September 24, 2024 • 45 mins
There exists a staggering amount of misinformation and disinformation surrounding climate change, clouding our understanding of its causes and potential solutions. Naomi Oreskes, renowned earth scientist, historian and public speaker, is able to shatter the misconceptions and uncover the fundamental truth of the matter. She is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is also the co-author, with Erik M. Conway, of “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” and most recently, “The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.” Naomi Oreskes speaks with host Alec Baldwin about the fossil fuel industry’s propaganda campaign against climate action, the myths surrounding green jobs and the economy, and who bears the responsibility to fix this critical issue.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. Wildfires and water shortages, storms and
sea level rise, droughts and ice sheet melting. The relentless
stream of doomsday climate news and the often conflicting political
and corporate responses can be both dizzying and disheartening. My
(00:26):
guest today, professor, historian and earth scientist Naomi oreskis is
here to get down to the brass tacks of the situation.
Orescues is clear about how capitalism has failed us and
how corporations have gas lit us when it comes to
critical issues of public health and our climate's future. She
(00:48):
is the co author, along with Eric Conway, of Merchants
of Doubt, How a handful of scientists Obscure the truth
on issues from tobacco smoke to global war. Their latest
book is The Big Myth, How American Business taught Us
to loathe government and love the free Market. I wanted
(01:08):
to get her perspective on a climate issue that has
faded from the headlines, the depletion of the ozone layer.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So the ozone layer is recovering because of work that
scientists did to explain how a particular group of chemicals,
the so called chlorinated fluorocarbons, were destroying stratospheric ozone and
what that meant for the future of life on Earth.
And people listened, politicians listened, corporations listened, and the world's
leaders signed the United Nations Montreal pro cal on substances
(01:40):
that deplete stratospheric ozone, and so those chemicals were banned.
We stopped using them, and because we stopped using them,
the problem was solved.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So for people who don't know, I mean, and there
are a lot of people listening to the show who
don't really know, because it's such a complicated issue. If
the ozone layers fixed white, we still have climate.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Change, two different problems. So the ozone layer was about
ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Stratasviagozone protects us from UV light,
and we all know if you get too much UV
light you get a sunburn. But if you've got a
lot of UV you could actually die, you get cataracts,
you could be burnt to a crisp. So that's an
example where the world listened to scientific evidence and acted
(02:22):
on scientific evidence. And it's a super important example because
it shows it is possible for us to respond to knowledge,
to respond for information, and act in a rational way.
But climate change has played out very differently because in
this case, the corporations and invested interests who are responsible
for the problem, instead of accepting the science, they have
(02:43):
fought it tooth and nail, and they've been fighting it
for nearly forty years now thirty five year or something
like that. So the political and the cultural and social
response to the scientific evidence of climate change has been
one hundred and eighty degrees different than the response we
head to the Ozone hole.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Disinformation and invested interest? So the thing about the ozone
story is that even though the chemicals involved were very
useful chemicals, they were used primarily for refrigeration, also in
aerosols like hairspray. Hairspray was something we could all live without,
and in fact, one of the nice parts of the story,
it turns out women stopped using hairspray before these chemicals
(03:25):
were banned because they heard about the problem they thought, Okay,
I can live without hairspray. So that's kind of a
cool detail that people don't know about. But the biggest
part of it was that political leaders said, yes, we
have to act on this. And there was only really
one company that was responsible for most of the chlorinated
fluora carbons that were used in the world, and that
was DuPont, and they did the right thing. They listened
(03:48):
to their own scientists, they listened to the scientific evidence.
They're a very science based company, and they said, okay,
you know, we can survive as a company without these chemicals.
But the fossil fuel industry has responded almost the opposite.
They have said, we can't survive without these products, and
neither can you. And so they've told a story about
(04:09):
fossil fuel dependency, that there's no way to live without them,
that there's no other source of energy that's reliable, and
therefore we have to keep using these materials, no matter
how much harm they do.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Now, speaking of the public relations stances of the extractive
industries like that in the petroleum industries, I'm under the
assumption I'm not a scientist, I have no scientific background.
But I'm under the assumption that you don't even play
one on televisony. I don't even play one. I played
a surgeon, but that's about it. But are we ever
going to really be able to get rid of fossil fuels.
(04:43):
My friend said to me, you're not going to take
any chances and plug in the fire engine with the
police car, meaning we're going to always have to have
gas and petroleum based products for emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire
police so forth. You don't agree.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I don't think that's true. I think that's an example
of how effective this propaganda has been that even highly
intelligent people who care about the problem and who are
people of goodwill will say something like that because they've
been so bombarded by this message that renewable energy is
not reliable. But the reality is actually, ambulances electric vehicles,
first of all, are faster, They get places quicker, So
(05:20):
action electric vehicle is better as an ambulance than an
internal combustion engine, and most ambulance trips are short trips.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
You don't want to drive ten hours in an ambulance,
you want to drive ten minutes, and so actually that's
a place where electric vehicles work better. So the very
fact that people would think that we couldn't use electric
vehicles for ambulances is proof of how effective these propaganda
campaigns have been.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
If someone had the guts and the wisdom whether that
person was the president or this is obviously a federal issue,
or someone who was in the center of the House
to propose legislation. What's the first thing you think they
could do that's doable that they're not doing something that
could pass Maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess one of them would
be banning any further oil and guests development on public lands.
That's something that we've talked about, and there have been
moves in that direction. But you know, we've seen Biden,
on the one hand, work to prevent new leases on
public lands but also approve the Arctic National Wildlife drilling.
So there's been really mixed miss messages coming from Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Why do you think he did that?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, I don't know. I'm not a mind reader, but
you know, the pressure from the fossil fuel industry is relentless.
I think they were afraid that if they pulled back
on those leases, they would end up in court forever.
I think they probably think they're going to end up
in court anyway, so I think they actually think that
this won't actually happen, so that I think they're trying
to sort of play both sides of the political street,
(06:41):
and I think they're afraid. I think the fossil fuel
industry has been so effective in persuading us that we
can't live without fossil fuels, that we need those jobs,
that even Democrats like Joe Biden, who clearly understand the
issue on some level, are afraid to really do what
it would take to fix the problem. If we go
back to the bird Hegel Amendment, So if we go
(07:01):
back to the nineteen nineties, when the United States signed
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, So that was
signed by a Republican president, President George HW. Bush, and
had committed one hundred and ninety countries around the world
to taking steps to preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference in the
climate system, in other words, preventing climate change, preventing the
(07:23):
development of a climate crisis. So then that treaty was
a statement in principle, But then the question was, well,
how would you do that in practice? And the Kyoto
Protocol that was ratifiing Kyoto in nineteen ninety seven gave
specifics of how that would be done, binding emissions targets
for all the countries. The United States never ratified Kyoto,
(07:44):
and by that point we had a Democratic president, Bill Clinton,
so you might think, well, you know, aren't Democrats on
board on this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
What was his excuse?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, I think they were really afraid that the American
people thought it would cost jobs. And so the Bird
Hagel Amendment was passed in Congress. Robert Bird was a
Democrat from West Virginia, Chuck Hagel Republican from Oklahoma, both
fossil fuel states, and the resolution basically said the United
States would not agree to any treaty that would cost
(08:14):
American jobs. Now that was a real propaganda job, because
in fact, we know that renewable energy creates more jobs
than fossil fuels. Very difficult to export or outsource renewable
energy jobs. Solar installation has to be done at home,
can't be outsourced to China or India. So it was
part of the pr propaganda that fixing climate change would
(08:36):
damage the economy. And I think Democrats as well as
Republicans have been petrified of anything that the other side
could use to say, oh, but look, you cost those jobs,
even though right now in the United States today we
see ten new renewable energy jobs for every job in
the fossil fuel sector.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Interesting. That's amazing that you say that ten new renewable
energy jobs for everyone in traditional energy companies. That's amazing.
That alone makes it worth you coming on this show
just for me to disseminate that fact. Now, the aviation industry,
I do think about this from time to time, and
even years ago, I was thinking, you're looking up at
the sky and you're staring up at a plane going
(09:15):
through the clouds, and you're thinking, I think at one
point I checked a couple of years ago. I could
be wrong, but I think that they said that at
any given time commercial, private, and military aviation craft there
are one hundred and twenty five thousand of them airborne
at any given time in the sky, all day long.
What role do you think that the aviation industry plays
(09:37):
in climate change?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, we know it plays a huge role because a
huge proportion of carbon emissions carbon pollution comes from aviation,
and aviation is definitely a tough piece of this problem.
It's much easier to electrify cars than it is to
electrify aircraft, and I don't think most people think we'll
see a fully electrified air fleet anytime real soon. Bye biodiesel.
(10:01):
That's where biofuels come in, and biofuels are tricky. Some
of them are much better than others. There's a lot
of questions about biofuels, but I think it's pretty clear
that the aviation industry could work on biofuels. And that's
where you start getting into all kinds of questions about
government policy subsidies for fossil fuels. You like the statistic
about jobs, there's a similar statistic about subsidies for fossil fuels.
(10:24):
So the people who I argue with'd like to defend
the free market. They're opposed to government action in the marketplace.
