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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noel.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission

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Speaker 1: control decand most importantly, you are you. You are here

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Speaker 1: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 3: Breathe in the air.

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Speaker 4: Do you have a mantra? Do you guys have a

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Speaker 4: mantra when you meditate? I have a breath work.

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Speaker 3: I have a few.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but also I uh, we were talking about this

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Speaker 1: just briefly off air tonight's episode. We're diving into some

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Speaker 1: stuff that maybe we didn't all appreciate in grade school,

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Speaker 1: because it's like, why do I have to learn all

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Speaker 1: these abstract facts?

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Speaker 4: Oh dude, That's where it's been coming back to me from.

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Speaker 4: Like I'm flashing back to like middle school and maybe

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Speaker 4: later elementary school, learning about photosynthesis and like the water cycle.

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Speaker 4: I'm literally picturing these diagrams from textbooks.

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Speaker 3: They're flashing through my mind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my mantra is fosspho glycerie.

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Speaker 3: That's a good one.

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Speaker 1: That's that is a really good mind light number of syllables.

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Speaker 3: Nine is goose and we so.

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Speaker 1: A while back, folks, we on I think a strange

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Speaker 1: news segment. We talked a little bit about a fascinating

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Speaker 1: study that led us collectively to a new appreciation of

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Speaker 1: one of Earth's most underrated life forms, plants. You know,

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Speaker 1: towering trees, humble shrubs, weeds, everything in between. And weed,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is a very unfair linguistic trick.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, except for like, you know, the one that you smoke,

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Speaker 4: that one for some reason.

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Speaker 1: Which is yeah, totally sure. But yeah, what makes us

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Speaker 1: shrub humble?

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Speaker 3: Though?

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Speaker 4: I love that because it does it feels that way.

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Speaker 4: But what makes the shrubs so humble? If you combine

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Speaker 4: a bunch of shrubs, it could be quite ostentatious.

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Speaker 1: M especially if you trim it into a topious shape shape. Uh. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The the thing is again, you know, for all of

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Speaker 1: human civilization, people have been anthropomorphizing everything in the world

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Speaker 1: around them, and of course plants are no different. We

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Speaker 1: as we owe, all of civilization is not hyperbole. All

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Speaker 1: of civilization two plants, and for most of history. That

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Speaker 1: was awesome. I was not a problem. Plants were dope

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Speaker 1: ten ten No notes for now. So what may change

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Speaker 1: and when would it change? What does that mean? Here

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Speaker 1: are the facts?

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Speaker 2: Give it up to plants. Who you like steak? You

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Speaker 2: like plant in.

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Speaker 3: The Wait a minute?

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Speaker 2: What?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Where those like exist coexisting? Or is it like if

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Speaker 4: you like steak, you'll like plants can't have like seak.

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Speaker 4: You can't have steak without photo.

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Speaker 1: You can't have your favorite things and your least favorite things,

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Speaker 1: you can't have them without plants. And because of their

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Speaker 1: superpowered photosynthesis that we can eat it.

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Speaker 2: Too, like the literal superpower.

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Speaker 3: It is a superpower. Wild.

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Speaker 1: I understand the science, and it still doesn't really make sense,

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Speaker 1: Like how evolution just fruit force hacked to that one.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're gonna get into it, but like literally, so

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Speaker 2: sunlight is the powerhouse, right, The sun is the powerhouse

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Speaker 2: for all life that we know, and somehow these cells

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Speaker 2: specialized in a way to take that sunlight and all

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Speaker 2: the water that's going on on this planet and make stuff.

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Speaker 4: Well, not to mention the whole Goldilocks zone of it.

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Speaker 4: All of the sun is also the perfect distance away

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Speaker 4: to give us that you know, rejuvenating energy without like

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Speaker 4: frying our eyeballs out of our skulls or setting the

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Speaker 4: forests on fire.

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Speaker 2: For now.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just saying the perfection of this fluke whatever,

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Speaker 4: whatever you may believe, The science of it as bonkers,

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Speaker 4: and the fact that it works and just kind of

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Speaker 4: always has been, it's mind blowing. And then we figured

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Speaker 4: out how to farm, you know, and just kind of

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Speaker 4: extend that whole natural process.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, it's pretty fascinating. I'm always taken with

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Speaker 1: the the the order of operations cognitively, the Goldilocks zone argument,

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Speaker 1: because if life evolved very differently, if we're on, say,

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Speaker 1: another planet in the Solar System, would that planet's life

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Speaker 1: forms not also make the same Goldilocks argument. We evolved

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Speaker 1: to fit the shoe. The shoe did not evolve around us.

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Speaker 4: Right, You're totally right. The plants developed those abilities because

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Speaker 4: of conditions over time. Right, Like I say, it was

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Speaker 4: always there, but in our minds it was just like

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Speaker 4: this is for you, for shade, you know, for sustenance,

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Speaker 4: for medicine. I mean, it's we can it's a whole

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Speaker 4: other axe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a reference I had to cut to Sean

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Speaker 1: Connery's Medicine Man, which it shouldn't have anything to do with.

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Speaker 1: It was just a reason to talk about that film.

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Speaker 3: He brought it back. Tell us about medicine.

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Speaker 1: That counts now you could you could it was.

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Speaker 3: A grumpy hit a ponytail.

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Speaker 4: I remember he has a white ponytail, and he was

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Speaker 4: sort of a Jane Goodall type figure, like a bit.

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Speaker 3: Of a white savior story.

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Speaker 4: If I'm not mistaken a bit for a little problematic,

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Speaker 4: it probably didn't age well.

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Speaker 3: But I do remember seeing in the theaters.

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Speaker 1: Same and then as now in the in the theatrical

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Speaker 1: run of Medicine Man, as well as the ancient past

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Speaker 1: in the current day. As you said, Matt, the world

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Speaker 1: has always, for the most part run on solar power.

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Speaker 1: It Uh something that I think we all look back

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Speaker 1: on fondley was during the days when uh, the giant

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Speaker 1: non fiction company Discovery owned our little podcast, they would

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Speaker 1: occasionally send us these very high production value, prestigious documentary

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Speaker 1: collections Planet Earth and of course Life. And one thing

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Speaker 1: that got to me about though, is that still stays

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Speaker 1: with me, is that observation that almost every single earthly ecosystem,

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Speaker 1: regardless of how different they may appear to be. They

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Speaker 1: all depend on the Sun for energy, with a few exceptions.

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Speaker 1: I think one would be deep sea thermal vents, those

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Speaker 1: little mini ecosystems they get their energy from those hydrothermic

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Speaker 1: off bleeds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, anything in the Abystle system where the light no

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Speaker 2: longer reaches, you can count on other energy sources being utilized.

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Speaker 1: You could also say that they still they still get

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Speaker 1: solar powered, just through more steps because of animals that

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Speaker 1: are closer to the surface of the ocean when they

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Speaker 1: die or per day a pun one.

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Speaker 4: Thing about all the crazy adaptations that that results in.

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Speaker 4: You know that these these particularly deep sea dwelling creatures

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Speaker 4: that have like headlamps and stuff, and you know, again

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Speaker 4: part of the whole system and the whole Goldilocks zone

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Speaker 4: of it all, like that particular zone created that particular

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Speaker 4: type of life.

