BBCNEWS — The Climate Question
20260808 233000 UTC
557 transcript segments
Original Broadcaster Captioning (Enhanced)
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:00:00] you are. Business on BBC News. Make
[00:00:01] Make the connection. MUSIC
[00:00:13] MUSIC Now Now on BBC News. Understanding the
[00:00:15] the future of our changing world world as the earth warms due to climate
[00:00:19] climate change. How hot could it
[00:00:21] it really get? Author Kate Marvel
[00:00:24] Marvel investigates in the climate
[00:00:27] climate question. The more you know
[00:00:33] know about the universe, the more more you realise how much most of
[00:00:37] of it sucks. All of the other planets
[00:00:40] planets that we know of are complete
[00:00:42] complete garbage, and the earth is
[00:00:45] is the only good place in the universe.
[00:00:48] universe. And so just realising that that and realising how beautiful
[00:00:52] beautiful and perfect this planet planet is just sort of fills me with
[00:00:55] with a sense of wonder every day.
[00:00:57] day. We keep breaking temperature
[00:01:00] temperature records. So how hot will will the earth get? We'll talk about
[00:01:03] about the science with a top climate climate expert. And we'll be talking
[00:01:06] talking about something just as important
[00:01:09] important as the science, how those those facts make us feel. That's
[00:01:12] That's on the climate question from from the BBC World Service. I'm Jordan
[00:01:16] Jordan Dunbar. And I'm Graihagh Jackson.
[00:01:23] Jackson. Our climate expert is Professor
[00:01:25] Professor Kate Marvel. Hi, Kate. Kate. Hi there. So excited to be
[00:01:29] be here. Kate, I'm just gonna go go through your credits. You may
[00:01:31] may want to prepare to buy or indeed
[00:01:33] indeed blush because you're a climate
[00:01:36] climate scientist, an astrophysicist, astrophysicist, a cosmologist as
[00:01:39] as well as a world expert in clouds. clouds. Yeah. So this guy actually
[00:01:43] actually isn't the limit for you, you, Kate. Well done Greg. Thanks Thanks for that. Drumroll, Jordan.
[00:01:47] Jordan. So we've got loads of questions questions for you, especially about
[00:01:50] about your new book, The Human Emotions
[00:01:53] Emotions The Nine Things We Can Feel
[00:01:55] Feel in Response to Our Warming World. World. But first, I really want to
[00:01:58] to dig into the science of climate
[00:02:00] climate change and how hot our planet
[00:02:03] planet might get because indeed you
[00:02:05] you work at Nasa. So for this we
[00:02:09] we use climate models. Kate, what
[00:02:11] what are climate models and how do do they work? So a climate model
[00:02:15] model is basically everything that
[00:02:17] that we know about the physics and
[00:02:19] and the chemistry of how the world
[00:02:22] world works. Translated into equations
[00:02:24] equations and solved on big supercomputers.
[00:02:27] supercomputers. So you can think think of a climate model as just
[00:02:31] just a collection of equations, but
[00:02:33] but you can also think of it as very
[00:02:36] very literally a world building machine.
[00:02:39] machine. Climate models run on stories.
[00:02:41] stories. You take a story. So for
[00:02:43] for example, the story of recent recent history and you translate
[00:02:47] translate that story into emissions emissions of greenhouse gases and
[00:02:51] and aerosols and other pollutants. pollutants. And you tell that story
[00:02:54] story to the climate model. And the the climate model will spit out a
[00:02:58] a world. It'll tell you what the
[00:03:00] the temperature is, what the rainfall
[00:03:03] rainfall patterns look like. And And this is really useful because
[00:03:05] because you can tell the climate climate model counterfactual stories.
[00:03:09] stories. You can say, what if we
[00:03:11] we never existed? What if we don't
[00:03:14] don't check our emissions? What was was the world like back in the last
[00:03:17] last ice age? And it will spit out out the worlds. And so that's the
[00:03:21] the way that that I like to think think about what climate models are
[00:03:25] are showing us. And where do you
[00:03:27] you get all of the like characters characters for those climate stories?
