Natural Disaster Expert: Elites Have NO PLAN for Climate Collapse | Aaron Bastani meets Bill McGuire

If things carry on at the rate they are now, the rate of heating that we'll be seeing large numbers of deaths later this century, 3° C by 2050 is perfectly possible. So you then you're looking at five or six degrees by the end of this century >> and that's when it's going to be very very hard for human civilization to carry on. >> Well, you know, a number of analyses have suggested societal and economic breakdown anytime from the 2040s. >> [music] >> There's a great line from Ernest Hemingway, one of the best lines in English speaking literature of the last hundred years, I think, where he talks about going bankrupt. It happens gradually and then all at once. Over the course of the last few months, looking at the weather in this country, how dry it's been, how hot it's been, that's kind of how I feel about climate change. I'm sure for many of you out there, you've had the same feeling as well. Politicians and journalists often think in terms of minutes, hours, days, weeks, when really they need to be thinking in terms of years, decades. Certainly, for a problem as big and as long-term as climate change. In fact, today's guest thinks in the longest possible terms, he's passionate about geology. Now, bear in mind, our planet is about 4.6 billion years old. It's had many fluctuations in terms of climate. On the one hand, that provides sucker for climate change deniers. They say it's always got warmer. It's always got colder. The planet changes. On the other hand, the past can give us clues about what will change when we have higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. How much warmer will it get? How high will sea levels rise? Today's guest has thought about all of this stuff for decades. He's a vulcanologist. He is highly credentialed in that world, but also climate change too. Increasingly over the late 1990s and early 2000s, that's where he focused his attention. What he calls climate systems breakdown. He published this book a few years ago, Hot House Earth, an Inhabitants Guide. I really recommend it. It's 160 pages, really worth your time. And more recently, The Fate of the World, a history and future of the climate crisis. Of course, you can see Bill Maguire. Here are his credentials. They really stack up. Bill is a professor emiratus of geohysical and climate hazards at University College London, a co-director of the new weather institute and a patron of scientists for global responsibility. He was a member of SAGE, the science advisory group in emergencies. Now, when somebody with that kind of CV tells you that you should be even more alarmed about climate change than you already are, you should probably pay attention. We know this is a problem. We know it's a crisis. But I think we also know over the last few months that things are probably developing even more quickly than the most frightened, alarming voices feared. of Bill Magcguire. Thanks for coming on downstream. >> Thanks very much, Aaron. Great to be here. >> I am so looking forward to this episode. And I often say that at the start of these conversations, and it's often true, but I think with you, this is going to be a fabulous conversation because you're an authority on so many things. So, we're going to talk about climate change, but also by training, you're a volcanologist. >> I am. Yes. I started my life on volcanoes, active volcanoes. Well, not my life, obviously. my career. Um, and I went from there into looking at how climate and the solid earth interact and then from there into more of climate science. So, it's a sort of journey that lasted about 20 years or so. So, when did you study to become a vulcanologist? >> Well, I as a kid I was always keen on geology and fossils and rocks and this sort of thing. So, um, thinking about what to do next. On the one hand, because it was in the late 1960s, I wanted to be an astronaut obviously as people did then. Uh but my maths wasn't good enough. So I decided to do geology instead. So I went to university, did a first degree in geology. [snorts] Um I was still mad on space. So I wanted to do a PhD involving planetary geology. I wanted to look at uh Martian images or the moon and look at those in terms of interpreting them in uh in terms of geological processes if you like. Um but again nothing much came up. And then I was offered an opportunity to work on Mount Etner in Sicily. Um which I took and had a absolutely fantastic time. I mean eating pasta, drinking red wine and looking at rocks. So what more could you want in the sun? >> And when was this your sort of turn towards vulcanology? >> That well that would have been when was that? 1977 to 1980. I did my PhD and then after that I went into lecturing and I was teaching in geology generally and also uh specializing in volcanology, volcanoes, volcanic hazards particularly. >> We're going to talk about volcanoes and super volcanoes in a minute. Um but I think this is just as a chronology worth working out because it's a microcosm of a broader story. So this passion for geology um and volcanic disturbances when does that then become a broader interest in things like climate science, climate warming? Well, probably in the late 1990s, I think, when there was no when climate breakdown was becoming much more obvious and people getting really concerned about it because I'll have to admit in the, you know, the in the 1980s is not something I thought about a great deal. But as it became more uh in your face, if you like, then it was something that I turned to thinking, well, you know, how do maybe volcanoes and a change in climate interact? How do earthquakes and climate interact? And it was about the late 90s early 2000s that I got into that. And it was a time when the European Commission were giving quite big research grants to look at some of these areas. So we had one for example um in the late '9s to look at the relationship between Mediterranean sea level change due to climate variations and volcanic activity. And there is a there is a nice link there. So you know it began around about then and it progressed over the next 20 years or so. on volcanoes. Some people might know you from various documentaries you did around this time, the late 1990s. Tell me about them. >> Yeah, there were two in particular. There was in 1999 there was super volcano which is re really the first time people became familiar with that term and it focused largely on Yellowstone in the United States and what the potential for that to erupt in the future was. Uh and then the following year we made mega tsunami wave of destruction which was about um a North Atlantic mega tsunami and that's based upon research uh at the time which we undertook on the Canary Island of La Palma where you have a huge chunk of rock maybe up to 500 cubic kilometers which dropped a little bit in 1949 during an eruption and it's now just moving very slowly but at some point that whole lot will go into the North Atlantic and trigger a major tsunami up to a kilometer high to start with >> a kilome high. >> Kilome. Yes. Cuz originally it will produce this huge bulge of water and that would gradually die down to just a few hundred meters high. >> So when is this going to happen? >> We don't know. I mean hundreds of years, thousands of years even. >> Hundreds of years though. I mean that's quite soon, isn't it? >> Yeah. Well, you know, it could be next year. We don't we have no idea. It's it's creeping slowly. The last time we monitored it, which was in the the early 2000s, it was still creeping very slowly. But then these things catastrophically fail. I mean giant volcanic landslides are found at volcanoes all over the world. Ocean Island volcanoes. Hawaii is surrounded by these huge landslide deposits and generated that generated waves which hit California for example in the in prehistoric times. So they common but on average around the planet they happen maybe every 10,000 years or so. [snorts] But that is common you know geologically speaking. >> I mean there's that Hemingway quote right about going bankrupt gradually than all at once. >> Yes. Well, that's like a volcanic landslide. It's like lots of landslides actually. They creep and then there's that final trigger that sets them off. Um, so in terms of La Palma and the volcano which is called the Kumbra of Veka, it could be any time, but that anytime could be thousands of years in the future or it could be uh a few years time. There was a big eruption there a couple of years ago and we were slightly worried. Um, but nothing much happened. What's the volcanic disturbance/c catastrophe that we're most underpricing right now? What's the thing that you think, my goodness, this could happen and it could really harm kill a lot of people and we don't even talk about it? >> Well, I mean, people are always on about Yellowstone and that gets so much attention, but it's not showing any particular signs of erupting. Uh there's a lot of magma down there, but it's not all joined up. You know, it all has to be joined up to come out in one go. At the moment it's in patches here and there. But there are a couple of other big volcanoes in South America which are swelling and which have had huge eruptions in the past. One of them is Utarungu in Bolivia. Another another one is Laguna Delmala in Chile. So those are two volcanoes I always tell people to keep an eye on. I mean they're not imminently going to do anything but you know the magma's there. It's quite shallow. the volcanoes are swelling and it's something that I tell people they need to keep an eye on. And the other ones in Europe in Naples um not Vuvius but Campy Flegre which is uh a volcanic cordier a huge crater um that sometimes produces colossal eruptions sometimes produces very small ones and over the last 50 60 years it's been swelling and subsiding swelling and subsiding and in recent years it's just been swelling and swelling and swelling and now you're getting earthquake activity. There was a magnitude 4.7 there recently I think. Um it's called Campify Fleer Flegrine Fields and that could have an eruption almost at any time. Wow. >> And that's right in the middle effectively of Naples, you know. So it's not a good place. >> Are our sort of political class and governing elites? I mean you talked a moment ago about funding right towards the start of the millennium about you know about this sort of stuff from the European Union, European Commission and whatnot. Is it like independence day? you know, is there a plan from Brussels and Paris and Rome that if that volcano goes off, there's a response, it's coordinated, people know what they have to do. >> Well, do you think that'd be a good idea? But absolutely [laughter] not. There are no plans