They often will say the government shouldn't get involved, the
government shouldn't pick winners and losers. But the reality is
that for the last one hundred years, the US government
and governments around the globe have picked the winner, and
the winner they picked is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are
(10:45):
massively subsidized globally. It is not, by any stretch of
the imagination, a free market. So groups like the IMF
and the World Bank, not exactly left wing radical organizations,
estimate that direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry direct
subsidies are six to seven hundred billion dollars every single year,
(11:07):
just like there's more jobs in renewable energy for every
dollar that subsidizes renewable energy. And this is that these
numbers are shifting as we speak, so they may change,
but roughly speaking, for every dollar we spend on renewable energy,
there's about twenty dollars spent subsidizing fossil fuels. And that's
just subsidies, government subsidies, And that's just direct If we
(11:27):
take in the to affect.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
The military expenditures.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right, not including that, If we begin to take into
effect or into account military expenditures the health costs of
air pollution related to burning fossil fuels, then you're looking
at trillions of dollars. So the IMF estimates one point
five trillion dollars every single year.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, my friend said to me, if you were to
factor in the military budget to access oil in that
part of the world that we're obviously talking about, he
said to me, gas that the pump would be one
hundred dollars a gawn.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I think that's about right, and not to mention
all the American lives, lives that have been lost defending
oil and gas in the release defending oil and gas
accessing oil and gas accessing right. So the subsidies, both
in terms of dollars and in terms of human costs,
are just huge.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Now, you're not an activist. You're a scientist and you teach,
you're a professor, you're a historian, you're a writer, obviously,
but you're not an activist in the sense you're not
do you work with groups, you provide them with information
and research and knowledge, but you're not yourself. Are not
out there on the demonstration line.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, that's right. And this is a tricky issue because
for years, like a lot of academics, I resisted the
activist term because it's often used against people. It's often
used to say, you're not objective, you're not credible, you're emotional,
you're hysterical, you're a hysterical female. And so, as a
person who's dedicated my entire life to knowledge, science, history,
(12:51):
facts understanding, I certainly didn't want people to dismiss all
of the hard work I did as a thinker and
a writer just because I went on a picket line.
And I still don't really play that role. I don't
think that's the best role that I can play in
the world. But at the same time, I think about, well,
what's the opposite of activists A passiveist? I mean, I mean,
(13:15):
obviously not a PASSIVISTI passive. So do we want to
be passive in the face of a problem that is
threatening our health, our safety?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So what do you do?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So what do you do?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Right?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So you have to do you do? What do I
personally do? So I do what you just said, I
provide information to activists.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Who's consuming that information?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well, that's a good question, of course. As a writer,
I mean you know this, as an artist, you never
quite exactly know who's receiving your messages. But I mean,
we write books that have sold. Well, we're pretty Eric Conway,
are pretty proud that as academics we've written books that
are read by regular people. We do podcasts like this,
talk to people like you. You know, we do whatever
we can to get our message out to broad our audiences,
(13:58):
to speak broadly. Colin and I have spoken in forty
eight of the fifty state still waiting for an invitation
from Alabama, and based on the reason headlines, I don't
think that invitation is coming real soon, but we do
what we can to help people understand the issue, and
especially as we started this conversation, to understand the misinformation,
the lies, the propaganda, and the way our own views
(14:20):
of this issue have been distorted by fossil fuel and
free market propaganda.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
When we talk about activism and so forth, are there
organizations I'm not asking for an endorsement, obviously, you're obviously
very savvy about all this kind of stuff. I'm not
asking for an endorsement. But who's someone who you see
doing some great work other that you admire. What's an
organization that you think is effective.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Well, that's a great question, because again, politics are so complicated,
it's always hard to know exactly who's done what work,
has had what impacts. But I have always been a
big fan of Bill mckibbon because I think he does
speak truth to power effectively, because he's a person who
does so much homework to understand the science and the facts,
(15:05):
but also finds ways to talk about it that reach
millions of people. And he's also a beautiful writer, and
he finds ways to write about difficult topics in beautiful
and elegant ways. And I certainly think we know he's
been effective in reaching many people and persuading many people
of the importance of the climate problem. So he's certainly
someone I admire greatly.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Author Naomi Oreski's If you enjoy conversations digging into the
data behind climate change, check out my episode with oceanographer
doctor Peter Domenicau and climate scientist doctor Kate Marvel.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
The thing about climate change is that natural climate change
has happened before. We've seen little wobbles in the Earth's orbit,
and that happens on the timescale of hundreds and thousands
of years. And what we're seeing right now is climate
change that is quicker than anything that we have ever seen,
(16:04):
not the wobbles, and that it's not the wobbles, it's
not the sun, it's us. And it's so quick. It's
not even quick in geologic time, it's quick in actual time,
like we have seen changes in our lifetimes.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
To hear more of my conversation with doctors Domenical and Marvel,
go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Naomi Oreskies tells us why we need to shift how
we think about the natural world. I'm Alec Baldwin and
(16:43):
you're listening to Here's the Thing Naomi Oreskies is a
professor at Harvard University, a world renowned public speaker and
author of several books. Her work has been featured in
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Scientific America.
She's also surprisingly a Brown University dropout.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I was bored. I wanted to travel. I wanted to
see the world. So I went to England and I
re enrolled at the University of London and got my
degree there.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You also went to the Royal School of Minds. Correct, yes, Now,
of course my listeners will be a fascinat for you
to share with them. What is the Royal School of
Minds And what does one do there?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
One studies geology or mining engineering or material science. So
I was interested in geology. And the Royal School of
Mines was created the nineteenth century, and it was created
consciously as an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge. It was
created as a university that was meant to be open
to people regardless of their social background. So it's actually
a very radical institution at the time, and it had
(17:47):
one of the world's great geology programs. So I went
there and living in London was much more fun than
living in Providence, Rhode Island. No offense to my friends
in Rhode Island, but realistically province and nice town now
it's kind of a dump in those days. So we're
going back a while here. So yeah, London was fun.
I had a great time.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
How much time did you take off between Brown and London?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, I only took off a summer. I went to
London originally as on a junior year abroad, but then
I stayed, so I ended up spending three years in London,
and then I went to Australia, where I spent three
years working as a professional exploration geologist in Australia.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, what kind of work were you doing there?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was working on the evaluation of a large scale
or deposit, a polymetallic copper, uranium, gold, silver, and rare
earth element deposit, which is now who was funding this?
A private company? Was a private totally private sector operation.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
What were they trying to find? Minerals to market or correct?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, right, minerals to market? It was originally the goal
was copper. It was a copper expiration program. They found
something much different from what they were looking for, and
that was an interesting lesson in my early life that
what we find is not always what we go out
looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Of course, you're a woman and the superiod. Your life
spans not all of the feminist period or the beginnings
of what then was the modern feminist era. What was
it like for you working because you have that a
quote where you say, if you're a girl and you
can quote unquote do science, you'd be crazy not to.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, that's right. So there was definitely a lot of
social pressure, I think to go into science for me
and my generation.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Also.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I went to Stuyvesant High School, which was a math
and science oriented school, and my father was a scientist
and he believed strongly that science could make the world
a better place. So yes, if you were a girl
and you could do math, you definitely got encouraged to
go into science. And I think the work I do
now to work at the intersection of science, history, culture, politics,
(19:42):
really reflects the fact that I always had these other
broader interests, but nobody ever told me, well, nobody ever
told me you could earn a living as a historian
of science. So that was a great discovery.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
For someone that goes on and spends years of your
study involved with geology or related discipline. Were you as
a kid? Were you somebody was at the Museum of
Natural History all the time and be chunks those big
blobs of polished stones on your encounter.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and nature. I was the kind of kid who
collected bugs and jars, that kind of thing. Yeah, I've
always loved the natural world. I've always found the natural
world to be amazing and terrific. And just even looking
out at a tree and just thinking about, like, how
does a tree even do what it does? It's really
amazing when you stop and think about the natural world.
And that's one thing I think is so sad about
(20:30):
the world we live in now that it's so easy
to just go about your life not thinking about the
natural world. And so when people talk about climate change
threatening the existence of a million species on Earth, I
think for a lot of people it's hard for us
to get our heads around what that would mean, and
because we live lives that are so disconnected from nature.
But if you stop and think about a bird or
(20:52):
a tree, or even a rock or a coral reef,
you begin to appreciate what is really at stake here
and how important it is.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I think this idea that many Americans have a more
kind of limited view of certain things. They don't travel
to Europe. A lot of Americans, they don't get on
a plane. They don't want to see the world beyond
our borders. They don't get the chance to go and
see and do. Were you going to camps and things
like that where your family invested in getting you out
there to see everything?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, I mean, I think all New York families at
that time, if they could afford it, send you away
to summer camp. And that was for I think a
lot of us, that was our first encounter. Especially I
grew up in Manhattan, you know, the urban jungle. But
even in urban environments. I mean, I mentioned my father
was a scientist and we used to go to Central
Park all the time, and there's a lot of nature
in Central Park. There's a lot of beautiful plants, animals.
(21:41):
I mean, there's a lot more nature in the city
than most people realize. And I think, you know, the
whole thing about Americans is tricky because you know, I
don't want to sort of bash the American people, and
I think that most people have given the opportunity to
engage with nature, really do appreciate it. And we know
this is true in part because if you think about
the national parks, the national parks are americans favorite destinations
(22:03):
for vacations, and I mean we love them to death. Right,
some of them are too crowded because so many of
us visit, but that's really telling us something, Right, they
visit state parks, they go to aquaria and planetaria. I mean,
people love science and people love nature, and I think
most people, given the opportunity to engage, they want that.
