like 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.400 a chain that we've we've used to wrap up the 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:30.120 natural environment, cutting across uh, you know, territories of existing animals, 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:35.000 carrying up the landscape, allowing humans to to to permeate 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.200 every every part of the environment. Paved paradise and they 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:43.000 put up a parking lot. Well yeah, um, but no, 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.120 I mean seriously, I mean you think about it in 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.880 that way, right, just the paving of land. And then 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.520 also people burn force for agriculture and grazing, and as 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:57.720 they replace native vegetation with monoculture crops, that discourages cloud formation, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.600 and that alters the relationship to the surface in the atmosphere, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:07.000 which initiates further drying and warming and further species loss. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.160 And again here is this sort of invisible I stay 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.400 invisible because we don't see the chemicals, right, we don't 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.440 see them interacting all of this stuff going on behind 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.960 the scenes, And it's hard to get a beat on 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.920 it for us humans because we'd like to have concrete, 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.440 nice visual things to illustrate what's happening in our lives, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.760 right And so I think that's some of where the 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.400 climate issues come into play. Because you have one camp 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.839 that says, dire need, big trouble right now if we 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:36.680 don't address this, and we have another camp that says, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.440 I don't really see much going on here. Let's get 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.840 a little bit warmer. So we're going to try to 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.640 discuss a little bit more of this. And it does 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.920 all have to do with this ecological collapse. Now, so 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:53.199 many of these examples of ecological collapse and the forces 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.200 at work in the ecological collapse there, it's very much 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.959 like a spiral. You see one thing that sort of 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.480 kicks off the movement, and then it just keeps going 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:03.880 and going, and it gets more disastrous and more disastrous 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.319 until hopefully, uh, somebody checks the action and the listeners 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.680 maybe Remember we did an entire episode about this called 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.960 Black Blizzards of the dust Bowl. So the dust Bowl 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.600 occurred in the nineteen thirties here in the United States, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.319 but its roots reached back into the late nineteenth century. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.200 You had pioneers moving into a semi arid Midwestern Southern 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.320 Plains region. And what do they do. They wanted to 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.400 make a living, right, so they were farming. Then World 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.080 War One hits and farms needed up their production, so 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.319 they turned to the machines. They brought in plows and 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:38.440 other farming equipment. In between nineteen thirty more than five 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.040 million acres of previously unfarmed land was plowed. So he 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.880 had record crops in nineteen thirty one. But soon there's 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:46.880 too much wheat on the market and there's two little 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.000 money out there to spend on it, so prices is plummet. Okay, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.240 So what they do They expanded their fields in an 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.880 effort to turn out a profit. They covered the prairie 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:59.040 with wheat in place of natural drought resistant grasses, and 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.760 they left the unused fields bear so and then in 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.320 the wake of all this plow based farming, the telling 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.960 of the soil. You have fertile top soil that literally 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.360 blows away in the wind, and without it, the ground 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.719 becomes less nurturing and more susceptible to drought. So we 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.240 see this example where where humans as always have remade 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.760 their environment, they've remade their world and and then what happens, 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.360 Drought comes like a vengeance. High temperature set in, it 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.440 bakes the parched earth, and when the winds blow through, 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.880 they summon up these great black dust storms. Yeah, and 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.640 those dust storms rereak havoc on people, right. I mean, 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.640 you all of a sudden are in this really inhospitable 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.560 terrain and you don't have the resources that you normally 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.400 would in terms of food. In fact, John Steinbeck explored 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.559 this in a fictional manner in the Grapes of Wrath, 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.800 and I think most people are familiar with it, or 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.600 with the dust bowl um in that sort of fictional account. 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.199 But this happens all over the world. I believe that 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.640 Australia has dealt with this right now in Arizona. There 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.880 has been a huge impact on farming practices and how 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.040 that has changed the land for the worst. So we 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.280 see this on and on and on again. And it's 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:14.280 a kind of extinction of vegetation of flora that is 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:19.680 changing the ecosystems and changing our access to resources. So 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.920 the other thing, you have our animals here as part 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.480 of this equation. And I wanted to bring up ancient 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.319 Egypt because there's a two thousand and fourteen study that's 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.439 published in the September eight Proceedings of the National Academy 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.480 of Science of p and A. S and it found 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.560 that about six thousand years ago there were thirty seven 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.960 species of large bodied mammals in Egypt, but today there 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.000 are only eight species. So some of the species that 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:51.640 were lost lions, wild dogs, elephants, or x hard a 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.000 beast in giraffes, so those were roaming around, right, and 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:59.839 mega fauna is really important for keeping other species in 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:05.400 check um for also spreading seeds and also interacting with 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.960 the vegetation. So what you're talking about here on the 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.520 Nile is that there were three major periods of really 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.640 dry climates that happened over that six thousand years. And 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:19.560 what happened is you also, at the same time had 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.400 human population just increasing quite a bit along the Nile. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.640 You have a competition, a competition for space, and this 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.120 contributed to wiping out species. And of course, you know, 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:32.280 a lot of this is based on the fact that 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.120 we we saw the illustrations of these creatures in the 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.200 artifacts of the day. Yeah, that's right. They were able 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.320 to really go back and um and figure out what 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.880 sort of species existed and what time periods not counting 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.240 humans with the jackal heads of course no, and current 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.400 ones too, right. Um, so what we're talking about our 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.760 keystone species. These are creatures that interact really strongly with 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.360 the environment and they wield an outsized influence. So an 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.679 example would be even a beaver, Like you don't necessarily 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.720 think about them as this big giant um powerful uh, 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.920 you know, animals. But what they do is they alter 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.640 the course of streams, they open meadows within forests, they 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:18.520 create pollond ecosystems. And then here's another example. Elephants. They 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.440 graze and they browse, and they act like forest engineers, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.920 and they push over trees and they keep vast grasslands 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.439 like the Serengetti open, and that makes them the keystone species. 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.800 So Caroline Fraser, who wrote the book Rewilding the World, says, quote, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.839 the list of threatened plants and animals re rely on 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:44.760 is weird and varied, including amphibians, bears, gymnasperms, uh, cone snails, sharks, 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.199 and horseshoe crabs. She says, cone snails they have toxins 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.600 that they are prized in medical research, where they're used 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.920 in developing pain medication for cancer and AIDS patients. The 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:58.880 blood of horseshoe crabs that carries antimicrobial peptides that kill 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:03.400 bacteria being tested for treatments in HIV, leukemia, prostate cancer, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:09.040 breast cancer, in rheumatoid arthritis, and these are all things 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.199 that we depend on, but we don't realize that our 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.480 actions as humans are decreasing the populations of Yeah, here's 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.720 a quote from Center for Biological Diversity. They say, quote, 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.440 although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs as a 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.840 natural at a natural background rate of about one to 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.280 five species per years. Scientists estimate we're now losing species 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.440 at one thousand to ten thousand times the background rate, 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.160 with literally dozens going extinct every day. It could could 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.280 be a scary future. Indeed, with as many as thirty 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.080 to of all species possible heading toward extinction by mid century, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:46.280 and also adding of currently threatened species are at risk 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.160 from human activities, primarily those driving habitat loss, introduction of 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.480 exotic species, and global climate change, which leads to the 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.920 idea of global ecological collapse. And we'll talk about that 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.600 as well as the frozen zoo and the doomsday seed 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:08.160 vault when we get back. All right, we're back, and 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.440 you know, so many of horror episodes lately seemed to 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.560 be dwelling on this long term versus short term idea, 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.920 this idea that we we only live in the short term. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.360 And I don't think anything could be more true than 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:25.480 this when you talk about UH ecological systems or the 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.520 future of our planet and the environments UH contained within. 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.160 So when you start to look at global ecological collapse 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.480 first glimpse, it does feel a little bit like the 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:38.920 sky is falling. The sky is falling. On the other hand, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.480 if you take all of the data and you put 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.760 it together, you see that there is a direction that 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.720 we are going toward which seems to indicate a global 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.920 wide collapse of ecosystems if we can't get our stuff together. Indeed, 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.040 we may be approaching what is called a state shift 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.200 in Earth's biosphere, which is as scary as it sounds, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.920 a planetary a scale, critical ecological transition as a result 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.080 of human influence. Yeah, there's a two thousand and twelve 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.200 study called Approaching State Shift and or spiosphere, and it 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.000 talks about how humans have already converted about of the 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.760 ice free land surface of the planet for raising crops 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.720 from livestock and building cities and nice buildings like the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.560 when we're in right now. And studies on a smaller 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.640 scale have suggested that when more than fifty of a 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.760 natural landscape is lost, the ecological web can collapse. So 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.000 the idea is, let's step back and look at this 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.400 from a planetary perspective and see it going on all over. 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:40.080 And Dennis Meadows, who is a professor emeritus of systems 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.360 policy at the University of New Hampshire and he's written 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.880 extensively on the limits of growth, says collapse will not 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.080 be driven by a single identifiable cause simultaneously acting in 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.120 all countries. He says it will come through a self 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:58.720 reinforcing complex of issues, including climate change, resource constraints, and 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.000 socio economic equality. When economies slow down, fewer products are 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.720 created relative to demand, and when the rich can't get 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.120 more by producing real wealth, they start to use their 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.480 power to take from lower segments. Okay, well that's it's 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:18.560 definitely sound alarmist, but it does paint a picture of 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.320 a greater population of people and less resources to go 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.159 around for everyone. Yeah, and then we're also facing what 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.800 is called a youth bulge. Um. This is uh, this 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.199 is basically on one level, it's easy to dismiss this 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.359 because you you just look at the basic reality that 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.800 the old wild always distrust the youth. The youth are 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.600 always filled with all of this passion and this feeling 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.560 that they can change in the world. And uh, sometimes 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.359 they can't. Sometimes they have the scary ability to change 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.720 the world. And uh, and and how do we deal 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.080 