whatsoever. I mean in um after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, uh Tony Blair set up a a natural hazards working group. Uh David King ran it and I was on it and we produced a report about major geohysical events that could affect lots of countries. Um and we made recommendations. We said, you know, there should be people should be keeping an eye on certain things. They should be monitoring. there should be plans in place about what to do and um nothing much happened for a while and then I can't remember how this happened but somebody said oh the the UN would be very interested in taking this forward so it disappeared into the United Nations machinery in 2006 or something and it was never seen again. So no, that would have been a great idea to have a a global geohysical hazards database for the really big ones. Um so that at least people in the countries and that would be affected the government so people knew what risks there were and what the chances of those things happening. But nothing happened. >> Of course this stuff is highly improbable but equally if you're unlucky it's existential for millions of people. >> A lot a lot of cases it's not highly improbable. It's almost certain. I mean the fault that ruptured to generate the Indian Ocean tsunami [snorts] that was absolutely known about. It was known it was due to go an American geohysicist who worked there spent his own money warning people in villages, warning the government, warning everybody. Nobody listened and then it went just as predicted. And there are lots of places around the planet where we know the relative the the average return periods of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions and where we know that they're due or overdue. Uh but that doesn't mean anybody's going to pay any attention. So when I say improbable, for instance, the idea of a a huge volcanic eruption in Naples, it's I think it's probably not priced in to happen in the next 10 to 20 years in just because the margin of error of how these phenomenon work more broadly. What you're saying is that's actually not right that actually people are saying certain things should already have happened actually statistically speaking. >> Well in yeah in the case of certain faults in the case of certain volcanoes you know that they tend to erupt or tend to rupture every 50 years or so. If it's 60 years since the last one you know something is normally about to happen you know give or take a year or two. um you can't be certain but quite often you do get this quite nice timetable that you can you can stick to. So you can warn people and we you know we have warned people in the past about um places where these catastrophic events are due but people will not listen you know they've got other priorities. Politicians especially really aren't interested and we've only got to look at you know what's been happening or not happening in response to the fire wave across the UK in recent months. So, you know, it's normal. >> Let's talk about climate change. You've traveled to us in London today. From where? >> From the Peak District, which is sort of in the middle of England, about as far away as you can get from the coast. That isn't the only reason I moved there. >> And you moved there when? >> 200 2007. So, we've been there about 20 years. >> And what made you move? >> Well, 2003, we had the first really serious heat wave in the southeast. And London was a nightmare. You couldn't sleep. We lived in Hampton at the time near Hampton Court. It was too hot to sleep downstairs. It reached 38 degrees. Uh the national record was broken and we just thought, "God, we can't cope with another heat wave like that down here." So we we a few years later, we moved up uh out of the city further north and uphill. Those are the three things people might want to think about in coming years. Um so we live in a village of 500 people, 1,000 ft up in the Peak District. Um, it's [snorts] massively cooler. We've got a a house that was built in 1676, so it's 350 years old this year. The walls are 2/3 of a meter thick stone, and that keeps out the heat, you know, even at the height of the heat waves we've been having this summer. We don't have any trouble sleeping at all. >> You know, I was speaking to an electrician last week, and this to me was a really fascinating conversation because he had just had air conditioning installed near his house. >> Yeah. This is an electrician in Portsmouth, guy in his early 30s. And he said, well, the weather's not changing, is it? This is it now. And I find it interesting that he would say that, but then you've got politicians like Nigel Farage and So Braman who who won't say that. And you know, this is this is their target audience, right? So there's a there's clearly a a disconnect, I think probably generationally as well as part of it, between the reality and then and then the political rhetoric. That chap would probably say to you, Bill, so you were in London in the heatwave. Why don't you just get air con? Why go all that way to a building from the 17th century or you know, all that way up in the uh in the in the Peak District far from everyone? So, what was the rationale in terms of you said those three things that people should think about that drove you to live in that particular place? >> Well, there were other issues as well obviously. I mean, the heat was the thing that immediately drove us out. But we had a small child and the possibility of sending him to a little village school with 40 kids in, for example, is just tremendous. You know, the the attention you get there as opposed to being in some thousand kids school is is huge. Um, it's fantastic countryside. It's uh we had a we've got about an acre, so we can grow a lot of our own fruit and veg there, which is going to become increasingly important. And also, although it sounds as if it's in the middle of nowhere, you can get everywhere in the UK quite easily from Derby, which is our nearest big city because Derby is a big rail rail center. And you know, it it has rail links all over the UK. So once you get there, >> you can get anywhere. It's just getting to Derby that sees you. >> I mean, Derbyy's slap bang in the middle of England, right? >> It is slap bang in the middle of England. In fact, if all the ice melts, the sea will come up just come up to Derby, right in the center of of the of England. >> Wow. >> Are you a survivalist? >> I'm not a survivalist, but I'm >> Because you're saying that Yeah, I'm certainly preparing. I mean, we're increasing the number of water butts we're having, water harvesting, because that's going to be obviously a huge issue in summers to come. saving seed, uh, storing, we're not doing it yet, but we will be storing things like flour and sugar and cooking oil in relatively large quantities in the cellar. Um, because it's common sense, you know, I think most people can look around and this year and look at what the harvest is doing in in the UK and in Europe and they will they will rightly say, well, that's makes sense. >> I mean, this year, just to be clear, and this was announced a few days ago, wasn't it? This year, 2026, is the worst year on record in terms of a harvest for arable crops. >> Yeah. And the other three worst harvests since 2020. So, this is a dramatic I mean, I I knew this was going to be happening. Uh, obviously, and so did any climate scientist. But the speed is just staggering. And, you [snorts] know, if there's once we get to a stage where you got food rationing, then everything changes. Everything's up for grabs. And I don't know how quickly that can happen now. You >> That's a crazy thing to hear. It [laughter] >> is. >> That's a crazy thing to hear because I've read I've read your two books here and we'll talk about them. You're talking about having moved in 2007 to somewhere that's high. Um you've got your own land, it's cooler. I presume you're talking about Derby, you know, potentially being at sea level. So maybe not in the very near term, but it's also safe from rising sea levels. And you're talking about rationing. >> That's not just me. National Farmers Union warned about shortages of foods later this year. So, you know, this is this is common knowledge now, I think. >> But how plausible is rationing of something like flour in Britain? So, you think that could happen before the end of the 2020s? >> Well, in the in I mean, over the last 5 years because of bad cereal harvests, Britain lost a year's worth of bread supply. A year of bread supply out of four years. Now that's you know it you don't need much more than that and you will have to ration it. So it's it's not you know it's not a surprise. It's just happening so staggeringly quickly and much sooner than I expected. >> So you're surprised by the speed of it. >> Oh god. Yes. Yeah. >> Has this summer surprised you? >> I think the surprising thing was how early the heat wave started to see 35 degrees in May. That was really the most astonishing thing. Um, the sort of temperatures we've had in July and August are not unprecedented. I mean, we still haven't broken the 40° C record that was set in 22 uh 2022. But it's the fact that it started so early and it's just gone on and on and on. And we're not finished yet. You know, we may still get other heat waves in towards the end of August and in September. >> It's worth saying actually. So, what's been so special about this year? We've had, I think, 38 days where we've hit 30 or more. So far, um, we've had four consecutive months where we've gone beyond 30°. So, in May, June, July, August, possibly September. People are talking about a heat wave in September. Although, you know, that's in the future. We don't want to speculate too much. What's already happened is is bad enough. And then we've seen, I think, unprecedented drought. So for instance, we were in Whizzley in Surrey uh at the end of last week, my colleague and I, and it didn't rain there for two months, and the previous record, I believe, was 37 days in 1976. So when people talk about 1976 is this outlier, which which it was >> for UK weather, and it's >> that's why they remember it because it stuck out like a sore thumb. >> Yeah. But now it's actually double almost what the outlier was. Um, I want to read just a excerpt from this book, Hot House Earth and Inhabitants Guide. [gasps] Brilliant book and actually very short. What like 150 164 pages. Uh, by the second half of the century, 40° C summer temperatures in southern and central parts of the UK could well be driving people out of their appallingly insulated homes and towards cooler parts of the country. Now, you wrote that in 2022. I mean, that might happen in the next couple of years, right? >> Oh, yes. In fact, [laughter] the extraordinary thing is the week that