And especially when you think about science, I mean a
(22:24):
lot of science, a lot of scientists don't take the
time to engage with people. A lot of scientists don't
take the time to think about how to explain science
in ways they're accessible. But again, if you look at
you know, what do people do on the weekends when
they have free time. Millions of Americans take their children's
to museums, to planetaria, to aquaria, and people love looking
(22:47):
at fish or learning about planets and stars. So it's
not that people aren't interested in science, and it's not
that there aren't lots of good people doing good work
to make science accessible. But I think when it comes
to something challenging like climate change, that's not just gee whiz,
see how beautifuls fish are, but is that well? But
we also have this problem with the way we live
and we're doing damage. That's a harder message. It's not
(23:09):
so much fun, and so we have to figure out
ways to communicate with people about something that's tough and difficult,
and that's never easy.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
When you talk about looking at a tree. I have
a house on Long Island. We're moving to a house
we have in Vermont. But when I'm at the beach
and I'm staring at the ocean in this kind of
be a tyfic way, and then the next thought to
me is how are we going to get all the
plastic out of this ocean? Right? It all gets kind
of ruined, which brings me to where petroleum industries are
(23:40):
obviously to blame for whatever emissions problems we have or
they contributed to that. They also are deeply involved in
plastics because plastics are based on petroleum. Do corporations like
Mobile and do corporations like other major oil producers and refiners,
do they make plastic themselves or they via petroleum to
(24:01):
plastics manufacturers.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Well, it's both. They do both. They partner with plastic
manufacturers and in some cases they manufacture plastics themselves, or
they manufacture the feedstocks for the plastic materials. So the
petroleum industry is very very closely associated with, implicated with,
and depends for a significant part of its profits on plastics.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
That to me is an issue because the more and
more I hear about this, the more and more I
hear about nanoplastics and all this stuff, the more and
more I watch online people trying, you know, distraining themselves,
killing themselves, trying to get plastic out of the water,
ocean clean up. I watch their website on Instagram and
they're like, you know, have the nets out there. You
(24:44):
hear about the Pacific garbage gyre, the things, the side
of whatever they say it is, it's the size of
Connecticut or Rhode Island or some damn thing, and it's
just the swirling vortex of plastic garbage out there. I'm
thinking to myself, for me, plastics occupy a place where
it's different than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels in my opinion,
(25:04):
but it have to be phased out gradually while you
build up a network to support electric whereas plastics is
like they should just ban plastic now, all of it
should be gone. Like, I don't know, if you like me.
I open a box. Inside that box is all those
styrofoam peanuts. I want to jump off the terrace of
my building.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, I feel the same way. No, I know, and
I think it's a Plastics is a really good thing
for us to talk about because many of us are
old enough to remember what it was like before everything
got plasticized. Right, And like anything in life, you can't
change everything overnight because you know, companies have strategies and
suppliers and supply chains and stuff, so none of that
can be changed instantly, but it could be changed pretty quickly.
(25:47):
And think about egg cartons, right, I mean, yes, why
are eggs in plastic? They don't need to be in plastic.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Backs or cardboard.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Cardboard works perfectly well. Or even tomatoes. Remember when we
were kids, tomatoes used to come these little cardboard boxes
with a little bit of sulifane over the top. Or
Brussels sprouts and little waxed cardboard containers. Remember those. So
we really do not need plastic in.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
The coded paper right now.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It is true that plastics are convenient, they are lightweight,
and so there's certainly some benefit in that, and we
know that the petroleum industry and its allies have worked
not just to persuade us to use more plastic, but
also to stop laws designed to help the transition. And
so around this country, when communities have tried to pass,
(26:33):
for example, ordinances against plastic bags, or ordinances saying that
shops would have to charge you if you ask for
a plastic bag, the fossil fuel industry and its allies
have been there fighting those ordinances. And so this is
again where we're up against, you know, big organizations that
are spending lots and lots of money to protect their
interests even though it harms the rest of us. And
(26:54):
I want to say, I think the word blame is
a legitimate word. Sometimes someone is to blame, and I
I think sometimes we have to talk about that. If
you don't like the word blame, we can talk about responsibility,
We can talk about accountability. But I don't know about you,
but my mother raised me to think that I was
responsible for my actions. So why should the fossil fuel
industry get off scot free for the responsibility for their actions?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Professor Naomi Oreskis, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Naomi Oreski shares what country gets
it right when it comes to energy policy. I'm Alec
(27:50):
Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the
sixties and seventies, plastics seem to be the solution to
all of life's problems. Fast forward to today, when plastic
is everywhere, takes hundreds of years to decompose, and is
rarely recycled. I wanted to know what Professor Naomi Oreski's
(28:11):
thinks about the potential of a biodegradable plastic.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You know, there's a lot of green washing in this space,
but there are compostable plastics, boundegradable plastics, and I do
you know, I've met some colleagues at places like MIT
who are working on that, and I think that's really
helpful because certainly we live in a world where we're
not going to eliminate packing materials overnight. So just like
we came up with substitutes for those chlorofluorocarbons we were
(28:37):
talking about earlier, we can come up with substitutes for plastics,
and there are compostable and biodegradable alternatives and we definitely
should be embracing those.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What are your thoughts about nuclear energy?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, I'm not a great fan.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And why well because I see it as.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Basically a technology that has been tested and failed, and
nuclear power is a very weird technology because people get
very irrational about it. And I don't mean the anti
nuclear people, I mean the pro nuclear people. So think
about it this way. The first civilian nuclear power plant
was built in United States in nineteen fifty four in Pennsylvania.
The promise that we were all told at that time
(29:14):
and this is now before too cheap to meter, as
cheap as the unmetered air, right, this promise of this
deliverance technology that was going to solve all of our
energy problems. So what really happened? And we know what
happened because we now have seventy five years of experience.
Nuclear power has proved to be the most expensive form
of energy generation. People don't like it, and not because
(29:37):
they're irrational, but because there is the possibility might be small,
but it's not zero, of a catastrophic accident might happened
at Fukushima. We've seen it now Fukushima, Chernobyl. I mean,
if you think about Chernobyl, hundreds of square miles of
areas that cannot be occupied by people because even now,
decades later, they are toxically lethally radioactive. This is a
(30:00):
highly dangerous technology, and one of the reasons it's expensive
is because it is so dangerous, you have to spend
so much money to try and make it safe. So
people's concerns about catastrophic accidents are not irrational, they're actually
fact based. So why do people keep pushing this technology.
It's expensive, it's dangerous, and we know here in the
(30:21):
United States we get about twenty percent of our electricity
from nuclears. That's not nothing. So I'm not saying they
all need to be shut down tomorrow, but as a
solution to the climate crisis, why would you do that
when you have cheaper, safer, nicer technologies that people like cleaner,
I mean better on every level. So the only thing
(30:43):
I can come up with about nuclear power is that
even though the dream of power too cheap to meter
was disproved, right, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And continues to be disproved right.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And it continues to be just bro, this is still
this like techno fy deist hope that somehow the miracle
technology that solves all our prompts. And I think, yeah,
thorium reactors, fourth generation or fusion. Right, we saw this
last year with all the hype about I mean, that
to me was just astonishing, and it just showed how
much this is a kind of religion, a technofideist religion.
(31:16):
Because the fusion, I mean you probably read about it
was in all the newspapers, on the front page of
many papers about this breakthrough in fusion. So what was
the breakthrough? You know, less than one second of fusion
energy generation less than one second. So even though from
a scientific standpoint that was good, it was something. But
we are still decades, decades away, maybe centuries from being
(31:40):
able to use fusion for power, and yet respectable newspapers
like the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal
talked about this as a potential solution to the climate crisis.
So the evidence, the facts just don't support nuclear power.
Countries that have it, like France. I'm not saying they
need to shut it all down tomorrow. I don't think
that is the case, but even France, that's just the
only country in the world that has ever generated the
(32:02):
lion's share of its power from nuclear power, and even
in France they've backed away from it somewhat for a
variety of reasons.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
What do they do with the spend fuel in France.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
No one has entirely sorted out to spend fuel ross.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Even there, they don't have an answer.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
No, they have some programs, it gets kind of technical.
They do something called vitrification, where you turn the waste
into glass, and that's a pretty decent solution, but it's
very expensive. We've never adopted virtu ocification here in the
United States. But here's the other thing about nuclear power, well,
two more things. So it takes a really long time
to build a nuclear power plant, typically at least ten years,
(32:37):
often fifteen. So we have this climate crisis, we know
we have to phase out fossil fuel use in the
next ten twenty at most thirty years. So we can't
build a whole fleet of nuclear reactors in that amount
of time. And where would we put them. Most places
in the United States aren't suitable for nuclear actors. You
can't put them in places that are tectonically active, you
(33:00):
can't put them on the West coast. They need tons
of water. You can't put them in the south West.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I read, I've read things. I mean, I've been deeply
involved with this issue since nineteen ninety six. The Brookhaven
Laboratory where they had the high flex being reactor there
that we helped to shut down. We were involved heavily
with Oyster Creek, New Jersey, Toms River getting that licensed.
Indian point of course, near New York, we were reading
articles about you know this, every time you turn around,
(33:26):
a Sloane type business champion would get up there and say, well,
we're going to have these smaller reactors now. They wanted
them like mailboxes on the corner of every neighborhood want.
