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Climate One

Our Greatest Unintended Experiment

Climate One

Climate One

Social Sciences, News Commentary, Science, Earth Sciences, News

4.7585 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2022

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For years, scientists, activists, and politicians have tried to warn the world of the potential catastrophic consequences of dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: Think of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. Or NASA scientist James Hansens’ testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1988, in which he said that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.” Or go all the way back to 1856, when Eunice Newton Foote first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide could send global temperatures soaring.  Writer and climate campaigner Alice Bell lays out the history of evolving climate science and our forays into different energy technologies in Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis. Despite our current emissions trajectory, Bell says there’s still reason to hope: “We have been left a lot of opportunities and we still have got some time to seize them.” Guests: Alice Bell, climate campaigner, author, Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis Meera Subramanian, environmental journalist  Katerina Gonzales, climate scientist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

AI is incredible. They can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem, pirate style.

0:07.0

But it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the facts.

0:14.0

It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief and it doesn't need to be taught.

0:20.0

Because Slackbot isn't just another

0:22.4

AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit Slack.com forward slash meet Slackbot to learn more.

0:30.2

Hi, it's Greg Dalton. I'd like to hear your comments on the show, topics we should cover and guest

0:35.5

suggestions. You can reach me at Greg at

0:37.8

climate one.org. This is Climate One. I'm Greg Dalton. Scientists have been studying the

0:45.2

climate for 170 years through different frames. Up until really Second World War, when people

0:51.8

did look at global warming and did look at the role that carbon dioxide

0:55.9

could play, they generally thought it would be a good thing. Over time, scientists and the public

1:00.8

began to recognize the risks of too much CO2. I sometimes talk about the history of climate science,

1:06.4

being less about a eureka moment and more about a series of oh no moments. And that oh no gets kind of

1:12.5

deeper and more distressing as the late 20th century goes on. Our understanding of atmospheric

1:18.4

and climate sciences has evolved over the last century and a half, thanks to the work of many

1:23.4

different people. Today we explore some of that history with Alice Bell, a climate

1:28.0

campaigner based in London, an author of the book Our Biggest Experiment, an epic

1:33.2

history of the climate crisis. She opens with the story of Eunice Newton Foote,

1:38.0

who conducted an experiment on her windowsill 160 years ago. She compared the

1:43.3

density and temperature of atmospheric gases

1:46.1

and two glass cylinders. One was filled with common air, the other with carbon dioxide.

1:52.0

She discovered that CO2 grew hotter and took longer to cool down. Bell talked with Climate

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