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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. Wildfires and water shortages, storms and

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Speaker 1: sea level rise, droughts and ice sheet melting. The relentless

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Speaker 1: stream of doomsday climate news and the often conflicting political

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Speaker 1: and corporate responses can be both dizzying and disheartening. My

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Speaker 1: guest today, professor, historian and earth scientist Naomi oreskis is

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Speaker 1: here to get down to the brass tacks of the situation.

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Speaker 1: Orescues is clear about how capitalism has failed us and

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Speaker 1: how corporations have gas lit us when it comes to

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Speaker 1: critical issues of public health and our climate's future. She

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Speaker 1: is the co author, along with Eric Conway, of Merchants

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Speaker 1: of Doubt, How a handful of scientists Obscure the truth

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Speaker 1: on issues from tobacco smoke to global war. Their latest

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Speaker 1: book is The Big Myth, How American Business taught Us

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Speaker 1: to loathe government and love the free Market. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to get her perspective on a climate issue that has

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Speaker 1: faded from the headlines, the depletion of the ozone layer.

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Speaker 2: So the ozone layer is recovering because of work that

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Speaker 2: scientists did to explain how a particular group of chemicals,

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Speaker 2: the so called chlorinated fluorocarbons, were destroying stratospheric ozone and

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Speaker 2: what that meant for the future of life on Earth.

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Speaker 2: And people listened, politicians listened, corporations listened, and the world's

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Speaker 2: leaders signed the United Nations Montreal pro cal on substances

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Speaker 2: that deplete stratospheric ozone, and so those chemicals were banned.

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Speaker 2: We stopped using them, and because we stopped using them,

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Speaker 2: the problem was solved.

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Speaker 1: So for people who don't know, I mean, and there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of people listening to the show who

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Speaker 1: don't really know, because it's such a complicated issue. If

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Speaker 1: the ozone layers fixed white, we still have climate.

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Speaker 2: Change, two different problems. So the ozone layer was about

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Speaker 2: ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Stratasviagozone protects us from UV light,

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Speaker 2: and we all know if you get too much UV

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Speaker 2: light you get a sunburn. But if you've got a

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Speaker 2: lot of UV you could actually die, you get cataracts,

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Speaker 2: you could be burnt to a crisp. So that's an

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Speaker 2: example where the world listened to scientific evidence and acted

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Speaker 2: on scientific evidence. And it's a super important example because

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Speaker 2: it shows it is possible for us to respond to knowledge,

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Speaker 2: to respond for information, and act in a rational way.

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Speaker 2: But climate change has played out very differently because in

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Speaker 2: this case, the corporations and invested interests who are responsible

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Speaker 2: for the problem, instead of accepting the science, they have

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Speaker 2: fought it tooth and nail, and they've been fighting it

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Speaker 2: for nearly forty years now thirty five year or something

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Speaker 2: like that. So the political and the cultural and social

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Speaker 2: response to the scientific evidence of climate change has been

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Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty degrees different than the response we

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Speaker 2: head to the Ozone hole.

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Speaker 1: What do you attribute that to?

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Speaker 2: Disinformation and invested interest? So the thing about the ozone

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Speaker 2: story is that even though the chemicals involved were very

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Speaker 2: useful chemicals, they were used primarily for refrigeration, also in

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Speaker 2: aerosols like hairspray. Hairspray was something we could all live without,

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Speaker 2: and in fact, one of the nice parts of the story,

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Speaker 2: it turns out women stopped using hairspray before these chemicals

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Speaker 2: were banned because they heard about the problem they thought, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I can live without hairspray. So that's kind of a

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Speaker 2: cool detail that people don't know about. But the biggest

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Speaker 2: part of it was that political leaders said, yes, we

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Speaker 2: have to act on this. And there was only really

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Speaker 2: one company that was responsible for most of the chlorinated

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Speaker 2: fluora carbons that were used in the world, and that

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Speaker 2: was DuPont, and they did the right thing. They listened

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Speaker 2: to their own scientists, they listened to the scientific evidence.

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Speaker 2: They're a very science based company, and they said, okay,

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Speaker 2: you know, we can survive as a company without these chemicals.

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Speaker 2: But the fossil fuel industry has responded almost the opposite.

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Speaker 2: They have said, we can't survive without these products, and

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Speaker 2: neither can you. And so they've told a story about

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel dependency, that there's no way to live without them,

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Speaker 2: that there's no other source of energy that's reliable, and

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Speaker 2: therefore we have to keep using these materials, no matter

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Speaker 2: how much harm they do.

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Speaker 1: Now, speaking of the public relations stances of the extractive

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Speaker 1: industries like that in the petroleum industries, I'm under the

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Speaker 1: assumption I'm not a scientist, I have no scientific background.

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Speaker 1: But I'm under the assumption that you don't even play

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Speaker 1: one on televisony. I don't even play one. I played

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Speaker 1: a surgeon, but that's about it. But are we ever

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Speaker 1: going to really be able to get rid of fossil fuels.

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Speaker 1: My friend said to me, you're not going to take

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Speaker 1: any chances and plug in the fire engine with the

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Speaker 1: police car, meaning we're going to always have to have

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Speaker 1: gas and petroleum based products for emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire

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Speaker 1: police so forth. You don't agree.

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Speaker 2: I don't think that's true. I think that's an example

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Speaker 2: of how effective this propaganda has been that even highly

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Speaker 2: intelligent people who care about the problem and who are

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Speaker 2: people of goodwill will say something like that because they've

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Speaker 2: been so bombarded by this message that renewable energy is

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Speaker 2: not reliable. But the reality is actually, ambulances electric vehicles,

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Speaker 2: first of all, are faster, They get places quicker, So

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Speaker 2: action electric vehicle is better as an ambulance than an

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Speaker 2: internal combustion engine, and most ambulance trips are short trips.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: You don't want to drive ten hours in an ambulance,

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Speaker 2: you want to drive ten minutes, and so actually that's

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Speaker 2: a place where electric vehicles work better. So the very

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Speaker 2: fact that people would think that we couldn't use electric

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Speaker 2: vehicles for ambulances is proof of how effective these propaganda

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Speaker 2: campaigns have been.