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Speaker 1: But the Sun still kind of, like you said, was involved.

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about it, like, Okay, this is one

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Speaker 1: of the dumb facts that always that still captures me

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Speaker 1: about those documentaries. Cave systems, even the majority of cave

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Speaker 1: systems get their power through the Sun, but in what

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Speaker 1: humans might call a somewhat ignoble way they get it

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Speaker 1: from excrement from like Guato. When bats fly to.

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Speaker 3: The surface, they fly back in.

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Speaker 1: And I can't remember was it David Attenborough who narrated those.

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Speaker 4: Oh, he did the Planet Earth ones, but then there

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Speaker 4: was like a recut version where I think the Sigourney

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Speaker 4: Weaver did it. There's also, obviously, I'm sure that Morgan

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Speaker 4: Freeman has done some over the years, but yeah, Davy

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Speaker 4: Attenborough is the main, main guy talking about I always

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Speaker 4: think about ace Ventura when nature calls. That's what I

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Speaker 4: think of when I think of Guana.

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Speaker 1: I just remember our pal. I think it was Dave,

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Speaker 1: and Dave apologies and forget us wrong, but I remember

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Speaker 1: when our pal was like, walts about caves. Surely they

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Speaker 1: don't use the sun. And I'm sitting there, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: eat a sandwich so fast, observe. That's like he's into it.

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Speaker 1: And so we're all. Even though we may not all

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Speaker 1: universally love the sun, we can admit that it keeps

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Speaker 1: Earth going. In addition to feeding everything in plants, it

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Speaker 1: creates wind, ocean currents, oceanic currents, clouds to transport water

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Speaker 1: and inspire poets and so on. For about five billion years,

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Speaker 1: this guy has been amazing the sun and potentially catastrophic

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Speaker 1: power source. And people don't spend too much time I'm

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Speaker 1: you know, thinking about the grand scheme of things in

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Speaker 1: a scientific bent. For much of human history just sort

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Speaker 1: of always knew. Everybody always knew that the sun is

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Speaker 1: the creator of livestock, agriculture, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: And National Geographic had a great, a great quote about

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Speaker 1: this about how the sun's placement even affected architecture forever.

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Speaker 2: Basically, well, yeah, is that we're talking about where we

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Speaker 2: put windows and entrances. Yeah, yeah, it's a big deal.

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Speaker 4: Yes, And the quote goes, early civilizations around the world

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Speaker 4: positioned buildings to face south to gather heat and light.

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Speaker 4: They used windows and skylights for the same reason as

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Speaker 4: well as to allow.

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Speaker 3: For air circulation.

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Speaker 4: Genius, and like what, we haven't really improved on that technology,

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Speaker 4: at least in terms of like dwellings, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 4: obviously there's climate control and stuff, but skylights, windows, if

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Speaker 4: you don't have those, all your plants are going to die.

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Speaker 4: All of your house plants are going to to die.

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Speaker 4: And you can get like grow lights and stuff, but

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Speaker 4: it's so key to have that sunlight entering your house

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Speaker 4: directly if you're gonna keep plants alive.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it also changed like what types of materials

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Speaker 2: were used to build those houses and structures, right, because

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Speaker 2: some materials absorb that heat from the sun a little

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Speaker 2: better than others.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, stone and concrete for instance, And also the construction

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Speaker 1: of greenhouses leveraging solar power to grow plants out of

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Speaker 1: season or an otherwise inhospitable climates. Aka, you know that

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Speaker 1: with the global shipping conspiracy is the reason that you

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Speaker 1: can eat so many things in far flung areas of

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Speaker 1: the world. At every step along the way, plants have

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Speaker 1: been right there, you know what I mean, they've been

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Speaker 1: the is Andy Richter, the guy who works with Conan O'Brien.

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Speaker 3: He did, yeah, the show eventually.

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Speaker 1: But plants are the Andy Richter to the son's Conan O'Brien.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, because you know if they make oxygen too,

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Speaker 2: they do.

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Speaker 3: They do.

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Speaker 4: The sun does not care really about If the Sun

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Speaker 4: is God, then plants are like.

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Speaker 3: Jesus, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: That's good too, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean

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Speaker 1: this is all we could all listen to this and say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this basic stuff, solar architecture, I get it. I don't

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Speaker 1: have to be a biologist, a botanist, or an astronomer

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Speaker 1: to get my mind around the basics.

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Speaker 3: Here.

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Speaker 1: You guys are talking about photosynthesis, fundamental part of life.

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Speaker 1: It's up there with how everybody knows. I still don't

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Speaker 1: know how this became a meme. But all of us

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Speaker 1: know one thing about mitochondria. It's the powerhouse of the cell.

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Speaker 3: I didn't even know that one thing you do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, one thing that's like I was probably tucked away

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Speaker 4: somewhere back there.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, well, we all learned about photosynthesis if you

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Speaker 2: went through basic schooling and took any kind of life

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Speaker 2: science class, right, I mean, it's one of the first

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Speaker 2: things you learned, photosynthesis.

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Speaker 4: I remember the drawing of a leaf with little animated

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Speaker 4: rays of light going in with arrows on it on

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Speaker 4: one side and then coming out as little blips of

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Speaker 4: like molecule models or whatever.

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Speaker 3: You remember, you guys pictures.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I loved it.

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Speaker 2: Well, and they'll break it down for you. In preparation

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Speaker 2: for this episode, a lot of us looked back at

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Speaker 2: just the just relearning right, all the things that we

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Speaker 2: learned as kids, and one of the greatest things you

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Speaker 2: can do right now is Head on over to YouTube

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Speaker 2: and just watch some of the some of the con

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Speaker 2: Academy videos from like twenty ten that actually break that

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Speaker 2: stuff down. The way you're describing Noel with diagrams with

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Speaker 2: a professor sitting there and showing you here's all the stuff.

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Speaker 2: It's it's not like, what was that movie Chlorophyl? More

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Speaker 2: like bora Phyl? Was that was that? In my head?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do remember it's.

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Speaker 2: A Oh god, that is a movie. Somebody right in

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Speaker 2: what movie is say? Anyway, it's so amazing to really

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Speaker 2: look at it and see the biological structures that exist

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Speaker 2: within plants that actually do these processes, because it is

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Speaker 2: just a beautiful machine at work in every leaf that

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Speaker 2: uses photosynthesis.

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Speaker 1: Billy Madison, that's it, Billy bad Oh boy. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: expected to Adam to show up. Welcome, Welcome, mister Sandler.

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Speaker 1: You're You're absolutely right, man. That's such a that's such

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Speaker 1: a beautiful description. It's going to set us up for

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Speaker 1: a beautiful episode in a later evening about whether plants

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Speaker 1: are cultivating humans and the nature of that relationship is

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Speaker 1: So this is all true. Nothing is controversial about this.

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Speaker 1: This is all biochemistry and botany that we have learned

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Speaker 1: some piece of in most of the world. But there's

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Speaker 1: a new wrinkle occurring, but a wrinkle that has some scientists,

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Speaker 1: not all, but some incredibly concerned. Riddle is this, folks,

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Speaker 1: What if it's some point in the near future plants

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Speaker 1: just sort of stop working. We're not talking about a

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Speaker 1: world of you know, sentient plants going on strike or

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Speaker 1: taking collective action. We're talking instead about a world where

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Speaker 1: photosynthesis is no longer possible. And why that should terrify everyone.