with that? And then what do you do when due 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.960 to population explosions, you see this sudden swell in the 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.040 number of youths out there, youth that end up having 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.960 these very passionate ideas about what they need to do, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.159 sometimes militant ideas about what they need to do to 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.760 change the world. Yeah. And according to Kenneth Wise, of 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.159 the l A Times, of the something two and a 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.639 half billion people who will be added to the planet 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.679 by twenty nine percent are expect to be to be 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.560 born in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Now, these are 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.959 some of the poorest, most volatile countries, and we know 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.960 about eight percent of the world civil conflicts um since 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.440 the nineteen seventies have occurred in countries with young, fast 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.399 growing populations. And again, this is the the youth bulge 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.800 that we're talking about. So the stage is really set, uh, 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.159 for those who have control and influence to try to 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.880 maintain that control, influence and influence in that status quo, 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.320 and then for the poor to turn towards opportunities, whatever 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.720 opportunities they may have, whether or not that's that's joining 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.560 a militia, or whether or not that is doing something 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.399 that's more positive to affect change. And so that's when 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.440 you begin to look at the global collapse not just 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.600 as an environmental one, but also an economic one. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:09.159 the the the economic and ecological ramifications of conflict. I mean, 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.239 we've discussed in the past. I feel like we did 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.000 an episode about about sunken dangerous. I think it was 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.760 when we talked in part about some of the lingering 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.200 ecological problem stemming from the Second World War, Uh, which 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.800 you know, again was a it was indeed a massive conflict, 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.560 was truly a world war. Anywhere you went on the planet, Uh, 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.199 somebody was wrapped up in this this termoil in one 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.720 way or another. UM. It just it makes me think 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.520 about some of our recent episodes about UM infectious disease, 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.640 because you know, we're looking at the complexity of of 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.160 the ecosystem, and you can easily tie that into into 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.480 guy a hypothesis, the idea that that all the life 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.480 on Earth is essentially one organism, that it's all interconnected, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:54.200 because we we we do see that when we talk 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.280 look at ecological collapse, we see the dominoes falling over. 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.719 And when you hurt one thing, when you take one 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.240 thing out, when you pollute one corner of the earth, 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.399 there are shock waves and uh, and the results can 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.480 be catastrophic. And it's it's hard not to see human 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.840 culture as an illness uh in the organism, in the 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.919 metal organism of life on Earth. But it's a but 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.879 it's a nefarious organism. It's it's it's one that is 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.119 infecting more than just one area. You can't just you 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:25.720 can't just treat one tissue or one part of the 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.920 body because it is it is so ingrained in every 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.240 part of the creature. Not to keep bringing up the 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.720 matrix on every episode, but there is one part when 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.240 the when the alien guy can't remember his name, yes 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.719 Mr Smith, right, right, remember, and he talks about how 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.359 humans really have been the cancer on the Earth. And 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:49.800 that's the very dark view of it, is that we 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:54.200 are affecting all of these negative changes, and in doing 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.760 it somewhat willy nilly, although I will say it appears 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.159 that we are trying have a backup plan in place, 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.399 and I don't just mean people um putting together different plans, 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.160 which we'll talk about. One of them is real wild 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.680 ing um. But but taking a very like what would 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.480 happen tomorrow if there were the apocalypse approach, And what 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:20.200 I'm talking about is the doomsday seed vault. Yeah, now, 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.880 seed seed vaults, um seed refugees are you know, there's 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.240 nothing new. We've been h We've been doing those as 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.080 a human culture for quite some time, and there are 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:29.879 a number of different ones around the world, but the 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.439 most famous of these, located on the Norwegian Archipelago, is 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.720 uh Small bar the small Bard seed Vault out out 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:41.880 here in this largely barren Arctic Arctic frigid waste land 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.720 where polar bears roam uh and you know, and it's 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.680 not completely unoccupied there. It was a mining place for 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.200 for some time, but but still it's a very remote 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.320 setting and it's the perfect setting to have this uh, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.240 this vault where they hope to in are in in 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.880 the process of storing the world eats so that we'll 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.600 have the seed heritage, not just the the massive seed 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.520 crops that we have and depend on, but other varieties. 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.359 Because it gets very, very complicated. It's it's like, you know, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.120 when you have one variety of that you're depending on exclusively. 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.760 It's it's like having a you know, inbreeding that that 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.679 crop isn't susceptible to harm. And then likewise you have 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:23.760 you have types of plants that if they vanished, then 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:28.040 we we want the ecological heritage of being able to 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.160 to study it, to grow it and and heal the earth. 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:33.320 Even if you want to get to uh, you know, 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.719 almost religious about it, Well, that's the day after the apocalypse, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.960 you would you would return to this compound here um 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.080 and then just started cultivating the seeds. I mean that 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:46.640 is a very simplistic view of it. But if you've 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.439 never seen this before, it's pretty amazing. It's basically like 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.520 a concrete wedge pounded into a mountain, and it contains 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:58.960