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Speaker 1: If someone had the guts and the wisdom whether that

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Speaker 1: person was the president or this is obviously a federal issue,

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Speaker 1: or someone who was in the center of the House

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Speaker 1: to propose legislation. What's the first thing you think they

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Speaker 1: could do that's doable that they're not doing something that

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Speaker 1: could pass Maybe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess one of them would

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Speaker 2: be banning any further oil and guests development on public lands.

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Speaker 2: That's something that we've talked about, and there have been

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Speaker 2: moves in that direction. But you know, we've seen Biden,

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Speaker 2: on the one hand, work to prevent new leases on

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Speaker 2: public lands but also approve the Arctic National Wildlife drilling.

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Speaker 2: So there's been really mixed miss messages coming from Washington, DC.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think he did that?

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I'm not a mind reader, but

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Speaker 2: you know, the pressure from the fossil fuel industry is relentless.

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Speaker 2: I think they were afraid that if they pulled back

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Speaker 2: on those leases, they would end up in court forever.

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Speaker 2: I think they probably think they're going to end up

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Speaker 2: in court anyway, so I think they actually think that

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Speaker 2: this won't actually happen, so that I think they're trying

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Speaker 2: to sort of play both sides of the political street,

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Speaker 2: and I think they're afraid. I think the fossil fuel

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Speaker 2: industry has been so effective in persuading us that we

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Speaker 2: can't live without fossil fuels, that we need those jobs,

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Speaker 2: that even Democrats like Joe Biden, who clearly understand the

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Speaker 2: issue on some level, are afraid to really do what

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Speaker 2: it would take to fix the problem. If we go

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Speaker 2: back to the bird Hegel Amendment, So if we go

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Speaker 2: back to the nineteen nineties, when the United States signed

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Speaker 2: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, So that was

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Speaker 2: signed by a Republican president, President George HW. Bush, and

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Speaker 2: had committed one hundred and ninety countries around the world

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Speaker 2: to taking steps to preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference in the

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Speaker 2: climate system, in other words, preventing climate change, preventing the

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Speaker 2: development of a climate crisis. So then that treaty was

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Speaker 2: a statement in principle, But then the question was, well,

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Speaker 2: how would you do that in practice? And the Kyoto

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Speaker 2: Protocol that was ratifiing Kyoto in nineteen ninety seven gave

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Speaker 2: specifics of how that would be done, binding emissions targets

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Speaker 2: for all the countries. The United States never ratified Kyoto,

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Speaker 2: and by that point we had a Democratic president, Bill Clinton,

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Speaker 2: so you might think, well, you know, aren't Democrats on

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Speaker 2: board on this issue.

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Speaker 1: What was his excuse?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think they were really afraid that the American

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Speaker 2: people thought it would cost jobs. And so the Bird

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Speaker 2: Hagel Amendment was passed in Congress. Robert Bird was a

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Speaker 2: Democrat from West Virginia, Chuck Hagel Republican from Oklahoma, both

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel states, and the resolution basically said the United

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Speaker 2: States would not agree to any treaty that would cost

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Speaker 2: American jobs. Now that was a real propaganda job, because

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Speaker 2: in fact, we know that renewable energy creates more jobs

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Speaker 2: than fossil fuels. Very difficult to export or outsource renewable

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Speaker 2: energy jobs. Solar installation has to be done at home,

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Speaker 2: can't be outsourced to China or India. So it was

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Speaker 2: part of the pr propaganda that fixing climate change would

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Speaker 2: damage the economy. And I think Democrats as well as

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Speaker 2: Republicans have been petrified of anything that the other side

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Speaker 2: could use to say, oh, but look, you cost those jobs,

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Speaker 2: even though right now in the United States today we

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Speaker 2: see ten new renewable energy jobs for every job in

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Speaker 2: the fossil fuel sector.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. That's amazing that you say that ten new renewable

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Speaker 1: energy jobs for everyone in traditional energy companies. That's amazing.

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Speaker 1: That alone makes it worth you coming on this show

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Speaker 1: just for me to disseminate that fact. Now, the aviation industry,

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Speaker 1: I do think about this from time to time, and

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Speaker 1: even years ago, I was thinking, you're looking up at

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Speaker 1: the sky and you're staring up at a plane going

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Speaker 1: through the clouds, and you're thinking, I think at one

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Speaker 1: point I checked a couple of years ago. I could

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Speaker 1: be wrong, but I think that they said that at

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Speaker 1: any given time commercial, private, and military aviation craft there

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Speaker 1: are one hundred and twenty five thousand of them airborne

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Speaker 1: at any given time in the sky, all day long.

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Speaker 1: What role do you think that the aviation industry plays

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Speaker 1: in climate change?

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Speaker 2: Well, we know it plays a huge role because a

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Speaker 2: huge proportion of carbon emissions carbon pollution comes from aviation,

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Speaker 2: and aviation is definitely a tough piece of this problem.

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Speaker 2: It's much easier to electrify cars than it is to

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Speaker 2: electrify aircraft, and I don't think most people think we'll

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Speaker 2: see a fully electrified air fleet anytime real soon. Bye biodiesel.

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Speaker 2: That's where biofuels come in, and biofuels are tricky. Some

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Speaker 2: of them are much better than others. There's a lot

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Speaker 2: of questions about biofuels, but I think it's pretty clear

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Speaker 2: that the aviation industry could work on biofuels. And that's

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Speaker 2: where you start getting into all kinds of questions about

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Speaker 2: government policy subsidies for fossil fuels. You like the statistic

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Speaker 2: about jobs, there's a similar statistic about subsidies for fossil fuels.

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Speaker 2: So the people who I argue with'd like to defend

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Speaker 2: the free market. They're opposed to government action in the marketplace.

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Speaker 2: They often will say the government shouldn't get involved, the

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Speaker 2: government shouldn't pick winners and losers. But the reality is

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Speaker 2: that for the last one hundred years, the US government

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Speaker 2: and governments around the globe have picked the winner, and

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Speaker 2: the winner they picked is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are

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Speaker 2: massively subsidized globally. It is not, by any stretch of

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Speaker 2: the imagination, a free market. So groups like the IMF

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Speaker 2: and the World Bank, not exactly left wing radical organizations,

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Speaker 2: estimate that direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry direct

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Speaker 2: subsidies are six to seven hundred billion dollars every single year,

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Speaker 2: just like there's more jobs in renewable energy for every

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Speaker 2: dollar that subsidizes renewable energy. And this is that these

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Speaker 2: numbers are shifting as we speak, so they may change,

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Speaker 2: but roughly speaking, for every dollar we spend on renewable energy,

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Speaker 2: there's about twenty dollars spent subsidizing fossil fuels. And that's

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Speaker 2: just subsidies, government subsidies, And that's just direct If we

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Speaker 2: take in the to affect.