[00:03:31] stories? Do they come from the past? past? Where do you get the ingredients ingredients for those to make the
[00:03:35] the predictions? Oh, that's such such a good question. So I am a total
[00:03:39] total boring pedant on this. Climate Climate models don't make predictions.
[00:03:43] predictions. They make projections projections and what that means. means. The really crucial difference
[00:03:46] difference is predictions are saying
[00:03:48] saying this is what will happen.
[00:03:50] happen. And a projection is conditional. conditional. A projection is if we
[00:03:54] we do this then this will happen. happen. And so when somebody says
[00:03:58] says climate models predict that
[00:04:00] that in the year 2100, everything everything is going to be completely
[00:04:04] completely apocalyptic or climate climate models predict that in the
[00:04:06] the year 2100 everything will be
[00:04:08] be fine. Those are conditional. Those
[00:04:11] Those are conditional on the stories stories that are told to the climate
[00:04:15] climate model. And so, for example,
[00:04:18] example, in that future, that apocalyptic apocalyptic future that is conditional.
[00:04:21] conditional. That's a projection projection conditional on human beings
[00:04:25] beings not getting emissions under under control. I know that models
[00:04:28] models broadly say that the more more of these planet warming gases
[00:04:31] gases like carbon dioxide there is is in the sky, the warmer our planet
[00:04:34] planet gets. But it's actually a
[00:04:37] a very complicated world that you're you're having to build. And there
[00:04:41] there are some things that might might accelerate climate change.
[00:04:44] change. But also there are other other things, mechanisms, natural
[00:04:47] natural feedbacks that might be putting putting the brakes or even reversing
[00:04:50] reversing climate change. And could could you talk us through some of of those processes like plants, say,
[00:04:54] say, for instance, and how that works works in a very complicated model
[00:04:58] model like the ones you were describing.
[00:05:02] describing. So my job, if I could could describe it really succinctly,
[00:05:05] succinctly, is to figure out how how hot it's going to get. And when
[00:05:09] when you say, you know, we don't don't know how hot it's going to to get, people are like what climate
[00:05:12] climate scientists like you guys guys had one job, you know, come
[00:05:15] come on, how you don't know that?
[00:05:17] that? And the reason one of the reasons reasons that we don't know exactly
[00:05:20] exactly how hot it's going to get get is we've never done this experiment
[00:05:24] experiment before. We've never kicked
[00:05:26] kicked the earth this hard. And so
[00:05:29] so we don't really know exactly how
[00:05:32] how it's going to react. We do know know because it is such basic physics
[00:05:35] physics that we have known since since the 19th century that putting
[00:05:38] putting a bunch of greenhouse gases gases in the atmosphere increases
[00:05:41] increases the temperature of the the planet and the primary greenhouse
[00:05:44] greenhouse gas that we're emitting
[00:05:45] emitting is carbon dioxide. About
[00:05:48] About half of the carbon dioxide dioxide that human beings put in
[00:05:51] in the atmosphere gets taken out
[00:05:54] out of the atmosphere by stuff that
[00:05:56] that photosynthesises basically plants plants and phytoplankton. And the
[00:06:00] the thing is, there's no guarantee guarantee that they're going to continue
[00:06:03] continue doing that into the future.
[00:06:06] future. It's really hard as a forest forest to take carbon dioxide out
[00:06:10] out of the atmosphere when you're you're on fire. So we know that as
[00:06:13] as the climate changes, the ability
[00:06:15] ability of stuff to grow on the Earth's
[00:06:17] Earth's surface is going to change.