They wanted them like every mile and a half in
some area. I think myself, are you kidding me? But
like you said, no water or no none of the resources.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
They generally right, and the advocates say they just brush
away or that. You'll see if you read the arguments
by pro nuclear people, they almost never discussed the waste.
They just kind of waved away, and they almost never
discussed the nuclear proliferation problem, which gets worse if the
reactors get smaller. Right, more reactors more opportunities for theft
of nuclear materials, you know, as in a story of science.
One of the things I sometimes do when I interview famous,
(34:08):
great scientists, I'll ask them, so, what do you worry about?
What do you lie awake at night? And I can
remember some years ago Injuring, a very very famous scientist
who said, I worry about all the nuclear material from
the Soviet Union, that we don't know where it is
right right.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
The last thing I'll say about the nuke situation is
it always irked me, As I said, I was deeply
involved in this, It always irked me that their proponents
would always use that word clean energy, that phase. They say, well,
you remember now here in the fossil fuels and pollution
and global warming, nuclear energy is clean energy. And I
was like, well, nuclear fuel rods don't grow on the
(34:45):
nuclear fuel rod tree. And they picked them off like
you're in some grove somewhere. They have to be refined,
like it piked in Ohio and other places where the
gaseous diffusion plants were to make fissionable material for reactors.
Now that process is one of the dirtiest and most
fouling processes known to man. To make that once you
(35:05):
turn the thing on, maybe it's clean energy. I would
argue that, but I do think there is ambient radiation
near every reactor, and they always have whenever possible because
of this group I worked with has studied this whenever possible,
they'd cite those reactors near where there was a cross
contamination from something else. Right, they put Tom's River on
a site where Union Carbide and see Bagagi were pumping
(35:26):
plastic products right into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, there's a great book about that, Dan Fagan's book
on Tom's River, If and if your listeners are interested,
that's a must read book about the long history of
companies dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, into the ocean, and
into the ground.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
What's a country you believe is getting it right in
terms of their at least their approach. They might not
be winning, but they're trying.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, well, no country is getting it entirely right, but
certainly Denmark with its aggressive supportive wind power. Denmark is
now producing so much wind power that's exporting wind power
to Sweden, Norway, and the largest wind power company in
Denmark used to be a gas company. So that's a
really nice example of how it is possible for corporations
to change. It is possible for corporations to do the
(36:11):
right thing and say, look, we can still earn money,
we can still make a profit, we can still generate jobs,
but we can do it in a way that's healthier
and more productive for our people.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
What kind of work do your daughters do.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
One of my daughters is getting a PhD in information science.
She's interested in algorithmic fairness and justice. And my other
daughter is a lawyer in New York City.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
What are you worried about for them in.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The near term? I would say American democracy. That's kind
of seems like the obvious the oh that right, that
obvious immediate threat, you know, you know, if I could
just say one more thing on the nuclear power thing.
Getting back to France, So, as I said earlier, France
is the only country on the planet that has ever
generated the lion's share of its electricity from nuclear about
seventy to eighty percent. But they didn't do it in
(36:54):
a free market. They did it in a nationalized electricity system,
in which the government's specified how it would be done,
what the designs would be like, who would do it.
So this is the other thing that I think is
so ironic about the pro nuclear people in the United States.
If you ask them that question, so are you prepared
to nationalize the electricity industry in the United States? I
(37:16):
don't think that most of them would say yes to
that question.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Americans, in my mind, are people who, you know, the comfort,
the privilege, the lifestyle of the American life is what
controls their everyday decision making. You know, am I really ugly?
When I get ugly about it? I'm like, you know,
you give Americans a frappuccina, want to attack a gas
in their suv or they're good to go. They don't
really need They don't need to know. This is a
Chernobyl esque site in this country in Hanford. Did you
(37:43):
go to Hanford, Washington where they build all those where
they did a lot of this bomb manufacturing and stuff.
All they know is that Oppenheimer is nominated for an oscar. Now,
you said twenty five years, thirty years at the outside
to really find the cure. Here In New York, Hurricane
Sandy came I live downtown the area that I live
(38:05):
and flooded and the power was out and everybody in
the building had to not everybody but the people who
were available would sign a schedule were you were greed
to help the elderly people in the building who couldn't
go out and get their prescriptions, that couldn't take the elevator,
walk their dogs, get their groceries, on and on and on,
pick up their dry cleaning. Does Manhattan itself have to
be underwater? Does the subway system have to be flooded
(38:27):
and it's not leaving, it's not going, It can't be
pumped out. It's a subterranean system. Does the Manhattan subway
system have to be flooded and you can't use it anymore?
And all those people, as you know, in the economy
in this city, who rely on public transportation to get
to work, millions every day in and out. What happens
when that system is gone? And number two, do you believe?
(38:47):
And this is critical to me, this is one of
the main reasons I wanted you on the show, is
do you believe there's such a thing as too late?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, I'll take the second question first. As long as
we're living and breathing thinking, it's never too late, right,
We're all here, and ultimately this is kind of a
fight for justice. Right, This is really a fight about
people getting hurt in a way through no fault in
their own right. I mean, maybe some small fault because
we've all used fossil fuels, but we've been the victims
(39:16):
of a massive disinformation campaign. We've been the victims of
organized efforts to stop action to prevent more climate damage.
And so no, it's never too late as long as
we're living and breathing to fight back and to try
to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Do you think that recycling is a placebo that people
are wasting their time?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
No, I don't think it's a waste of time. I
mean I actually think that in a way, recycling is
at the core of the whole question, because it's really
about our use of material resources. Right, It's not just
about fossil fuels. It's about, as we've said about plastics,
about material consumption of all kinds, all the metals, the minerals,
the things I used to work on, cons and everything.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
So, ultimately, if we want to live in relationship with
the planet and not destroy all the other living things
and turn the planet into a monoculture dominated by invasive humans,
we have to figure out a different way of consuming,
using materials and so recycling large not just recycling your paper,
(40:17):
but actually read what some people call the circular economy,
some different way of thinking about economics, that we don't
just use things and throw them away, but we find
a way to make everything I mean, for lack of
a better word, more ecological, to think about the fact
that we do live in an ecosystem and life on
Earth will not be good if we don't figure out
(40:38):
a way to do it differently.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
But so again this is me staring at the ocean
and spit bawling. All my environmental policies, one of mine
was to do some research and very serious, copious research
on finding out what fits the bill here, but to
access decommissioned military bases around the country and turn them
into recycling centers great jobs, great job, yes, and have
(41:00):
them will find out where they're adjacent to train stations
and trains to whatever, or if we have to build
some train lines to go a little bit further where
it's economically feasible, and just start taking strategically, you know,
in eight sections of the country and start having the
United States government get into the recycling business in a
big way. To start pulling this stuff out of the
way stream you teach, and you've started. You've been with
(41:23):
Harvard now twenty thirteen, so that's tennis years. Now. Where'd
you teach before that?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
University of California.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
San Diego UCSD for how long?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Fifteen years?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
You've been teaching for over twenty five years? How have
the students change in the fields that you teach?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Oh, students have changed a lot. And it's been very
interesting to see. Ten years ago my students thought I was.
I was much more radical than I thought I was.
Now my students want me to be more radical. I
mean ten years ago, none of my students were talking
about capitalism. Now they all are, and they're all really
seriously thinking about this question. I mean, capitalism as currently practiced,
(41:58):
to sort of throw away and humorous materialist version of
it that we operate deregularized, financialized, globalized, is not serving
us right. It's not delivering what we want right. We
don't want to just have stuff. We want to be
happy and we want to be healthy, and we're not
actually getting that out of our economic system. And my
students are very aware of that now. So it's been
really interesting to see how they're challenging me much more
(42:22):
strongly than even five years ago to really radically rethink
these questions of economics and why we're quibbling that's not right,
and especially with the whole throwaway economy, right. I mean,
I do think I've thought about this a lot. I
dream of a time one hundred years from now when
no one would defend throwing things away.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Well, here's the last thing I'll ask you. You talk
about the remedy for you. The medication for you is
the outdoors and to experience the outdoors on some intense level.
Are there ever any consequences for you emotionally of doing
this work? You have to face a lot of tough facts,
and you spend your writing in articles and you're writing books.
(43:02):
Your big myth is a thick book that's a doorstop
er in my house. Boy, I've I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
One, and it's a big book for a big topic.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's it exactly. But I'm saying, you do this work
and that takes years of your energy and facing down
all these things. Does it ever get to you at times? Oh?
You're safe?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I mean, of course it does. I mean I
feel like the hardest part is when you feel like
you're staring into the heart of darkness. I mean sometimes
there are times when I think, and people ask me
this all the time. They say, how these people sleep
at night? I mean, how people can do these things
that they know are hurting other people and yet somehow
rationalize and explain it away. So, yeah, that is hard,
(43:40):
but a big part of the work is trying to
understand how people do that in order to change it.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
What's your next trip? You're going on your next nature trip?
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Well, like I said, I just bought this properly in
New York State, so I'm planning to spend a little
time here and I'm really looking forward to springtime. As
these beautiful trees I'm looking out on we'll begin to bud.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
As a part of the world of them. Then, who
you want to go to I haven't.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Been to Antarctica. I really want to go there, and
I am taking a group of students to Svalbart in June.