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Speaker 1: The military expenditures.

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Speaker 2: Right, not including that, If we begin to take into

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Speaker 2: effect or into account military expenditures the health costs of

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Speaker 2: air pollution related to burning fossil fuels, then you're looking

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Speaker 2: at trillions of dollars. So the IMF estimates one point

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Speaker 2: five trillion dollars every single year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, my friend said to me, if you were to

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Speaker 1: factor in the military budget to access oil in that

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Speaker 1: part of the world that we're obviously talking about, he

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Speaker 1: said to me, gas that the pump would be one

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Speaker 1: hundred dollars a gawn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's about right, and not to mention

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Speaker 2: all the American lives, lives that have been lost defending

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Speaker 2: oil and gas in the release defending oil and gas

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Speaker 2: accessing oil and gas accessing right. So the subsidies, both

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Speaker 2: in terms of dollars and in terms of human costs,

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Speaker 2: are just huge.

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Speaker 1: Now, you're not an activist. You're a scientist and you teach,

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Speaker 1: you're a professor, you're a historian, you're a writer, obviously,

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Speaker 1: but you're not an activist in the sense you're not

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Speaker 1: do you work with groups, you provide them with information

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Speaker 1: and research and knowledge, but you're not yourself. Are not

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Speaker 1: out there on the demonstration line.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And this is a tricky issue because

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Speaker 2: for years, like a lot of academics, I resisted the

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Speaker 2: activist term because it's often used against people. It's often

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Speaker 2: used to say, you're not objective, you're not credible, you're emotional,

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Speaker 2: you're hysterical, you're a hysterical female. And so, as a

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Speaker 2: person who's dedicated my entire life to knowledge, science, history,

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Speaker 2: facts understanding, I certainly didn't want people to dismiss all

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Speaker 2: of the hard work I did as a thinker and

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Speaker 2: a writer just because I went on a picket line.

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Speaker 2: And I still don't really play that role. I don't

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Speaker 2: think that's the best role that I can play in

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Speaker 2: the world. But at the same time, I think about, well,

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Speaker 2: what's the opposite of activists A passiveist? I mean, I mean,

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Speaker 2: obviously not a PASSIVISTI passive. So do we want to

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Speaker 2: be passive in the face of a problem that is

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Speaker 2: threatening our health, our safety?

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Speaker 1: So what do you do?

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Speaker 2: So what do you do?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: So you have to do you do? What do I

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Speaker 2: personally do? So I do what you just said, I

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Speaker 2: provide information to activists.

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Speaker 1: Who's consuming that information?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question, of course. As a writer,

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Speaker 2: I mean you know this, as an artist, you never

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Speaker 2: quite exactly know who's receiving your messages. But I mean,

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Speaker 2: we write books that have sold. Well, we're pretty Eric Conway,

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Speaker 2: are pretty proud that as academics we've written books that

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Speaker 2: are read by regular people. We do podcasts like this,

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Speaker 2: talk to people like you. You know, we do whatever

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Speaker 2: we can to get our message out to broad our audiences,

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Speaker 2: to speak broadly. Colin and I have spoken in forty

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Speaker 2: eight of the fifty state still waiting for an invitation

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Speaker 2: from Alabama, and based on the reason headlines, I don't

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Speaker 2: think that invitation is coming real soon, but we do

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Speaker 2: what we can to help people understand the issue, and

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Speaker 2: especially as we started this conversation, to understand the misinformation,

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Speaker 2: the lies, the propaganda, and the way our own views

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Speaker 2: of this issue have been distorted by fossil fuel and

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Speaker 2: free market propaganda.

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Speaker 1: When we talk about activism and so forth, are there

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Speaker 1: organizations I'm not asking for an endorsement, obviously, you're obviously

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Speaker 1: very savvy about all this kind of stuff. I'm not

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Speaker 1: asking for an endorsement. But who's someone who you see

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Speaker 1: doing some great work other that you admire. What's an

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Speaker 1: organization that you think is effective.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question, because again, politics are so complicated,

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Speaker 2: it's always hard to know exactly who's done what work,

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Speaker 2: has had what impacts. But I have always been a

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Speaker 2: big fan of Bill mckibbon because I think he does

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Speaker 2: speak truth to power effectively, because he's a person who

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Speaker 2: does so much homework to understand the science and the facts,

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Speaker 2: but also finds ways to talk about it that reach

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Speaker 2: millions of people. And he's also a beautiful writer, and

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Speaker 2: he finds ways to write about difficult topics in beautiful

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Speaker 2: and elegant ways. And I certainly think we know he's

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Speaker 2: been effective in reaching many people and persuading many people

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Speaker 2: of the importance of the climate problem. So he's certainly

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Speaker 2: someone I admire greatly.

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Speaker 1: Author Naomi Oreski's If you enjoy conversations digging into the

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Speaker 1: data behind climate change, check out my episode with oceanographer

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Speaker 1: doctor Peter Domenicau and climate scientist doctor Kate Marvel.

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Speaker 3: The thing about climate change is that natural climate change

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Speaker 3: has happened before. We've seen little wobbles in the Earth's orbit,

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Speaker 3: and that happens on the timescale of hundreds and thousands

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Speaker 3: of years. And what we're seeing right now is climate

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Speaker 3: change that is quicker than anything that we have ever seen,

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Speaker 3: not the wobbles, and that it's not the wobbles, it's

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Speaker 3: not the sun, it's us. And it's so quick. It's

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Speaker 3: not even quick in geologic time, it's quick in actual time,

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Speaker 3: like we have seen changes in our lifetimes.

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Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with doctors Domenical and Marvel,

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Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,

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Speaker 1: Naomi Oreskies tells us why we need to shift how

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Speaker 1: we think about the natural world. I'm Alec Baldwin and

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Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing Naomi Oreskies is a

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Speaker 1: professor at Harvard University, a world renowned public speaker and

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Speaker 1: author of several books. Her work has been featured in

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Speaker 1: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Scientific America.

