Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. Wildfires and water shortages, storms and
Speaker 1: sea level rise, droughts and ice sheet melting. The relentless
Speaker 1: stream of doomsday climate news and the often conflicting political
Speaker 1: and corporate responses can be both dizzying and disheartening. My
Speaker 1: guest today, professor, historian and earth scientist Naomi oreskis is
Speaker 1: here to get down to the brass tacks of the situation.
Speaker 1: Orescues is clear about how capitalism has failed us and
Speaker 1: how corporations have gas lit us when it comes to
Speaker 1: critical issues of public health and our climate's future. She
Speaker 1: is the co author, along with Eric Conway, of Merchants
Speaker 1: of Doubt, How a handful of scientists Obscure the truth
Speaker 1: on issues from tobacco smoke to global war. Their latest
Speaker 1: book is The Big Myth, How American Business taught Us
Speaker 1: to loathe government and love the free Market. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get her perspective on a climate issue that has
Speaker 1: faded from the headlines, the depletion of the ozone layer.
Speaker 2: So the ozone layer is recovering because of work that
Speaker 2: scientists did to explain how a particular group of chemicals,
Speaker 2: the so called chlorinated fluorocarbons, were destroying stratospheric ozone and
Speaker 2: what that meant for the future of life on Earth.
Speaker 2: And people listened, politicians listened, corporations listened, and the world's
Speaker 2: leaders signed the United Nations Montreal pro cal on substances
Speaker 2: that deplete stratospheric ozone, and so those chemicals were banned.
Speaker 2: We stopped using them, and because we stopped using them,
Speaker 2: the problem was solved.
Speaker 1: So for people who don't know, I mean, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people listening to the show who
Speaker 1: don't really know, because it's such a complicated issue. If
Speaker 1: the ozone layers fixed white, we still have climate.
Speaker 2: Change, two different problems. So the ozone layer was about
Speaker 2: ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Stratasviagozone protects us from UV light,
Speaker 2: and we all know if you get too much UV
Speaker 2: light you get a sunburn. But if you've got a
Speaker 2: lot of UV you could actually die, you get cataracts,
Speaker 2: you could be burnt to a crisp. So that's an
Speaker 2: example where the world listened to scientific evidence and acted
Speaker 2: on scientific evidence. And it's a super important example because
Speaker 2: it shows it is possible for us to respond to knowledge,
Speaker 2: to respond for information, and act in a rational way.
Speaker 2: But climate change has played out very differently because in
Speaker 2: this case, the corporations and invested interests who are responsible
Speaker 2: for the problem, instead of accepting the science, they have
Speaker 2: fought it tooth and nail, and they've been fighting it
Speaker 2: for nearly forty years now thirty five year or something
Speaker 2: like that. So the political and the cultural and social
Speaker 2: response to the scientific evidence of climate change has been
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty degrees different than the response we
Speaker 2: head to the Ozone hole.
Speaker 1: What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2: Disinformation and invested interest? So the thing about the ozone
Speaker 2: story is that even though the chemicals involved were very
Speaker 2: useful chemicals, they were used primarily for refrigeration, also in
Speaker 2: aerosols like hairspray. Hairspray was something we could all live without,
Speaker 2: and in fact, one of the nice parts of the story,
Speaker 2: it turns out women stopped using hairspray before these chemicals
Speaker 2: were banned because they heard about the problem they thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I can live without hairspray. So that's kind of a
Speaker 2: cool detail that people don't know about. But the biggest
Speaker 2: part of it was that political leaders said, yes, we
Speaker 2: have to act on this. And there was only really
Speaker 2: one company that was responsible for most of the chlorinated
Speaker 2: fluora carbons that were used in the world, and that
Speaker 2: was DuPont, and they did the right thing. They listened
Speaker 2: to their own scientists, they listened to the scientific evidence.
Speaker 2: They're a very science based company, and they said, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, we can survive as a company without these chemicals.
Speaker 2: But the fossil fuel industry has responded almost the opposite.
Speaker 2: They have said, we can't survive without these products, and
Speaker 2: neither can you. And so they've told a story about
Speaker 2: fossil fuel dependency, that there's no way to live without them,
Speaker 2: that there's no other source of energy that's reliable, and
Speaker 2: therefore we have to keep using these materials, no matter
Speaker 2: how much harm they do.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of the public relations stances of the extractive
Speaker 1: industries like that in the petroleum industries, I'm under the
Speaker 1: assumption I'm not a scientist, I have no scientific background.
Speaker 1: But I'm under the assumption that you don't even play
Speaker 1: one on televisony. I don't even play one. I played
Speaker 1: a surgeon, but that's about it. But are we ever
Speaker 1: going to really be able to get rid of fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: My friend said to me, you're not going to take
Speaker 1: any chances and plug in the fire engine with the
Speaker 1: police car, meaning we're going to always have to have
Speaker 1: gas and petroleum based products for emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire
Speaker 1: police so forth. You don't agree.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's true. I think that's an example
Speaker 2: of how effective this propaganda has been that even highly
Speaker 2: intelligent people who care about the problem and who are
Speaker 2: people of goodwill will say something like that because they've
Speaker 2: been so bombarded by this message that renewable energy is
Speaker 2: not reliable. But the reality is actually, ambulances electric vehicles,
Speaker 2: first of all, are faster, They get places quicker, So
Speaker 2: action electric vehicle is better as an ambulance than an
Speaker 2: internal combustion engine, and most ambulance trips are short trips.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You don't want to drive ten hours in an ambulance,
Speaker 2: you want to drive ten minutes, and so actually that's
Speaker 2: a place where electric vehicles work better. So the very
Speaker 2: fact that people would think that we couldn't use electric
Speaker 2: vehicles for ambulances is proof of how effective these propaganda
Speaker 2: campaigns have been.
Speaker 1: If someone had the guts and the wisdom whether that
Speaker 1: person was the president or this is obviously a federal issue,
Speaker 1: or someone who was in the center of the House
Speaker 1: to propose legislation. What's the first thing you think they
Speaker 1: could do that's doable that they're not doing something that
Speaker 1: could pass Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess one of them would
Speaker 2: be banning any further oil and guests development on public lands.
