WEBVTT - Part One: The Uninhabitable Earth, An Interview 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:07.720 M ready to be pod pilled, gonna take the podcast 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.280 pill well it is it is too late. You already 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.240 have you're listening to this podcast right now, this podcast 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.320 is it could happen here The Daily Show. Welcome. I'm 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.759 Garrison and today we have an interview with the author 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.720 of the book The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace Wells. David 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.440 is a journalist who covers climate, among other topics, UM 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.880 and his book was very useful for putting together the 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.800 first half episodes of the scripted Daily Show. UM. It 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.239 does a really good job laying out the different physical 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.720 effects that climate change will have on environments and ecosystems, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.240 and the differences between like one point five degrees celsius 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.000 to a degree celsius and you know, the potentiality of 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.120 like three or three degrees or even four degrees um. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.320 The book is is you know is it's it's pretty 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.240 scary to to read. But David in person on in 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.400 in the interview was actually a lot more optimistic about, 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.560 you know, different ways we can prevent some of the 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.039 worst effects. You know, the book came out in there's 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.200 been new reports and new stuff that's come out since 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.160 then about the different ways that can be mitigated and 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.200 adapted to. And you know, talking to David on the 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.679 interview was was, you know, not quite what I what 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.080 I expected based on based on the book. It was. 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.800 He was a very very interesting talk. But I don't 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.399 need to tell you that because you can listen to 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.280 it right now. The interview was a bit longer than usual, 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.080 so we split it up into two episodes. Part one 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.760 is you're you're listening to it right now, and part 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.080 two will come out tomorrow. So that's enough of me talking. 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.959 Let's get to the actual interview. So the first thing 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.320 I'm curious about, David is kind of since publication of 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.360 your book, Um, some some real world weather events have 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.640 happened that uh, I mean, like I I think that 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.800 kind of the mainstream coverage I've seen is like this 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.080 is all happening much faster than than we had anticipated, 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.960 and like one point I've see is going to be 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.760 a lot worse than you know, had previously been anticipated, 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.800 which is stuff that that you wrote about. Um, I'm 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.600 kind of wondering has personally, what what's happened in the 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.840 last you know, year in change, has has that impacted 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.400 at all how you feel about what you've you've written, 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.440 has it changed in any way kind of your opinion 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.760 about the pace things are occurring at I think there's 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.240 sort of a few different stories unfolding at the same time, 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.160 and they're sometimes not all running in the same directions. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.799 So the ultimate lesson is a little bit unclear, um 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:34.320 on the signs of impacts. You know, I've been personally 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.520 struck by how there hasn't been like a week since 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.600 my book came out in early twenty nineteen that there 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.120 wasn't some kind of natural disaster or extreme weather event 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.440 that got in time it changed back in the news. 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.200 It's not to say that it has always been, you know, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.680 occupying the place on the front page of the newspapers 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.639 that it should, or that it has even done that 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.240 very often, but nevertheless, it was, Um, I felt like 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.720 I was issuing a kind of a p see and 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.360 then almost as soon as the book came out, like 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:08.680 the real world was illustrating that and making people feel 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.880 the same way that I did about what was coming 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:17.880 our way. That's been you know, really alarming. UM. I 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.440 did think that I was writing a book largely about 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:26.200 climate impacts, um Um, not climate impacts that we're going 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.959 to terrify us in the year and the ones that 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.119 we've seen this year. That the heat dome in particular 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.720 was you know, as as has been written about quite extensively, um, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.200 like literally off the charts of what most climate models predicted. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.280 And that's really scary. Um. These are models that you know, 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:52.800 they're not simple. They're supposed to include essentially any possible outcome. Um. 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:54.960 You know, they have like their fifth percentile outcomes and 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.400 the entile outcomes. It's really not supposed to happen that 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.360 something comes along that that break that. And that's really scary. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.200 I mean, it means that a lot of other climate 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.520 impacts are likely to you know, probably be worse than 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.880 we were expecting right now. It means possibly that the 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.960 global temperature models that we have for projecting where we'll 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.520 end up given a certain amount of emissions are also 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.120 clouded with even more uncertainty than we thought. Um. And 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:23.120 that's really scary. I mean it's scary for me, maybe particularly, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:24.599 but I think this is true of a lot of people. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.120 You know, the bleak formulations of climate science were obviously bleak, 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.480 but you could also tell yourself, like if you process them, 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.520 you were also in a way preparing for them, and 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.320 to know that we now have to treat even those 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.680 quite alarming high end estimates as incomplete pictures of what 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.880 is possible and maybe insufficient um as a projection of 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.080 the world we will be living in relatively soon. It's 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.120 quite bad because that those those um, those projections were 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.840 pretty bleak to begin with. On the other hand, you know, 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.400 I think we are living in a differ in world 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.320 when it comes to climate consciousness and climate action um 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.559 than we were a couple of years ago. The fact 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.280 that all of these countries made net zero pledges during 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.200 the pandemic and did it, you know, outside of the 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.919 realm of pressure, in like a paras style of negotiation, um, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.400 without bullying each other or shaming each other, but just 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:22.920 because they thought it was in their self interest to 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.200 decarbonized quicker. That's really really different than the place we 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:27.640 were in just a few years ago. And you know, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.320 I take all those pledges with a grain of salt. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.960 Basically none that's ever been made in the past has 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.159 ever been fulfilled. On the other hand, you know, it 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.280 is definitionally progress that like many more people are concerned 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.360 about climate change, maybe particularly many more people in positions 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.159 of power in the political and corporate worlds are concerned 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.120 enough about it to at least be paying lip service 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.080 to it. There's a lot more to do, but you know, 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.760 it feels like, for the first time, the world is 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.320 beginning to take this whole challenge seriously. And you know, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.880 I think we've wasted so much time. We're not going 0:05:59.920 --> 0:06:04.159 to avoid what was once called catastrophic warming, but we 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.160 may manage to keep the level of the temperature level 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.320 to something close to that, to degree celsius. And you know, 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.960 it may it may mark me as it totally grim 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.159 apocalyptic alarmist that I think that that's like a good outcome. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.520 I'm in a happy outcome, But um, I do. I 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.040 think it's you know, much better to land at two 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:22.960 point three degrees than at three point seven degrees or 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.520 four point eight degrees or something. Um And so it's 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.760 sort of all stories at once. I was just, um, 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:31.680 I was just giving a talk at like a book 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.200 conference this weekend where I was talking about, you know what, 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:36.920 the climate change at three speeds was like the name 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.120 of my talk. The first speed was climate impacts, the 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.120 second was the speed of climate action, and then the 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.160 third was the speed of our disorientation. And I still 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.320 think we haven't really like started to think about just 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.559 how profoundly all of these forces are going to shake 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.560 the way that we think of the world and our 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.440 place in it and our culture, and um, that's all 0:06:55.520 --> 0:07:00.680 changing really pretty quickly too. Yeah, And I have a 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.240 couple of questions based on that answer. One of them 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:04.839 would just be one of the things I find interesting 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.280 about the way your book is framed is that you're 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.280 coming at a from a very different perspective than most 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.000 of the people are read than Garrison and I are, 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.320 because we're we're definitely more in kind of the ecological 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.920 end of things, Like I appreciate the woods more than 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.360 I appreciate being around people, and like that's a big 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.720 part of like my desire for for conservation, And you're 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:25.720 coming at it more from like a, well, I'm worried 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.120 that like people aren't going to be able to like 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.000 handle what's coming and the changes that are coming. And 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.240 I'm I'm, I think that's much closer to the perspective. 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.760 You have to have to get Americans on board with 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.000 doing something about it, because clearly the whole um we're 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.240 damaging nature. Um, isn't a big sell hasn't been a 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.200 big selling point up to this point, And I'm wondering 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.720 how in your in conversations with people who are maybe 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.160 kind of like only tangentially paying attention to climate change 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.080 when there's a disaster, how do you how do you 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.640 recommend trying to get trying to get people on board 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:05.960 with the severity of the issue and the necessity of action. Well, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.560 one thing I think is really important, as like a 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:16.160 starting point is just to understand that like basically nobody 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.840 on planet Earth is living as though this is the 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.200 emergency that it is. And that includes me, and it 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:27.559 includes probably both of you, absolutely it maybe not, maybe 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.760 doesn't include Greta. But like, you know, the number of 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.080 people who are truly living