Welcome to Star Talk.

You're a place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

Star Talk begins right now.

This is Star Talk.

I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist.

Today's topic is nuclear winter.

You might have remembered that from some decades ago, old-timers word.

That came out and it changed geopolitics.

People realizing that not only are there no winners in a nuclear exchange, and maybe

all of life on Earth would be rendered extinct.

You've got with me, of course, my co-host, Chuck Knies, Chuck.

Hey, Neil, how are you?

Yeah, good, good, good.

Like, I was around and cognizant in watching news stories and science stories when this

was a big deal because we were still in the Cold War.

So why are we going there?

Because there's a place called the Future of Life Institute that gives an annual award

to people who, by their actions or their research or decisions or their influence, have

managed to preserve civilization in ways we should all be thankful.

And we have on today's program two of this year's recipients of that award for their

participation in the Nuclear Winter Project.

We first have Professor Brian Tune, who we're going to get to in our second segment.

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