Brand new problem? Fake news? Yeah, no!! More like should be totally obvious, is super real, and has been attempted to be hidden for literal decades!!
Climate change may seem like a thoroughly modern problem, but scientists have been exploring the question of the earth’s climate for over a hundred years. And while early theories may have been more concerned with predicting ice ages and the outcome of volcanic eruptions some things they discovered still hold up today.
History is the story of human nature. What we choose to pursue, whose voices we value, all of that. Knowing that we knew early and didn’t do anything just goes to show that you can have all the information, perfect science, but it doesn’t really matter if people aren’t willing to listen to it. So the next big question is: how do you get people to listen? And why do they choose not to sometimes?
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, how everything will unfold, if robots will save us, or if we find a way to connect back to nature, but I’m more sure than I ever have been, that we’re not out of time…that we can handle it…Together.
This episode features conversations with:
Nathaniel Rich
Nathaniel is an awesome writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His book Losing Earth: A Recent History is all about the existence of the scientific evidence for global warming for decades and the reasons why we collectively failed to listen to it.
Twitter: @nathanielrich | New York Times archive
Dr. Greg Slater
Greg is a Professor at Mc Master’s School of Geography & Earth Sciences. His research focuses on understanding the fate and transport of organic compounds, organic contaminants in particular, in the environment and on the microbial processes which control carbon cycling in both contaminated and natural environments. The common theme in his research is to understand the fundamental processes that control the environment around us and the impact that life, including industrial society, has on the environment and vice versa.