Speaker 2: That's something that we've talked about, and there have been
Speaker 2: moves in that direction. But you know, we've seen Biden,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, work to prevent new leases on
Speaker 2: public lands but also approve the Arctic National Wildlife drilling.
Speaker 2: So there's been really mixed miss messages coming from Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: Why do you think he did that?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I'm not a mind reader, but
Speaker 2: you know, the pressure from the fossil fuel industry is relentless.
Speaker 2: I think they were afraid that if they pulled back
Speaker 2: on those leases, they would end up in court forever.
Speaker 2: I think they probably think they're going to end up
Speaker 2: in court anyway, so I think they actually think that
Speaker 2: this won't actually happen, so that I think they're trying
Speaker 2: to sort of play both sides of the political street,
Speaker 2: and I think they're afraid. I think the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: industry has been so effective in persuading us that we
Speaker 2: can't live without fossil fuels, that we need those jobs,
Speaker 2: that even Democrats like Joe Biden, who clearly understand the
Speaker 2: issue on some level, are afraid to really do what
Speaker 2: it would take to fix the problem. If we go
Speaker 2: back to the bird Hegel Amendment, So if we go
Speaker 2: back to the nineteen nineties, when the United States signed
Speaker 2: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, So that was
Speaker 2: signed by a Republican president, President George HW. Bush, and
Speaker 2: had committed one hundred and ninety countries around the world
Speaker 2: to taking steps to preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference in the
Speaker 2: climate system, in other words, preventing climate change, preventing the
Speaker 2: development of a climate crisis. So then that treaty was
Speaker 2: a statement in principle, But then the question was, well,
Speaker 2: how would you do that in practice? And the Kyoto
Speaker 2: Protocol that was ratifiing Kyoto in nineteen ninety seven gave
Speaker 2: specifics of how that would be done, binding emissions targets
Speaker 2: for all the countries. The United States never ratified Kyoto,
Speaker 2: and by that point we had a Democratic president, Bill Clinton,
Speaker 2: so you might think, well, you know, aren't Democrats on
Speaker 2: board on this issue.
Speaker 1: What was his excuse?
Speaker 2: Well, I think they were really afraid that the American
Speaker 2: people thought it would cost jobs. And so the Bird
Speaker 2: Hagel Amendment was passed in Congress. Robert Bird was a
Speaker 2: Democrat from West Virginia, Chuck Hagel Republican from Oklahoma, both
Speaker 2: fossil fuel states, and the resolution basically said the United
Speaker 2: States would not agree to any treaty that would cost
Speaker 2: American jobs. Now that was a real propaganda job, because
Speaker 2: in fact, we know that renewable energy creates more jobs
Speaker 2: than fossil fuels. Very difficult to export or outsource renewable
Speaker 2: energy jobs. Solar installation has to be done at home,
Speaker 2: can't be outsourced to China or India. So it was
Speaker 2: part of the pr propaganda that fixing climate change would
Speaker 2: damage the economy. And I think Democrats as well as
Speaker 2: Republicans have been petrified of anything that the other side
Speaker 2: could use to say, oh, but look, you cost those jobs,
Speaker 2: even though right now in the United States today we
Speaker 2: see ten new renewable energy jobs for every job in
Speaker 2: the fossil fuel sector.
Speaker 1: Interesting. That's amazing that you say that ten new renewable
Speaker 1: energy jobs for everyone in traditional energy companies. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: That alone makes it worth you coming on this show
Speaker 1: just for me to disseminate that fact. Now, the aviation industry,
Speaker 1: I do think about this from time to time, and
Speaker 1: even years ago, I was thinking, you're looking up at
Speaker 1: the sky and you're staring up at a plane going
Speaker 1: through the clouds, and you're thinking, I think at one
Speaker 1: point I checked a couple of years ago. I could
Speaker 1: be wrong, but I think that they said that at
Speaker 1: any given time commercial, private, and military aviation craft there
Speaker 1: are one hundred and twenty five thousand of them airborne
Speaker 1: at any given time in the sky, all day long.
Speaker 1: What role do you think that the aviation industry plays
Speaker 1: in climate change?
Speaker 2: Well, we know it plays a huge role because a
Speaker 2: huge proportion of carbon emissions carbon pollution comes from aviation,
Speaker 2: and aviation is definitely a tough piece of this problem.
Speaker 2: It's much easier to electrify cars than it is to
Speaker 2: electrify aircraft, and I don't think most people think we'll
Speaker 2: see a fully electrified air fleet anytime real soon. Bye biodiesel.
Speaker 2: That's where biofuels come in, and biofuels are tricky. Some
Speaker 2: of them are much better than others. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of questions about biofuels, but I think it's pretty clear
Speaker 2: that the aviation industry could work on biofuels. And that's
Speaker 2: where you start getting into all kinds of questions about
Speaker 2: government policy subsidies for fossil fuels. You like the statistic
Speaker 2: about jobs, there's a similar statistic about subsidies for fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: So the people who I argue with'd like to defend
Speaker 2: the free market. They're opposed to government action in the marketplace.
Speaker 2: They often will say the government shouldn't get involved, the
Speaker 2: government shouldn't pick winners and losers. But the reality is
Speaker 2: that for the last one hundred years, the US government
Speaker 2: and governments around the globe have picked the winner, and
Speaker 2: the winner they picked is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are
Speaker 2: massively subsidized globally. It is not, by any stretch of
Speaker 2: the imagination, a free market. So groups like the IMF
Speaker 2: and the World Bank, not exactly left wing radical organizations,
Speaker 2: estimate that direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry direct
Speaker 2: subsidies are six to seven hundred billion dollars every single year,
Speaker 2: just like there's more jobs in renewable energy for every
Speaker 2: dollar that subsidizes renewable energy. And this is that these
Speaker 2: numbers are shifting as we speak, so they may change,
Speaker 2: but roughly speaking, for every dollar we spend on renewable energy,
Speaker 2: there's about twenty dollars spent subsidizing fossil fuels. And that's
Speaker 2: just subsidies, government subsidies, And that's just direct If we
Speaker 2: take in the to affect.