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Speaker 1: So let's take a break for a word from our

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Speaker 1: sponsors and we'll be back so long as we have

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Speaker 1: enough oxygen to continue. Here's where it gets crazy bonkers, right,

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Speaker 1: plants without photosynthesis. That's like a McDonald's that doesn't make fries.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it wouldn't be wouldn't be great. And just so

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Speaker 2: everybody understands, we're talking about photosynthesis. Okay, Well, there are

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Speaker 2: two things here, right, photosynthesis as a process. Is it

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Speaker 2: possible There's a scenario in which the entire planet Earth,

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Speaker 2: all across the board, from the leaves to the algae

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Speaker 2: to the bacteria, all the things that use energy from

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Speaker 2: the Sun to create oxygen and you know, the atp

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Speaker 2: and the things that the all those organisms need to grow.

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Speaker 2: Is it possible that that process could stop because of

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Speaker 2: some exterior factor.

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Speaker 1: Or not not even all of it stopping, but enough

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Speaker 1: of it stopping a high enough percentage that it would

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Speaker 1: render life as we know it non feasible.

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Speaker 2: Heard, Okay, that that would be Yeah, that would be

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Speaker 2: catastrophic for sure. And it's probably not something that could

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Speaker 2: ever occur in the flick of a switch, right, It

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Speaker 2: wouldn't just stop. But maybe there's a scenario where the

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Speaker 2: lights across the Earth start to slowly go out, you know,

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Speaker 2: starting in one region, and then they just continue to

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Speaker 2: go out, like some giant power outage.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like the internet outage I just experienced covered from

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Speaker 4: I'm backing down, guys, thank.

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Speaker 3: You for glad.

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Speaker 4: We're glad to Isn't it funny though, like the microcosm

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Speaker 4: that you're talking about, Matt, It's like these artificial lights

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Speaker 4: are in a way, like an extension of this whole ecosystem,

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Speaker 4: this whole continuum that we're talking about, Like they wouldn't

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Speaker 4: exist either, and now there's this like whole other layer

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Speaker 4: of inorganic kind of but yet somehow weirdly organic in

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Speaker 4: origin stuff that kind of mimics the sun.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because each individual bacterium or algae or you know,

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Speaker 2: let's just say leaf, each one is a power plant, right,

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Speaker 2: And you do have to imagine that if somehow these

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Speaker 2: power plants just cease to function, or like the mechanisms

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Speaker 2: inside the power plants just broke.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be one hundred percent for the

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Speaker 1: results the consequences to be catastrophic. And part of the

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Speaker 1: reason it's easy to ignore these sort of things is

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Speaker 1: the vast discrepancy between what is considered a short amount

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Speaker 1: of time in a human life and a short amount

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Speaker 1: of time for life on Earth. Right, So a short

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Speaker 1: amount of time for life on Earth is still thousands

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Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands, if not millions of years this thing.

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Speaker 1: If plants one hundred percent, like you said, Matt In

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Speaker 1: almost as though the were switch being turned. If plants

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden stop photosynthesis, the world as we

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Speaker 1: know it would end incredibly quickly. It would not be

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Speaker 1: part of some purposeful conspiracy, but rather an accidental global

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Speaker 1: conspiracy on the part of every single human being. And

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Speaker 1: that's because there are a lot of plants to your

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Speaker 1: point all about the goldilock situation. There are currently an

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Speaker 1: estimated somewhere around three hundred and seventy five thousand species

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Speaker 1: of plants, but they're more being discovered each and every year.

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Speaker 1: And though I hesitate to use the phrase, they're not

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Speaker 1: all created equally. Some evolved to exist only in extremely

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Speaker 1: specific circumstances. I'm thinking of the largest flowering plant, the

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Speaker 1: corpse flower.

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Speaker 3: Brotty meat supposed to be a delight.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, But even like cacti, you know, like I think

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Speaker 4: I sounded a little wistful earlier when I was talking

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Speaker 4: about you gotta have windows.

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Speaker 3: Or you'll kill your plants.

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Speaker 4: I killed my plants constantly because my house doesn't have

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Speaker 4: very much direct sunlight exposure because of the direction it's facing.

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Speaker 3: But I can keep a cactus alive.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And look other plants to the point about the cactus.

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Speaker 1: Other plants are pretty hardy, and they have a large,

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Speaker 1: let's say, margin of error. They have a large tolerance

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Speaker 1: for environmental change. And most plants are autotropic, which is

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Speaker 1: just a fancy word for saying producing one's own food.

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Speaker 1: And they do this using basic inorganic substances around them, water,

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Speaker 1: atmospheric carbon, dioxide and then you know, a bevy of

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Speaker 1: mineral nutrients from the soil. This is the real superpower.

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Speaker 1: This is what we were gaga about a few minutes ago.

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Speaker 1: All the like most of the other living things, the

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Speaker 1: vast majority of other living things on Earth are heterotrophic,

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Speaker 1: meaning we consume organic carbon and we cannot process these

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Speaker 1: raw materials that plants love. We can't do that ourselves.

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Speaker 1: So plants are taking one for the team in a

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Speaker 1: very real way. They are the basis of worldwide food webs.

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Speaker 1: They turn inorganic carbon into sugars, and then everybody else

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Speaker 1: shows up after the cooking is done.

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Speaker 4: I mean, surely that's where the term plant comes from

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Speaker 4: in manufacturing and empower generation. I mean, you know, it

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Speaker 4: just they plants did it better, and then we had

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Speaker 4: to figure out a way to kind of copy their

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Speaker 4: whole system, you know, to to work for our benefit

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Speaker 4: for like making stuff.

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Speaker 2: Whose idea was it to evolve complex systems that don't

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Speaker 2: have thylochoids? Really, like, why why would we not all

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Speaker 2: have that evolutionary trait? Because it's true, we could.

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Speaker 4: Pretty advantageous, you know, self sustaining for the most part.

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Speaker 2: You know, seriously, we could stand in some water, look

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Speaker 2: up at the sun and be like, hey, we're good.

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Speaker 4: Have you heard the hippies that are really into like

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Speaker 4: sunning their buttholes like that?

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Speaker 2: What?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all tell us about it.

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Speaker 1: It's a whole Like luckily I'm not Oh yeah, I

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Speaker 1: know I heard, not a practitioner, but but.

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Speaker 4: It is literally just holding your butt to the sun

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Speaker 4: because you need to get that juice that sun, you know,

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Speaker 4: energy or whatever.

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Speaker 1: When podcasts don't work out. That's our new startup, solar

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Speaker 1: Chakra dot com.

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Speaker 2: Right, that is Uh, that's a choice I would I

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Speaker 2: would have thought you would put your root like in

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Speaker 2: a water source, right, uh, and then absorb some.