[00:06:19] change. And what that means is that
[00:06:22] that the more of the CO2 that we
[00:06:24] we emit in the future might be staying
[00:06:27] staying up there in the atmosphere, atmosphere, warming the planet. So
[00:06:30] So we don't know how much of our our CO2 is going to stay in the future
[00:06:34] future atmosphere. And a lot of that that is because we don't know how how plants are going to do. But then
[00:06:38] then we also don't know how that that CO2 is going to warm up the
[00:06:42] the planet. And that's because we
[00:06:45] we don't exactly know what kind of
[00:06:47] of changes to the whole earth system system that's going to provoke. So
[00:06:50] So one of the big wild cards there there is clouds. We don't know how
[00:06:54] how clouds are going to rearrange rearrange themselves in order to
[00:06:56] to speed up or slow down the warming.
[00:07:00] warming. We are fairly certain, though, though, that there is no kind of
[00:07:03] of natural emergency brake. Our best best estimate of what plants are
[00:07:06] are going to do, what we call carbon carbon cycle feedbacks is that that's
[00:07:10] that's going to lead to more CO2
[00:07:12] CO2 in the atmosphere. And our best best estimate of what clouds are
[00:07:15] are going to do is a destabilising destabilising feedback, something
[00:07:18] something that makes global warming warming worse. And is that why you you have so many different climate
[00:07:22] climate models? It's not like you you just have a few. You have lots
[00:07:25] lots of different ones to try and and bring in all these variables
[00:07:29] variables completely. Yeah. So when when we think about a climate model,
[00:07:32] model, which is just like a computer computer representation of reality,
[00:07:36] reality, right? If that is completely
[00:07:38] completely perfect, if that is able
[00:07:40] able to exactly represent reality,
[00:07:43] reality, that's literally the matrix,
[00:07:45] matrix, right? And that's impossible. impossible. And that's creepy. And
[00:07:48] And we don't really want that. Right? Right? And so climate models, like
[00:07:52] like all scientific models are necessarily
[00:07:56] necessarily approximations of reality. reality. We know how clouds work.
[00:07:59] work. But the thing is clouds are
[00:08:01] are formed when little tiny water
[00:08:04] water droplets or ice crystals coagulate coagulate around, you know, dust
[00:08:08] dust grains or little bits of sea
[00:08:10] sea salt or whatever. And in order
[00:08:12] order to get that completely accurately, accurately, you would need a computer
[00:08:16] computer that is capable of tracking tracking every single little dust,
[00:08:19] dust, grain and water droplet in
[00:08:21] in the entire atmosphere. We don't
[00:08:24] don't have computers that powerful. powerful. And so as a result, we
[00:08:27] we have to make kind of approximations.
[00:08:29] approximations. We have to say when
[00:08:31] when this happens, clouds do this this and there are different climate
[00:08:34] climate modelling groups all over over the world who are all making
[00:08:38] making kind slightly different choices, choices, different physically defensible
[00:08:42] defensible approximations. And when when we compare all of those different different climate models together,
[00:08:46] together, we get kind of an understanding
[00:08:49] understanding of what is really solid,
[00:08:51] solid, what we completely get and and what there still uncertainty
[00:08:54] uncertainty in. You've mentioned
[00:08:58] mentioned clouds a couple of times
[00:08:59] times there, Kate. Why are they so
[00:09:03] so important here? Clouds are so so I wish I didn't have to think
[00:09:06] think about clouds. I am a Californian.
[00:09:11] Californian. I love perfect weather.
[00:09:14] weather. I get really mad when the
[00:09:16] the temperature drops below 20 Celsius.
[00:09:19] Celsius. Don't come to England. Oh,
[00:09:20] Oh, it's in the sky. So so I don't
[00:09:24] don't want to have to care about about clouds, but I kind of have
[00:09:27] have to. And that's because they're
[00:09:30] they're incredibly important in regulating regulating the climate system. So
[00:09:33] So the thing about clouds is that
[00:09:36] that they have this dual effect. effect. They both cool the planet
[00:09:40] planet by blocking sunlight and they they warm the planet because they
[00:09:43] they have their own greenhouse effect.