Speaker 1: The military expenditures.
Speaker 2: Right, not including that, If we begin to take into
Speaker 2: effect or into account military expenditures the health costs of
Speaker 2: air pollution related to burning fossil fuels, then you're looking
Speaker 2: at trillions of dollars. So the IMF estimates one point
Speaker 2: five trillion dollars every single year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my friend said to me, if you were to
Speaker 1: factor in the military budget to access oil in that
Speaker 1: part of the world that we're obviously talking about, he
Speaker 1: said to me, gas that the pump would be one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a gawn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's about right, and not to mention
Speaker 2: all the American lives, lives that have been lost defending
Speaker 2: oil and gas in the release defending oil and gas
Speaker 2: accessing oil and gas accessing right. So the subsidies, both
Speaker 2: in terms of dollars and in terms of human costs,
Speaker 2: are just huge.
Speaker 1: Now, you're not an activist. You're a scientist and you teach,
Speaker 1: you're a professor, you're a historian, you're a writer, obviously,
Speaker 1: but you're not an activist in the sense you're not
Speaker 1: do you work with groups, you provide them with information
Speaker 1: and research and knowledge, but you're not yourself. Are not
Speaker 1: out there on the demonstration line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And this is a tricky issue because
Speaker 2: for years, like a lot of academics, I resisted the
Speaker 2: activist term because it's often used against people. It's often
Speaker 2: used to say, you're not objective, you're not credible, you're emotional,
Speaker 2: you're hysterical, you're a hysterical female. And so, as a
Speaker 2: person who's dedicated my entire life to knowledge, science, history,
Speaker 2: facts understanding, I certainly didn't want people to dismiss all
Speaker 2: of the hard work I did as a thinker and
Speaker 2: a writer just because I went on a picket line.
Speaker 2: And I still don't really play that role. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's the best role that I can play in
Speaker 2: the world. But at the same time, I think about, well,
Speaker 2: what's the opposite of activists A passiveist? I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously not a PASSIVISTI passive. So do we want to
Speaker 2: be passive in the face of a problem that is
Speaker 2: threatening our health, our safety?
Speaker 1: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: So what do you do?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So you have to do you do? What do I
Speaker 2: personally do? So I do what you just said, I
Speaker 2: provide information to activists.
Speaker 1: Who's consuming that information?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question, of course. As a writer,
Speaker 2: I mean you know this, as an artist, you never
Speaker 2: quite exactly know who's receiving your messages. But I mean,
Speaker 2: we write books that have sold. Well, we're pretty Eric Conway,
Speaker 2: are pretty proud that as academics we've written books that
Speaker 2: are read by regular people. We do podcasts like this,
Speaker 2: talk to people like you. You know, we do whatever
Speaker 2: we can to get our message out to broad our audiences,
Speaker 2: to speak broadly. Colin and I have spoken in forty
Speaker 2: eight of the fifty state still waiting for an invitation
Speaker 2: from Alabama, and based on the reason headlines, I don't
Speaker 2: think that invitation is coming real soon, but we do
Speaker 2: what we can to help people understand the issue, and
Speaker 2: especially as we started this conversation, to understand the misinformation,
Speaker 2: the lies, the propaganda, and the way our own views
Speaker 2: of this issue have been distorted by fossil fuel and
Speaker 2: free market propaganda.
Speaker 1: When we talk about activism and so forth, are there
Speaker 1: organizations I'm not asking for an endorsement, obviously, you're obviously
Speaker 1: very savvy about all this kind of stuff. I'm not
Speaker 1: asking for an endorsement. But who's someone who you see
Speaker 1: doing some great work other that you admire. What's an
Speaker 1: organization that you think is effective.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question, because again, politics are so complicated,
Speaker 2: it's always hard to know exactly who's done what work,
Speaker 2: has had what impacts. But I have always been a
Speaker 2: big fan of Bill mckibbon because I think he does
Speaker 2: speak truth to power effectively, because he's a person who
Speaker 2: does so much homework to understand the science and the facts,
Speaker 2: but also finds ways to talk about it that reach
Speaker 2: millions of people. And he's also a beautiful writer, and
Speaker 2: he finds ways to write about difficult topics in beautiful
Speaker 2: and elegant ways. And I certainly think we know he's
Speaker 2: been effective in reaching many people and persuading many people
Speaker 2: of the importance of the climate problem. So he's certainly
Speaker 2: someone I admire greatly.
Speaker 1: Author Naomi Oreski's If you enjoy conversations digging into the
Speaker 1: data behind climate change, check out my episode with oceanographer
Speaker 1: doctor Peter Domenicau and climate scientist doctor Kate Marvel.
Speaker 3: The thing about climate change is that natural climate change
Speaker 3: has happened before. We've seen little wobbles in the Earth's orbit,
Speaker 3: and that happens on the timescale of hundreds and thousands
Speaker 3: of years. And what we're seeing right now is climate
Speaker 3: change that is quicker than anything that we have ever seen,
Speaker 3: not the wobbles, and that it's not the wobbles, it's
Speaker 3: not the sun, it's us. And it's so quick. It's
Speaker 3: not even quick in geologic time, it's quick in actual time,
Speaker 3: like we have seen changes in our lifetimes.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with doctors Domenical and Marvel,
Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Speaker 1: Naomi Oreskies tells us why we need to shift how
Speaker 1: we think about the natural world. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing Naomi Oreskies is a
Speaker 1: professor at Harvard University, a world renowned public speaker and
Speaker 1: author of several books. Her work has been featured in
Speaker 1: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Scientific America.
Speaker 1: She's also surprisingly a Brown University dropout.
Speaker 2: I was bored. I wanted to travel. I wanted to
Speaker 2: see the world. So I went to England and I
Speaker 2: re enrolled at the University of London and got my
Speaker 2: degree there.
Speaker 1: You also went to the Royal School of Minds. Correct, yes, Now,
Speaker 1: of course my listeners will be a fascinat for you
Speaker 1: to share with them. What is the Royal School of
Speaker 1: Minds And what does one do there?