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Speaker 1: Level to where we are planted. It is a good question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in that scenario, if we want to walk

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Speaker 1: through it. So, if what we call animals also evolve

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Speaker 1: to have that power, inevitably, the theory of evolution would

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Speaker 1: argue that something would evolve to predate on that, not

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Speaker 1: to come up before, but to eat it, to use

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Speaker 1: that as a resource. So it's weird too because not

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Speaker 1: all plants use photosynthesis.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 1: The ones that don't largely evolve parasitic abilities, so they

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Speaker 1: they grow on other plants and steal that. Yeah, steal

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Speaker 1: the carbon and water and nutrients from from the upstanding

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Speaker 1: plants with an honest plant job, or they feed on

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Speaker 1: decomposing organic material. So even so while those themselves technically

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Speaker 1: don't practice photosynthesis, they still one hundred percent depend on

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Speaker 1: that process happening somewhere. Again, it's photosynthesis with extra steps.

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Speaker 1: Speak of extra steps want to do? We want to

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Speaker 1: talk about how to synthesis became a thing.

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Speaker 4: I still can only picture the vague illustration from my

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Speaker 4: textbook in my mind's eye, and I know the basics

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Speaker 4: of it. It's like light in food out basically, I mean,

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Speaker 4: that's like what it amounts to.

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Speaker 3: But then it also creates a byproduct.

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Speaker 4: That we need very conveniently and are able to benefit from.

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Speaker 3: In terms of oxygen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, light and water are the primary things, because you

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Speaker 2: got to get that hydrogen and oxygen in there to

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Speaker 2: break down. But which is the craziest thing in the

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Speaker 2: world that inside plants there is a machine, there's machinery

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Speaker 2: within plants that can oxidize stuff, which is it usually

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Speaker 2: takes a tremendous amount of energy to do that. As

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Speaker 2: humans have tried to figure out how to oxidize things effectively,

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Speaker 2: and what actually breaks that hydrogen from the oxygen. You

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Speaker 2: need a lot of energy, and the plant's just like

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Speaker 2: no problem right.

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Speaker 1: Right, which is why they're too is to travel a

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Speaker 1: lot of times. But okay, let's go to our old colleague,

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Speaker 1: Jessline shields over at our alma matter how stuff works.

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Speaker 1: She has a great explanation of this. She says, quote,

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Speaker 1: this is the story how photosynthesis, says, how we got

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Speaker 1: here before we get to how it boils down. Around

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Speaker 1: a billion years ago, after the Earth was formed, life

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Speaker 1: showed up, says Jessolin, probably first as some anaerobic bacteria.

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Speaker 1: That's the stuff that doesn't need oxygen, slurping up sulfur

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Speaker 1: and hydrogen that came out of hydro thermal vents. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then she goes, and now we've got giraffes. But

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Speaker 1: there were ten thousand gigatons of steps on the road

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Speaker 1: between the first bacteria and giraffes. The bacteria had to

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Speaker 1: figure out how to find new hydrothermal vents. This led

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Speaker 1: to them developing a thermal sensing pigment called bacterio chlorophyll,

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Speaker 1: and then some bacteria still use that to detect infrared

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Speaker 1: signal generated by heat. To your point about tiny machines, Matt,

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Speaker 1: that's likewise astonishing. These bacteria, these heat thirsty boys, were

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Speaker 1: the ancestors of things that could later make chlorophyll. Chlorophyll

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Speaker 1: is also a pigment. It captures shorter, more energetic light

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Speaker 1: wave links from the sun and that's where the power

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Speaker 1: comes in. So props the Jessulain. What a well written explanation, dude.

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Speaker 4: The idea of capturing photons, you know, and like, even

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Speaker 4: as it pertains to like photography for example, or like

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Speaker 4: you know, capturing light and harnessing it in some way

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Speaker 4: is so mind boggling to me, you know, and even

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Speaker 4: with our modern technology, Like it's it's just pretty insane.

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Speaker 4: But like the fact that these organic materials figure it

438
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 4: out just is it by accident? Was again just like

439
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 4: a set and setting kind of thing, like because of

440
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 4: again like the position and just the fact that it

441
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 4: was just constantly exposed and natures needed to find a

442
00:24:58,880 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 4: way to harness that.

443
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 3: Like how do you even put it into words.

444
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 2: Well, we don't know. We know that it's it's organisms

445
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 2: that somehow decided to team up and go inside each

446
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 2: other and becomes the mechanics that function the mitochondria. Yeah,

447
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is mind boggling to think that

448
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 2: at some point life just decided to do that or

449
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 2: just started to do it and it worked, so it

450
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: kept doing.

451
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,640
Speaker 3: It, and it's a byproduct of that.

452
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 4: The oxygen is like an afterthought, and that's what allows

453
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 4: humanity to exist.

454
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: We're also only seeing the winners.

455
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 4: I think that's a very it's just crazy the layers

456
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 4: of it. Where again, like the fact that oxygen is

457
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 4: just sort of oh, that's not even the whole point,

458
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 4: Like all this other awesome stuff is happening for the plants,

459
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 4: and then this oxygen just you know, also happens to

460
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 4: be a thing that allows humans to breathe, and they need.

461
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 2: The electrons, the hydrogens. The oxygen is just like, get

462
00:25:58,040 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 2: out of here, oxygen.

463
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: What is the asked this way to get rid of

464
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,959
Speaker 1: this unnecessary ingredient. That's what they're doing, just like a

465
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: factory of flushing out chemical byproducts into your local water system.

466
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of what it is. The analogy

467
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: holds if those.

468
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 4: Byproducts were gold and like magic dust, you know what

469
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 4: I mean.

470
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: Well, we would say again, we would it's all perspective.

471
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: If there was a life form that thrived off of

472
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: the effluvium ejected from factories, that might say that's gold too,

473
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: you know, oxygen didn't They didn't care, right, These things

474
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: didn't really care about oxygen. It became important later. But

475
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: these these bacteria, after countless of them die and mutate

476
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: and effectively and then die again, you know. And this one, somehow,

477
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: at some indeterminable point, a mutation is successful. Bacteria becomes

478
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: the translator of capturing those photons using sunlight. But they

479
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 1: still haven't figured it out. They needed what we would say,

480
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: I guess we'd call them batteries. They had to be

481
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 1: able to accumulate those protons and hold them on a

482
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: discrete side of their membrane instead of the other one.

483
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then start passing them down through the process. Right,

484
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 2: that actually generates all the all the things, all the

485
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 2: different byproducts that become the energy. And then but then

486
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 2: the craziest thing about this whole photosynthesis thing is this

487
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 2: not just one way like holding them holding the charge

488
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: and sending it through one way. It then goes back

489
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 2: through the other way in the membrane to create other

490
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,439
Speaker 2: stuff that the plant then uses to grow itself. So

491
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: you're just like, sorry, my mind is so nuts.

492
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 3: It's insane. I'm with you.

493
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: It's the it's also uh we have to give you know,

494
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: honorable mentions to all the other uh, all all the

495
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:54,959
Speaker 1: other things that came into play, the sano bacteria, the chloroplasts,

496
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, and all of this leads to

497
00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: something pretty dope.

498
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 3: Plants. You know them.

499
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 1: You should love them, even if you're not a vegetarian.

500
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: These things take in carbon dioxide and water, as we mentioned,

501
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: from air and soil, and then they have kind of

502
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: some feature versus from nutrients, minerals, micronutrients and stuff in

503
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: the dirt. The water is, as you said, matt oxidized

504
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 1: and oxidze just means it loses electrons. This COE is

505
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 1: the carbon dioxide exceesing CO two is reduced so it

506
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: gains electrons. This transforms the water and oxygen. Carbon dioxide

507
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: turns in the glucose. The plant is like, I'm amazing

508
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: at this, and then it releases that oxygen back into

509
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: the air. Who cares about that? And it stores energy

510
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: within those glucose molecules.