book came out was the week that the temperature in the UK hit 40° for the first time. Now, if you want good PR for a book, a book launch, what more, you know, what more could you want? So, literally that came out the week it was 40.2 I think it was, which is still the record. But it's possible even within the current climate could see temperatures of 43 or more in the UK. So, you know, who knows? Next year, I mean, it could be a bad one [snorts] because of the El Nino, which we'll no doubt talk about later. >> We can talk about Alino now. [laughter] So, you think we could go above 40 next year or the year after? H how does this work then Alino? And how does it interact with breaking the present record for UK, which I believe was Q or Hephro in 2022, which was about >> colleagues be it was I think it was Yeah, it was in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire. Tell me about El Nino. >> Well, El Nino is is the second biggest climate signal other than the seasons. So, you know, that's that's how big it is. That's how much impact it has on the the global climate. And it involves the heating up of the eastern tropical Pacific. So you see, you know, because that heats up so much, it affects the air patterns above it and they have knock-on impacts right across the planet and it brings extreme weather to places as far a field as Peru and Australia and Europe as well and North America. It's it it affects everything and everyone pretty much. Now the um El Ninos are classified on the base of how much hotter the Eastern Pacific gets and the record is something like 2.7° C I think something like that in 18 1877 that was the the biggest El Nino on record. Well, estimates now are for something getting on for 4 degrees. That's just staggering, unprecedented, and nobody's really sure what the impact of that will be on the global climate and global weather systems. >> No one's really sure, but obviously you're a highly learned man on this stuff, and you've seen a ton of data. So, what's your informed suspicions? Well, the changes to the weather you get from El Nino are obviously superimposed on all sorts of other influences for the weather. So, you can't say everywhere on the planet's going to get hotter. But El Nino, because it brings up so much heat into the atmosphere, it does result in the global average temperature of the planet heating up. So, you know, we're pretty much getting on for 1.5° C above pre-industrial. Now, next year could be above 1.7 C because of the impact of El Nino. That wouldn't necessarily be permanent. It could come down again, but you know, when you've got that much more heat spread out across the planet, a lot of places will be much much hotter. It's possible the UK might get away with it, but the chances of it being another dreadfully hot summer are are pretty high, I would say. >> So, there's a few things I want to say just responding to that. People talk about 1.5 to stay alive. 1.5°, but as I understand it, the IPCC says you need 1.5 for 11 years and then we're at 1.5. >> Well, it's a it's a a mad system of measuring it really because it it's it's the average over over 20 year period. So, it would mean that if we if we got past 1.5 this year, it wouldn't be officially confirmed till 10 years time. Now, that's just bonkers, to be honest. We need to know when we've passed 1.5. Otherwise, fossil fuel companies and others will say, "Oh, it's fine. We got plenty of time. We're not we're not beyond 1.5 yet, so we can just keep going." Now, it's just another excuse for business as usual. Um there are ways of of determining whether you're at 1.5 um by looking at the current level of global warming and saying, "Well, you know, we look back over the last few years, we've got an average of 1.5. this is where we're at. Um, and we need something. We need to be able to say this year we're at 1.5. Now we're at 1.52 or whatever because it's the current system's mad. >> So, we're at 1.5. >> Well, effectively we're at 1.5. Yeah. I mean, we're, you know, 1.5's been dead in the water for years. And one of the worst things I think we see every year is a cop, you know, the COP conferences, climate cops every November, early December saying, "We must do our hard, our best and our hardest to keep the global average temperature below one and a half degrees." They're still saying it last year for God's sake. I mean, we're pumping out 40 billion tons of CO2 a year still, and we're at sort of 1.48 or something like that. You know, it's dead in the water. It's been dead for ages. Why carry on with this nonsense? >> Well, we had Kevin Anderson on a few weeks ago and you know, in terms of their methodology, it is plausible if I think I think Britain basically would have to reduce CO2 emissions by something like 12% every year. You know, we'd have to decarbonize completely by maybe the late 2030s. And, you know, more more what would be more difficult, of course, is that the global south, while still developing and while population is growing, would have to do something similar. He said 8% which is just and that's by their own methodology which you're acknowledging is kind of stupid. I'd be inclined to agree as somebody who knows a lot less but is you know relatively aware of these things. So 1.5 is is dead and it's being used almost as a delaying tactic by vested interests. >> Yeah. >> And you're saying 1.7 is quite plausible with El Nino next year. >> Well the in 2024 the global average temperature was over 1.6. Yeah. Because of the last El Nino. So over 1.6 next year. 1.7 def pretty much certain. I think it could be higher than that. Who knows? We we you know, this is so unusual. We we we don't know what's going to happen really. >> And you were saying about how different places warm up in different ways. And again, this is something in in hot house Earth. Places with water warm up at different rates to land masses. The Arctic is warming up much more quickly than, you know, the southeast parts of the United States. And then in the book you talk about something which I'd completely forgotten about which was British Columbia getting to the high 40s. >> Oh yes. I mean a few years back you had 49° there. You had towns obliterated by wildfires. Um something which you was staggered by at the time but now you're seeing 40° in the UK and British towns hit by wildfires. So that's just an example of how quickly things are progressing. I think >> for people who aren't aware and British Columbia is it's a warm part for Canada but it's still Canada you know this is >> yeah it's a maritime province so it's normally got a fairly amanable climate you know it's fairly damp in winter and it's it's mild in summer hotter when you go further in land but you know one degree below 50° centigrade is not what you would expect there >> but they do also have skiing resorts you know like Whistler and somewhere >> well you know it's damp in winter but if you're high enough up that dampness translates into snow So uh and it has got big mountains. Yeah, the Rockies goes up there. But you know, all the same bordering on 50° in Canada is, you know, bonkers really. >> You don't like the term global warming? >> No, I don't. No. Many people I know don't use global warming. Um warming, you know, when when it something a bit warmer sounds cozy, you know, it's quite nice. But heating is something quite different. And the rate at which things are changing, heating is a is a much more appropriate term. So I use global heating as do other media sources and know the Guardian will use that for example. Um and I use climate breakdown because climate change can be either way. You know it can be for the better or for the worse. But breakdown is what we're seeing a stable climate which we've had relatively speaking over the last few thousand years is now falling apart and becoming extremely unpredictable. >> I want to talk about some sort of deep history now some deep geology. We're going to get back to climate change but I think this is really important in terms of understanding the bigger picture. in terms of how much climate systems are constantly changing, which you know is is quite hard to appreciate because we have fallible human brains and cognitive biases and recency biases. We also have those as societies. So if something's looked like a certain way for 200 years, we think that's just how it's always going to be. And I think that the sort of deep history and the and the the geological history that you're you offer particularly in I've already biged up this book in this book uh helps contextualize a lot of that. So what was Thea? Oh, that's a great story. The was um a body, a terrestrial body, a lump of rock roughly Mars sized. It's it's um been suggested that collided with the Earth in its very early history. And it was that impact that knocked a great chunk out of the planet which broke up and circulate circulated around in orbit and then clumped together to form the moon. Um and the impact also tilted the planet by the looks of it as well. So you know that's the reason we've got seasons. Um the moon gives us tides. If that hadn't happened, we may not have any tides. We may not have any seasons. The world would be completely different. We might not even be here. Life would have evolved differently. So you know that one uh accident if you like has got us where we are today. >> And when was that? >> Oh first 100 million years of the earth's history. I mean the earth's 4.6 6 billion years old. So very very early on. I mean the whole solar system would have been full of debris and the planets were forming by bits of debris coming together and colliding and sticking a process known as accretion. So the earth had had accreted up lots of other bits and it was pretty much formed and then this last huge bit hammered into it. >> That's incredible. >> It is, isn't it? >> So this is 4.5 billion years ago basically. >> Something like that. Yeah. >> When was the hadian era? That was from the very moment the earth can be regarded as a single planet um for the next getting on for a billion years or so when it was very very hot very very unpleasant [laughter] um [snorts] and still being bombarded by stuff you know hanging out in space now and again so uh you wouldn't have wanted to be around and life well I was going to say you know life would find it very very difficult but extraordinary life it looks as if tiny microscopic life started within a few hundred million years of the Earth being formed, which is astonishing really. It didn't do anything [laughter] for a couple of billion years after that, but you know, it got going fairly quickly. >> And what what did it rely on? Oxygen. How did this work? >> Well, it needed water. That was the critical thing. Um, [snorts] and even though the Earth was very hot, there