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Speaker 1: She's also surprisingly a Brown University dropout.

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Speaker 2: I was bored. I wanted to travel. I wanted to

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Speaker 2: see the world. So I went to England and I

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Speaker 2: re enrolled at the University of London and got my

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Speaker 2: degree there.

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Speaker 1: You also went to the Royal School of Minds. Correct, yes, Now,

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Speaker 1: of course my listeners will be a fascinat for you

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Speaker 1: to share with them. What is the Royal School of

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Speaker 1: Minds And what does one do there?

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Speaker 2: One studies geology or mining engineering or material science. So

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Speaker 2: I was interested in geology. And the Royal School of

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Speaker 2: Mines was created the nineteenth century, and it was created

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Speaker 2: consciously as an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge. It was

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Speaker 2: created as a university that was meant to be open

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Speaker 2: to people regardless of their social background. So it's actually

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Speaker 2: a very radical institution at the time, and it had

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Speaker 2: one of the world's great geology programs. So I went

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Speaker 2: there and living in London was much more fun than

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Speaker 2: living in Providence, Rhode Island. No offense to my friends

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Speaker 2: in Rhode Island, but realistically province and nice town now

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Speaker 2: it's kind of a dump in those days. So we're

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Speaker 2: going back a while here. So yeah, London was fun.

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Speaker 2: I had a great time.

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Speaker 1: How much time did you take off between Brown and London?

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Speaker 2: Well, I only took off a summer. I went to

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Speaker 2: London originally as on a junior year abroad, but then

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Speaker 2: I stayed, so I ended up spending three years in London,

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Speaker 2: and then I went to Australia, where I spent three

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Speaker 2: years working as a professional exploration geologist in Australia.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what kind of work were you doing there?

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Speaker 2: I was working on the evaluation of a large scale

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Speaker 2: or deposit, a polymetallic copper, uranium, gold, silver, and rare

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Speaker 2: earth element deposit, which is now who was funding this?

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Speaker 2: A private company? Was a private totally private sector operation.

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Speaker 1: What were they trying to find? Minerals to market or correct?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, minerals to market? It was originally the goal

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Speaker 2: was copper. It was a copper expiration program. They found

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Speaker 2: something much different from what they were looking for, and

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Speaker 2: that was an interesting lesson in my early life that

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Speaker 2: what we find is not always what we go out

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Speaker 2: looking for.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you're a woman and the superiod. Your life

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Speaker 1: spans not all of the feminist period or the beginnings

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Speaker 1: of what then was the modern feminist era. What was

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Speaker 1: it like for you working because you have that a

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Speaker 1: quote where you say, if you're a girl and you

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Speaker 1: can quote unquote do science, you'd be crazy not to.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. So there was definitely a lot of

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Speaker 2: social pressure, I think to go into science for me

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Speaker 2: and my generation.

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Speaker 1: Also.

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Speaker 2: I went to Stuyvesant High School, which was a math

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Speaker 2: and science oriented school, and my father was a scientist

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Speaker 2: and he believed strongly that science could make the world

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Speaker 2: a better place. So yes, if you were a girl

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Speaker 2: and you could do math, you definitely got encouraged to

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Speaker 2: go into science. And I think the work I do

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Speaker 2: now to work at the intersection of science, history, culture, politics,

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Speaker 2: really reflects the fact that I always had these other

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Speaker 2: broader interests, but nobody ever told me, well, nobody ever

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Speaker 2: told me you could earn a living as a historian

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Speaker 2: of science. So that was a great discovery.

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Speaker 1: For someone that goes on and spends years of your

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Speaker 1: study involved with geology or related discipline. Were you as

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Speaker 1: a kid? Were you somebody was at the Museum of

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Speaker 1: Natural History all the time and be chunks those big

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Speaker 1: blobs of polished stones on your encounter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and nature. I was the kind of kid who

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Speaker 2: collected bugs and jars, that kind of thing. Yeah, I've

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Speaker 2: always loved the natural world. I've always found the natural

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Speaker 2: world to be amazing and terrific. And just even looking

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Speaker 2: out at a tree and just thinking about, like, how

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Speaker 2: does a tree even do what it does? It's really

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Speaker 2: amazing when you stop and think about the natural world.

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Speaker 2: And that's one thing I think is so sad about

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Speaker 2: the world we live in now that it's so easy

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Speaker 2: to just go about your life not thinking about the

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Speaker 2: natural world. And so when people talk about climate change

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Speaker 2: threatening the existence of a million species on Earth, I

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Speaker 2: think for a lot of people it's hard for us

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Speaker 2: to get our heads around what that would mean, and

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Speaker 2: because we live lives that are so disconnected from nature.

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Speaker 2: But if you stop and think about a bird or

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Speaker 2: a tree, or even a rock or a coral reef,

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Speaker 2: you begin to appreciate what is really at stake here

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Speaker 2: and how important it is.

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Speaker 1: I think this idea that many Americans have a more

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Speaker 1: kind of limited view of certain things. They don't travel

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Speaker 1: to Europe. A lot of Americans, they don't get on

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Speaker 1: a plane. They don't want to see the world beyond

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Speaker 1: our borders. They don't get the chance to go and

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Speaker 1: see and do. Were you going to camps and things

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Speaker 1: like that where your family invested in getting you out

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Speaker 1: there to see everything?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think all New York families at

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Speaker 2: that time, if they could afford it, send you away

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Speaker 2: to summer camp. And that was for I think a

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Speaker 2: lot of us, that was our first encounter. Especially I

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Speaker 2: grew up in Manhattan, you know, the urban jungle. But

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Speaker 2: even in urban environments. I mean, I mentioned my father

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Speaker 2: was a scientist and we used to go to Central

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Speaker 2: Park all the time, and there's a lot of nature

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Speaker 2: in Central Park. There's a lot of beautiful plants, animals.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot more nature in the city

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Speaker 2: than most people realize. And I think, you know, the

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Speaker 2: whole thing about Americans is tricky because you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't want to sort of bash the American people, and

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Speaker 2: I think that most people have given the opportunity to

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Speaker 2: engage with nature, really do appreciate it. And we know

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Speaker 2: this is true in part because if you think about

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Speaker 2: the national parks, the national parks are americans favorite destinations

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Speaker 2: for vacations, and I mean we love them to death. Right,

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Speaker 2: some of them are too crowded because so many of

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Speaker 2: us visit, but that's really telling us something, Right, they

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Speaker 2: visit state parks, they go to aquaria and planetaria. I mean,

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Speaker 2: people love science and people love nature, and I think

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Speaker 2: most people, given the opportunity to engage, they want that.