[00:09:45] effect. Right now, the unit that
[00:09:47] that scientists use to measure kind kind of the energy imbalance of the
[00:09:51] the planet, how much it's out of of whack is what's like in a light
[00:09:55] light bulb per square metre. And
[00:09:57] And our best estimate of the what
[00:10:00] what happens when we double carbon
[00:10:02] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
[00:10:06] atmosphere? That's around 4W/m2. 4W/m2. When we look at what clouds
[00:10:10] clouds are doing, clouds are blocking
[00:10:12] blocking our cooling the planet by
[00:10:15] by about 50W per square metre. At
[00:10:18] At the same time, they're also warming
[00:10:20] warming the planet by about 25W/m2.
[00:10:24] 25W/m2. So they do two things at
[00:10:25] at once. They're incredibly powerful
[00:10:28] powerful and they're really, really really difficult to get right in
[00:10:30] in a climate model because it's this this scale mismatch. It's the fact
[00:10:34] fact that you have to understand understand what's happening at the
[00:10:36] the very small scales, but then you you also have to get what's happening
[00:10:40] happening at global scales. So what what do those projections tell us
[00:10:44] us then about how hot the earth might
[00:10:46] might get? So I would say the number
[00:10:50] number one thing we can take away
[00:10:52] away from that is actually the biggest
[00:10:55] biggest uncertainty in how hot the the planet will get is what human
[00:10:59] human beings are going to do. The
[00:11:02] The emissions scenario, basically basically what we call the story
[00:11:06] story about what human societies societies will choose to do, whether
[00:11:08] whether we will choose to increase increase our emissions, keep them
[00:11:12] them flat or decrease them. That That is the largest reason that we
[00:11:16] we don't know how hot it's going going to get. But even when you just
[00:11:19] just look at the physical science science uncertainty, even when you
[00:11:22] you just look at what we know about about the physics of how the earth
[00:11:26] earth will respond, we are fairly
[00:11:29] fairly certain that the net aggregate aggregate impact of these what we
[00:11:33] we call cloud feedbacks, is going
[00:11:36] going to be destabilising. It's going going to make the warming worse.
[00:11:40] worse. Our best estimate of what what plants are going to do. These
[00:11:43] These carbon cycle feedbacks is that's that's going to lead to more CO2
[00:11:47] CO2 building up in the atmosphere. atmosphere. That's going to make make warming worse. I feel like I'm
[00:11:51] I'm in this really unique position
[00:11:53] position as a scientist because this this you know, I have this research research question. How hot is it
[00:11:57] it going to get? And I don't want
[00:12:00] want to know the answer to that research research question. Even though it's
[00:12:03] it's important to study the physics physics of how the earth system reacts.
[00:12:06] reacts. I don't want to do that experiment. experiment. I think we shouldn't.
[00:12:10] shouldn't. But Kate, if I may push
[00:12:12] push back a little bit on that, surely
[00:12:14] surely we need to know the trajectory
[00:12:16] trajectory we're heading in, in order
[00:12:19] order to adapt. Oh, absolutely. You
[00:12:21] You know, I am very pro-science. pro-science. I am very pro doing
[00:12:25] doing science, figuring out how the the earth works. And I think you're
[00:12:29] you're absolutely right that that that is relevant no matter what the
[00:12:33] the future looks like because no
[00:12:35] no climate change is unfortunately unfortunately not on the table. We're
[00:12:39] We're almost certainly going to blow
[00:12:43] blow past the 1.5 Celsius target. target. We're almost certainly going
[00:12:46] going to warm far more than that.
[00:12:49] that. And even if we were to stop
[00:12:52] stop emissions tomorrow, the temperature temperature of the planet would probably
[00:12:55] probably stabilise. But the ocean
[00:12:58] ocean is not done catching up. So
[00:13:00] So there is a lot of baked in sea
[00:13:03] sea level rise already. And so you you are absolutely right that it
[00:13:06] it is completely crucial to understand
[00:13:09] understand the physics of the earth earth system, the processes that
[00:13:12] that are underlying that in order order to make decisions in the future. future. What I was saying is that
[00:13:16] that worst case scenario, I don't don't want to do that experiment.