were still oceans because water could still um take liquid form if the pressures are very high and the atmospheric pressure was very very high there. So, water wasn't boiling off. you still had liquid oceans and you need water for um these early life forms to to grow. But they were, you know, literally single cell things. But the fact that they could form that soon, you know, on a massively inhospitable planet is amazing. So there's 5 billion years of geological history. We're not going to go through all of it, but this is the most interesting stuff. What's the Cambrian explosion? I think people hear about this a lot. often you hear you know Jeff Bezos will say we're having a Cambrian explosion in terms of revenue models for digital commerce. What is the actual Cambrian explosion? >> Well, if you I mean if you take the whole of Earth history 4.6 billion years ago up to about 540 million years ago, not a huge amount happened. Um but then there was an explosion of of life in the oceans or an explosion in what we can see because they're preserved as fossils. So the there was life before that and probably quite complex life as well. But it looks as if by the Cambrian it was developing harder parts that could be preserved as fossils. So you know life would have been burgeoning maybe 100 200 million years before that. But it's 540 million years ago when the Cambrian stars that we see all these different amazing forms preserved in in sediments. You say in the book as well, you know, basically for a billion years nothing happened. >> Yeah, there's something called a boring billion. But um no, nothing happening means nothing enormous happening. I suppose things were happening all the time, but there was nothing like the emergence of life or snowball earth or something which is another great time in the earth's history. [snorts] >> I'm loving this [laughter] and this is actually very pertinent now to the climate change conversation. What is the PETM? The Pum. >> That's the Paleocene Eosene thermal maximum as it's called 56 million years ago. Um the Earth was already hot and in fact the Earth's been hot for much of its history. But it got even hotter very very rapidly then. There was a an increase in temperature of 5 to 8° centigrade in a few thousand years. Um and that is that rate of change is quite often compared to what's happening today except that what's happening today is happening 10 times faster. So you know this this this is a a critical point of this whole um comparison between history and where we're going and that is that the rate of heating now has never ever happened at all in the history of our world. >> And the PETM is caused by an injection of huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's something called a hyperothermal. Um when hot conditions get even hotter and in almost every case that is resulted that that comes from um a major lava eruption and we're talking sort of millions of of square kilometers of land covered. Um and this goes on for thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands even millions of years in some cases. And over that time it it is pumping out carbon dioxide all the time which is heating up the atmosphere. In [clears throat] the case of the PTM you have very rapid geologically speaking heating um over a few thousand years or so. So it's CO2 coming from lavas and there's a sort of double whammy as well because that CO2 heats the planet a bit more and that increased temperature causes these deposits you get in marine sediments called gas hydrates to break down. Gas hydrates are a little bit like water ice, but they contain methane, natural gas. And when they break down, that methane is released through the sea into the atmosphere, and that heats things up even more. So, you got this sort of double whammy. >> Now, this sounds very reminiscent of the of the feedbacks and the tipping points that we talk about with climate change. >> Yeah, it is a feedback. So the the lava eruption produces CO2, heats the planet. That extra heat causes gas hydrates to break down. That adds more methane that heats things up even more. Um so positive feedback effects that reinforce heating. [snorts] And of course, Mark Lionus wrote a really fabulous book about this stuff. Um you know, not all of it's necessarily correct in terms of predictions because there's huge margins of error. Uh six degrees. Um but the big ones are methane stored in Siberian perafrost and of course methane hydrate which you describing >> gas hydrates methane hydrates >> in the in the [clears throat] oceans and then there of course there are other aspects like you know the the Amazon if that disappears it becomes you know it's creating carbon rather than being a carbon sink etc. So, you're drawing you're drawing a parallel between where we are now, basically the last what 170 years, um, and man-made climate change, humanmade climate change. You're drawing a parallel between now and the PEM. And you're saying that the PETM was driven by volcanoes. We see warming of 6 to8 degrees, but of course that happens over a really long period of time. And a climate skeptic would say, well, we can we can carry on doing this for thousands of years then. That's okay. What would you say to them? Well, as you know, we're heating the planet 10 times faster than at the pet now. [gasps] Um, so you know, we haven't got that time. We haven't got any time. Uh, and the reason we don't know how hot things are going to get, how quickly is even though we can model to some degree and some of the models are very useful. Um, we there's no precedent for what's happening now ever. I think in the book, correct me if I'm wrong because we're drawing on lots of numbers, so I I might be getting this um making us, you know, uh out by a factor of god knows what, but you say that the amount of CO2 being injected into the atmosphere now is about 40 times what it was during the PET. >> That's the rate of in the rate of which is being ejected is is much faster. Significantly faster. Yeah, >> that's incredible, isn't it? I know this happened over, you know, a very long period of time, but the idea that the biggest ejection of carbon into the atmosphere in the earth's history as as far as we know >> and we're outdoing it by 40 times now. >> Well, that the pet did, you know, that did involve a huge ejection of carbon dioxide, but that was nothing compared to the perian triacic boundary, the great dying 250 million years ago. that was, you know, colossally more. And that wiped out 95% of all life, you know, that was bad. I mean, the pet was bad. The great dying was as as you would expect for something called the great dying. So, carbon triacic, that's the beginning of the dinosaurs, right? The triacic >> permo. Yes, it was. I mean, when when you whenever you get these big mass extinctions, something else always comes along and and benefits from them. And it was the dinosaurs after that. Yeah. Triacic and then into the Jurassic Cretaceous. [snorts] >> Nine-year-old me is loving it. [laughter] >> You talk as well about and again this is and this is, you know, I'm I'm I'm religious. I believe in God. We'll talk about this a little bit later on, but um reading the fate of the world and the geological history. It's just magnificent, isn't it? >> No, it's stunning. Yes. Astounding really. Um, [snorts] it would be great to have a a quick trip through geological history, you know, visiting, stopping off and visiting the best events, I think, or the most interesting events and see being there, being I think in Fate of the World, I describe what it might be like standing in um on the coast of Mexico when the asteroid hit [laughter] 65 million years ago. Maybe that's not somewhere you might want to be, but you would still have been astonishing. A 10 km object hitting our world at some colossal speed >> being in the straits of Gibraltar when uh the Mediterranean basin fills with water. >> Yes, that would have taken a few years, but yeah, when the waterfall >> just starts. >> Yeah, I know. So many spectacular events you could revisit. >> So, [snorts] we've got the PEM. What's the 8.2 Ka event? >> Oh, that's Well, 8.2K 2 Ka is K for thousand. So it's 8.2,000 year event. Um so really quite recent um 8,200 years ago. And it involves the um entrance into the North Atlantic of a large body of cold water, melt water probably from uh the ice was still melting then as we came out of the last ice age. And that looks as if it might have had an impact on um tsunami activity in the North Atlantic. Uh because we have around about this time Scandinavia which was covered in something like 3 km of ice. We had that as the ice was removed bouncing back up again because the ice the weight of the ice caused this caused the whole of Scandinavia to be forced down by hundreds of meters. When the ice went the whole lot came up again and the crust underneath it had had earthquake had active faults in it which [snorts] were accumulating strain over thousands and thousands of years but they couldn't release it because of the weight when that was removed you started to get massive earthquakes magnitude 8 earthquakes in Scandinavia in Lapland I mean you wouldn't you know you expect to find father Christmas there you don't expect earthquakes that you normally get in the Pacific you know the ring of fire and one of these earthquakes triggered um a huge submarine landslide off the coast of Norway around 8,200 years ago that triggered a tsunami that came down into the North Sea across Scotland across the shetland [clears throat] isles and if it happened today would be utterly devastating and that's a fantastic example of how climate and geology interact. So, as people probably can already grasp, we're trying to create some kind of chronology here. The greatest hits um from Thea through to the Cambrian explosion through to a little bit over 8,000 years ago. Next is the Roman warm period. What's that? Well, if we look at the climate of Europe over the last few thousand years, there are times when it's been quite warm and times when it's been relatively cold. Uh so the Roman warm period was saw mild conditions across Europe. It's followed by um much cooler conditions. Uh and then we got into the medieval warm period when temperatures were a bit higher. Then the little ice age which is characterized by sort of denzian Christmases you know and frost fairs on the temps and this sort of thing. Um, and these different changes in temperature are in some ways related to very small variations in solar output. And in fact, climate deniers will say, "Oh, look, we had we were warmer in the past and we were cold and we were warmer." That's all to do with the sun. It's nothing to do with carbon dioxide because there wasn't any additional CO2 around then. But they, as