511
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 4: Not to mention they're delicious whether or not you're a vegetarian,

512
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 4: and they provide us nourishment. I forgot about the whole

513
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 4: fact that we can eat the things too.

514
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: Are you that part out too?

515
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 2: Yeah?

516
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 4: Cheese loiase, And I mean they are attractive. They make

517
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 4: us want to eat them, you know what I mean,

518
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 4: And they taste good, and the ones that don't kill

519
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 4: you or you're some kind of glutton for like a

520
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 4: really spicy pepper like Matt.

521
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just if you want to go down this

522
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 2: rabbit hole, you really should cannot recommend the video series

523
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 2: that the con Academy has for free you can watch

524
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 2: right now that goes all into the what they call

525
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: the light reactions, the dark or light independent reactions, all

526
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 2: the way to the Calvin cycle. The Calvin cycle is

527
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:25,959
Speaker 2: something we're not even going to fully go into today,

528
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 2: but like good, uh, just reblow your mind to remind

529
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 2: remember how Alvin cycle. Yeah, it's it's all that. It's

530
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 2: all that extra stuff of like what the diagrams.

531
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 4: Within the diagrams with little circle like arrows around it,

532
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 4: you know, like it's.

533
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful.

534
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 3: I'm sure.

535
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, shut out Stomata stroma all the hits.

536
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 4: I remember, okay, okay, now you're jogging some some more

537
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 4: like that again.

538
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: The vocabulary is great and all that, but the how

539
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 2: it works together just I don't know. It gives you

540
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 2: an appreciation. It's like an overview effect that you can

541
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,479
Speaker 2: get by studying a plant.

542
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: It's weird, well said big fans of cotn Academy as well.

543
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: Ken show them out enough. And this reminds me of

544
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: I listened back to I can't remember the title, excellent

545
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: episode we did back in the day about plants and

546
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: consciousness because plants do something very similar to speaking with

547
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: each other. And also, oh man, there's so many great

548
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: TED talks too, which you mentioned along with CONN Academy. This, Yeah,

549
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: this is fascinating. I think that's an excellent point, Matt.

550
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: The idea of the overview effect. You don't have to

551
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: be an astronaut to encounter it. The world continues. All

552
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: after all of this brute force, evolutionary hacking, the countless

553
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: back to the drawing board moments, we are here in

554
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. We have to remember plants are like

555
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: any other living thing that humans know of. They have

556
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: evolved to live in a set of specific ranges and

557
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: thresholds and circumstances. Just like humans can and will die

558
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: when wet bulb temperature gets past a certain threshold, plants

559
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: need a specific temperature to really vibe. By vibe, we

560
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: mean conduct photosynthesis to use their superpower. It turns out

561
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: that past a certain threshold, a temperature can become a

562
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: kryptonite to the plant's superpower, and they will suddenly be

563
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: up a very bad river with no way back down.

564
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 2: It is crazy. We've known that those thresholds exist with

565
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 2: ambient temperatures and plants since the eighteen hundreds.

566
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: Since eighteen sixty four.

567
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're going to take a quick break and

568
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 2: then we'll come back and get into why we're even

569
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 2: doing this episode. Why are we worried about photosynthesis? There's

570
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 2: a real threat.

571
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 3: And we have returned.

572
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: Also, just because we're going into some of the more

573
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: disturbing territory here, I want you guys to know we're

574
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: recording this remotely. The reason I put my handle on

575
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: here as photosimp assist is just because I thought it

576
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: was a cool pun and there's not really a way

577
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: to put it in naturally.

578
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 4: So is that like, is that reference to being like

579
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 4: this you simp for a photosynthesis.

580
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: I'm still not sure. You know, you find the pun

581
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: first and then you figure more quick.

582
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 3: Wait, that's not how we do science.

583
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: That's how plants figured out the oxygen thing.

584
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 3: That's true.

585
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: So all right, here's what happened. There was a paper

586
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: published in the journal Nature in August the twenty twenty three,

587
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: led by a guy named Christopher Doughty. He is the

588
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: associate professor in echo informatics at Northern Arizona University, and

589
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: they put in some crazy work.

590
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 3: If you were worried.

591
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: About the mass extinction of bees, allow us to introduce

592
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: you to a nice side dish, make that existential dread

593
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: a combo meal.

594
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 2: Flowers don't work, and neither do you leaves.

595
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: Professor Dowdy says, let's do this, He says, let's get

596
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: a specific type of instrument, something called ecostress, a thermal sensor.

597
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: Let's launch that on the International Space Station ISS, and

598
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: we're going to keep it up there for about for

599
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: a while. We're going to use two years worth of

600
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: data from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty to get a

601
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: big picture of the overall situation. And they didn't stop there.

602
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: They also looked on the ground.

603
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 2: They put, well, let's talk before we talk about on

604
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: the ground, let's talk about just exactly what they're looking

605
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 2: at with from that big picture. Sure, because when they

606
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: get photos and information back and temperature readings from all

607
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 2: the way up at the ISS they're looking at one

608
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 2: pixel equals seventy meters like square meters, So that's a

609
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 2: huge swath like an area, right that they're studying from

610
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 2: that overview standpoint. But but you can't get very granular

611
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 2: with that. So they needed a way to get closer

612
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 2: to the action.

613
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 3: I guess.

614
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more about Ecostress, I

615
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: cut a lot of this, but it's really interesting. Go

616
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory over at the California Institute

617
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: of Technology Caltech. Just search that in ecostress and you

618
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: can learn in detail some of the stuff Matt is

619
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: talking about. You're absolutely right, and so they needed just

620
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: as you described, Matt, they needed a closer look. So

621
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: what we were saying is they did not stop there.

622
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: They went on the ground. They placed sensors across canopies

623
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: around the globe Australia, Brazil, Panama, Puerto Rico, and they

624
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: were not working off just some sort of inarticulate hunch. Scientists,

625
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: as we mentioned previously, knew there was something important about

626
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 1: temperature and plants as far back as eighteen sixty four,

627
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: and what they found this again way back then, was

628
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: that the leaves of some plants could survive temperatures of

629
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: up to one hundred and twenty two degrees fahrenheit for

630
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, that's fifty degrees celsius, and

631
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: once they got passed at or past that point, the

632
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: leaves would die important distinction, not the whole plant, the leaves,

633
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: the things that are like it's almost like saying your

634
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: mouth or your lungs or your digestive system die, right,

635
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: but your body is still technically alive, and so knowing

636
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: that this is how amazing the study is. This professor

637
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: and his team also pulled a study from twenty twenty

638
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: one which found that one hundred and forty seven different

639
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: tree species in tropical biomes. They found that these trees

640
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:54,240
Speaker 1: their photosynthesis petered out at an average temperature of forty

641
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,240
Speaker 1: six point seven degrees celsius. That would be a little

642
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: north of one hundred and sixteen degrees fahrenheit, so good

643
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: to knowe for most of human history this was not

644
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: a huge issue. The places that typically reached those temperatures

645
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: had typically reached those temperatures for a very, very long time,

646
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: and plants that existed in those areas had adapted to

647
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: live there. But that might be changing. And here's the kicker.