I've never seen the Arctic. I've always wanted to. I've
always been kind of in love with snow and ice,
so I'm finally have the opportunity to go to the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Well many thanks to you I'm very grateful to you
for doing the show. This was really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
My thanks to Naomi Oreski's. This episode was produced by
Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's
the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio
(45:00):
the Time, by account to
This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. Wildfires and water shortages, storms and
sea level rise, droughts and ice sheet melting. The relentless
stream of doomsday climate news and the often conflicting political
and corporate responses can be both dizzying and disheartening. My
(00:26):
guest today, professor, historian and earth scientist Naomi oreskis is
here to get down to the brass tacks of the situation.
Orescues is clear about how capitalism has failed us and
how corporations have gas lit us when it comes to
critical issues of public health and our climate's future. She
(00:48):
is the co author, along with Eric Conway, of Merchants
of Doubt, How a handful of scientists Obscure the truth
on issues from tobacco smoke to global war. Their latest
book is The Big Myth, How American Business taught Us
to loathe government and love the free Market. I wanted
(01:08):
to get her perspective on a climate issue that has
faded from the headlines, the depletion of the ozone layer.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So the ozone layer is recovering because of work that
scientists did to explain how a particular group of chemicals,
the so called chlorinated fluorocarbons, were destroying stratospheric ozone and
what that meant for the future of life on Earth.
And people listened, politicians listened, corporations listened, and the world's
leaders signed the United Nations Montreal pro cal on substances
(01:40):
that deplete stratospheric ozone, and so those chemicals were banned.
We stopped using them, and because we stopped using them,
the problem was solved.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So for people who don't know, I mean, and there
are a lot of people listening to the show who
don't really know, because it's such a complicated issue. If
the ozone layers fixed white, we still have climate.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Change, two different problems. So the ozone layer was about
ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Stratasviagozone protects us from UV light,
and we all know if you get too much UV
light you get a sunburn. But if you've got a
lot of UV you could actually die, you get cataracts,
you could be burnt to a crisp. So that's an
example where the world listened to scientific evidence and acted
(02:22):
on scientific evidence. And it's a super important example because
it shows it is possible for us to respond to knowledge,
to respond for information, and act in a rational way.
But climate change has played out very differently because in
this case, the corporations and invested interests who are responsible
for the problem, instead of accepting the science, they have
(02:43):
fought it tooth and nail, and they've been fighting it
for nearly forty years now thirty five year or something
like that. So the political and the cultural and social
response to the scientific evidence of climate change has been
one hundred and eighty degrees different than the response we
head to the Ozone hole.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Disinformation and invested interest? So the thing about the ozone
story is that even though the chemicals involved were very
useful chemicals, they were used primarily for refrigeration, also in
aerosols like hairspray. Hairspray was something we could all live without,
and in fact, one of the nice parts of the story,
it turns out women stopped using hairspray before these chemicals
(03:25):
were banned because they heard about the problem they thought, Okay,
I can live without hairspray. So that's kind of a
cool detail that people don't know about. But the biggest
part of it was that political leaders said, yes, we
have to act on this. And there was only really
one company that was responsible for most of the chlorinated
fluora carbons that were used in the world, and that
was DuPont, and they did the right thing. They listened
(03:48):
to their own scientists, they listened to the scientific evidence.
They're a very science based company, and they said, okay,
you know, we can survive as a company without these chemicals.
But the fossil fuel industry has responded almost the opposite.
They have said, we can't survive without these products, and
neither can you. And so they've told a story about
(04:09):
fossil fuel dependency, that there's no way to live without them,
that there's no other source of energy that's reliable, and
therefore we have to keep using these materials, no matter
how much harm they do.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Now, speaking of the public relations stances of the extractive
industries like that in the petroleum industries, I'm under the
assumption I'm not a scientist, I have no scientific background.
But I'm under the assumption that you don't even play
one on televisony. I don't even play one. I played
a surgeon, but that's about it. But are we ever
going to really be able to get rid of fossil fuels.
(04:43):
My friend said to me, you're not going to take
any chances and plug in the fire engine with the
police car, meaning we're going to always have to have
gas and petroleum based products for emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire
police so forth. You don't agree.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I don't think that's true. I think that's an example
of how effective this propaganda has been that even highly
intelligent people who care about the problem and who are
people of goodwill will say something like that because they've
been so bombarded by this message that renewable energy is
not reliable. But the reality is actually, ambulances electric vehicles,
first of all, are faster, They get places quicker, So
(05:20):
action electric vehicle is better as an ambulance than an
internal combustion engine, and most ambulance trips are short trips.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
You don't want to drive ten hours in an ambulance,
you want to drive ten minutes, and so actually that's
a place where electric vehicles work better. So the very
fact that people would think that we couldn't use electric
vehicles for ambulances is proof of how effective these propaganda
campaigns have been.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
If someone had the guts and the wisdom whether that
person was the president or this is obviously a federal issue,
or someone who was in the center of the House
to propose legislation. What's the first thing you think they
could do that's doable that they're not doing something that
could pass Maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess one of them would
be banning any further oil and guests development on public lands.
That's something that we've talked about, and there have been
moves in that direction. But you know, we've seen Biden,
on the one hand, work to prevent new leases on
public lands but also approve the Arctic National Wildlife drilling.
So there's been really mixed miss messages coming from Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Why do you think he did that?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, I don't know. I'm not a mind reader, but
you know, the pressure from the fossil fuel industry is relentless.
I think they were afraid that if they pulled back
on those leases, they would end up in court forever.
I think they probably think they're going to end up
in court anyway, so I think they actually think that
this won't actually happen, so that I think they're trying
to sort of play both sides of the political street,
(06:41):
and I think they're afraid. I think the fossil fuel
industry has been so effective in persuading us that we
can't live without fossil fuels, that we need those jobs,
that even Democrats like Joe Biden, who clearly understand the
issue on some level, are afraid to really do what
it would take to fix the problem. If we go
back to the bird Hegel Amendment, So if we go
(07:01):
back to the nineteen nineties, when the United States signed
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, So that was
signed by a Republican president, President George HW. Bush, and
had committed one hundred and ninety countries around the world
to taking steps to preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference in the
climate system, in other words, preventing climate change, preventing the
(07:23):
development of a climate crisis. So then that treaty was
a statement in principle, But then the question was, well,
how would you do that in practice? And the Kyoto
Protocol that was ratifiing Kyoto in nineteen ninety seven gave
specifics of how that would be done, binding emissions targets
for all the countries. The United States never ratified Kyoto,
(07:44):
and by that point we had a Democratic president, Bill Clinton,
so you might think, well, you know, aren't Democrats on
board on this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
What was his excuse?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, I think they were really afraid that the American
people thought it would cost jobs. And so the Bird
Hagel Amendment was passed in Congress. Robert Bird was a
Democrat from West Virginia, Chuck Hagel Republican from Oklahoma, both
fossil fuel states, and the resolution basically said the United
States would not agree to any treaty that would cost
(08:14):
American jobs. Now that was a real propaganda job, because
in fact, we know that renewable energy creates more jobs
than fossil fuels. Very difficult to export or outsource renewable
energy jobs. Solar installation has to be done at home,
can't be outsourced to China or India. So it was
part of the pr propaganda that fixing climate change would
(08:36):
damage the economy. And I think Democrats as well as
Republicans have been petrified of anything that the other side
could use to say, oh, but look, you cost those jobs,
even though right now in the United States today we
see ten new renewable energy jobs for every job in
the fossil fuel sector.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Interesting. That's amazing that you say that ten new renewable
energy jobs for everyone in traditional energy companies. That's amazing.
That alone makes it worth you coming on this show
just for me to disseminate that fact. Now, the aviation industry,
I do think about this from time to time, and
even years ago, I was thinking, you're looking up at
the sky and you're staring up at a plane going
(09:15):
through the clouds, and you're thinking, I think at one
point I checked a couple of years ago. I could
be wrong, but I think that they said that at
any given time commercial, private, and military aviation craft there
are one hundred and twenty five thousand of them airborne
at any given time in the sky, all day long.
What role do you think that the aviation industry plays
(09:37):
in climate change?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, we know it plays a huge role because a
huge proportion of carbon emissions carbon pollution comes from aviation,
and aviation is definitely a tough piece of this problem.
It's much easier to electrify cars than it is to
electrify aircraft, and I don't think most people think we'll
see a fully electrified air fleet anytime real soon. Bye biodiesel.
(10:01):
That's where biofuels come in, and biofuels are tricky. Some
of them are much better than others. There's a lot
of questions about biofuels, but I think it's pretty clear
that the aviation industry could work on biofuels. And that's
where you start getting into all kinds of questions about
government policy subsidies for fossil fuels. You like the statistic
about jobs, there's a similar statistic about subsidies for fossil fuels.
(10:24):
So the people who I argue with'd like to defend
the free market. They're opposed to government action in the marketplace.