usual with deniers, they don't know the whole story. These were regional events, so they didn't affect the whole planet. So, it wasn't they weren't global warming or global cooling. It just happened that Europe was affected. Other parts of the world were affected at different times or weren't affected at all. And although the sun was a contributor and it it's, you know, it's its um activity does vary very slightly. It wasn't the main instigator of these things. So it's just oops just an example. >> It wasn't a main instigator. It was just a contributor and they were not global events. So you can't say it was warmer in Roman times. It wasn't actually warmer to be honest. It's warm in any any other of these warm periods. But in any case, it was a regional event. So you know once again deniers are get the wrong end of the stick. >> This is what Pierers Corbyn says, right? >> Pierers Corbyn says all sorts of things. But this is Pier Corman's account for you know why it's feeling warmer is because the sun is you know >> Yeah. Well I know I've known Pierers for a long time. Um and he had a weather forecasting company. I don't know if he still has and he used to have contracts with insurance companies who are obviously interested in the weather who used to rely on him and he everything was based upon the sun and the sun's activity. I don't know any more than that because obviously he didn't tell anybody his secret but it's just not true. I mean we can look at variations in solar activity over know many many years and you do get cycles you get a sun spot cycle 11 year with 11 year periods um but you can you know there's no increase in solar activity or decrease in solar activity that can can explain the sorts of global temperatures that we're experiencing. There's no doubt whatsoever that it's purely an increase in greenhouse gases. Do you know the dates for the Roman warm period? >> I think it was then these periods don't have fixed dates because various people think they started in different different times but you you're talking maybe uh 100 years BC to sort of three or 400 years AD something like that >> which is basically the apogee of the Western Roman Empire. >> Yes. Which is why Yeah. which is why gets the name. You say that 536 was the worst year in history to be alive. >> Well, you don't see what I'm saying. You're citing a paper that says that >> I am. Yes. Um I mean that was during a time when the when Europe at least got much much colder. Um the sun may have had something to do with it, but it looks as if it may mainly it was a number of massive volcanic eruptions. superimposed upon one another because when you have explosive eruptions rather than lava eruptions, you pump a load of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and sulfur dioxide is excellent at reflecting solar radiation back into space. So it lowers temperatures and you get very rapid cooling. I mean we you know Yellowstone for example when that's erupted in the past is thought to have brought down temperatures global temperatures by three or four degrees you know which is getting on for halfway to ice age conditions. So, a number of these small eruptions, but enough to pump a lot of SO2 into the atmosphere, seem to have really made a miserable climate around that time >> for [snorts] lots of people. >> For Europe, I don't know what it was like in the rest of the world, but Europe, which is pretty much all we know about around that that sort of >> I think the I think you talk about the Paththeians as well. So, bits of West Asia as well, probably struggling, >> but it's not not a good place, not a good time to be around. I would say that was today as well though, mind you. >> Yeah. Wait till 2027, I'd say. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's creeping up, isn't it? It's the silver medal right now at 2026. So, when people say that grapes were growing in Britain 2,000 years ago, that's not untrue. This is something that climate deniers say quite frequently, right? The weather always changes. Look, they were growing this crop was here at this particular point. Okay, they've come back. There are English wines now, but they were here before. You're not disputing that. >> No. No. And I think there's pretty much probably always been wine grown in Britain, probably only in the south, southeast, and rarely. Now, obviously, it's massively expanded. Um, but that doesn't tell you anything. It tells you that the climate in Europe was was slightly warmer. Not warmer than it is now, but slightly warmer than it had been previously. But it's not global heating. >> So, when was the last time the planet was as warm as it is today? Um, I think we're pretty much the thing is over the last 50 million years, 55 million years or so, the the temperature of the planet's just gone down and down and down and down. Um, so we hit ice age conditions 2 and a half million years ago. >> And now we're rewinding that all, you know, starting to rewind it back. And we pretty much got back as far as the last interglacial period called the Emian about 120,000 years ago. temperatures were um one to one and a half degrees above pre-industrial and that's where we are now. So we've re rewound our climate 120,000 years and we're going to keep going back um up that that uh temperature increasing trend. So if we get to sort of this is a strange question I know so you're saying that one one and a half which we know we're at we had this conversation earlier if we get to two three how far back do you start looking then? Well, by the time you get to 2, three degrees, you're back to the plyioene, which is about um 3 million years ago. Then you had the the worrying thing is that the plyene is 2 and a half four degrees above pre-industrial, but the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 330 to 400 parts per million. >> Now it's a 430 part per million. So that's the best we can hope for I think is a return to plying conditions 3°C hotter sea levels eventually 15 to 25 m higher that's probably our best case and if we want to stop there we better emissions need to peak by 2040 act now so that Britain can look like Indonesia and of course there's a there's a delay and this is key there's a delay between concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and the kinds of things you're talking about. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, there isn't much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We talk about parts per million. >> Yeah. >> Before the industrial revolution, we're looking at something like 270, 280. >> Yeah. >> And now it's 430. >> Yeah. >> So 50% increase. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when was the last time there was this much CO2 in the atmosphere? And that's not the same as how hot it is because we just said there's a delay between CO2 and heating. So when was the last time there was this much CO2 floating around? >> Probably about 15 million years ago. So you know a long back to the meiosene. So if we don't stop if we keep rewinding the clock and don't stop at the plyene we'll end up in the middle climate optimum. Um so 15 to 17 million years ago you had 600 to 800 parts per million of CO2 and the temperature was 7 to 8° C hotter. Now, nobody's certain why that was. That's too high for those levels of of carbon dioxide. And the possible reason is that you start to get serious break up of cloud cover uh as the temperature increases, as CO2 concentrations increase. Um, and that lets in a lot more of the sun's heat. And we're seeing that now. We're seeing cloud cover start to break up in the tropics quite significantly over the last couple of decades. So, you know, that's very, very worrying indeed. >> And lots of people say that, you know, humans would struggle to live on a planet that's six degrees warmer than today. >> Yes, they would. >> Why? >> Well, 6° is an average temperature. Um, [snorts] you're talking much of the land masses being, you know, much much hotter than that or the increase being much greater than that. So you're talking, you know, common temperatures of 40, 50, getting up to 60° maybe in places. Um, you most crops won't grow effectively over about 30°. So you're you're you know, you're getting into the realms of much planet being uninhabitable and probably at a lot lower temperature than that. I think at 4° you're going to be you struggling to grow anything uh worthwhile. Certainly to feed a population of the size we have at the moment. um in most parts of the world. >> I think this is worth sort of probing because I'm not actually interested necessarily in okay well we could sustain a planetary population of 1 billion if everybody moves to the Arctic and the Antarctic and you know at what point does the Earth become literally uninhabitable for human beings maybe in terms of air composition right you know because obviously we rely on oxygen etc. At what point would there be too much methane in the atmosphere for us to to breathe or anything with lungs to struggle for instance? What where are we looking then? >> Well, it's not it won't be the composition of the atmosphere. It'll be the heat. I mean the sun is is heating up more is is growing in terms of the outs um every million year by million year if you like. And by the time we get to say another 250 million years in the future, it'll be too hot for most life forms on the planet. So, you know, most of most of the conditions for life to exist on the planet is already over. We've done 80% of it. Uh there's only another couple hundred million years left and then there'll be nothing to speak of left. I mean, the sun will keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter after that. Um but after 800 million years we'll be back to unisellular life. >> I think you say in 600 million years time there'll be no plants because photosynthesis work. >> Yeah. And then after that you know a couple hundred million years after that there'll be booger all really. >> I saw >> it's not far on in geological terms it's not far. >> I remember reading a great tweet and the person said I'm a socialist because I care about the heat death of the of the planet. You know, we need socialized production so that one day our descendants can go knows what, you know, there's Chinese sci-fi about this, by the way, about moving the Earth to another star and all kinds of crazy things. >> Oh, yeah. I like Chinese sci-fi. There's some great stuff being written over [laughter] there. >> Yeah. Xiinu does a a story about they move the planet to another star cuz our star died. >> I think I've read that actually. Can't remember the name. But >> yeah, fantastic. But I suppose most people watching will say, "Well, look, that's that's terrible for anything that's around a couple hundred million years