648
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: I want to be careful with this and not be

649
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:27,919
Speaker 1: too too alarmists, but Dowdy's team found that roughly one

650
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: in every ten thousand leaves in their big measurement experienced

651
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: temperature changes right now that are too high for photosynthesis.

652
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: Those leaves were out of commission, they were dying. It's

653
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: pretty pretty somber stuff. Science News also points out that

654
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: this is to the earlier to our earlier statement, this

655
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: is not happening around the world yet. This is happening

656
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: in discrete hot spots. Ooh, accidental, pun terrible, But it's

657
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: happening in discrete areas, similar to the way that monsoons

658
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: or hurricanes only occur in specific parts of the world.

659
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're only studying the canopies of tropical rainforest.

660
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 2: That's really really important. And they're only finding that one

661
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 2: in ten thousand of these leaves are getting affected or

662
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 2: trees are being affected. So it's you know, at this

663
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 2: point from this study, it's sombering, but it's not and

664
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 2: it's not alarm bells going off, right, because it is

665
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 2: just at the very tippy top. When we're talking about canopy,

666
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 2: you're talking about the upper levels of plants, because they

667
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 2: are all kinds of different plants of different sizes in

668
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: a tropical rainforest, and tropical rainforests tend to run hot

669
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 2: a lot hotter than other places and other large forests.

670
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: So like we've got to keep all that stuff in

671
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 2: mind when we're thinking about this, because it doesn't sound

672
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 2: scary one in ten thousand leaves, but if we're at

673
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,800
Speaker 2: a threshold and ambient temperatures all rising across the board,

674
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 2: then it could potentially be a much bigger problem pretty soon.

675
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 3: Agreed.

676
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, Science News does it this way, they say.

677
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 3: Quote.

678
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,760
Speaker 1: The analysis was revealed a mosaic of temperatures in forest

679
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,240
Speaker 1: canopies during periods when forests were hot and the soil

680
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,959
Speaker 1: was dry, temperatures across the canopy reached an average peak

681
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: of thirty four degrees celsius. Some tracks exceeded forty degrees celsius.

682
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: And going back to going all the way back to

683
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, fifty degrees celsius is our very

684
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: worrisome point. Aboutzero point zero one percent of the time,

685
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: just in the upper canopy these leaves would hit above

686
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: the danger threshold. The highway to the danger zone is

687
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: forty six point seven degrees celsius. The ride out danger

688
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: zone proper fifty degrees celsius. And that means that on

689
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: a regular basis, Earth is beginning to hit that limit,

690
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: past which photosynthesis simply will not occur.

691
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 4: But it's not like this would happen overnight with like

692
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 4: every I mean, it's it's a gradual process. And it's

693
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 4: like like you described earlier, Matt, the idea of like

694
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 4: a power grid like visually going down kind of cascading,

695
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 4: but maybe on a much longer timeline or what kind

696
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 4: of timeline are we talking.

697
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 2: Well, well, yeah, we'll talk to the timeline. But the

698
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: big thing to note is this is the canopy of

699
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 2: a tropical rainforest region. So if ambient temperatures at in

700
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 2: that specific band around the Earth hit those exceed those

701
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 2: levels on a regular basis, you're talking about killing the

702
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 2: or potentially the leaves on that upper level dying. Now,

703
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: if those ambient temperatures reach all the way down to

704
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 2: the ground level right in the dense forest, then you're

705
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 2: talking about potentially killing off leaves basically vertically as you're

706
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 2: moving down towards the ground.

707
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: And there's a snowball effect because those leaves in every

708
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: level of the canopy above right, those leaves also provide

709
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: cover and cool for the levels beneath them, so that

710
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: there is the possibility for an exacerbation of this. And

711
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: to your questionable regarding how this wall breaks down, I

712
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: found a really fun thread on what I want to say,

713
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: one of my most enjoyable subreddits. They did the math.

714
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: It's the unnecessarily well I would say, it's very thorough

715
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 1: math about all sorts of strange questions. And one of

716
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: the estimates there I said, Okay, let's assume photosynthesis even

717
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 1: though it won't happen. Let's assume it all goes dead

718
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: at once. We just have a finite amount of oxygen.

719
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: From that point on, how long would it take humans

720
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 1: alone to suffocate themselves in the escape room of Earth?

721
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: The answer seven hundred and four thousand years.

722
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 3: Oh the we're fine.

723
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, because algae like ocean algae is the primary

724
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 2: oxygen source, right, I.

725
00:40:58,360 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: Mean around seventy percent.

726
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're yeah, yeah, we Would's good to know.

727
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 4: Not doesn't give us a pass, but it is good

728
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 4: to know that like this isn't an immediate apocalyptic events

729
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 4: like you know, breathing up all the air like in

730
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 4: a ninny sub or something.

731
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 3: You know, I do know.

732
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 1: The only I've got to give a shout out where

733
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: it's due credit whords do The only reason I know

734
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:26,800
Speaker 1: the algae stuff is because of the film water World.

735
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: Watching that, I thought, well, all the plants are gone

736
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: except for this one islands, how could they breathe? And

737
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: that's when a friend helpfully pointed out, well, but an

738
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: algae create most of the oxygen.

739
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 4: That's also where I learned about desalination, or at least

740
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 4: in terms of pea. And remember that scene, so I

741
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 4: think it's the what everyone remembers where he's on the

742
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 4: raft and he peas the kind of a thing and

743
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 4: then he drinks it.

744
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 3: I guess that is still suit. Basically, it's a portable

745
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 3: still suit.

746
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: But that boat was so cool. What is the name

747
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: for those? Is it a catamaran?

748
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,399
Speaker 4: I think it is the trail I just remember data carve.

749
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 4: We did a joke about it, like asses, they say,

750
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 4: you can't pee into a mister coffee and expect taste's choice.

751
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: Classic, Classic, It's such a good stand up career in

752
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: the cards. But so okay, there are things that make

753
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: this number. There are problems with this number, and you

754
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: can walk through the math. You can see it. The

755
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: people on Reddit posting this data, great job. It doesn't

756
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: factor in a lot of other things. It doesn't factor in,

757
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: for example, all of the other non human animals that

758
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: are big fans of breathing oxygen on a dare I

759
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 1: say regular basis. It doesn't factor in comorbid stuff, increases

760
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: in population, you know, the fact that mass starvation will

761
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: occur before the oxygen quote unquote runs out. Climate chaos,

762
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: which again I think is a far more accurate term

763
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: than the sort of milk toast climate.

764
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 3: Change we've been using.

765
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: So it seems like, again without being experts, that while

766
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 1: seven hundred and four thousand years is a long long time,

767
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: things hit the fan way way before that point. But

768
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,839
Speaker 1: the good news, like you said, no, this is not

769
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: going to immediately lead to disaster. Point zero one percent

770
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: is not a big percentage.

771
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 4: Selfishly, I was like, my immediate calculation was not within

772
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 4: my lifetime or the lifetime of my kid or loved ones.

773
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 3: So I'm good. But that's really a selfish way to think.