Speaker 2: One studies geology or mining engineering or material science. So
Speaker 2: I was interested in geology. And the Royal School of
Speaker 2: Mines was created the nineteenth century, and it was created
Speaker 2: consciously as an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge. It was
Speaker 2: created as a university that was meant to be open
Speaker 2: to people regardless of their social background. So it's actually
Speaker 2: a very radical institution at the time, and it had
Speaker 2: one of the world's great geology programs. So I went
Speaker 2: there and living in London was much more fun than
Speaker 2: living in Providence, Rhode Island. No offense to my friends
Speaker 2: in Rhode Island, but realistically province and nice town now
Speaker 2: it's kind of a dump in those days. So we're
Speaker 2: going back a while here. So yeah, London was fun.
Speaker 2: I had a great time.
Speaker 1: How much time did you take off between Brown and London?
Speaker 2: Well, I only took off a summer. I went to
Speaker 2: London originally as on a junior year abroad, but then
Speaker 2: I stayed, so I ended up spending three years in London,
Speaker 2: and then I went to Australia, where I spent three
Speaker 2: years working as a professional exploration geologist in Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what kind of work were you doing there?
Speaker 2: I was working on the evaluation of a large scale
Speaker 2: or deposit, a polymetallic copper, uranium, gold, silver, and rare
Speaker 2: earth element deposit, which is now who was funding this?
Speaker 2: A private company? Was a private totally private sector operation.
Speaker 1: What were they trying to find? Minerals to market or correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, minerals to market? It was originally the goal
Speaker 2: was copper. It was a copper expiration program. They found
Speaker 2: something much different from what they were looking for, and
Speaker 2: that was an interesting lesson in my early life that
Speaker 2: what we find is not always what we go out
Speaker 2: looking for.
Speaker 1: Of course, you're a woman and the superiod. Your life
Speaker 1: spans not all of the feminist period or the beginnings
Speaker 1: of what then was the modern feminist era. What was
Speaker 1: it like for you working because you have that a
Speaker 1: quote where you say, if you're a girl and you
Speaker 1: can quote unquote do science, you'd be crazy not to.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. So there was definitely a lot of
Speaker 2: social pressure, I think to go into science for me
Speaker 2: and my generation.
Speaker 1: Also.
Speaker 2: I went to Stuyvesant High School, which was a math
Speaker 2: and science oriented school, and my father was a scientist
Speaker 2: and he believed strongly that science could make the world
Speaker 2: a better place. So yes, if you were a girl
Speaker 2: and you could do math, you definitely got encouraged to
Speaker 2: go into science. And I think the work I do
Speaker 2: now to work at the intersection of science, history, culture, politics,
Speaker 2: really reflects the fact that I always had these other
Speaker 2: broader interests, but nobody ever told me, well, nobody ever
Speaker 2: told me you could earn a living as a historian
Speaker 2: of science. So that was a great discovery.
Speaker 1: For someone that goes on and spends years of your
Speaker 1: study involved with geology or related discipline. Were you as
Speaker 1: a kid? Were you somebody was at the Museum of
Speaker 1: Natural History all the time and be chunks those big
Speaker 1: blobs of polished stones on your encounter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and nature. I was the kind of kid who
Speaker 2: collected bugs and jars, that kind of thing. Yeah, I've
Speaker 2: always loved the natural world. I've always found the natural
Speaker 2: world to be amazing and terrific. And just even looking
Speaker 2: out at a tree and just thinking about, like, how
Speaker 2: does a tree even do what it does? It's really
Speaker 2: amazing when you stop and think about the natural world.
Speaker 2: And that's one thing I think is so sad about
Speaker 2: the world we live in now that it's so easy
Speaker 2: to just go about your life not thinking about the
Speaker 2: natural world. And so when people talk about climate change
Speaker 2: threatening the existence of a million species on Earth, I
Speaker 2: think for a lot of people it's hard for us
Speaker 2: to get our heads around what that would mean, and
Speaker 2: because we live lives that are so disconnected from nature.
Speaker 2: But if you stop and think about a bird or
Speaker 2: a tree, or even a rock or a coral reef,
Speaker 2: you begin to appreciate what is really at stake here
Speaker 2: and how important it is.
Speaker 1: I think this idea that many Americans have a more
Speaker 1: kind of limited view of certain things. They don't travel
Speaker 1: to Europe. A lot of Americans, they don't get on
Speaker 1: a plane. They don't want to see the world beyond
Speaker 1: our borders. They don't get the chance to go and
Speaker 1: see and do. Were you going to camps and things
Speaker 1: like that where your family invested in getting you out
Speaker 1: there to see everything?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think all New York families at
Speaker 2: that time, if they could afford it, send you away
Speaker 2: to summer camp. And that was for I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us, that was our first encounter. Especially I
Speaker 2: grew up in Manhattan, you know, the urban jungle. But
Speaker 2: even in urban environments. I mean, I mentioned my father
Speaker 2: was a scientist and we used to go to Central
Speaker 2: Park all the time, and there's a lot of nature
Speaker 2: in Central Park. There's a lot of beautiful plants, animals.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot more nature in the city
Speaker 2: than most people realize. And I think, you know, the
Speaker 2: whole thing about Americans is tricky because you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to sort of bash the American people, and
Speaker 2: I think that most people have given the opportunity to
Speaker 2: engage with nature, really do appreciate it. And we know
Speaker 2: this is true in part because if you think about
Speaker 2: the national parks, the national parks are americans favorite destinations
Speaker 2: for vacations, and I mean we love them to death. Right,
Speaker 2: some of them are too crowded because so many of
Speaker 2: us visit, but that's really telling us something, Right, they
Speaker 2: visit state parks, they go to aquaria and planetaria. I mean,
Speaker 2: people love science and people love nature, and I think
Speaker 2: most people, given the opportunity to engage, they want that.