[00:13:19] experiment. I don't want to have have experimental evidence of what
[00:13:22] what the world looks like under the the worst case scenario. I just wanted
[00:13:26] wanted to get in my head a couple couple of things straight from what
[00:13:29] what you've been talking about. There's There's uncertainty because of all
[00:13:32] all these different variables and and how complex it is in these projections,
[00:13:36] projections, not predictions, projections projections that we're making the
[00:13:39] the future never predictions. But But can you talk just very simply
[00:13:42] simply about the certainty we have have of how the planet is warming?
[00:13:46] warming? Exactly. So I want to be
[00:13:49] be very clear that uncertainty is
[00:13:51] is not the same thing as ignorance.
[00:13:54] ignorance. We don't know everything, everything, but that does not mean
[00:13:57] mean we know nothing. And as a scientist,
[00:14:00] scientist, I like to talk about uncertainty uncertainty because that's where
[00:14:03] where my head is all day. That's
[00:14:05] That's my job. If we figured out out all of science, I would have
[00:14:09] have to find something else to do do with my life. And I don't want
[00:14:12] want to do that. So there is uncertainty.
[00:14:16] uncertainty. But you're absolutely absolutely correct that there is
[00:14:18] is complete and total certainty in
[00:14:20] in some things. The fact that carbon
[00:14:24] carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas,
[00:14:25] gas, methane is a greenhouse gas
[00:14:28] gas and greenhouse gases warm the
[00:14:30] the planet. This is incredibly well
[00:14:33] well established science. We have
[00:14:35] have known this stuff since the 1800s,
[00:14:38] 1800s, and the science has only gotten gotten more solid from there. So
[00:14:42] So I don't think I think we need need to be aware that uncertainty
[00:14:44] uncertainty is often weaponised against against us. People often say, oh,
[00:14:48] oh, well, the science is unsettled. unsettled. Therefore we don't have
[00:14:51] have to do anything. The science science does have big uncertainties
[00:14:55] uncertainties in the future. You You know, we've never done this experiment experiment before. We don't know
[00:14:58] know exactly what's going to happen,
[00:15:01] happen, but we are more sure that
[00:15:03] that greenhouse gases cause the climate climate to change than we are that
[00:15:07] that smoking causes cancer. Wow. Wow. I'm fascinated because we've
[00:15:11] we've been talking about climate climate modelling and variables and
[00:15:14] and data and you're a climate scientist, scientist, but you've written a book
[00:15:18] book called Human Nature Nine Ways
[00:15:19] Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet.
[00:15:22] Planet. Why did you want to link
[00:15:26] link emotions with climate science? science? Because to me, one is so
[00:15:28] so data driven and kind of rational.
[00:15:32] rational. Yeah, I was really uneasy
[00:15:34] uneasy for a while because I did
[00:15:37] did feel things about the earth.
[00:15:39] earth. I have a conflict of interest interest because I live on the thing
[00:15:43] thing that I study and I do care. care. I do care what happens to it.
[00:15:47] it. And but for a long time I thought, thought, oh, I shouldn't have these
[00:15:51] these feelings because I'm a scientist, scientist, I'm rational. I am data
[00:15:55] data driven. And as scientists, we
[00:15:58] we are trained to say, oh, we don't don't have any feelings. We don't
[00:16:01] don't have any emotions because supposedly supposedly that is supposed to make
[00:16:05] make people believe us more if we we are completely objective scientific
[00:16:08] scientific robots. And then it kind
[00:16:10] kind of hit me. I realised that,
[00:16:12] that, oh, pretending we don't have
[00:16:15] have any emotions, that doesn't make
[00:16:18] make us more objective, that makes
[00:16:19] makes us liars. And I don't want
[00:16:22] want to be a liar. And then I kind
[00:16:24] kind of realised that, oh, there
[00:16:28] there is no tension between getting
[00:16:29] getting the science right and having having feelings about what you're
[00:16:33] you're seeing and what you're studying.
[00:16:36] studying. You can feel sad or joyful
[00:16:39] joyful or angry and at the same time time you can get the math right.