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Speaker 2: And especially when you think about science, I mean a

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Speaker 2: lot of science, a lot of scientists don't take the

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Speaker 2: time to engage with people. A lot of scientists don't

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Speaker 2: take the time to think about how to explain science

436
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:37,320
Speaker 2: in ways they're accessible. But again, if you look at

437
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:39,080
Speaker 2: you know, what do people do on the weekends when

438
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 2: they have free time. Millions of Americans take their children's

439
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 2: to museums, to planetaria, to aquaria, and people love looking

440
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 2: at fish or learning about planets and stars. So it's

441
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 2: not that people aren't interested in science, and it's not

442
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:54,639
Speaker 2: that there aren't lots of good people doing good work

443
00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 2: to make science accessible. But I think when it comes

444
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:01,160
Speaker 2: to something challenging like climate change, that's not just gee whiz,

445
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 2: see how beautifuls fish are, but is that well? But

446
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:06,480
Speaker 2: we also have this problem with the way we live

447
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 2: and we're doing damage. That's a harder message. It's not

448
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 2: so much fun, and so we have to figure out

449
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 2: ways to communicate with people about something that's tough and difficult,

450
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:16,679
Speaker 2: and that's never easy.

451
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: When you talk about looking at a tree. I have

452
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,120
Speaker 1: a house on Long Island. We're moving to a house

453
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 1: we have in Vermont. But when I'm at the beach

454
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: and I'm staring at the ocean in this kind of

455
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 1: be a tyfic way, and then the next thought to

456
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:32,919
Speaker 1: me is how are we going to get all the

457
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: plastic out of this ocean? Right? It all gets kind

458
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: of ruined, which brings me to where petroleum industries are

459
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: obviously to blame for whatever emissions problems we have or

460
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: they contributed to that. They also are deeply involved in

461
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: plastics because plastics are based on petroleum. Do corporations like

462
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 1: Mobile and do corporations like other major oil producers and refiners,

463
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: do they make plastic themselves or they via petroleum to

464
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: plastics manufacturers.

465
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 2: Well, it's both. They do both. They partner with plastic

466
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 2: manufacturers and in some cases they manufacture plastics themselves, or

467
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 2: they manufacture the feedstocks for the plastic materials. So the

468
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 2: petroleum industry is very very closely associated with, implicated with,

469
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 2: and depends for a significant part of its profits on plastics.

470
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: That to me is an issue because the more and

471
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: more I hear about this, the more and more I

472
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: hear about nanoplastics and all this stuff, the more and

473
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: more I watch online people trying, you know, distraining themselves,

474
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: killing themselves, trying to get plastic out of the water,

475
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 1: ocean clean up. I watch their website on Instagram and

476
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,239
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, have the nets out there. You

477
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: hear about the Pacific garbage gyre, the things, the side

478
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: of whatever they say it is, it's the size of

479
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: Connecticut or Rhode Island or some damn thing, and it's

480
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: just the swirling vortex of plastic garbage out there. I'm

481
00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, for me, plastics occupy a place where

482
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: it's different than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels in my opinion,

483
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: but it have to be phased out gradually while you

484
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: build up a network to support electric whereas plastics is

485
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: like they should just ban plastic now, all of it

486
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,159
Speaker 1: should be gone. Like, I don't know, if you like me.

487
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 1: I open a box. Inside that box is all those

488
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: styrofoam peanuts. I want to jump off the terrace of

489
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: my building.

490
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel the same way. No, I know, and

491
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 2: I think it's a Plastics is a really good thing

492
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 2: for us to talk about because many of us are

493
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 2: old enough to remember what it was like before everything

494
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 2: got plasticized. Right, And like anything in life, you can't

495
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: change everything overnight because you know, companies have strategies and

496
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: suppliers and supply chains and stuff, so none of that

497
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: can be changed instantly, but it could be changed pretty quickly.

498
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 2: And think about egg cartons, right, I mean, yes, why

499
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 2: are eggs in plastic? They don't need to be in plastic.

500
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: Backs or cardboard.

501
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 2: Cardboard works perfectly well. Or even tomatoes. Remember when we

502
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,400
Speaker 2: were kids, tomatoes used to come these little cardboard boxes

503
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,199
Speaker 2: with a little bit of sulifane over the top. Or

504
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,919
Speaker 2: Brussels sprouts and little waxed cardboard containers. Remember those. So

505
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 2: we really do not need plastic in.

506
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: The coded paper right now.

507
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 2: It is true that plastics are convenient, they are lightweight,

508
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: and so there's certainly some benefit in that, and we

509
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 2: know that the petroleum industry and its allies have worked

510
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 2: not just to persuade us to use more plastic, but

511
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:29,639
Speaker 2: also to stop laws designed to help the transition. And

512
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 2: so around this country, when communities have tried to pass,

513
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,879
Speaker 2: for example, ordinances against plastic bags, or ordinances saying that

514
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 2: shops would have to charge you if you ask for

515
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 2: a plastic bag, the fossil fuel industry and its allies

516
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 2: have been there fighting those ordinances. And so this is

517
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: again where we're up against, you know, big organizations that

518
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 2: are spending lots and lots of money to protect their

519
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 2: interests even though it harms the rest of us. And

520
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 2: I want to say, I think the word blame is

521
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 2: a legitimate word. Sometimes someone is to blame, and I

522
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we have to talk about that. If

523
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 2: you don't like the word blame, we can talk about responsibility,

524
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 2: We can talk about accountability. But I don't know about you,

525
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 2: but my mother raised me to think that I was

526
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 2: responsible for my actions. So why should the fossil fuel

527
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 2: industry get off scot free for the responsibility for their actions?