Speaker 2: And especially when you think about science, I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of science, a lot of scientists don't take the
Speaker 2: time to engage with people. A lot of scientists don't
Speaker 2: take the time to think about how to explain science
Speaker 2: in ways they're accessible. But again, if you look at
Speaker 2: you know, what do people do on the weekends when
Speaker 2: they have free time. Millions of Americans take their children's
Speaker 2: to museums, to planetaria, to aquaria, and people love looking
Speaker 2: at fish or learning about planets and stars. So it's
Speaker 2: not that people aren't interested in science, and it's not
Speaker 2: that there aren't lots of good people doing good work
Speaker 2: to make science accessible. But I think when it comes
Speaker 2: to something challenging like climate change, that's not just gee whiz,
Speaker 2: see how beautifuls fish are, but is that well? But
Speaker 2: we also have this problem with the way we live
Speaker 2: and we're doing damage. That's a harder message. It's not
Speaker 2: so much fun, and so we have to figure out
Speaker 2: ways to communicate with people about something that's tough and difficult,
Speaker 2: and that's never easy.
Speaker 1: When you talk about looking at a tree. I have
Speaker 1: a house on Long Island. We're moving to a house
Speaker 1: we have in Vermont. But when I'm at the beach
Speaker 1: and I'm staring at the ocean in this kind of
Speaker 1: be a tyfic way, and then the next thought to
Speaker 1: me is how are we going to get all the
Speaker 1: plastic out of this ocean? Right? It all gets kind
Speaker 1: of ruined, which brings me to where petroleum industries are
Speaker 1: obviously to blame for whatever emissions problems we have or
Speaker 1: they contributed to that. They also are deeply involved in
Speaker 1: plastics because plastics are based on petroleum. Do corporations like
Speaker 1: Mobile and do corporations like other major oil producers and refiners,
Speaker 1: do they make plastic themselves or they via petroleum to
Speaker 1: plastics manufacturers.
Speaker 2: Well, it's both. They do both. They partner with plastic
Speaker 2: manufacturers and in some cases they manufacture plastics themselves, or
Speaker 2: they manufacture the feedstocks for the plastic materials. So the
Speaker 2: petroleum industry is very very closely associated with, implicated with,
Speaker 2: and depends for a significant part of its profits on plastics.
Speaker 1: That to me is an issue because the more and
Speaker 1: more I hear about this, the more and more I
Speaker 1: hear about nanoplastics and all this stuff, the more and
Speaker 1: more I watch online people trying, you know, distraining themselves,
Speaker 1: killing themselves, trying to get plastic out of the water,
Speaker 1: ocean clean up. I watch their website on Instagram and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, have the nets out there. You
Speaker 1: hear about the Pacific garbage gyre, the things, the side
Speaker 1: of whatever they say it is, it's the size of
Speaker 1: Connecticut or Rhode Island or some damn thing, and it's
Speaker 1: just the swirling vortex of plastic garbage out there. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, for me, plastics occupy a place where
Speaker 1: it's different than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels in my opinion,
Speaker 1: but it have to be phased out gradually while you
Speaker 1: build up a network to support electric whereas plastics is
Speaker 1: like they should just ban plastic now, all of it
Speaker 1: should be gone. Like, I don't know, if you like me.
Speaker 1: I open a box. Inside that box is all those
Speaker 1: styrofoam peanuts. I want to jump off the terrace of
Speaker 1: my building.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel the same way. No, I know, and
Speaker 2: I think it's a Plastics is a really good thing
Speaker 2: for us to talk about because many of us are
Speaker 2: old enough to remember what it was like before everything
Speaker 2: got plasticized. Right, And like anything in life, you can't
Speaker 2: change everything overnight because you know, companies have strategies and
Speaker 2: suppliers and supply chains and stuff, so none of that
Speaker 2: can be changed instantly, but it could be changed pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: And think about egg cartons, right, I mean, yes, why
Speaker 2: are eggs in plastic? They don't need to be in plastic.
Speaker 1: Backs or cardboard.
Speaker 2: Cardboard works perfectly well. Or even tomatoes. Remember when we
Speaker 2: were kids, tomatoes used to come these little cardboard boxes
Speaker 2: with a little bit of sulifane over the top. Or
Speaker 2: Brussels sprouts and little waxed cardboard containers. Remember those. So
Speaker 2: we really do not need plastic in.
Speaker 1: The coded paper right now.
Speaker 2: It is true that plastics are convenient, they are lightweight,
Speaker 2: and so there's certainly some benefit in that, and we
Speaker 2: know that the petroleum industry and its allies have worked
Speaker 2: not just to persuade us to use more plastic, but
Speaker 2: also to stop laws designed to help the transition. And
Speaker 2: so around this country, when communities have tried to pass,
Speaker 2: for example, ordinances against plastic bags, or ordinances saying that
Speaker 2: shops would have to charge you if you ask for
Speaker 2: a plastic bag, the fossil fuel industry and its allies
Speaker 2: have been there fighting those ordinances. And so this is
Speaker 2: again where we're up against, you know, big organizations that
Speaker 2: are spending lots and lots of money to protect their
Speaker 2: interests even though it harms the rest of us. And
Speaker 2: I want to say, I think the word blame is
Speaker 2: a legitimate word. Sometimes someone is to blame, and I
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we have to talk about that. If
Speaker 2: you don't like the word blame, we can talk about responsibility,
Speaker 2: We can talk about accountability. But I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but my mother raised me to think that I was
Speaker 2: responsible for my actions. So why should the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: industry get off scot free for the responsibility for their actions?
Speaker 1: Professor Naomi Oreskis, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Naomi Oreski shares what country gets
Speaker 1: it right when it comes to energy policy. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, plastics seem to be the solution to
Speaker 1: all of life's problems. Fast forward to today, when plastic
Speaker 1: is everywhere, takes hundreds of years to decompose, and is
Speaker 1: rarely recycled. I wanted to know what Professor Naomi Oreski's
Speaker 1: thinks about the potential of a biodegradable plastic.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of green washing in this space,
Speaker 2: but there are compostable plastics, boundegradable plastics, and I do
Speaker 2: you know, I've met some colleagues at places like MIT
Speaker 2: who are working on that, and I think that's really
Speaker 2: helpful because certainly we live in a world where we're
Speaker 2: not going to eliminate packing materials overnight. So just like
Speaker 2: we came up with substitutes for those chlorofluorocarbons we were
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, we can come up with substitutes for plastics,
Speaker 2: and there are compostable and biodegradable alternatives and we definitely
Speaker 2: should be embracing those.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts about nuclear energy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a great fan.