[00:16:42] right. There's no tension for me me between those two. And I think
[00:16:45] think when we talk about climate
[00:16:47] climate change, oftentimes just talking talking about the data, just talking
[00:16:51] talking about the equations and the the graphs. And don't get me wrong,
[00:16:54] wrong, I love equations, I love graphs, graphs, but we scientists have this
[00:16:58] this tendency to be like, oh, just just one more graph and people will
[00:17:00] will believe us. And that's not how
[00:17:02] how people work, right? People respond
[00:17:05] respond to emotions. People respond respond to stories. And so what I
[00:17:08] I wanted to do was talk in that sort
[00:17:11] sort of language in the hopes that that it would resonate with more
[00:17:14] more people. What was the turning
[00:17:16] turning point for you? Why did you you suddenly decide, OK, I've got
[00:17:20] got to do this. I've got to talk talk about this as well. I think
[00:17:23] think one of the turning points was
[00:17:24] was having a kid. When you're a scientist,
[00:17:28] scientist, it's very easy to compartmentalise. compartmentalise. It's very easy
[00:17:31] easy to study climate model projections
[00:17:34] projections of what's going to happen happen in 2050, because that feels
[00:17:38] feels very abstract, that feels very very far away. And then when you
[00:17:41] you have a kid and you realise, no
[00:17:44] no 2050 is his adulthood, then things things start to become really concrete
[00:17:48] concrete in a way that maybe you you knew intellectually before, but
[00:17:52] but now you feel very profoundly. profoundly. I think a lot of times,
[00:17:56] times, and I'm sure you guys have have run into this to a lot of times
[00:17:59] times climate coverage is really really designed to try to make you
[00:18:03] you feel one thing, right? You're You're supposed to feel really freaked
[00:18:07] freaked out or really, really angry angry or just really, really sad
[00:18:11] sad at what we're losing or maybe maybe hopeful that there are things
[00:18:15] things that we can do about this.
[00:18:17] this. And I got really frustrated
[00:18:20] frustrated at kind of the implication implication that there was only one
[00:18:23] one thing that you could feel about
[00:18:25] about climate change because fundamentally fundamentally this is the whole planet
[00:18:28] planet changing. This is everything everything that we know, everything
[00:18:32] everything that we love. And how
[00:18:34] how on earth can you have only one
[00:18:36] one feeling about that? That's really really impossible. And so sometimes, sometimes, you know, people are like,
[00:18:40] like, how do you feel about climate climate change? And it's like, oh, oh, I don't know. I feel all the
[00:18:44] the feelings and I feel them all all really strongly. In the book
[00:18:47] book you've written about grief, grief, could you tell us about some
[00:18:49] some of the things that you've seen seen change and that you are grieving?
[00:18:53] grieving? Yeah. So I live in New
[00:18:54] New York City now, but I am a Californian
[00:18:58] Californian by birth and my heart
[00:19:01] heart is in California. I lived in
[00:19:04] in Northern California, which is
[00:19:06] is objectively the most beautiful beautiful place on the planet. But
[00:19:10] But when you talk about California
[00:19:12] California and climate change, what
[00:19:14] what comes to mind? It's change.
[00:19:17] change. It's destruction, it's fires.
[00:19:20] fires. One of my most beloved parts
[00:19:23] parts of California is the Sequoia
[00:19:25] Sequoia groves. These trees are incredible.
[00:19:27] incredible. They have seen so much.
[00:19:29] much. They have been around for thousands
[00:19:32] thousands of years, and we tend to
[00:19:34] to think of them as indestructible.
[00:19:37] indestructible. And they have been been indestructible for their entire
[00:19:40] entire long history. They're very very resistant to fire. In fact,
[00:19:44] fact, they need fire. Fire helps helps them grow. Fire helps them
[00:19:47] them spread. But now the fires are
[00:19:50] are changing. The summers are hotter.
[00:19:52] hotter. The winters are wetter and
[00:19:55] and there's more fuel and there's there's more fire weather so that
[00:19:58] that the fuel can go up in flames.