They often will say the government shouldn't get involved, the
government shouldn't pick winners and losers. But the reality is
that for the last one hundred years, the US government
and governments around the globe have picked the winner, and
the winner they picked is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are
(10:45):
massively subsidized globally. It is not, by any stretch of
the imagination, a free market. So groups like the IMF
and the World Bank, not exactly left wing radical organizations,
estimate that direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry direct
subsidies are six to seven hundred billion dollars every single year,
(11:07):
just like there's more jobs in renewable energy for every
dollar that subsidizes renewable energy. And this is that these
numbers are shifting as we speak, so they may change,
but roughly speaking, for every dollar we spend on renewable energy,
there's about twenty dollars spent subsidizing fossil fuels. And that's
just subsidies, government subsidies, And that's just direct If we
(11:27):
take in the to affect.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
The military expenditures.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right, not including that, If we begin to take into
effect or into account military expenditures the health costs of
air pollution related to burning fossil fuels, then you're looking
at trillions of dollars. So the IMF estimates one point
five trillion dollars every single year.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, my friend said to me, if you were to
factor in the military budget to access oil in that
part of the world that we're obviously talking about, he
said to me, gas that the pump would be one
hundred dollars a gawn.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I think that's about right, and not to mention
all the American lives, lives that have been lost defending
oil and gas in the release defending oil and gas
accessing oil and gas accessing right. So the subsidies, both
in terms of dollars and in terms of human costs,
are just huge.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Now, you're not an activist. You're a scientist and you teach,
you're a professor, you're a historian, you're a writer, obviously,
but you're not an activist in the sense you're not
do you work with groups, you provide them with information
and research and knowledge, but you're not yourself. Are not
out there on the demonstration line.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, that's right. And this is a tricky issue because
for years, like a lot of academics, I resisted the
activist term because it's often used against people. It's often
used to say, you're not objective, you're not credible, you're emotional,
you're hysterical, you're a hysterical female. And so, as a
person who's dedicated my entire life to knowledge, science, history,
(12:51):
facts understanding, I certainly didn't want people to dismiss all
of the hard work I did as a thinker and
a writer just because I went on a picket line.
And I still don't really play that role. I don't
think that's the best role that I can play in
the world. But at the same time, I think about, well,
what's the opposite of activists A passiveist? I mean, I mean,
(13:15):
obviously not a PASSIVISTI passive. So do we want to
be passive in the face of a problem that is
threatening our health, our safety?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So what do you do?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So what do you do?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Right?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So you have to do you do? What do I
personally do? So I do what you just said, I
provide information to activists.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Who's consuming that information?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Well, that's a good question, of course. As a writer,
I mean you know this, as an artist, you never
quite exactly know who's receiving your messages. But I mean,
we write books that have sold. Well, we're pretty Eric Conway,
are pretty proud that as academics we've written books that
are read by regular people. We do podcasts like this,
talk to people like you. You know, we do whatever
we can to get our message out to broad our audiences,
(13:58):
to speak broadly. Colin and I have spoken in forty
eight of the fifty state still waiting for an invitation
from Alabama, and based on the reason headlines, I don't
think that invitation is coming real soon, but we do
what we can to help people understand the issue, and
especially as we started this conversation, to understand the misinformation,
the lies, the propaganda, and the way our own views
(14:20):
of this issue have been distorted by fossil fuel and
free market propaganda.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
When we talk about activism and so forth, are there
organizations I'm not asking for an endorsement, obviously, you're obviously
very savvy about all this kind of stuff. I'm not
asking for an endorsement. But who's someone who you see
doing some great work other that you admire. What's an
organization that you think is effective.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Well, that's a great question, because again, politics are so complicated,
it's always hard to know exactly who's done what work,
has had what impacts. But I have always been a
big fan of Bill mckibbon because I think he does
speak truth to power effectively, because he's a person who
does so much homework to understand the science and the facts,
(15:05):
but also finds ways to talk about it that reach
millions of people. And he's also a beautiful writer, and
he finds ways to write about difficult topics in beautiful
and elegant ways. And I certainly think we know he's
been effective in reaching many people and persuading many people
of the importance of the climate problem. So he's certainly
someone I admire greatly.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Author Naomi Oreski's If you enjoy conversations digging into the
data behind climate change, check out my episode with oceanographer
doctor Peter Domenicau and climate scientist doctor Kate Marvel.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
The thing about climate change is that natural climate change
has happened before. We've seen little wobbles in the Earth's orbit,
and that happens on the timescale of hundreds and thousands
of years. And what we're seeing right now is climate
change that is quicker than anything that we have ever seen,
(16:04):
not the wobbles, and that it's not the wobbles, it's
not the sun, it's us. And it's so quick. It's
not even quick in geologic time, it's quick in actual time,
like we have seen changes in our lifetimes.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
To hear more of my conversation with doctors Domenical and Marvel,
go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Naomi Oreskies tells us why we need to shift how
we think about the natural world. I'm Alec Baldwin and
(16:43):
you're listening to Here's the Thing Naomi Oreskies is a
professor at Harvard University, a world renowned public speaker and
author of several books. Her work has been featured in
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Scientific America.
She's also surprisingly a Brown University dropout.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I was bored. I wanted to travel. I wanted to
see the world. So I went to England and I
re enrolled at the University of London and got my
degree there.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You also went to the Royal School of Minds. Correct, yes, Now,
of course my listeners will be a fascinat for you
to share with them. What is the Royal School of
Minds And what does one do there?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
One studies geology or mining engineering or material science. So
I was interested in geology. And the Royal School of
Mines was created the nineteenth century, and it was created
consciously as an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge. It was
created as a university that was meant to be open
to people regardless of their social background. So it's actually
a very radical institution at the time, and it had
(17:47):
one of the world's great geology programs. So I went
there and living in London was much more fun than
living in Providence, Rhode Island. No offense to my friends
in Rhode Island, but realistically province and nice town now
it's kind of a dump in those days. So we're
going back a while here. So yeah, London was fun.
I had a great time.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
How much time did you take off between Brown and London?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, I only took off a summer. I went to
London originally as on a junior year abroad, but then
I stayed, so I ended up spending three years in London,
and then I went to Australia, where I spent three
years working as a professional exploration geologist in Australia.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, what kind of work were you doing there?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was working on the evaluation of a large scale
or deposit, a polymetallic copper, uranium, gold, silver, and rare
earth element deposit, which is now who was funding this?
A private company? Was a private totally private sector operation.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
What were they trying to find? Minerals to market or correct?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, right, minerals to market? It was originally the goal
was copper. It was a copper expiration program. They found
something much different from what they were looking for, and
that was an interesting lesson in my early life that
what we find is not always what we go out
looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Of course, you're a woman and the superiod. Your life
spans not all of the feminist period or the beginnings
of what then was the modern feminist era. What was
it like for you working because you have that a
quote where you say, if you're a girl and you
can quote unquote do science, you'd be crazy not to.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, that's right. So there was definitely a lot of
social pressure, I think to go into science for me
and my generation.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Also.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I went to Stuyvesant High School, which was a math
and science oriented school, and my father was a scientist
and he believed strongly that science could make the world
a better place. So yes, if you were a girl
and you could do math, you definitely got encouraged to
go into science. And I think the work I do
now to work at the intersection of science, history, culture, politics,
(19:42):
really reflects the fact that I always had these other
broader interests, but nobody ever told me, well, nobody ever
told me you could earn a living as a historian
of science. So that was a great discovery.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
For someone that goes on and spends years of your
study involved with geology or related discipline. Were you as
a kid? Were you somebody was at the Museum of
Natural History all the time and be chunks those big
blobs of polished stones on your encounter.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and nature. I was the kind of kid who
collected bugs and jars, that kind of thing. Yeah, I've
always loved the natural world. I've always found the natural
world to be amazing and terrific. And just even looking
out at a tree and just thinking about, like, how
does a tree even do what it does? It's really
amazing when you stop and think about the natural world.
And that's one thing I think is so sad about
(20:30):
the world we live in now that it's so easy
to just go about your life not thinking about the
natural world. And so when people talk about climate change
threatening the existence of a million species on Earth, I
think for a lot of people it's hard for us
to get our heads around what that would mean, and
because we live lives that are so disconnected from nature.
But if you stop and think about a bird or
(20:52):
a tree, or even a rock or a coral reef,
you begin to appreciate what is really at stake here
and how important it is.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I think this idea that many Americans have a more
kind of limited view of certain things. They don't travel
to Europe. A lot of Americans, they don't get on
a plane. They don't want to see the world beyond
our borders. They don't get the chance to go and
see and do. Were you going to camps and things
like that where your family invested in getting you out
there to see everything?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, I mean, I think all New York families at
that time, if they could afford it, send you away
to summer camp. And that was for I think a
lot of us, that was our first encounter. Especially I
grew up in Manhattan, you know, the urban jungle. But
even in urban environments. I mean, I mentioned my father
was a scientist and we used to go to Central
Park all the time, and there's a lot of nature
in Central Park. There's a lot of beautiful plants, animals.
(21:41):
I mean, there's a lot more nature in the city
than most people realize. And I think, you know, the
whole thing about Americans is tricky because you know, I
don't want to sort of bash the American people, and
I think that most people have given the opportunity to
engage with nature, really do appreciate it. And we know
this is true in part because if you think about
the national parks, the national parks are americans favorite destinations
(22:03):
for vacations, and I mean we love them to death. Right,
some of them are too crowded because so many of
us visit, but that's really telling us something, Right, they
visit state parks, they go to aquaria and planetaria. I mean,
people love science and people love nature, and I think
most people, given the opportunity to engage, they want that.
