Caution: Fragile!

On the Media

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The start of a new year is a time to look both forward and back. On this week’s On the Media, hear how facing our climate’s fragility could inspire hope, instead of despair. Plus, a physicist explains how creation stories help us understand our place in the universe.

1. Luke Kemp [@LukaKemp], a Research Associate at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, on a new study that says we need to put more attention on the possibility of human extinction and other climate catastrophes. Bryan Walsh [@bryanrwalsh], editor of Vox’s ‘Future Perfect,’ also explains why our brains have a hard time processing catastrophes like climate change. Listen.

2. Mark Blyth [@MkBlyth], professor of International Economics and Public Affairs at Brown University, on how the economy is ultimately a mirror of our accomplishments, advances, fears, and mistakes. Listen.3. Guido Tonelli, a particle physicist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, on the importance of creation myths, and what scientists can tell us about the fragility of the universe. Listen.

Music in this week's show:Merkabah - John ZornCarmen Fantasy - Anderson & RoeThe Stone - The ChieftainsSuite for Solo Cello No. 6 in D Major (Bach) - Yo Yo MaSentimental Journey - The Sydney Dale OrchestraPeace Piece (Bill Evans) - Kronos QuartetLove Theme from Spartacus - Yusef Lateef

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Climate Apocalypse, it's gonna get worse.
0:03.6	This is on the media, I'm Brick Gladstone.
0:06.0	On this week's show, the tender frailty of the systems that govern our planet, our economy,
0:11.6	and the cosmos that contains it all.
0:13.8	We can't look at climate change in isolation, from everything else going on the world.
0:18.8	In equality, misinformation, new destructive weapons, the modernization of our nuclear arsenals,
0:24.4	societal fragility, writ large.
0:26.4	Science tells us that there is an inner fragility in the entire universe.
0:32.2	We share the same fragility.
0:34.8	You remember maybe 10, 15 years ago, you get together with your friends in a nice summer night,
0:39.4	and you'd be sitting outside and you'd make each other laugh and you'd have a few drinks and it'd be great.
0:44.6	And the point was to crack each other up.
0:47.2	And now when we get together, we also around the Mego.
0:51.0	Perhaps we have passed some line that will be impossible to come back from, but that hasn't happened yet.
0:56.0	Life, the universe, and everything after this.
1:00.4	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.
1:03.6	I'm Brick Gladstone.
1:05.2	This week is we take our first fall-turning steps into 2023 and taking the week off to do it.
1:11.6	We decided to contextualize what we're facing by pulling some favorite segments that reveal much about the fragility of our systems,
1:21.4	the ones that govern the economy, the environment, and even the cosmos.
1:26.8	How else to reckon with the future?
1:29.6	How about by starting with the planet over the last 365 days?
	...

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