[00:20:01] flames. And this is creating conditions conditions that make it very hard
[00:20:05] hard for these things that have survived
[00:20:08] survived for centuries and centuries centuries to continue into the future.
[00:20:11] future. And so knowing the connection connection between what's happening
[00:20:15] happening in the atmosphere, which
[00:20:17] which can seem so far away and so
[00:20:20] so abstract, and just seeing how how it is affecting these things things that you grew up thinking
[00:20:24] thinking would be there forever is
[00:20:27] is is very quietly devastating. I I think. Your book is about nine
[00:20:30] nine emotions. Can you talk me through
[00:20:34] through those nine emotions? So I
[00:20:35] I wanted to start out with wonder
[00:20:38] wonder because that for me is the the emotion that I feel the most
[00:20:41] most every day. I'm a scientist.
[00:20:43] scientist. It is my job to find out
[00:20:45] out new things about this planet. planet. And I used to be an astrophysicist.
[00:20:49] astrophysicist. I used to be a cosmologist cosmologist and it was my job to
[00:20:53] to study the entire universe. And And then the more you know about
[00:20:57] about the universe, the more you
[00:20:59] you realise how much most of it sucks.
[00:21:02] sucks. All of the other planets that that we know of are complete garbage,
[00:21:05] garbage, and the earth is the only
[00:21:08] only good place in the universe.
[00:21:11] universe. And so just realising that that and realising how beautiful
[00:21:15] beautiful and perfect this planet planet is just sort of fills me with
[00:21:18] with a sense of wonder every day.
[00:21:20] day. And then the second chapter
[00:21:22] chapter is anger because you see
[00:21:25] see the world changing. You know know how well-established the science
[00:21:29] science is and you see people lying lying about that. And that makes
[00:21:33] makes me angry. And then I talk about
[00:21:36] about guilt. I talk about fear. I
[00:21:40] I talk about grief. But then I also
[00:21:43] also wanted to talk about maybe the
[00:21:45] the more positive emotions. So surprise,
[00:21:50] surprise, pride, both in the sense sense of hubris, but also in the
[00:21:53] the sense of we know what to do. do. And there is, I think, something
[00:21:56] something important in feeling pride
[00:21:57] pride in a job well done. And then
[00:22:01] then hope, an emotion that I think think all climate people have really
[00:22:04] really complicated relationships relationships with. And then I felt
[00:22:07] felt very strongly about ending the
[00:22:09] the book on love because that is
[00:22:12] is the reason that any of this matters. matters. Can you talk to me about
[00:22:15] about that complicated relationship relationship you have with Hope? Hope? What is it that's giving? Yeah,
[00:22:18] Yeah, because I was going to say say a lot of people look to the future, future, don't they? And they have
[00:22:22] have fear. They have anxiety about
[00:22:23] about what's to come. But hope. Yeah.
[00:22:26] Yeah. Is that what you see when you you look to the future? We know what
[00:22:30] what to do. And so if we want to
[00:22:33] to avoid the worst, if we want to to build a better future, we know
[00:22:36] know what to do. I actually find
[00:22:39] find a lot of hope and comfort in
[00:22:42] in how solid the science is. We know
[00:22:45] know exactly what is causing climate climate change, and that means that
[00:22:49] that we know exactly how to stop
[00:22:50] stop it. And so that is the thing
[00:22:53] thing that gives me a kind of active,
[00:22:56] active, motivating hope. You say
[00:22:57] say we know what we need to do, but
[00:23:01] but what is that exactly? Yeah. So
[00:23:03] So from a, you physical science perspective
[00:23:06] perspective up in the atmosphere, atmosphere, it's really simple. Climate
[00:23:09] Climate change is caused by greenhouse greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases
[00:23:12] gases are emitted by humans to stop
[00:23:14] stop climate change. Stop doing that.
[00:23:17] that. Now obviously that is much
[00:23:19] much easier said than done, but I
[00:23:21] I think it helps to zoom in and to
[00:23:25] to look at where we are, where those
[00:23:27] those emissions are coming from right?