Speaker 1: And why well because I see it as.
Speaker 2: Basically a technology that has been tested and failed, and
Speaker 2: nuclear power is a very weird technology because people get
Speaker 2: very irrational about it. And I don't mean the anti
Speaker 2: nuclear people, I mean the pro nuclear people. So think
Speaker 2: about it this way. The first civilian nuclear power plant
Speaker 2: was built in United States in nineteen fifty four in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: The promise that we were all told at that time
Speaker 2: and this is now before too cheap to meter, as
Speaker 2: cheap as the unmetered air, right, this promise of this
Speaker 2: deliverance technology that was going to solve all of our
Speaker 2: energy problems. So what really happened? And we know what
Speaker 2: happened because we now have seventy five years of experience.
Speaker 2: Nuclear power has proved to be the most expensive form
Speaker 2: of energy generation. People don't like it, and not because
Speaker 2: they're irrational, but because there is the possibility might be small,
Speaker 2: but it's not zero, of a catastrophic accident might happened
Speaker 2: at Fukushima. We've seen it now Fukushima, Chernobyl. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you think about Chernobyl, hundreds of square miles of
Speaker 2: areas that cannot be occupied by people because even now,
Speaker 2: decades later, they are toxically lethally radioactive. This is a
Speaker 2: highly dangerous technology, and one of the reasons it's expensive
Speaker 2: is because it is so dangerous, you have to spend
Speaker 2: so much money to try and make it safe. So
Speaker 2: people's concerns about catastrophic accidents are not irrational, they're actually
Speaker 2: fact based. So why do people keep pushing this technology.
Speaker 2: It's expensive, it's dangerous, and we know here in the
Speaker 2: United States we get about twenty percent of our electricity
Speaker 2: from nuclears. That's not nothing. So I'm not saying they
Speaker 2: all need to be shut down tomorrow, but as a
Speaker 2: solution to the climate crisis, why would you do that
Speaker 2: when you have cheaper, safer, nicer technologies that people like cleaner,
Speaker 2: I mean better on every level. So the only thing
Speaker 2: I can come up with about nuclear power is that
Speaker 2: even though the dream of power too cheap to meter
Speaker 2: was disproved, right, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And continues to be disproved right.
Speaker 2: And it continues to be just bro, this is still
Speaker 2: this like techno fy deist hope that somehow the miracle
Speaker 2: technology that solves all our prompts. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: thorium reactors, fourth generation or fusion. Right, we saw this
Speaker 2: last year with all the hype about I mean, that
Speaker 2: to me was just astonishing, and it just showed how
Speaker 2: much this is a kind of religion, a technofideist religion.
Speaker 2: Because the fusion, I mean you probably read about it
Speaker 2: was in all the newspapers, on the front page of
Speaker 2: many papers about this breakthrough in fusion. So what was
Speaker 2: the breakthrough? You know, less than one second of fusion
Speaker 2: energy generation less than one second. So even though from
Speaker 2: a scientific standpoint that was good, it was something. But
Speaker 2: we are still decades, decades away, maybe centuries from being
Speaker 2: able to use fusion for power, and yet respectable newspapers
Speaker 2: like the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: talked about this as a potential solution to the climate crisis.
Speaker 2: So the evidence, the facts just don't support nuclear power.
Speaker 2: Countries that have it, like France. I'm not saying they
Speaker 2: need to shut it all down tomorrow. I don't think
Speaker 2: that is the case, but even France, that's just the
Speaker 2: only country in the world that has ever generated the
Speaker 2: lion's share of its power from nuclear power, and even
Speaker 2: in France they've backed away from it somewhat for a
Speaker 2: variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: What do they do with the spend fuel in France.
Speaker 2: No one has entirely sorted out to spend fuel ross.
Speaker 1: Even there, they don't have an answer.
Speaker 2: No, they have some programs, it gets kind of technical.
Speaker 2: They do something called vitrification, where you turn the waste
Speaker 2: into glass, and that's a pretty decent solution, but it's
Speaker 2: very expensive. We've never adopted virtu ocification here in the
Speaker 2: United States. But here's the other thing about nuclear power, well,
Speaker 2: two more things. So it takes a really long time
Speaker 2: to build a nuclear power plant, typically at least ten years,
Speaker 2: often fifteen. So we have this climate crisis, we know
Speaker 2: we have to phase out fossil fuel use in the
Speaker 2: next ten twenty at most thirty years. So we can't
Speaker 2: build a whole fleet of nuclear reactors in that amount
Speaker 2: of time. And where would we put them. Most places
Speaker 2: in the United States aren't suitable for nuclear actors. You
Speaker 2: can't put them in places that are tectonically active, you
Speaker 2: can't put them on the West coast. They need tons
Speaker 2: of water. You can't put them in the south West.
Speaker 1: I read, I've read things. I mean, I've been deeply
Speaker 1: involved with this issue since nineteen ninety six. The Brookhaven
Speaker 1: Laboratory where they had the high flex being reactor there
Speaker 1: that we helped to shut down. We were involved heavily
Speaker 1: with Oyster Creek, New Jersey, Toms River getting that licensed.
Speaker 1: Indian point of course, near New York, we were reading
Speaker 1: articles about you know this, every time you turn around,
Speaker 1: a Sloane type business champion would get up there and say, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to have these smaller reactors now. They wanted
Speaker 1: them like mailboxes on the corner of every neighborhood want.
Speaker 1: They wanted them like every mile and a half in
Speaker 1: some area. I think myself, are you kidding me? But
Speaker 1: like you said, no water or no none of the resources.
Speaker 2: They generally right, and the advocates say they just brush
Speaker 2: away or that. You'll see if you read the arguments
Speaker 2: by pro nuclear people, they almost never discussed the waste.
Speaker 2: They just kind of waved away, and they almost never
Speaker 2: discussed the nuclear proliferation problem, which gets worse if the
Speaker 2: reactors get smaller. Right, more reactors more opportunities for theft
Speaker 2: of nuclear materials, you know, as in a story of science.