And especially when you think about science, I mean a
(22:24):
lot of science, a lot of scientists don't take the
time to engage with people. A lot of scientists don't
take the time to think about how to explain science
in ways they're accessible. But again, if you look at
you know, what do people do on the weekends when
they have free time. Millions of Americans take their children's
to museums, to planetaria, to aquaria, and people love looking
(22:47):
at fish or learning about planets and stars. So it's
not that people aren't interested in science, and it's not
that there aren't lots of good people doing good work
to make science accessible. But I think when it comes
to something challenging like climate change, that's not just gee whiz,
see how beautifuls fish are, but is that well? But
we also have this problem with the way we live
and we're doing damage. That's a harder message. It's not
(23:09):
so much fun, and so we have to figure out
ways to communicate with people about something that's tough and difficult,
and that's never easy.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
When you talk about looking at a tree. I have
a house on Long Island. We're moving to a house
we have in Vermont. But when I'm at the beach
and I'm staring at the ocean in this kind of
be a tyfic way, and then the next thought to
me is how are we going to get all the
plastic out of this ocean? Right? It all gets kind
of ruined, which brings me to where petroleum industries are
(23:40):
obviously to blame for whatever emissions problems we have or
they contributed to that. They also are deeply involved in
plastics because plastics are based on petroleum. Do corporations like
Mobile and do corporations like other major oil producers and refiners,
do they make plastic themselves or they via petroleum to
(24:01):
plastics manufacturers.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Well, it's both. They do both. They partner with plastic
manufacturers and in some cases they manufacture plastics themselves, or
they manufacture the feedstocks for the plastic materials. So the
petroleum industry is very very closely associated with, implicated with,
and depends for a significant part of its profits on plastics.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
That to me is an issue because the more and
more I hear about this, the more and more I
hear about nanoplastics and all this stuff, the more and
more I watch online people trying, you know, distraining themselves,
killing themselves, trying to get plastic out of the water,
ocean clean up. I watch their website on Instagram and
they're like, you know, have the nets out there. You
(24:44):
hear about the Pacific garbage gyre, the things, the side
of whatever they say it is, it's the size of
Connecticut or Rhode Island or some damn thing, and it's
just the swirling vortex of plastic garbage out there. I'm
thinking to myself, for me, plastics occupy a place where
it's different than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels in my opinion,
(25:04):
but it have to be phased out gradually while you
build up a network to support electric whereas plastics is
like they should just ban plastic now, all of it
should be gone. Like, I don't know, if you like me.
I open a box. Inside that box is all those
styrofoam peanuts. I want to jump off the terrace of
my building.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, I feel the same way. No, I know, and
I think it's a Plastics is a really good thing
for us to talk about because many of us are
old enough to remember what it was like before everything
got plasticized. Right, And like anything in life, you can't
change everything overnight because you know, companies have strategies and
suppliers and supply chains and stuff, so none of that
can be changed instantly, but it could be changed pretty quickly.
(25:47):
And think about egg cartons, right, I mean, yes, why
are eggs in plastic? They don't need to be in plastic.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Backs or cardboard.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Cardboard works perfectly well. Or even tomatoes. Remember when we
were kids, tomatoes used to come these little cardboard boxes
with a little bit of sulifane over the top. Or
Brussels sprouts and little waxed cardboard containers. Remember those. So
we really do not need plastic in.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
The coded paper right now.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It is true that plastics are convenient, they are lightweight,
and so there's certainly some benefit in that, and we
know that the petroleum industry and its allies have worked
not just to persuade us to use more plastic, but
also to stop laws designed to help the transition. And
so around this country, when communities have tried to pass,
(26:33):
for example, ordinances against plastic bags, or ordinances saying that
shops would have to charge you if you ask for
a plastic bag, the fossil fuel industry and its allies
have been there fighting those ordinances. And so this is
again where we're up against, you know, big organizations that
are spending lots and lots of money to protect their
interests even though it harms the rest of us. And
(26:54):
I want to say, I think the word blame is
a legitimate word. Sometimes someone is to blame, and I
I think sometimes we have to talk about that. If
you don't like the word blame, we can talk about responsibility,
We can talk about accountability. But I don't know about you,
but my mother raised me to think that I was
responsible for my actions. So why should the fossil fuel
industry get off scot free for the responsibility for their actions?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Professor Naomi Oreskis, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Naomi Oreski shares what country gets
it right when it comes to energy policy. I'm Alec
(27:50):
Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the
sixties and seventies, plastics seem to be the solution to
all of life's problems. Fast forward to today, when plastic
is everywhere, takes hundreds of years to decompose, and is
rarely recycled. I wanted to know what Professor Naomi Oreski's
(28:11):
thinks about the potential of a biodegradable plastic.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You know, there's a lot of green washing in this space,
but there are compostable plastics, boundegradable plastics, and I do
you know, I've met some colleagues at places like MIT
who are working on that, and I think that's really
helpful because certainly we live in a world where we're
not going to eliminate packing materials overnight. So just like
we came up with substitutes for those chlorofluorocarbons we were
(28:37):
talking about earlier, we can come up with substitutes for plastics,
and there are compostable and biodegradable alternatives and we definitely
should be embracing those.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What are your thoughts about nuclear energy?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, I'm not a great fan.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And why well because I see it as.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Basically a technology that has been tested and failed, and
nuclear power is a very weird technology because people get
very irrational about it. And I don't mean the anti
nuclear people, I mean the pro nuclear people. So think
about it this way. The first civilian nuclear power plant
was built in United States in nineteen fifty four in Pennsylvania.
The promise that we were all told at that time
(29:14):
and this is now before too cheap to meter, as
cheap as the unmetered air, right, this promise of this
deliverance technology that was going to solve all of our
energy problems. So what really happened? And we know what
happened because we now have seventy five years of experience.
Nuclear power has proved to be the most expensive form
of energy generation. People don't like it, and not because
(29:37):
they're irrational, but because there is the possibility might be small,
but it's not zero, of a catastrophic accident might happened
at Fukushima. We've seen it now Fukushima, Chernobyl. I mean,
if you think about Chernobyl, hundreds of square miles of
areas that cannot be occupied by people because even now,
decades later, they are toxically lethally radioactive. This is a
(30:00):
highly dangerous technology, and one of the reasons it's expensive
is because it is so dangerous, you have to spend
so much money to try and make it safe. So
people's concerns about catastrophic accidents are not irrational, they're actually
fact based. So why do people keep pushing this technology.
It's expensive, it's dangerous, and we know here in the
(30:21):
United States we get about twenty percent of our electricity
from nuclears. That's not nothing. So I'm not saying they
all need to be shut down tomorrow, but as a
solution to the climate crisis, why would you do that
when you have cheaper, safer, nicer technologies that people like cleaner,
I mean better on every level. So the only thing
(30:43):
I can come up with about nuclear power is that
even though the dream of power too cheap to meter
was disproved, right, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And continues to be disproved right.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And it continues to be just bro, this is still
this like techno fy deist hope that somehow the miracle
technology that solves all our prompts. And I think, yeah,
thorium reactors, fourth generation or fusion. Right, we saw this
last year with all the hype about I mean, that
to me was just astonishing, and it just showed how
much this is a kind of religion, a technofideist religion.
(31:16):
Because the fusion, I mean you probably read about it
was in all the newspapers, on the front page of
many papers about this breakthrough in fusion. So what was
the breakthrough? You know, less than one second of fusion
energy generation less than one second. So even though from
a scientific standpoint that was good, it was something. But
we are still decades, decades away, maybe centuries from being
(31:40):
able to use fusion for power, and yet respectable newspapers
like the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal
talked about this as a potential solution to the climate crisis.
So the evidence, the facts just don't support nuclear power.
Countries that have it, like France. I'm not saying they
need to shut it all down tomorrow. I don't think
that is the case, but even France, that's just the
only country in the world that has ever generated the
(32:02):
lion's share of its power from nuclear power, and even
in France they've backed away from it somewhat for a
variety of reasons.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
What do they do with the spend fuel in France.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
No one has entirely sorted out to spend fuel ross.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Even there, they don't have an answer.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
No, they have some programs, it gets kind of technical.
They do something called vitrification, where you turn the waste
into glass, and that's a pretty decent solution, but it's
very expensive. We've never adopted virtu ocification here in the
United States. But here's the other thing about nuclear power, well,
two more things. So it takes a really long time
to build a nuclear power plant, typically at least ten years,
(32:37):
often fifteen. So we have this climate crisis, we know
we have to phase out fossil fuel use in the
next ten twenty at most thirty years. So we can't
build a whole fleet of nuclear reactors in that amount
of time. And where would we put them. Most places
in the United States aren't suitable for nuclear actors. You
can't put them in places that are tectonically active, you
(33:00):
can't put them on the West coast. They need tons
of water. You can't put them in the south West.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I read, I've read things. I mean, I've been deeply
involved with this issue since nineteen ninety six. The Brookhaven
Laboratory where they had the high flex being reactor there
that we helped to shut down. We were involved heavily
with Oyster Creek, New Jersey, Toms River getting that licensed.
Indian point of course, near New York, we were reading
articles about you know this, every time you turn around,
(33:26):
a Sloane type business champion would get up there and say, well,
we're going to have these smaller reactors now. They wanted
them like mailboxes on the corner of every neighborhood want.
They wanted them like every mile and a half in
some area. I think myself, are you kidding me? But
like you said, no water or no none of the resources.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
They generally right, and the advocates say they just brush
away or that. You'll see if you read the arguments
by pro nuclear people, they almost never discussed the waste.