528
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: Professor Naomi Oreskis, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a

529
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on

530
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

531
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: When we come back, Naomi Oreski shares what country gets

532
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: it right when it comes to energy policy. I'm Alec

533
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the

534
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, plastics seem to be the solution to

535
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: all of life's problems. Fast forward to today, when plastic

536
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: is everywhere, takes hundreds of years to decompose, and is

537
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: rarely recycled. I wanted to know what Professor Naomi Oreski's

538
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: thinks about the potential of a biodegradable plastic.

539
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of green washing in this space,

540
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: but there are compostable plastics, boundegradable plastics, and I do

541
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 2: you know, I've met some colleagues at places like MIT

542
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 2: who are working on that, and I think that's really

543
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 2: helpful because certainly we live in a world where we're

544
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: not going to eliminate packing materials overnight. So just like

545
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 2: we came up with substitutes for those chlorofluorocarbons we were

546
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, we can come up with substitutes for plastics,

547
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 2: and there are compostable and biodegradable alternatives and we definitely

548
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 2: should be embracing those.

549
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:47,719
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts about nuclear energy?

550
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a great fan.

551
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: And why well because I see it as.

552
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: Basically a technology that has been tested and failed, and

553
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 2: nuclear power is a very weird technology because people get

554
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: very irrational about it. And I don't mean the anti

555
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: nuclear people, I mean the pro nuclear people. So think

556
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 2: about it this way. The first civilian nuclear power plant

557
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 2: was built in United States in nineteen fifty four in Pennsylvania.

558
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 2: The promise that we were all told at that time

559
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 2: and this is now before too cheap to meter, as

560
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 2: cheap as the unmetered air, right, this promise of this

561
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 2: deliverance technology that was going to solve all of our

562
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 2: energy problems. So what really happened? And we know what

563
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 2: happened because we now have seventy five years of experience.

564
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 2: Nuclear power has proved to be the most expensive form

565
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: of energy generation. People don't like it, and not because

566
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 2: they're irrational, but because there is the possibility might be small,

567
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 2: but it's not zero, of a catastrophic accident might happened

568
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 2: at Fukushima. We've seen it now Fukushima, Chernobyl. I mean,

569
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 2: if you think about Chernobyl, hundreds of square miles of

570
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: areas that cannot be occupied by people because even now,

571
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 2: decades later, they are toxically lethally radioactive. This is a

572
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: highly dangerous technology, and one of the reasons it's expensive

573
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: is because it is so dangerous, you have to spend

574
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 2: so much money to try and make it safe. So

575
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: people's concerns about catastrophic accidents are not irrational, they're actually

576
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 2: fact based. So why do people keep pushing this technology.

577
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 2: It's expensive, it's dangerous, and we know here in the

578
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: United States we get about twenty percent of our electricity

579
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 2: from nuclears. That's not nothing. So I'm not saying they

580
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 2: all need to be shut down tomorrow, but as a

581
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 2: solution to the climate crisis, why would you do that

582
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 2: when you have cheaper, safer, nicer technologies that people like cleaner,

583
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: I mean better on every level. So the only thing

584
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 2: I can come up with about nuclear power is that

585
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 2: even though the dream of power too cheap to meter

586
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 2: was disproved, right, it didn't happen.

587
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: And continues to be disproved right.

588
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: And it continues to be just bro, this is still

589
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 2: this like techno fy deist hope that somehow the miracle

590
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: technology that solves all our prompts. And I think, yeah,

591
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 2: thorium reactors, fourth generation or fusion. Right, we saw this

592
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 2: last year with all the hype about I mean, that

593
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 2: to me was just astonishing, and it just showed how

594
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: much this is a kind of religion, a technofideist religion.

595
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 2: Because the fusion, I mean you probably read about it

596
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 2: was in all the newspapers, on the front page of

597
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 2: many papers about this breakthrough in fusion. So what was

598
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 2: the breakthrough? You know, less than one second of fusion

599
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 2: energy generation less than one second. So even though from

600
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: a scientific standpoint that was good, it was something. But

601
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: we are still decades, decades away, maybe centuries from being

602
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 2: able to use fusion for power, and yet respectable newspapers

603
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 2: like the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal

604
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 2: talked about this as a potential solution to the climate crisis.

605
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: So the evidence, the facts just don't support nuclear power.

606
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 2: Countries that have it, like France. I'm not saying they

607
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 2: need to shut it all down tomorrow. I don't think

608
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 2: that is the case, but even France, that's just the

609
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 2: only country in the world that has ever generated the

610
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 2: lion's share of its power from nuclear power, and even

611
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 2: in France they've backed away from it somewhat for a

612
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 2: variety of reasons.

613
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: What do they do with the spend fuel in France.

614
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 2: No one has entirely sorted out to spend fuel ross.

615
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: Even there, they don't have an answer.

616
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 2: No, they have some programs, it gets kind of technical.

617
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 2: They do something called vitrification, where you turn the waste

618
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 2: into glass, and that's a pretty decent solution, but it's

619
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: very expensive. We've never adopted virtu ocification here in the

620
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 2: United States. But here's the other thing about nuclear power, well,

621
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 2: two more things. So it takes a really long time

622
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 2: to build a nuclear power plant, typically at least ten years,

623
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 2: often fifteen. So we have this climate crisis, we know

624
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: we have to phase out fossil fuel use in the

625
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 2: next ten twenty at most thirty years. So we can't

626
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 2: build a whole fleet of nuclear reactors in that amount

627
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 2: of time. And where would we put them. Most places

628
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 2: in the United States aren't suitable for nuclear actors. You

629
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 2: can't put them in places that are tectonically active, you

630
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 2: can't put them on the West coast. They need tons

631
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 2: of water. You can't put them in the south West.

632
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: I read, I've read things. I mean, I've been deeply

633
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: involved with this issue since nineteen ninety six. The Brookhaven

634
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: Laboratory where they had the high flex being reactor there

635
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: that we helped to shut down. We were involved heavily

636
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: with Oyster Creek, New Jersey, Toms River getting that licensed.

637
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: Indian point of course, near New York, we were reading

638
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: articles about you know this, every time you turn around,

639
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: a Sloane type business champion would get up there and say, well,

640
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: we're going to have these smaller reactors now. They wanted

641
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: them like mailboxes on the corner of every neighborhood want.

642
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: They wanted them like every mile and a half in

643
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: some area. I think myself, are you kidding me? But

644
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: like you said, no water or no none of the resources.