like this is the emergency 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.200 that it is are you know, you could probably count 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.480 them on a couple of hands. And that means that, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.760 like the differences between those of us who are alarmed 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.640 about it and those who haven't yet gotten there or 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.560 having yet started freaking out, I think it's a lot 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:52.800 that distance is smaller than we often really acknowledge, and 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.000 we we we sort of tell ourselves, especially given like 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.120 the partisan lens of everything that we, um, you know, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:08:59.880 everything we do in our lives that like people on 0:08:59.920 --> 0:09:02.559 the other side are just impossibly distant from us. But 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.880 I think functionally, like the average NORMI liberal who says 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.880 climate change is an existential threat but hasn't done anything 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:11.679 about it and hasn't even really changed the way that 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.079 they vote in response to it, is not all that 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.480 far from the Republican who says, you know, okay, maybe 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.679 climate change is happening, but whatever, we'll figure it out. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.280 I don't need to worry about it. Like in terms 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:28.199 of concrete behavioral and political action, they're not that different, um, 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.560 Which means I think that there's a lot of common 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.520 ground there. And you know, I think that my own 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.200 awakening on this may be more instructive than say yours, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.439 in the sense that um, as you said, you know, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.280 I think of myself as sometimes joked on like a 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.439 human chauvinist. Um. You know, like if I could snap 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.560 my fingers and save all the world's forest and all 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.040 the world's ecosystems and all the world's fishes, that would 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:52.920 be nice. But if I had to trade them for 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.480 the well being of all future humans on the planet, 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:01.080 I would take that trade. Um. And when you just 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.800 walk through, um, you know, everything that science projects for 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.680 what life will be like let's say two or three 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.840 degrees celsius. Um. You know, I have like a little 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.840 spiel that I can give about how bad that is. 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.960 But then even beyond that, I say, you know, these 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:22.280 are like tens of thousands of scientific papers. If three 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:27.040 quarters of them we're totally wrong and the remaining quarter 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.960 turned out to be overly alarmist, we would still almost 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.280 certainly be dealing with an unprecedented ecological catastrophe. This is 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.000 not We're not asking you to believe every single scientist 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.040 who's working in every single university, and we're not asking 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.720 you to believe, you know, the the guy who is 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.720 running away from civilization and trying to like build a 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.920 prepper hut in the wilderness. UM, We're just saying, like, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.640 the number of things that are being disturbed, are already 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:02.240 being disturbed, are well beyond anything that humans have ever 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.040 experienced in there. You know, depending on how you count, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.000 hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years on 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.360 the planet, and our capacity to respond to that is 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.800 very very much in question, especially when you look around 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.360 and see how poorly we are today responding to the 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.760 challenges right in front of us. So I think that 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:25.520 there's like, um, you know, there's a there's a relatively 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:32.040 simple way to talk about you know, not like your 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.440 life will be threatened directly in talking to somebody. But 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.200 the climate basis for everything that you know of as 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:47.840 normal is already gone. And exactly what will endure from 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.880 the civilization that we have inherited is actually an open question. 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.360 Now that's not to say that I think humans are 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.480 going to go extinct or you know, um, civilization will collapse, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.280 but like, this does represent an unbelievably dramatic challenge to 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.360 every aspect of our lives, um, and the aspect every 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.240 aspect of everybody's life on the planet. And um, we're 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.440 going to be living around that obstacle and navigating around it, 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.800 um for the rest of the century at least. Yeah, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.640 I am. The term I've been using increasingly that I 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.920 did not come up with, but that I think adequately 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.760 describes where we are right now is is post normal um. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.480 And I think a lot of the challenge when it 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.319 comes to taking effective action, even just for adaptation, is 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.040 convincing people, um that we're post normal, because as you 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.800 pointed out, even those of us who write entire books 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.520 about the severity if the problem have not changed our 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.840 lives to the extent that we um that we that 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.360 we would need to if we were really taking the 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.719 problem like and and it's it's hard to like. I 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.000 I don't know how. I think one of the things 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.440 that frightens me because when I think about the different 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:00.559 kinds of responses we could see and we we just 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:02.680 talked to one of the authors of the book Climate Leviathan, 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.240 which kind of poses some of the c Yeah, good book. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.760 I'm concerned because the pot the responses to climate change 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.160 that I see is most frightening in that book are 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:17.720 all based around promising people one way or the other, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.439 will get back to normal. We will get you back 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.880 to the things on the shelf that you're used to 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:24.959 having and the kind of lives that you're used to having. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.560 And I think the actual adaptations that we need to 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.920 make and the ones that will lead to the world 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.640 I consider at least more livable, are ones that um 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.240 are accepting that normality has gone. And I don't know 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.560 how you you thread that needle and get people to 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.319 accept the end of normal. I think that's what I think. Yeah, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.880 I think the real challenge there is that we're we're 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:51.280 unbelievably good at normalizing. Yeah. Um. And I mean there's science, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.200 social science suggesting that the basic timeline on which most 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.320 of us base our you know, our expectations for the 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.880 near future is five or ten years, which means that 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.880 we're only ever you know, that's like the baseline we 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.439 carrying to the future, not like the pre industrial climate, 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.640 not even a climate of our childhoods, but the climate 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:11.640 that we've experienced over the last five or ten years. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.040 And if you think about like what that means in 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.439 the context of, for instance, like you know, wildfires in 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.760 the American West, it means that we've already totally accepted 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.000 a level of burning in a in a in a 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.520 modern wealthy state, modern wealthy set of states that fifty 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.640 years ago would have seen seemed truly truly apocalyptic. And 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.200 a lot of these fires today look apocalyptic. We are 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.560 horrified by them when we see the images on our 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.760 scrolling on our phones. We watched some of those dash 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.320 camp videos and they terrify us. And on the other hand, like, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.160 you know, there's still forty million people living in California 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.160 and you know, I do think that there's a there's 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.480 a little bit of an awakening ongoing at the moment 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:54.640 having to do with the air pollution effects from those fires. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.160 I think a few years ago, we really thought that 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.720 the main fear was about having your house burned down 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.040 or having to outrun you're playing or something. And now 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.160 it's understood much more broadly that there are these real 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.600 health risks and that those don't um, they don't stay 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.440 put like, so you can't escape them even if you're 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.400 you know, living in a flat land away from away 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.600 from the woods or something UM. And I see the 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.600 same dynamic in my own life, which is to say, 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.440 you know, I often find myself these days describing myself 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.040 as as much as I hate to talk about climate 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.520 change in terms of like mood relatively more optimistic than 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.000 I was a few years ago. But that's because my 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.360 baseline of expectation was, like, while I was writing this 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.680 apocalyptic book, I'm still so much more alarmed than I 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.640 was ten years ago. And yet in thinking about my 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.840 own recent like what's not what counts is normal, I'm 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.240 thinking about like I'm not thinking about me. And then 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.840 in that interim I had this you know, huge and 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.320 really grim awakening, which is already now I basically like 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.240 retired to the you know, the dustbin of of memory 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.000 that I don't I don't even think about it anymore. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:04.320 And you know, I often worry about how profound that 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:10.160 capacity and how pervarousive that reflex is in humanity. That 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.600 we we already accept a ton of suffering and dying 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.800 that's totally unnecessary in the world today, and that we 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.240 will will respond to new threats to some degree by 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:24.000 adapting and protecting ourselves, but also in some significant way 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.680 by just defining upward what is an acceptable level of 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.040 pain and human dying, And um, that could lead to 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.720 a quite grim future, not just because it involves all 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.320 that human pain, but also because it means that we're 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:50.440 not really ever going to take control of the problem. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.520 Remember I said I was optimistic. No, no, no, yeah, 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.160 I appreciate that. I think that one of the things 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.600 that has to become post normal is our understanding what 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.639 optimistic means, because um, you know, in the communities. I 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.080 just did an a M A on the collapse subreddit, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.000 which both has a lot of collects a lot of 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:16.359 useful information about problems with supply chains and environmental catastrophe, 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.880 and also provides this pervasive air that like everything's going 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.600 to fall apart, and I think that actually is. I 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.000 think it's it's based on the kind of narcissism that 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.920 total collapse narratives always are because we almost never see 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.920 that in history. You see areas collapse, you