They just kind of waved away, and they almost never
discussed the nuclear proliferation problem, which gets worse if the
reactors get smaller. Right, more reactors more opportunities for theft
of nuclear materials, you know, as in a story of science.
One of the things I sometimes do when I interview famous,
(34:08):
great scientists, I'll ask them, so, what do you worry about?
What do you lie awake at night? And I can
remember some years ago Injuring, a very very famous scientist
who said, I worry about all the nuclear material from
the Soviet Union, that we don't know where it is
right right.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
The last thing I'll say about the nuke situation is
it always irked me, As I said, I was deeply
involved in this, It always irked me that their proponents
would always use that word clean energy, that phase. They say, well,
you remember now here in the fossil fuels and pollution
and global warming, nuclear energy is clean energy. And I
was like, well, nuclear fuel rods don't grow on the
(34:45):
nuclear fuel rod tree. And they picked them off like
you're in some grove somewhere. They have to be refined,
like it piked in Ohio and other places where the
gaseous diffusion plants were to make fissionable material for reactors.
Now that process is one of the dirtiest and most
fouling processes known to man. To make that once you
(35:05):
turn the thing on, maybe it's clean energy. I would
argue that, but I do think there is ambient radiation
near every reactor, and they always have whenever possible because
of this group I worked with has studied this whenever possible,
they'd cite those reactors near where there was a cross
contamination from something else. Right, they put Tom's River on
a site where Union Carbide and see Bagagi were pumping
(35:26):
plastic products right into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, there's a great book about that, Dan Fagan's book
on Tom's River, If and if your listeners are interested,
that's a must read book about the long history of
companies dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, into the ocean, and
into the ground.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
What's a country you believe is getting it right in
terms of their at least their approach. They might not
be winning, but they're trying.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, well, no country is getting it entirely right, but
certainly Denmark with its aggressive supportive wind power. Denmark is
now producing so much wind power that's exporting wind power
to Sweden, Norway, and the largest wind power company in
Denmark used to be a gas company. So that's a
really nice example of how it is possible for corporations
to change. It is possible for corporations to do the
(36:11):
right thing and say, look, we can still earn money,
we can still make a profit, we can still generate jobs,
but we can do it in a way that's healthier
and more productive for our people.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
What kind of work do your daughters do.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
One of my daughters is getting a PhD in information science.
She's interested in algorithmic fairness and justice. And my other
daughter is a lawyer in New York City.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
What are you worried about for them in.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The near term? I would say American democracy. That's kind
of seems like the obvious the oh that right, that
obvious immediate threat, you know, you know, if I could
just say one more thing on the nuclear power thing.
Getting back to France, So, as I said earlier, France
is the only country on the planet that has ever
generated the lion's share of its electricity from nuclear about
seventy to eighty percent. But they didn't do it in
(36:54):
a free market. They did it in a nationalized electricity system,
in which the government's specified how it would be done,
what the designs would be like, who would do it.
So this is the other thing that I think is
so ironic about the pro nuclear people in the United States.
If you ask them that question, so are you prepared
to nationalize the electricity industry in the United States? I
(37:16):
don't think that most of them would say yes to
that question.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Americans, in my mind, are people who, you know, the comfort,
the privilege, the lifestyle of the American life is what
controls their everyday decision making. You know, am I really ugly?
When I get ugly about it? I'm like, you know,
you give Americans a frappuccina, want to attack a gas
in their suv or they're good to go. They don't
really need They don't need to know. This is a
Chernobyl esque site in this country in Hanford. Did you
(37:43):
go to Hanford, Washington where they build all those where
they did a lot of this bomb manufacturing and stuff.
All they know is that Oppenheimer is nominated for an oscar. Now,
you said twenty five years, thirty years at the outside
to really find the cure. Here In New York, Hurricane
Sandy came I live downtown the area that I live
(38:05):
and flooded and the power was out and everybody in
the building had to not everybody but the people who
were available would sign a schedule were you were greed
to help the elderly people in the building who couldn't
go out and get their prescriptions, that couldn't take the elevator,
walk their dogs, get their groceries, on and on and on,
pick up their dry cleaning. Does Manhattan itself have to
be underwater? Does the subway system have to be flooded
(38:27):
and it's not leaving, it's not going, It can't be
pumped out. It's a subterranean system. Does the Manhattan subway
system have to be flooded and you can't use it anymore?
And all those people, as you know, in the economy
in this city, who rely on public transportation to get
to work, millions every day in and out. What happens
when that system is gone? And number two, do you believe?
(38:47):
And this is critical to me, this is one of
the main reasons I wanted you on the show, is
do you believe there's such a thing as too late?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, I'll take the second question first. As long as
we're living and breathing thinking, it's never too late, right,
We're all here, and ultimately this is kind of a
fight for justice. Right, This is really a fight about
people getting hurt in a way through no fault in
their own right. I mean, maybe some small fault because
we've all used fossil fuels, but we've been the victims
(39:16):
of a massive disinformation campaign. We've been the victims of
organized efforts to stop action to prevent more climate damage.
And so no, it's never too late as long as
we're living and breathing to fight back and to try
to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Do you think that recycling is a placebo that people
are wasting their time?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
No, I don't think it's a waste of time. I
mean I actually think that in a way, recycling is
at the core of the whole question, because it's really
about our use of material resources. Right, It's not just
about fossil fuels. It's about, as we've said about plastics,
about material consumption of all kinds, all the metals, the minerals,
the things I used to work on, cons and everything.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
So, ultimately, if we want to live in relationship with
the planet and not destroy all the other living things
and turn the planet into a monoculture dominated by invasive humans,
we have to figure out a different way of consuming,
using materials and so recycling large not just recycling your paper,
(40:17):
but actually read what some people call the circular economy,
some different way of thinking about economics, that we don't
just use things and throw them away, but we find
a way to make everything I mean, for lack of
a better word, more ecological, to think about the fact
that we do live in an ecosystem and life on
Earth will not be good if we don't figure out
(40:38):
a way to do it differently.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
But so again this is me staring at the ocean
and spit bawling. All my environmental policies, one of mine
was to do some research and very serious, copious research
on finding out what fits the bill here, but to
access decommissioned military bases around the country and turn them
into recycling centers great jobs, great job, yes, and have
(41:00):
them will find out where they're adjacent to train stations
and trains to whatever, or if we have to build
some train lines to go a little bit further where
it's economically feasible, and just start taking strategically, you know,
in eight sections of the country and start having the
United States government get into the recycling business in a
big way. To start pulling this stuff out of the
way stream you teach, and you've started. You've been with
(41:23):
Harvard now twenty thirteen, so that's tennis years. Now. Where'd
you teach before that?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
University of California.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
San Diego UCSD for how long?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Fifteen years?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
You've been teaching for over twenty five years? How have
the students change in the fields that you teach?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Oh, students have changed a lot. And it's been very
interesting to see. Ten years ago my students thought I was.
I was much more radical than I thought I was.
Now my students want me to be more radical. I
mean ten years ago, none of my students were talking
about capitalism. Now they all are, and they're all really
seriously thinking about this question. I mean, capitalism as currently practiced,
(41:58):
to sort of throw away and humorous materialist version of
it that we operate deregularized, financialized, globalized, is not serving
us right. It's not delivering what we want right. We
don't want to just have stuff. We want to be
happy and we want to be healthy, and we're not
actually getting that out of our economic system. And my
students are very aware of that now. So it's been
really interesting to see how they're challenging me much more
(42:22):
strongly than even five years ago to really radically rethink
these questions of economics and why we're quibbling that's not right,
and especially with the whole throwaway economy, right. I mean,
I do think I've thought about this a lot. I
dream of a time one hundred years from now when
no one would defend throwing things away.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Well, here's the last thing I'll ask you. You talk
about the remedy for you. The medication for you is
the outdoors and to experience the outdoors on some intense level.
Are there ever any consequences for you emotionally of doing
this work? You have to face a lot of tough facts,
and you spend your writing in articles and you're writing books.
(43:02):
Your big myth is a thick book that's a doorstop
er in my house. Boy, I've I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
One, and it's a big book for a big topic.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's it exactly. But I'm saying, you do this work
and that takes years of your energy and facing down
all these things. Does it ever get to you at times? Oh?
You're safe?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I mean, of course it does. I mean I
feel like the hardest part is when you feel like
you're staring into the heart of darkness. I mean sometimes
there are times when I think, and people ask me
this all the time. They say, how these people sleep
at night? I mean, how people can do these things
that they know are hurting other people and yet somehow
rationalize and explain it away. So, yeah, that is hard,
(43:40):
but a big part of the work is trying to
understand how people do that in order to change it.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
What's your next trip? You're going on your next nature trip?
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Well, like I said, I just bought this properly in
New York State, so I'm planning to spend a little
time here and I'm really looking forward to springtime. As
these beautiful trees I'm looking out on we'll begin to bud.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
As a part of the world of them. Then, who
you want to go to I haven't.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Been to Antarctica. I really want to go there, and
I am taking a group of students to Svalbart in June.
I've never seen the Arctic. I've always wanted to. I've
always been kind of in love with snow and ice,
so I'm finally have the opportunity to go to the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Well many thanks to you I'm very grateful to you
for doing the show. This was really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
My thanks to Naomi Oreski's. This episode was produced by
Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's
the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio
(45:00):
the Time, by account to
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