time." But let's say that the planet is 5° warmer in 200 years, right? Plausibleish. Um, quite plausible. You suspect humans won't be around to sort of reproduce at the kind of rate we would expect for a successful species basically. Well, I mean, you know, my personal view and the view of others is if things carry on at the rate they are now, the rate of heating that we'll be seeing large numbers of deaths later this century, maybe not that much later this century. I mean, you know, let's let's look at the rate of heating. We're talking about at the current rate, which is generally used now, which is 35 of of a degree centigrade. That's one degree every 28 years. Um, so you're looking at 2° arriving in the late 2030s or 2040. But there's satellite data which suggests that the planet's heating up much more rapidly, maybe half a degree a decade. And there was a report last year by the German physical and meteorological societies saying 3° C by 2050 is perfectly possible. So you then you're looking at five or six degrees by the end of this century >> and that's when it's going to be very very hard for human civilization to carry on. Well, I know a number of analyses have suggested societal and economic breakdown anytime from the 2040s for business as usual. And I I would agree with that because the the impact of extreme weather will just become know all pervasive and its impact on economies, impact on food security will rapidly, very very rapidly really start to hammer home in terms of of deaths. I think particularly in majority world countries, but not only there. >> Let's stick with that for a moment. Explain for me quickly the difference between wet and dry bulb temperatures because this is this is the thing that we're really talking about when we say tens, hundreds of millions, billions of people potentially not living through all of this. So what are these things? What's the difference between wet and dry bulb temperatures? And when does it get dangerous for humans? >> Well, we when we have a normal thermometer, we're measuring the temperature of the air. So, you know, 30°, 35, it's extremely hot and unpleasant. But using what's called a wet bulb thermometer, the temperature you see is a measure of of heat and humidity. And when you reach 35° on a wet bulb thermometer, it means the air is saturated with water. And if it's saturated with water, you cannot sweat. I mean, we lose heat from by sweating. If you can't sweat, you can't lose heat. And so the temperature, the internal temperature of your body just increases and increases and increases until your organs start to fail. And uh you've got about 6 hours to live. So you know these these conditions do occur and they're becoming more common particularly in the Gulf region, in parts of Central America, um in South Asia, etc., and in China. But they're going to become more and more common. And at the moment the the saving grace is you don't get wet bulb temperatures of 35 degrees C for very long because you tend to get massive thunderstorms that that break the temperature if you like and temperature falls. But in the future you may see those conditions prevailing for much longer and there's one particular area which is a north China plane where you have something like 400 million people working. It's a bread basket of China. um lot of irrigation so very humid that in the future in decades to come we'll see these conditions more and more commonly occurring and most people there have no air conditioning if you don't have air conditioning and the these conditions prevail for a day then you won't survive >> so 6 hours is when people die >> when they're subject to 35 degrees of wet bulb temperatures >> yeah and it doesn't matter if you're in the shade or if you've got lots of water whatever you just the heat will just keep building you cannot lose heat. I mean this is the start of Minister of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson the science fiction book and that is actually probably one of the more readable novels he's written and he talks about you know a mass death event I think in India in South Asia but something like that happening how plausible is that in the next 20 years um well a few years ago I would have said we're looking at the middle of the century before we start seeing that possibility but things are just progressing so quickly now that you know within the next 20 years it wouldn't be a surprise to me. So when I was young, I suppose these kinds of conditions existed. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, in some like Nevada, Death Valley, etc., etc. But you're saying >> they're too dry there. >> Too dry. Okay. So historically, where were these kinds of conditions limited to? >> The Gulf region. >> Just the Gulf region. >> South Asia, India, you know, the um parts of Central America, these sorts of areas where you you can have humidity, high humidity and high temperatures. Um, Nevada, you it gets incredibly hot, Death Valley, but it's very, very dry heat. [snorts] It's not going to be nice, but it's not going to kill you. >> And as you said a moment ago, these, you know, these these conditions existed for very small parts of the world, but invariably they were broken up by storms. And so that six-hour >> time frame wasn't really a thing. That's going to change. >> Yeah. And and we're now seeing the conditions occurring much more commonly as well. >> So, you'll probably start to see them in parts of Australia maybe. um even part of North America, not Europe as far as we know, but again, things are changing so quickly. You know, it wouldn't surprise me in southern Europe [snorts] some point >> and politicians aren't preparing for this. >> No, not in the least. If they if they even know about them, >> have we had a a sort of glimpse of something like this happening? You know, has there been somewhere where there's a large concentration of people and they say, "Well, actually, we hit wet bulb of 35 for 90 minutes or something." Have we had a glimpse of the future so far or not? Not yet. >> There there will have been situations like that, but I don't think there's been a significant die off if you like to so that people would recognize it. I mean, if you have it in the Gulf region, nobody noticed with the hill being bloody air conditioned tower blocks or whatever. >> It's true. You know, it's really it's really something. I'm I'm half Iranian and you know, in in late June, early July, I'll be on the a weather app and I'll say I wonder what it's like in Bander Abas in southern Iran or even Baghdad. And it's often 48, 49,50 in Baghdad, [clears throat] which is a capital city. >> Yeah. >> And you just think a couple more degrees and this is not a habitable place, right? Even with air con. >> Oh, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're getting, you know, so many parts of the world now, cities, major cities. We're getting to that threshold where you think how can people survive? How can they how can they live in terms of normal lives? I mean, you can't sleep, can you? you wouldn't be able to sleep night after night after after night. How can you function? So, it's not just temperatures and humidities that kill you. It's temperatures that too high to be able to do your normal job or or whatever you do. >> You wouldn't be able to do anything apart from sort of lie down. Let's talk about sea levels because that's something that got a lot of attention, right? Especially when I was a kid. All that I remember about the sort of the the planetary crisis was in the 80s um ozone that was a big one ban CFC's Captain Planet cartoon I remember that litter anti-litter but also acid rain was a big one in the 80s right I'm showing my age here uh but sea levels too and actually people like Farage or Richard Ty say well look sea levels have barely risen you know what's the You know, you were talking a few m moments ago about sea levels being 15, 20 m higher, etc. when we had concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere like we do now, but that's not being reflected in sea levels. Why not? And and how quickly can things change with rising sea levels? >> Well, it takes a while obviously for for changes in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to translate into melting ice, which or expansion of of sea water, and that's what drives sea level rise. But we're now seeing it really start to accelerate. I mean, up until 20 years ago or so, sea level was rising at millimeter and a half, something like that a year. Now, it's getting on for half a centimeter a year with a doubling rate, which could be 20 years. So, it doesn't, you know, you go from a half a centimeter a year to a centimeter to two to four to eight. Doesn't take long then for you to see these enormous rises that we we saw the end of the last ice age where you had um several meters in 100 years. And so the IPCC estimate or the maximum estimate is about 1.8 m maybe by um 1.2 m by the end of the century. But you can easily get to 2 mters. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see 2 m by the end of the century. >> And what would that mean? Because 2 meters doesn't sound like very much, right? >> No, it doesn't. But >> I know a guy who's 2 meters tall, [laughter] you know. >> Yeah. But if you look, for example, at um East Anglia, I mean, something like two two or three meters of sea level rise in the sea will be coming into Cambridge because the land is incredibly low and incredibly flat. So, you know, it can change the shape of countries very very with with a very small sea level rise me I mean a few meters rather than tens of meters. There's a great stat, I think it's in hot house earth, which is that if we burn all the fossil fuels in existence, and of course this is very hard to model, but if we did, we'd warm the planet by 16°. >> Yeah. >> And of course, there are some people out there who want us to burn all the fossil fuels in existence. That's what they want us to do. 16° sounds quite a lot, though. >> Well, we we put 2.