774
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:32,879
Speaker 2: Well, that may not be trutal, really okay, go on, Well,

775
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 2: and it all depends on how runaway, you know, the

776
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 2: greenhouse effect becomes, right, and if it does get really bad,

777
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:45,240
Speaker 2: if rising ambient temperatures expand out of that tropical zone

778
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 2: and keep moving towards the polls and it gets worse

779
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 2: and worse and worse, then what is the year, Ben

780
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 2: We both talked about it off air, like twenty.

781
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: Twenty one hundred would be the the time that greenhouse

782
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: gas emissions push the world to that amount of warming.

783
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:12,240
Speaker 1: That amount of warming right now. Experts estimate these plants

784
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: can survive about four degrees celsius of warming above the

785
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: current levels before trees lose all their leaves, the plant

786
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: version of going bald and then die. It wouldn't hit

787
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: the entire Earth at once. Plant die offs follow the

788
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: pattern of gotta stop saying. Hotspots follow the pattern of

789
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: the warming here, right, So, for instance, in the poles

790
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: of the planet, this warming, this you know, like the

791
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: transformation of the tundra and the thawing of permafrost. That's

792
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: going to be a very different situation than what will

793
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: occur in the equator and in the tropical areas of Earth.

794
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 4: Guys, is it still even remotely controversial, like climate change,

795
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 4: climate chaos? Are there still people that find that.

796
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 3: To be Maybe and we're nuts. The jury still out.

797
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: Yes, there are people who who feel that way, but

798
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that the science so

799
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: far is unanimous. Now that the corporations who were paying

800
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:24,399
Speaker 1: for opposing voices, now that they are exposed, it's increasingly

801
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: less controversial. I don't think it's controversial at all.

802
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 4: I think it feels maybe more like a political talking point,

803
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 4: you know, like on one side of an argument to

804
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 4: like I don't know if even the people that say

805
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 4: it believe it, you know what I mean.

806
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: I think it was Vladimir Putin just recently. I think

807
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: it was yesterday. We're recording November ninth. This was on

808
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: November eighth. He started asking these very strange questions about

809
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: ice in Antarctica, and it was like, how much ice

810
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: can you store in Antarctica? Repeatedly?

811
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 3: And is that like a riddle. It's yeah, I don't know,

812
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 3: is it a code? Very interesting.

813
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: Western analysts are speculating that that is an an attempt

814
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: to cast further aspersion upon the idea of climate chaos.

815
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, to your boy political, I think.

816
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't help that there are all kinds of

817
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 2: strange sounding schemes like carbon offset programs where you can

818
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 2: just somehow pay your way out of the pollution your

819
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: corporation just it's paying indulgences to the Catholic Church.

820
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 1: It's like the economist. The economist and neoliberals love that one.

821
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but it does it does not help the

822
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 2: skepticism I think that exists out there for you know,

823
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 2: for this science behind the subject, because it does feel

824
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 2: like it's being taken advantage of by people who want

825
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 2: to make money and want to be able to spend

826
00:46:55,840 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 2: more tax dollars on things that are not probably helpful. Yeah, anyway, I.

827
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: Mean there's also the fact that when you hear these numbers,

828
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: and you know, it's a bit of a roller coaster,

829
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: plants are dying because it's getting too hot. True, that

830
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: does seem to be the precedent, That does seem to

831
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 1: be the pattern that will continue unless variables change. But

832
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: there's still a bevy of other factors at play. There

833
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: would already be there already is a growing impact on

834
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: historical agricultural resources, the so called bread baskets of civilization,

835
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: the interior of the US, parts of Europe, Asia, India,

836
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:45,240
Speaker 1: parts of Africa, and you know, the biodiversity of South America.

837
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 1: In Southeast Asia also under intense threat. And they would

838
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: be dealing with this growing plant die off in conjunction

839
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:59,279
Speaker 1: with unpredictable weather, droughts, flooding at the wrong time, and

840
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: of course the ever present growing threat of political instability.

841
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: The truth is, we don't know everything about the fallout here.

842
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: We also don't know everything about the adaptive abilities of

843
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: every tree species. Humanity still doesn't know how many plant

844
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: species exist. There are many unknowns here, and we also

845
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: don't know We don't know how the deaths of individual

846
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,760
Speaker 1: leaves impact the mortality of a given species of tree.

847
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: And so that's why there are some people saying, hold on,

848
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 1: we might be overestimating vulnerability. One guy, ecologist, Christopher Still

849
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: so he's not just some guy, he is an ecologist.

850
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: He said, maybe we're you know, we're making this assumption

851
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 1: that when leaves hit this critical temperature they die. That's

852
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: a cold comfort, though, I would argue it's a bit

853
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,879
Speaker 1: of a fig leaf in the face of what may

854
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: well become an existential threat.

855
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 2: I mean and saying we're just barely covering it up

856
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 2: just enough to where it can still walk around and

857
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 2: we wouldn't be embarrassed by what's under the figure belief.

858
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: Just enough to tell later generations. Well, you know, we

859
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:12,280
Speaker 1: put a good hustle in. It was a big swing.

860
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: And my question though, is is this a possible tipping point?

861
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,800
Speaker 1: Like what happens not one hundred percent of plants stop photosynthesis,

862
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: that seems very very far away in alarmist, but what

863
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 1: happens when a certain percentage of them stop? What do

864
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 1: you guys, how do you think? Guys think this shakes out?

865
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 2: It's gonna get real weird because you know, there are

866
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 2: massive ice sheets on Antarctica that are now beyond the

867
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:44,279
Speaker 2: point of being able to maintain right, So there's some

868
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 2: series melting occurring there. There's gonna be a lot more

869
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:52,719
Speaker 2: water if within the whole system that we run in here,

870
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 2: both both in the oceans and in the skies, so

871
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 2: plants are gonna have no shortage of the the hydrate

872
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 2: they need to continue photosynthesis. They're gonna have no shortage

873
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 2: of sun because it's just hanging out there, blast in

874
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 2: the earth. We uh if we can love.

875
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,719
Speaker 3: That image, Matt. So I just hanging out blast in

876
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 3: the air.

877
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 2: Well. It blasts everything.

878
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:16,240
Speaker 3: Oh, it blasts everything.

879
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 4: But but isn't Remember we were talking at the beginning

880
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 4: about how and what a coincidence did.

881
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 3: Is this exact right distance?

882
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,800
Speaker 4: As the ozone layer continues to be depleted and stuff,

883
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 4: I mean, is that going to become I know that

884
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 4: the warming is one part of it, but just like

885
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 4: the heat like I mean, I wonder.

886
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 2: Not long ago the ozone holes, some of the major

887
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 2: ones were beginning to fill in, which was actually good news.

888
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's due to the success of the Montreal Protocol,

889
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: the ozon mitigation.

890
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. Thang, okay, maybe I'm not aware of that.

891
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 1: That's going to take about four decades go it.

892
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:52,280
Speaker 3: Yeah.

893
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 2: The big thing now is just heat trapping. That still occurs.

894
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 2: Heat trapping within the system.

895
00:50:59,440 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 3: But I don't know.

896
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 4: The plants they're resilient buggers. Yeah, for sure, that's the thing.

897
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 2: We see it on a human life span because that's

898
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 2: all we know, and we measure time in life and

899
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 2: death of humanity, right of.