645
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: They generally right, and the advocates say they just brush

646
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 2: away or that. You'll see if you read the arguments

647
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: by pro nuclear people, they almost never discussed the waste.

648
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: They just kind of waved away, and they almost never

649
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: discussed the nuclear proliferation problem, which gets worse if the

650
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: reactors get smaller. Right, more reactors more opportunities for theft

651
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: of nuclear materials, you know, as in a story of science.

652
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 2: One of the things I sometimes do when I interview famous,

653
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 2: great scientists, I'll ask them, so, what do you worry about?

654
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 2: What do you lie awake at night? And I can

655
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 2: remember some years ago Injuring, a very very famous scientist

656
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 2: who said, I worry about all the nuclear material from

657
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, that we don't know where it is

658
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 2: right right.

659
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say about the nuke situation is

660
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: it always irked me, As I said, I was deeply

661
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: involved in this, It always irked me that their proponents

662
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: would always use that word clean energy, that phase. They say, well,

663
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: you remember now here in the fossil fuels and pollution

664
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: and global warming, nuclear energy is clean energy. And I

665
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: was like, well, nuclear fuel rods don't grow on the

666
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: nuclear fuel rod tree. And they picked them off like

667
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: you're in some grove somewhere. They have to be refined,

668
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: like it piked in Ohio and other places where the

669
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: gaseous diffusion plants were to make fissionable material for reactors.

670
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,399
Speaker 1: Now that process is one of the dirtiest and most

671
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: fouling processes known to man. To make that once you

672
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: turn the thing on, maybe it's clean energy. I would

673
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: argue that, but I do think there is ambient radiation

674
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: near every reactor, and they always have whenever possible because

675
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: of this group I worked with has studied this whenever possible,

676
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: they'd cite those reactors near where there was a cross

677
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: contamination from something else. Right, they put Tom's River on

678
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: a site where Union Carbide and see Bagagi were pumping

679
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: plastic products right into the ocean.

680
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great book about that, Dan Fagan's book

681
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 2: on Tom's River, If and if your listeners are interested,

682
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 2: that's a must read book about the long history of

683
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 2: companies dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, into the ocean, and

684
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 2: into the ground.

685
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: What's a country you believe is getting it right in

686
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: terms of their at least their approach. They might not

687
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: be winning, but they're trying.

688
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, no country is getting it entirely right, but

689
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 2: certainly Denmark with its aggressive supportive wind power. Denmark is

690
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 2: now producing so much wind power that's exporting wind power

691
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 2: to Sweden, Norway, and the largest wind power company in

692
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: Denmark used to be a gas company. So that's a

693
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 2: really nice example of how it is possible for corporations

694
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 2: to change. It is possible for corporations to do the

695
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 2: right thing and say, look, we can still earn money,

696
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 2: we can still make a profit, we can still generate jobs,

697
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 2: but we can do it in a way that's healthier

698
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: and more productive for our people.

699
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: What kind of work do your daughters do.

700
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 2: One of my daughters is getting a PhD in information science.

701
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 2: She's interested in algorithmic fairness and justice. And my other

702
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 2: daughter is a lawyer in New York City.

703
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: What are you worried about for them in.

704
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 2: The near term? I would say American democracy. That's kind

705
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,239
Speaker 2: of seems like the obvious the oh that right, that

706
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 2: obvious immediate threat, you know, you know, if I could

707
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 2: just say one more thing on the nuclear power thing.

708
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: Getting back to France, So, as I said earlier, France

709
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:49,439
Speaker 2: is the only country on the planet that has ever

710
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 2: generated the lion's share of its electricity from nuclear about

711
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 2: seventy to eighty percent. But they didn't do it in

712
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 2: a free market. They did it in a nationalized electricity system,

713
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,879
Speaker 2: in which the government's specified how it would be done,

714
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 2: what the designs would be like, who would do it.

715
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 2: So this is the other thing that I think is

716
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 2: so ironic about the pro nuclear people in the United States.

717
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 2: If you ask them that question, so are you prepared

718
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 2: to nationalize the electricity industry in the United States? I

719
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 2: don't think that most of them would say yes to

720
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 2: that question.

721
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: Americans, in my mind, are people who, you know, the comfort,

722
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: the privilege, the lifestyle of the American life is what

723
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: controls their everyday decision making. You know, am I really ugly?

724
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: When I get ugly about it? I'm like, you know,

725
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: you give Americans a frappuccina, want to attack a gas

726
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: in their suv or they're good to go. They don't

727
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: really need They don't need to know. This is a

728
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: Chernobyl esque site in this country in Hanford. Did you

729
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: go to Hanford, Washington where they build all those where

730
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: they did a lot of this bomb manufacturing and stuff.

731
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: All they know is that Oppenheimer is nominated for an oscar. Now,

732
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: you said twenty five years, thirty years at the outside

733
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 1: to really find the cure. Here In New York, Hurricane

734
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: Sandy came I live downtown the area that I live

735
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 1: and flooded and the power was out and everybody in

736
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 1: the building had to not everybody but the people who

737
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,479
Speaker 1: were available would sign a schedule were you were greed

738
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: to help the elderly people in the building who couldn't

739
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: go out and get their prescriptions, that couldn't take the elevator,

740
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 1: walk their dogs, get their groceries, on and on and on,

741
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: pick up their dry cleaning. Does Manhattan itself have to

742
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: be underwater? Does the subway system have to be flooded

743
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: and it's not leaving, it's not going, It can't be

744
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: pumped out. It's a subterranean system. Does the Manhattan subway

745
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: system have to be flooded and you can't use it anymore?

746
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: And all those people, as you know, in the economy

747
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: in this city, who rely on public transportation to get

748
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: to work, millions every day in and out. What happens

749
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: when that system is gone? And number two, do you believe?

750
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: And this is critical to me, this is one of

751
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: the main reasons I wanted you on the show, is

752
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: do you believe there's such a thing as too late?

753
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:55,760
Speaker 3: Ah?

754
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 2: Well, I'll take the second question first. As long as

755
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 2: we're living and breathing thinking, it's never too late, right,

756
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 2: We're all here, and ultimately this is kind of a

757
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: fight for justice. Right, This is really a fight about

758
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 2: people getting hurt in a way through no fault in

759
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 2: their own right. I mean, maybe some small fault because

760
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 2: we've all used fossil fuels, but we've been the victims

761
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 2: of a massive disinformation campaign. We've been the victims of

762
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 2: organized efforts to stop action to prevent more climate damage.