Speaker 2: One of the things I sometimes do when I interview famous,
Speaker 2: great scientists, I'll ask them, so, what do you worry about?
Speaker 2: What do you lie awake at night? And I can
Speaker 2: remember some years ago Injuring, a very very famous scientist
Speaker 2: who said, I worry about all the nuclear material from
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, that we don't know where it is
Speaker 2: right right.
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say about the nuke situation is
Speaker 1: it always irked me, As I said, I was deeply
Speaker 1: involved in this, It always irked me that their proponents
Speaker 1: would always use that word clean energy, that phase. They say, well,
Speaker 1: you remember now here in the fossil fuels and pollution
Speaker 1: and global warming, nuclear energy is clean energy. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, nuclear fuel rods don't grow on the
Speaker 1: nuclear fuel rod tree. And they picked them off like
Speaker 1: you're in some grove somewhere. They have to be refined,
Speaker 1: like it piked in Ohio and other places where the
Speaker 1: gaseous diffusion plants were to make fissionable material for reactors.
Speaker 1: Now that process is one of the dirtiest and most
Speaker 1: fouling processes known to man. To make that once you
Speaker 1: turn the thing on, maybe it's clean energy. I would
Speaker 1: argue that, but I do think there is ambient radiation
Speaker 1: near every reactor, and they always have whenever possible because
Speaker 1: of this group I worked with has studied this whenever possible,
Speaker 1: they'd cite those reactors near where there was a cross
Speaker 1: contamination from something else. Right, they put Tom's River on
Speaker 1: a site where Union Carbide and see Bagagi were pumping
Speaker 1: plastic products right into the ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great book about that, Dan Fagan's book
Speaker 2: on Tom's River, If and if your listeners are interested,
Speaker 2: that's a must read book about the long history of
Speaker 2: companies dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, into the ocean, and
Speaker 2: into the ground.
Speaker 1: What's a country you believe is getting it right in
Speaker 1: terms of their at least their approach. They might not
Speaker 1: be winning, but they're trying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, no country is getting it entirely right, but
Speaker 2: certainly Denmark with its aggressive supportive wind power. Denmark is
Speaker 2: now producing so much wind power that's exporting wind power
Speaker 2: to Sweden, Norway, and the largest wind power company in
Speaker 2: Denmark used to be a gas company. So that's a
Speaker 2: really nice example of how it is possible for corporations
Speaker 2: to change. It is possible for corporations to do the
Speaker 2: right thing and say, look, we can still earn money,
Speaker 2: we can still make a profit, we can still generate jobs,
Speaker 2: but we can do it in a way that's healthier
Speaker 2: and more productive for our people.
Speaker 1: What kind of work do your daughters do.
Speaker 2: One of my daughters is getting a PhD in information science.
Speaker 2: She's interested in algorithmic fairness and justice. And my other
Speaker 2: daughter is a lawyer in New York City.
Speaker 1: What are you worried about for them in.
Speaker 2: The near term? I would say American democracy. That's kind
Speaker 2: of seems like the obvious the oh that right, that
Speaker 2: obvious immediate threat, you know, you know, if I could
Speaker 2: just say one more thing on the nuclear power thing.
Speaker 2: Getting back to France, So, as I said earlier, France
Speaker 2: is the only country on the planet that has ever
Speaker 2: generated the lion's share of its electricity from nuclear about
Speaker 2: seventy to eighty percent. But they didn't do it in
Speaker 2: a free market. They did it in a nationalized electricity system,
Speaker 2: in which the government's specified how it would be done,
Speaker 2: what the designs would be like, who would do it.
Speaker 2: So this is the other thing that I think is
Speaker 2: so ironic about the pro nuclear people in the United States.
Speaker 2: If you ask them that question, so are you prepared
Speaker 2: to nationalize the electricity industry in the United States? I
Speaker 2: don't think that most of them would say yes to
Speaker 2: that question.
Speaker 1: Americans, in my mind, are people who, you know, the comfort,
Speaker 1: the privilege, the lifestyle of the American life is what
Speaker 1: controls their everyday decision making. You know, am I really ugly?
Speaker 1: When I get ugly about it? I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: you give Americans a frappuccina, want to attack a gas
Speaker 1: in their suv or they're good to go. They don't
Speaker 1: really need They don't need to know. This is a
Speaker 1: Chernobyl esque site in this country in Hanford. Did you
Speaker 1: go to Hanford, Washington where they build all those where
Speaker 1: they did a lot of this bomb manufacturing and stuff.
Speaker 1: All they know is that Oppenheimer is nominated for an oscar. Now,
Speaker 1: you said twenty five years, thirty years at the outside
Speaker 1: to really find the cure. Here In New York, Hurricane
Speaker 1: Sandy came I live downtown the area that I live
Speaker 1: and flooded and the power was out and everybody in
Speaker 1: the building had to not everybody but the people who
Speaker 1: were available would sign a schedule were you were greed
Speaker 1: to help the elderly people in the building who couldn't
Speaker 1: go out and get their prescriptions, that couldn't take the elevator,
Speaker 1: walk their dogs, get their groceries, on and on and on,
Speaker 1: pick up their dry cleaning. Does Manhattan itself have to
Speaker 1: be underwater? Does the subway system have to be flooded
Speaker 1: and it's not leaving, it's not going, It can't be
Speaker 1: pumped out. It's a subterranean system. Does the Manhattan subway
Speaker 1: system have to be flooded and you can't use it anymore?
Speaker 1: And all those people, as you know, in the economy
Speaker 1: in this city, who rely on public transportation to get
Speaker 1: to work, millions every day in and out. What happens
Speaker 1: when that system is gone? And number two, do you believe?
Speaker 1: And this is critical to me, this is one of
Speaker 1: the main reasons I wanted you on the show, is
Speaker 1: do you believe there's such a thing as too late?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll take the second question first. As long as
Speaker 2: we're living and breathing thinking, it's never too late, right,
Speaker 2: We're all here, and ultimately this is kind of a
Speaker 2: fight for justice. Right, This is really a fight about
Speaker 2: people getting hurt in a way through no fault in
Speaker 2: their own right. I mean, maybe some small fault because
Speaker 2: we've all used fossil fuels, but we've been the victims
Speaker 2: of a massive disinformation campaign. We've been the victims of
Speaker 2: organized efforts to stop action to prevent more climate damage.
