The World Is on Fire. Here’s a Realistic Plan to Save Humanity.

Plain English with Derek Thompson

The Ringer

News Commentary, News

4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The world is on fire. In southern Europe, wildfires are streaking from Portugal to Greece. In the U.K., airport runways melted as temperatures exceeded 103 degrees for the first time on record. In the U.S. this week, about one in five Americans are living in a place that will be even hotter than the U.K.’s historic mark. And what is our government doing about it? Pretty close to nothing. But if you look behind these headlines, there’s something very interesting happening. In the past decade, the price of solar electricity has declined by 90 percent. The efficiency of lithium-ion batteries has increased by 90 percent. Per-capita emissions in the U.S. have declined by a quarter since 2005, falling all the way to levels not seen since 1960. These are technological revolutions worth building on. But they will require that Americans get over their allergy to new construction. And build. Today’s guest is David Wallace-Wells, a writer for The New York Times and the author of the bestseller 'The Uninhabitable Earth.' In this episode, we talk about the future of a hot world, the science of heat, the depressing state of climate policy in Washington, the more hopeful state of climate technology and global adaptation, the end of old-fashioned environmentalism, and the future of a new climate movement. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: David Wallace-Wells Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS?
0:04.2	Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host,
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0:15.2	Amelia, how stoked are you to do this?
0:17.4	Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show,
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0:50.4	Today, the world is on fire. In southern Europe, literal wildfires are streaking from Portugal to Greece.
1:00.4	In the UK, airport runways have melted as temperatures exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit
1:07.2	for the first time in the country's history, going back more than 500 years on record.
1:15.4	In the US this week, about one in five Americans are living in a place that will be even hotter
1:20.9	than 104 degrees, the UK's historic mark. So what are we doing about it?
1:26.8	Well, there's the Senate, which is doing close to nothing.
1:30.8	There's the EPA, which according to the latest Supreme Court decision, can do close to nothing.
1:36.6	If you turn on the news on TV, the radio, especially if it's a left-leaning show,
1:42.4	a show that takes climate change capital S seriously, what you'll hear is probably some kind of
1:49.2	familiar ritual. A grief and anguish about the state of the world. Comments about how this can't
1:55.1	keep happening. This can't keep happening. This is the most important story on the planet.
2:01.0	And then you know what happens next. The wild thing is, you know that several months from now,
	...

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