763
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 2: And so no, it's never too late as long as

764
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 2: we're living and breathing to fight back and to try

765
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 2: to make the world a better place.

766
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,479
Speaker 1: Do you think that recycling is a placebo that people

767
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: are wasting their time?

768
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's a waste of time. I

769
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 2: mean I actually think that in a way, recycling is

770
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 2: at the core of the whole question, because it's really

771
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 2: about our use of material resources. Right, It's not just

772
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 2: about fossil fuels. It's about, as we've said about plastics,

773
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 2: about material consumption of all kinds, all the metals, the minerals,

774
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 2: the things I used to work on, cons and everything.

775
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:56,479
Speaker 1: Right.

776
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: So, ultimately, if we want to live in relationship with

777
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 2: the planet and not destroy all the other living things

778
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 2: and turn the planet into a monoculture dominated by invasive humans,

779
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 2: we have to figure out a different way of consuming,

780
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 2: using materials and so recycling large not just recycling your paper,

781
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,800
Speaker 2: but actually read what some people call the circular economy,

782
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 2: some different way of thinking about economics, that we don't

783
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 2: just use things and throw them away, but we find

784
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 2: a way to make everything I mean, for lack of

785
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,399
Speaker 2: a better word, more ecological, to think about the fact

786
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 2: that we do live in an ecosystem and life on

787
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 2: Earth will not be good if we don't figure out

788
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 2: a way to do it differently.

789
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: But so again this is me staring at the ocean

790
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,720
Speaker 1: and spit bawling. All my environmental policies, one of mine

791
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: was to do some research and very serious, copious research

792
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: on finding out what fits the bill here, but to

793
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: access decommissioned military bases around the country and turn them

794
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: into recycling centers great jobs, great job, yes, and have

795
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: them will find out where they're adjacent to train stations

796
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: and trains to whatever, or if we have to build

797
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: some train lines to go a little bit further where

798
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: it's economically feasible, and just start taking strategically, you know,

799
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: in eight sections of the country and start having the

800
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: United States government get into the recycling business in a

801
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: big way. To start pulling this stuff out of the

802
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 1: way stream you teach, and you've started. You've been with

803
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: Harvard now twenty thirteen, so that's tennis years. Now. Where'd

804
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: you teach before that?

805
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 2: University of California.

806
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: San Diego UCSD for how long?

807
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 2: Fifteen years?

808
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: You've been teaching for over twenty five years? How have

809
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: the students change in the fields that you teach?

810
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 2: Oh, students have changed a lot. And it's been very

811
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 2: interesting to see. Ten years ago my students thought I was.

812
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 2: I was much more radical than I thought I was.

813
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 2: Now my students want me to be more radical. I

814
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 2: mean ten years ago, none of my students were talking

815
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 2: about capitalism. Now they all are, and they're all really

816
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 2: seriously thinking about this question. I mean, capitalism as currently practiced,

817
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 2: to sort of throw away and humorous materialist version of

818
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:06,720
Speaker 2: it that we operate deregularized, financialized, globalized, is not serving

819
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 2: us right. It's not delivering what we want right. We

820
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 2: don't want to just have stuff. We want to be

821
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 2: happy and we want to be healthy, and we're not

822
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 2: actually getting that out of our economic system. And my

823
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 2: students are very aware of that now. So it's been

824
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,879
Speaker 2: really interesting to see how they're challenging me much more

825
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: strongly than even five years ago to really radically rethink

826
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:31,479
Speaker 2: these questions of economics and why we're quibbling that's not right,

827
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 2: and especially with the whole throwaway economy, right. I mean,

828
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 2: I do think I've thought about this a lot. I

829
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 2: dream of a time one hundred years from now when

830
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 2: no one would defend throwing things away.

831
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: Well, here's the last thing I'll ask you. You talk

832
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: about the remedy for you. The medication for you is

833
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 1: the outdoors and to experience the outdoors on some intense level.

834
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: Are there ever any consequences for you emotionally of doing

835
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: this work? You have to face a lot of tough facts,

836
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: and you spend your writing in articles and you're writing books.

837
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: Your big myth is a thick book that's a doorstop

838
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: er in my house. Boy, I've I've ever seen.

839
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,359
Speaker 2: One, and it's a big book for a big topic.

840
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,720
Speaker 1: That's it exactly. But I'm saying, you do this work

841
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: and that takes years of your energy and facing down

842
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: all these things. Does it ever get to you at times? Oh?

843
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: You're safe?

844
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, of course it does. I mean I

845
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 2: feel like the hardest part is when you feel like

846
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 2: you're staring into the heart of darkness. I mean sometimes

847
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: there are times when I think, and people ask me

848
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 2: this all the time. They say, how these people sleep

849
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 2: at night? I mean, how people can do these things

850
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 2: that they know are hurting other people and yet somehow

851
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 2: rationalize and explain it away. So, yeah, that is hard,

852
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 2: but a big part of the work is trying to

853
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 2: understand how people do that in order to change it.

854
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: What's your next trip? You're going on your next nature trip?

855
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, I just bought this properly in

856
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:51,919
Speaker 2: New York State, so I'm planning to spend a little

857
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 2: time here and I'm really looking forward to springtime. As

858
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 2: these beautiful trees I'm looking out on we'll begin to bud.

859
00:43:57,440 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: As a part of the world of them. Then, who

860
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: you want to go to I haven't.

861
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,799
Speaker 2: Been to Antarctica. I really want to go there, and

862
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 2: I am taking a group of students to Svalbart in June.

863
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 2: I've never seen the Arctic. I've always wanted to. I've

864
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:12,800
Speaker 2: always been kind of in love with snow and ice,

865
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 2: so I'm finally have the opportunity to go to the Arctic.

866
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Speaker 1: Well many thanks to you I'm very grateful to you

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Speaker 1: for doing the show. This was really wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: My thanks to Naomi Oreski's. This episode was produced by

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Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is

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Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's

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Speaker 1: the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. I'm Alec Baldwin.

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Speaker 1: Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio

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Speaker 1: the Time, by account to