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If we burn all known reserves, that's another three and a half trillion on top of that. That's a lot of CO2. Uh, and 16 degrees isn't a surprise at all. And much of the planet, most of the planet, all of the planet would not be habitable for humans. I mean, that's a pretty interesting one, right? Because somebody like Richard Tyson or Nigel Farage or or Kem, you know, they they actually Chem Badnaugh, for instance, acknowledges that the planet is warming. She does, but she's not, you know, she thinks net zero is a bad idea. [laughter] But I suppose if you're saying well look if we if we carry on with what you want to do which that's what you want to do here's what the costs are then this is where we end up and they don't seem to have a response well you know there are lots of question like this I mean you think you know you're a you're an oil company executive you've got young children why do you keep pushing for more oil and gas I mean money talks I can't think of any other reason profit counts for everything. I mean, why otherwise would fossil fuel company CEOs condemn their kids and their grandkids to absolute hell? >> Do you think there's other explanations as well, though? So, there's a lot of wishful thinking, right? Because we've lived through such a a fortunate time. >> Oh, yes. >> In the postwar period, especially in the global north. >> Incredibly lucky. As good as it gets, quite possibly. So there's like a firstly there's a recency bias but also I mean that leads people that have lived in this extraordinary moment the great acceleration where you know living standards and life expectancy and the consumption of just about everything was like this hockey stick >> right >> well I I can look at that and that's the last 60 years and I hear this gentleman talking about rising sea levels and billions dying he sounds like an alarmist I mean in a way you could understand it right only from someone that thinks we can carry on growing at an exponential rate on a tiny tiny planet with finite resources. >> But that's our public ideology. That's the that's my point, I suppose. >> But, you know, that fits with the the profit motive, doesn't it? And it fits with the oil executive saying, "I don't care about the future. I want to make lots of money. I want more oil. More oil as much as possible." I mean, what other re what reason would you want to keep doing that for if you had young children? I mean, they're not stupid people. They must understand what what's going on. It's I don't know. You know, I have no answer for that to be honest. Biggest belief really. I suppose some of them think there's wishful thinking as we've said. Some of them think that there'll be a technological solution, right? Because that again that's part of our ideology in the 21st century, isn't it? The technology will solve most problems. >> Yeah. But it's becoming apparent that we haven't got anything. We haven't got an an answer to this. No. Um >> uh I think I mean even oil company executives must realize nothing is going to just turn up you know Mr. McCorba like to sort of solve everything for us. I mean, you know, there's talk obviously of all these various geoengineering ideas which at at global scale are just not going to work. Things like car, you know, sucking carbon out the atmosphere to get our level of CO2 back down to reasonable proportions. I mean, even for a a moderate scenario in terms of increasing emissions into the future, at some point we'd have to start taking them out at a rate of up to 60 billion tons a year, which is much more than we were already pumping out. there there's no infrastructure to do that and we're not going to have it because as things get as I think and as others think as things get more difficult and things start to fall apart there isn't going to be the money to do any of this and there's not going to be the the the infrastructure to support these sorts of geo geoengineering schemes. So the longer we go on even if these things were feasible the less likely they are ever to happen. >> You're a volcanologist so your big >> amongst other things. >> Yeah but by training. So no, I say this because one of the big geoengineering solutions is to basically spray stuff into the atmosphere and that will lead to global cooling which we we know historically as you've already mentioned in the last >> hour and a bit um is something that volcanoes do and we can verify that through you know empirical data and whatnot. I presume you think it's a bad idea. Yeah. I mean, one of the first things we know [clears throat] because we've looked at volcanic eruptions in the past is that when you have a big explosive eruption and a lot of SO2 in the atmosphere, you get a massive impact on weather patterns. So, it can affect the monsoon, it can cause all sorts of changes which would lead to a lot of people dying in ter, you know, famine etc. Um, for this type of geoengineering to work, it's called solar radiation management. Um the idea is to maintain a level of about 20 million tons of SO2 in the atmosphere permanently or in well into the future. That would reduce the temperature by something up to 1° C. So it wouldn't cancel out all the cooling. You'd have to keep keep um adding it to the atmosphere. So a huge project and you would have to have no effectively the earth the population of the earth would have to agree with this country. So have to sign up to it. They haven't we haven't managed to get them to sign up to cutting emissions effectively. So you know this would be at least as difficult as getting everybody on board as um would they though you know the US could just unilaterally do something like that. Not not to the level you're saying for a global change, but there might be Peter Teal might say, "Me and Elon Musk have partnered and we're going to try we're going to do a pilot." >> Yeah. Well, people do pilots >> and we want to see if it will reduce the planets, you know, global temperatures by 0.2 degrees and we want a proof of concept and Silicon Valley is going to come to humanity's. You can see this, right? >> So, I I I because I've heard this problem before and I sometimes wonder if the global collective action problem isn't isn't what would stop it. you know, I can see like a I can basically see very wealthy people because this could be big business proving the concept and then saying we want buyin from national government, you know. >> Well, if you read my debut novel Sky Seed, you'll you that's all about um a secretive attempt to do exactly this by UK and US governments. It all goes sadly wrong. >> Sky, >> sadly wrong. Yes, >> I've seen the novel mentioned. It's mentioned in here, I think, is it? But I've not read it. But it's you know it's it's possible people will do this clandestinely or try to do it but it would be detected very quickly I think by people monitoring atmospheric compositions and countries like India where the monsoon might be affected for example would be to say the least extremely annoyed about it but the the thing is people always say we need to do this to buy us time what do they mean buy us time for I'll tell you what they we'd be buying time for for fossil fuel companies to Oh, well, we can carry on producing that because the temperature's come down a bit. We got a bit more time. And the CO2 would keep being pumped out and pumped out and we'd be counteracting that with the SO2. But, you know, at some point if we stopped doing that, you would have this huge increase in temperature over a couple of decades. It's called termination shock, which I'm sure you've heard about. Um, so I've used this analogy before, but it's like uh giving a poison patient an antidote while pumping them full of more poison. That's what we'd be doing. Now, if you said we will look at um solar radiation management when we brought emissions way, way down, so we're hardly emitting anything. We're going to use this to to cool things a little bit. Then, you know, that would make a bit more sense. Um, even then I don't think you'd need to do that. If you brought emissions down, you'd wait for the climate to gradually cool and you just have to get used to living on a hotter planet. But doing it now while still pumping out 40 billion tons of CO2 is just it is insane. Literally, >> it's it's kind of an appendage to the Jevans paradox, isn't it? >> Yeah. You know, and for people who aren't aware, Jevans, I think it was Stanley Jevans, I think, British economist, 19th century, and he's observing coal production. He realizes the more efficient steam engines get, you think they're using less coal. But actually, the more efficient the engine, the more coal is consumed. >> Yeah. >> And uh, you know, once you understand the Jevans paradox, it's really scary. You know, the more efficient we get at at consuming stuff, the more of it we consume. So, >> the limits that need to be imposed can't come via the technology or more efficient technology. if jet engines become more efficient, we're just going to use jet travel more. Um, and I suppose, yeah, it's it's feeding into this idea. Are there any geoengineering solutions? And I'm not talking about, you know, painting roofs white, but the more >> that's a good that's a good idea. We should be doing that. We should be doing that. I mean, that's an easy win, isn't it? Paint roofs white in cities. It'll have a big impact on the urban heat effect. Um, plant lots of trees, paint roofs white. Uh no, those are things that we we should be doing because they're sensible. In fact, planting a lot of trees is regarded as a geoengineering technique actually, but it's it's not one that's normally it's not what most people think about when they when they hear geoengineering. But those those are good things to do, but the the huge global scale things are the problem. And there's one that sounds quite interesting especially to a geologist and that is that um bassalt which is a very common rock type. It's bassalt lava. It's a volcanic rock. Um it's when it weathers it takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. So one scheme is to crush up bassalt rock, spray it on fields and it will actually fertilize the fields as well. It's got lots of nice trace elements in it. Um, but it will suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as well. But then you look at it on the global scale and you find that you'd need to cover half of the world's farmland with bassalt dust for it to remove 2 billion tons of CO2 a year, which is, you know, we pump out 40 billion, but you'd have to cover half of the world's farmland. And you'd have to quarry all that as well. Can you imagine the the colossally environmental disruptive uh disruption that would cause and the health issues and god knows what else? That sort of thing is never going to happen. The transport of this stuff around the world is and it's like that with all of them. Good ideas may be in when you look at it on a small scale, but translating it to a global scale, they're all >> but again wild and wacky. >> It's going to make somebody a lot of money. You know, I can see Jeff Bezos saying, "We're getting into the global bay salt agricultural business. It's going to be uh critical in meeting our, you know, our climate commitments. It's going to," and people might laugh when they hear that sort of thing, but that's kind of what we're doing with electric cars, >> right? That's kind of what we're doing with electric cars. Now electric cars are obviously better than um cars that depend on fossil fuels. But