I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, April 22nd.

Today is Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, everybody, and we are fortunate to have with us right now

three leading scientists and communicators about science. In the media, we all say,

follow the science, right? And then most of the time we talk to politicians. So this should be a

treat as well as maybe even legit. And it comes on a morning when President Biden is holding

a virtual climate summit with world leaders and just committed to the most aggressive U.S.

climate goals yet to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030. Now, my calculator app

tells me that's just nine years from now, so some things are going

to have to change fast, but the president didn't say what. Maybe our guest can give us a clue.

With me now, Laura Helmuth, editor-in-chief of Scientific American. She was previously the

Science and Health Editor for the Washington Post and president of the National Association of Science Writers.

Sir David King, a chemist who has held many prominent positions, including chief scientific advisor to the government of the U.K., special representative for climate change to the U.K. Foreign Secretary, like our Secretary of State,

chair of the Physical Chemistry Department at Cambridge, and much more. Sir David was knighted

for his accomplishments back in 2003. And Dr. Asmeret Azafaw Burhay, professor of soil biogeochemistry at the University of California at Merced.

She specializes in research on how soil helps regulate the climate and how the effects of the

warm and climate, like more severe wildfires and droughts, and an earlier spring, affects soil

and the food produced for people who depend on it.

She was also a member of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Millennial Ecosystem Assessment

in 2005, which forecast rising poverty in parts of the world based on degradation of ecosystems

because of warming.

And last year, she won the Carnegie Corporation's Great Immigrants Award.

So Laura Helmuth, Sir David King, and Dr. Asmerit Asafal-Burhe, welcome all of you to WNYC.

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