900
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: Generations, timeline discrepancy. We're talking about it earlier.

901
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:22,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sorry, I don't mean to retread things. It's

902
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 2: just I think it is a matter of perspective.

903
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:31,439
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it really makes you think, you know, how

904
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 4: that we were just a blip. I mean, no, just

905
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 4: the idea of the evolution and the connection, and the

906
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:42,919
Speaker 4: fact that plants are really not about individuals.

907
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 3: They're about like the whole system, you know.

908
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 4: And even if they were to go away, you have

909
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 4: to imagine that byproduct that we've relied on, that would

910
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:55,280
Speaker 4: be the issue for us. They'll probably evolve into something

911
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,800
Speaker 4: else over time, on another planet, on another star whatever.

912
00:51:58,880 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 3: I mean.

913
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot to tell you guys, I read this.

914
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: I got really into research with fungus in space. I

915
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:11,919
Speaker 1: didn't know this, but fungus is a huge problem for astronauts.

916
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: Were you guys aware of this.

917
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 3: Because they're always tripping balls when they're in their space suits, and.

918
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 2: Well, it's literally their balls. It's oh no.

919
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: It grows. Yeah, it coats uh, mechanisms, coats windows, everything.

920
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: It's it's actually a really good argument for pan spermia,

921
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: which still needs a better name as a theory.

922
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 2: But sperm another thing that astronauts are plagued by.

923
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 3: Yes, wait a minute, what globules? Just like in space,

924
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:42,839
Speaker 3: no one can hear you, you know what? Never mind,

925
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 3: no one can.

926
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,879
Speaker 1: I'm sorry this this disaster though, and and I got

927
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:51,800
Speaker 1: I do hope this was worth an episode.

928
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,360
Speaker 3: I yeah, make them mount album mole Hill.

929
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: If so, I apologize, But we gotta remember this disaster

930
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,399
Speaker 1: occurs concurrently. It's in depth with other things that are

931
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:06,400
Speaker 1: on the way. Widespread drought, climate migration on massive levels,

932
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:11,399
Speaker 1: rising oceans, the long term effects of microplastics. The list

933
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: goes on and on and on, and fortunately so does

934
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: the science.

935
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 4: Well, and while this is an existential threat episode, I

936
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 4: found it very educational and enlightening as well, you know

937
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 4: what I mean. It was really fun hearkening back to

938
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 4: some of those earliest memories of like learning about what

939
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 4: science is and how magical these systems are, you know,

940
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 4: and how utterly mind boggling their existence is, you know.

941
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 4: And again, I hope we don't see any of this

942
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:41,959
Speaker 4: these ramifications in our life. Do you guys think there's

943
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 4: there's mitigation there's mitigation for this, like is it too late?

944
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 3: Have we swung too far? It's not enough?

945
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: People care well, it's it's it's difficult, I think sometimes

946
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: to articulate in an impactful way consequences that do not

947
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: seem immediately apparent, right, going to that idea of perspective

948
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 1: and timescale. Maybe we mentioned this, I think on a

949
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: previous recording, But maybe one of the best ways to

950
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 1: think about it is, Okay, the car accident, like climate costs,

951
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: is like a car accident, and in this comparison, the

952
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 1: accident is already happening. The car has left the road,

953
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: we can see the tree ahead. The question is what

954
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 1: do we do in those figurative few seconds before the

955
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: car hits the.

956
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 4: Tree, jump out of the car space, we find a

957
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 4: new car, or we walk never set foot in a

958
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 4: car again.

959
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 1: So maybe it's a matter of you know, in that

960
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: it's not the best comparison, but maybe it's a matter

961
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: of seatbelts, airbags, swerving to what degree that can occur,

962
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 1: But it takes a lot of collective global action in

963
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 1: a way that is relatively unprecedented.

964
00:54:56,560 --> 00:55:00,839
Speaker 4: It was to hear that those zone holes are doing better,

965
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 4: like that's that was news to me.

966
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 3: I'm not joking.

967
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 4: I was like, wait, cool, Okay, that's that's some positive

968
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 4: silver lining.

969
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been. It's so weird because we have experienced

970
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 2: over our lifetimes a lot of alarmism over this stuff, right,

971
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 2: probably rightly. So it's balancing the fear we need to

972
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 2: have in order to take action, right with the knowledge

973
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 2: that that fear should it has to be tempered because

974
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 2: if we're just freaking out about it because it feels

975
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 2: so dire, we're not going to get anything done. But

976
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 2: if you don't have enough fear, you're not getting get

977
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 2: anything done either. So I don't know, and I.

978
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 4: Think we always strive to be as not alarmist as

979
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 4: humanly possible, to just lay out the facts, approach it

980
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 4: with a little bit of lightheartedness, because what else can

981
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 4: you do. And hopefully we're not trying to freak anybody

982
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 4: out or make anyone feel as spared, you know, but

983
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 4: this is something to be aware of, but also don't

984
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:00,719
Speaker 4: let it keep you up at I guess if you

985
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 4: can help it or do I don't, Well, we have to.

986
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: Maybe the best way to put a button on this

987
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:10,879
Speaker 1: is to say, look, you can put political ideology, corporate perspectives,

988
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: cultural differences, all that jazz, all that space fungus to

989
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:17,320
Speaker 1: one side, because none of it alters the simple fact.

990
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: The clock is ticking and the question is what does

991
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: humanity do in response? And hey, folks, thanks as always

992
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: for tuning in. If you can fix this, if you

993
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: can share it with us, the immediate solution, we would

994
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: love to hear it. We will forward it everywhere. All

995
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: you have to do, or you know, if you have,

996
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:40,839
Speaker 1: we want to hear your take on this. From your

997
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 1: neck to the global woods. Ideas for future episodes, limericks,

998
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:49,960
Speaker 1: cool puns. Surely we can do better than photosynthesis, So

999
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: let us know what's on your mind. We try to

1000
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: be easy to find in a variety of ways.

1001
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 4: Oh you're not even the simp. You're the assistant of

1002
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:01,760
Speaker 4: the simp. It's a very frot concept.

1003
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 3: Then I love it.

1004
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,759
Speaker 4: But you can indeed write to us about that. Make

1005
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:06,480
Speaker 4: up new words, send it to us. You can find

1006
00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:10,800
Speaker 4: us on social media. We are conspiracy Stuff on YouTube,

1007
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 4: Facebook and x nay, Twitter, Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram

1008
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:15,720
Speaker 4: and TikTok.

1009
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 2: Hey do you like to talk on your phone, Well

1010
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 2: talk to us. Our number is one eight three three

1011
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 2: std wytk. It's a voicemail system, guys, that happens to

1012
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 2: be empty right now. We need new voicemails. Yeah, so

1013
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 2: you know when you call, you got three minutes. Give

1014
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 2: yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we

1015
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:37,560
Speaker 2: can use your name and message on one of our

1016
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 2: listener mail episodes. If you've got more to say they

1017
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 2: can fit in that voicemail, why not instead send us

1018
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 2: a good old fashioned email.

1019
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: We are the folks who read every single email we get.

1020
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 1: Send us those links, send us those photos. We can't

1021
00:57:49,360 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: wait to hear from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1022
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production

1023
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:17,640
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1024
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:20,600
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