Speaker 2: And so no, it's never too late as long as
Speaker 2: we're living and breathing to fight back and to try
Speaker 2: to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: Do you think that recycling is a placebo that people
Speaker 1: are wasting their time?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's a waste of time. I
Speaker 2: mean I actually think that in a way, recycling is
Speaker 2: at the core of the whole question, because it's really
Speaker 2: about our use of material resources. Right, It's not just
Speaker 2: about fossil fuels. It's about, as we've said about plastics,
Speaker 2: about material consumption of all kinds, all the metals, the minerals,
Speaker 2: the things I used to work on, cons and everything.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, ultimately, if we want to live in relationship with
Speaker 2: the planet and not destroy all the other living things
Speaker 2: and turn the planet into a monoculture dominated by invasive humans,
Speaker 2: we have to figure out a different way of consuming,
Speaker 2: using materials and so recycling large not just recycling your paper,
Speaker 2: but actually read what some people call the circular economy,
Speaker 2: some different way of thinking about economics, that we don't
Speaker 2: just use things and throw them away, but we find
Speaker 2: a way to make everything I mean, for lack of
Speaker 2: a better word, more ecological, to think about the fact
Speaker 2: that we do live in an ecosystem and life on
Speaker 2: Earth will not be good if we don't figure out
Speaker 2: a way to do it differently.
Speaker 1: But so again this is me staring at the ocean
Speaker 1: and spit bawling. All my environmental policies, one of mine
Speaker 1: was to do some research and very serious, copious research
Speaker 1: on finding out what fits the bill here, but to
Speaker 1: access decommissioned military bases around the country and turn them
Speaker 1: into recycling centers great jobs, great job, yes, and have
Speaker 1: them will find out where they're adjacent to train stations
Speaker 1: and trains to whatever, or if we have to build
Speaker 1: some train lines to go a little bit further where
Speaker 1: it's economically feasible, and just start taking strategically, you know,
Speaker 1: in eight sections of the country and start having the
Speaker 1: United States government get into the recycling business in a
Speaker 1: big way. To start pulling this stuff out of the
Speaker 1: way stream you teach, and you've started. You've been with
Speaker 1: Harvard now twenty thirteen, so that's tennis years. Now. Where'd
Speaker 1: you teach before that?
Speaker 2: University of California.
Speaker 1: San Diego UCSD for how long?
Speaker 2: Fifteen years?
Speaker 1: You've been teaching for over twenty five years? How have
Speaker 1: the students change in the fields that you teach?
Speaker 2: Oh, students have changed a lot. And it's been very
Speaker 2: interesting to see. Ten years ago my students thought I was.
Speaker 2: I was much more radical than I thought I was.
Speaker 2: Now my students want me to be more radical. I
Speaker 2: mean ten years ago, none of my students were talking
Speaker 2: about capitalism. Now they all are, and they're all really
Speaker 2: seriously thinking about this question. I mean, capitalism as currently practiced,
Speaker 2: to sort of throw away and humorous materialist version of
Speaker 2: it that we operate deregularized, financialized, globalized, is not serving
Speaker 2: us right. It's not delivering what we want right. We
Speaker 2: don't want to just have stuff. We want to be
Speaker 2: happy and we want to be healthy, and we're not
Speaker 2: actually getting that out of our economic system. And my
Speaker 2: students are very aware of that now. So it's been
Speaker 2: really interesting to see how they're challenging me much more
Speaker 2: strongly than even five years ago to really radically rethink
Speaker 2: these questions of economics and why we're quibbling that's not right,
Speaker 2: and especially with the whole throwaway economy, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: I do think I've thought about this a lot. I
Speaker 2: dream of a time one hundred years from now when
Speaker 2: no one would defend throwing things away.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the last thing I'll ask you. You talk
Speaker 1: about the remedy for you. The medication for you is
Speaker 1: the outdoors and to experience the outdoors on some intense level.
Speaker 1: Are there ever any consequences for you emotionally of doing
Speaker 1: this work? You have to face a lot of tough facts,
Speaker 1: and you spend your writing in articles and you're writing books.
Speaker 1: Your big myth is a thick book that's a doorstop
Speaker 1: er in my house. Boy, I've I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: One, and it's a big book for a big topic.
Speaker 1: That's it exactly. But I'm saying, you do this work
Speaker 1: and that takes years of your energy and facing down
Speaker 1: all these things. Does it ever get to you at times? Oh?
Speaker 1: You're safe?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, of course it does. I mean I
Speaker 2: feel like the hardest part is when you feel like
Speaker 2: you're staring into the heart of darkness. I mean sometimes
Speaker 2: there are times when I think, and people ask me
Speaker 2: this all the time. They say, how these people sleep
Speaker 2: at night? I mean, how people can do these things
Speaker 2: that they know are hurting other people and yet somehow
Speaker 2: rationalize and explain it away. So, yeah, that is hard,
Speaker 2: but a big part of the work is trying to
Speaker 2: understand how people do that in order to change it.
Speaker 1: What's your next trip? You're going on your next nature trip?
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, I just bought this properly in
Speaker 2: New York State, so I'm planning to spend a little
Speaker 2: time here and I'm really looking forward to springtime. As
Speaker 2: these beautiful trees I'm looking out on we'll begin to bud.
Speaker 1: As a part of the world of them. Then, who
Speaker 1: you want to go to I haven't.
Speaker 2: Been to Antarctica. I really want to go there, and
Speaker 2: I am taking a group of students to Svalbart in June.
Speaker 2: I've never seen the Arctic. I've always wanted to. I've
Speaker 2: always been kind of in love with snow and ice,
Speaker 2: so I'm finally have the opportunity to go to the Arctic.
Speaker 1: Well many thanks to you I'm very grateful to you
Speaker 1: for doing the show. This was really wonderful.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Naomi Oreski's. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: the Time, by account to