the idea that you have a one for like a one for one like for like replacement of combustion >> billion electric cars instead of a billion internal combustion any doesn't help does it? >> All the raw materials that you use etc. >> When what you need is a transformation in lowcarbon public transport. >> Yeah. >> I mean I must admit we are on our fourth electric car cuz we can't it it would either be an electric car or a horse. They're the alternatives to get anywhere from where we live. So an electric car, it's just the least bad. But, you know, whenever we can, we use public transport. So, as I did today, to come down here. Um, but the buses are very few and far between in a village of 500 people, thousand ft up in the big district. So, you you need one. Um, but I'm not stupid enough to think that they're, you know, they're a solution to anything really. >> So, what do we need to do? So you you're talking about the sort of evasive action that you're the evasive measures that you've taken personally to move where you have. What should we be doing? Do we need to stop eating meat? And I'm not just talking about consumers. I'm talking at a sort of a global level. What are the big changes apart from obviously decarbonizing? What else? >> Well, that I mean that the decarbonizing is is virtually it. I mean we out of that 41 billion tons a year that we CO2 we add to the atmosphere 38 billion is from burning fossil fuels. So you know that if we stopped doing that we'd have solved the problem. So decarbonization is is is the is a critical aspect of of everything really and it's it's a really key issue in the UK at the moment because you know we're at this point where the the new prime minister Andy Berner will will acknowledge climate breakdown and say all the right things and then say he's pragmatic about more oil and gas from the North Sea. Um, and the the excuse seems to be, and I can almost quote them here, is that we we'll be relying on oil and gas for for, you know, for the the near to medium-term future. Well, that's completely the wrong way of looking at it. What you need to to do is say we cannot afford to burn this. We need to be on a war footing to to transition ourselves incredibly rapidly off fossil fuels. And to do that, you you'd need a mass program of of installing heat pumps uh in people's homes instead of gas boilers, which uh the plan was to get rid of gas boilers by 2030 or something, I think, but that's now been been got rid of or extended. So, you you know, you'd work to get these in everybody's homes. You'd work to to push renewables much much faster than you can now. So, you don't need the oil and gas. You don't say, "Oh, we're going to have to have this oil and gas." uh which is is not an excuse, you know, that's that's not the way to do it. We need to be on a war footing to decarbonize now. You know, we need to well, we needed to start 30 years ago really. >> So, it's fossil fuels. We could carry on eating meat. >> Well, eating meat isn't isn't good for all sorts of reasons. I mean, health reasons, environment, whatever. And it does contribute a large proportion of not a large proportion, but a significant proportion of emissions. But fossil burning fossil fuels is you know is the the critical area I think. >> Yeah. I often I think when people argue against eating meat the more I learn about it actually the argument for enhanced biodiversity is a stronger one with regards to reducing animal agriculture because obviously so much land is given over to particularly beef production >> which could be um which could be rewalded. It's just a very inefficient way of of allocating land and um also allocating arable land because you grow crops to feed animals rather than eat the crops yourself. Um one more question. Do we need to become a multilanet species? >> I don't think we're going to be around long enough to do that to be honest. [laughter] I mean, you know, there's an argument that the reason why we haven't we haven't come across any other life in the universe is because it uh if if it does become civilized and technological, it reaches a stage where it wipes itself out. Um, >> is that Fermy's paradox? >> Well, Fury's paradox is Yes. I mean, essentially, yeah. >> Do you think that >> I can see that you can get to a stage where you can make things very difficult for yourself as a race? I mean, we're, you know, the fact that we're where we are now and we can see how bad things are getting and how terrible things are getting and we're doing nothing effectively about it. I mean, we've got intelligence. We've got no wisdom. That's the problem, you know. And it may be that races if they exist or species and other planets also reach that level of technological uh intelligence if you like without the wisdom to use technology properly. uh and everything goes bang >> because we think of ourselves as a we are obviously a very intelligent species. We think of ourselves as as a successful species but you know homo sapiens has been around for about 300,000 years. The dinosaurs were around for a couple hundred million years, right? >> Yes. Yeah. >> So we're really we're very stupid if you if you're looking at a successful species in terms of their duration on the planet. Well, I think in the fate of the world I have a section on homosultus, which is effectively stupid sapiions, [laughter] which is a better description because we're know effectively for in the search for because of greed and the search for short-term profit um and exploitation and environmental degradation, we're destroying our world um and potentially destroying ourselves. There's there's where's the wisdom in that? And you got crocodiles and turtles that are still around. We look at them as stupid and actually they're a long long time after us as well. >> Well, they might be. Yes. Or we you know what we're also involved with at the moment is that I mean there have been five great extinctions and people write about the sixth great extinction but it's not. This is the first great extermination. I mean we are you know we are responsible for killing all these species. That didn't happen in the past. So species that have existed for hundreds of millions of years may not get past the next hundred or so because of us. >> So it's Elizabeth Colbert, right? The sixth great extinction >> and just one of the most depressing books I've ever read and it starts with I can't remember how it starts but you know it starts with an encounter. We've only really thought about um evolution for a couple hundred years which is kind of amazing when you think about it. Um, and then she talks about this very rare bird. It's the last kind of this bird and the way it's killed before it goes extinct as a species. And you really just sum up how stupid we are. >> Yeah. So, well, I think I talk in the fate of the world about, you know, a couple hundred years ago 100 million passenger pigeons in North America or something and then about 50 60 years later, none. Wiped out every single one. Just absolutely terrible. >> What wiped them out? >> We did shooting them. >> Wow. >> Killing them. I mean, just But I think the figure was 100 million, something like that. The flocks that darken the skies. You'd think it's impossible to wipe out all those. But no, we managed it fairly quickly. [snorts] >> Like the bison in the US. >> Well, bison the same. Exactly. >> Reintroduced more recently. Yeah. >> By Ted Turner, incidentally, I mean, he's died recently, but Ted Turner, of course, the man who founded CNN, um had was a big climate person. He went out, he was going out with Jane Fonder at one point, and I think he helped fund he was the guy that basically helped commission the Captain Planet series cartoons in the 1990s. Quite an interesting uh interesting point. Not all not all the billionaires are bad. I know I said finally on the space thing because I think I find it interesting that you're somebody who's interested in existential risk, right? And you're looking at this stuff through the you know the long term and people like Elon Musk I think do the same thing right whether or not we overcome the climate crisis if we you know stabilize planetary conditions etc. If we want to be around for a really long time we probably would have come multiplanetary that's why I asked it but I suppose this is this is where I want to end up billionaires are looking at New Zealand as the kind of bolt hole where they'll be safe in a world of runaway climate change political breakdown declining crop yields etc. as somebody who is as authorative as almost anybody else on this stuff, is it going to work? >> Um, well, New Zealand is, relatively speaking, it has an amanable climate. Um, I was lucky enough to do a sbatical in Christ Church in the South Island in 2005. Um, it's certainly very quiet. [laughter] If you want somewhere to get away from things, then that's the place to be. But this whole idea of um billionaires having a bolt hole, it it just doesn't work. And I know they I know they are concerned about this because if you you know if you whiz off somewhere, hide yourself away, you've got servants, security staff, assistants, hangers on, whatever. When [snorts] things fall apart, you have no hold over those people. They don't have to do what you tell them. >> [snorts] >> Um they can just tell you bugger off, throw your hook, >> and they >> overthrow you. >> Well, yeah. They just, you know, they have no hold over people in those circumstances. Why would people do what they were told? No reason to. There's no no money. There's no whatever. They'll say, "Well, we'll do what we like. Thanks. You can booger off." the the the future warlord of a post-apocalyptic New Zealand will be, you know, a former kitchen porter for >> Yeah. could well be >> Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos or some >> There's no reason why the billionaires should have should have any any hold over anybody else. >> And they worry about that. I've read things recently about them thinking of ways of um I mean this might be apocryphal of ways of controlling their staff sort of some sort of thing around their neck that gives them an electric shock if they don't do as they're told seriously these sorts of things because [clears throat] otherwise they will just do what they want worth thinking about Jeff or Elon Bill Maguire this has been a fabulous conversation really one of the best we've had on one of the most important topics and I'm sorry for the excurses into, you know, five billion years of history. Hot House Earth, an inhabitants guide. I really recommend this. And of course, more recently, The Fate of the World, a history and future of the climate crisis. Both very, very good. Bill, once more, thanks for joining us. >> You're very welcome. It's been fantastic.