see countries collapse, UM, 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.040 you see geographic regions experience aspects of collapse, but like 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.520 more of what you see is things get worse for people, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.959 but the broad systems, you know, stay together UM, and I, 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.080 you know, I think that there is. AM. I have 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.000 the same basic view of the collapse reddit subreddit as 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.600 you do. But I would say there are some reasons 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.320 to think that we may be more vulnerable to that 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.399 kind of threat, which is to say that we are 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.120 much more globalized and linked civilization now. Our supply chains 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.800 are stretched very thin, our food supply is UM has 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.159 very little redundancies in and even in those parts of 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.040 the world like where we live, where you and I live, UM, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.080 where like food is not really a problem, we still 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:25.320 have incredibly fragile UM supply chains. And in the same 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.000 way that we didn't see global pandemics until there was 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.960 some form of globalization UM. With the Roman Empire UM, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.199 we are now entering, you know, entering into what is 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.000 likely to be an age of intensifying UM, you know, 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.520 disease spread because of how interlinked we are. It's also 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.160 the case that our vulnerabilities are shared and that other 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.040 parts of the world are not necessarily do not necessarily 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.080 offer you know, this sort of system redundancy is UM 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.480 that they might have in the past. And I think 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.160 another thing that's overlooked by to go to the other 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:57.920 side of the equation, a thing that's overlooked by those 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.879 two who think the relational collapses is likely or imminent, 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.400 is that a lot of the things that we're talking 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.120 about UM, A lot of the suffering that we're talking 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.960 about coming as the result of climate change UM is 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.040 already present in many parts of the world. Who which 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.840 are which are full of suffering, but which are not 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:20.040 UM lawless UM, you know, on the brink of UM 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.040 mass death UM. In the way that I think a 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.120 lot of the sort of you know, cor mc McCarthy 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:30.400 imagination would suggest, and you know, one thing that I've 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:31.960 been thinking about turning it over in my head a 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:33.960 lot recently is something that you know, some people who 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.600 are they're not climate deniers, they're sort you know, sometimes 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.359 called like luke warmers or people who think we can 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.440 we can adapt away through everything. We'll say where they will, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.680 they say, um, you know, how bad could it get? 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:45.480 You know, it could be uh, it could get as 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.359 bad as the twentieth century. And you know, the twentieth 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.840 century was really bad. Like there were a lot of famines, 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.880 they were we had a couple of really big wars 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.040 like you know, um, there there were there were some 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:02.040 really big pandemics like um. But we already regard, like, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.399 you know, the life of the first half of the 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.640 twentieth century as impossibly distant from our own in terms 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.160 of expectations of wealth and prosperity and security. And one 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.439 big question is, you know, if we do return to 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.280 I mean, it won't be exactly like a rewind to 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.240 that period of time, But if we returned to a 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.959 world that is as defined by general fragility and instability 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:34.000 as that one was, will it feel human and modern 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:40.320 or will it feel um, you know, like the stone 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:45.800 ages um. And I don't totally know the answer to that, 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.720 but it's certainly the case that someone living in nineteen thirties, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.320 London wasn't like this is the end of the world. 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.280 They thought actually they were at the you know, the 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.480 pinnacle of the world. There were some problems, you know, 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.400 there's some things we need to say, you know, and 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.240 it'll be really interesting to see how all of these 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.680 dynamics play out going forward. If we start to see yeah, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.919 like a return of um, some scale of suffering and 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.119 disease and death um that we have that we at 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.280 least in a in a wealthy West, haven't been comfortable with. 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.200 They're familiar with for a few generations, but which really 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.159 do you know, they are sort of part of the 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:32.720 fundamental human experience, even the modern human experience. Yeah, um, Garrison, Yeah, 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.000 I mean yeah, I think we talked about we talked 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.040 a bit about this yesterday, but it is you you 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:43.960 brought it up again. How almost the the new normal 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.760 is going to be radical and radical un normal nous 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:50.959 like like having like things always be changing. That's going 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:52.840 to be like the thing that we're all gonna be 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.680 used to now is switching back and forth between extremes 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:00.440 kind of all of the time. Um. Yeah, and like 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.040 like you're I mean, I would say, like you know, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.119 I'm sort of with Robert. I feel like, you know, 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.560