[00:23:29] right? Those emissions are coming
[00:23:31] coming from the way we get around around from transportation. They're
[00:23:35] They're coming from the way that that we generate electricity. They're
[00:23:38] They're coming from the way that
[00:23:40] that we use land and farm and make
[00:23:44] make our food. They're coming from
[00:23:45] from the way we heat buildings and
[00:23:48] and cook that food. And they're coming
[00:23:50] coming from the way we make stuff. stuff. Industrial processes. And
[00:23:53] And when you break it down to that that level of granularity, you start
[00:23:57] start to realise, oh, there is a
[00:24:00] a solution for nearly every part
[00:24:03] part of that puzzle. Electricity.
[00:24:06] Electricity. Well, we have different different ways to make electricity.
[00:24:09] electricity. When you think about
[00:24:10] about fossil fuels, what they really
[00:24:13] really are is solar energy, but stupid.
[00:24:16] stupid. So you can either make electricity
[00:24:20] electricity from solar energy directly
[00:24:22] directly with solar panels or you
[00:24:25] you can use that solar energy to
[00:24:26] to make a plant photosynthesise eventually eventually that plant gets eaten
[00:24:30] eaten and the thing that ate it dies dies or the plant dies and it's got
[00:24:34] got the remnants of that last meal meal still in it. And then you wait
[00:24:38] wait hundreds of millions of years years and then you dig up and you
[00:24:40] you set it on fire. So we can either either use sunlight in that really
[00:24:43] really indirect way, or we can use
[00:24:46] use sunlight in a direct way. The
[00:24:48] The world has changed so much since
[00:24:50] since the beginning of my career.
[00:24:53] career. If you had told me when I
[00:24:54] I first started in climate science
[00:24:58] science that eventually solar it it won't be a boutique niche energy
[00:25:02] energy source for hippies, it's going going to be the cheapest way of generating
[00:25:05] generating electricity in all of
[00:25:07] of history. They're going to be cheap cheap electric cars, and they're
[00:25:11] they're going to be better than gas
[00:25:13] gas powered cars. Battery storage
[00:25:16] storage prices are going to be plummeting. plummeting. If you had told me all
[00:25:19] all of those things, I would think, think, no, no, no, there's no possible
[00:25:22] possible way that that can be true. true. That's just, you know, that's
[00:25:25] that's way, way, way too optimistic.
[00:25:28] optimistic. So we have solutions solutions for generating electricity.
[00:25:31] electricity. We have solutions for for transportation. And I could go
[00:25:35] go on and on and on, but for every
[00:25:38] every single aspect, every single single area where emissions come
[00:25:42] come from, we have the vast majority majority of the solutions that we
[00:25:45] we need to do that differently. Professor
[00:25:47] Professor Kip Marvel, thank you so so much for joining us today. Thank
[00:25:51] Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you you so much. Really appreciate it.
[00:25:54] it. And thank you for watching. And And don't forget you can subscribe
[00:25:58] subscribe to the BBC World Service Service YouTube channel so you don't
[00:26:00] don't miss a thing. And if you have have a climate question of your own
[00:26:03] own that you'd like us to answer, answer, we have a listener's question
[00:26:06] question show coming up very soon.
[00:26:08] soon. We'll see you next time.
[00:28:22] Trump's plan to get the oil flowing flowing again, one that will pay
[00:28:25] pay off? Join us on Talking Business
[00:28:28] Business weekly on BBC News. I lost
[00:28:35] lost my
[00:28:39] I lost my sight completely when I was eight years old. This is a a moment in the history of the United
[00:28:43] United States. My name is Gary O'Donoghue O'Donoghue and I'm the chief North North America correspondent for the
[00:28:46] the BBC. As you can see, we're on on the ground behind our car, which
[00:28:49] which is not ideal, but that's the the shelter we have at the moment
[00:28:53] moment during the Trump assassination assassination attempt. I think my
[00:28:55] my blindness was an interesting factor factor because one of the central
[00:28:58] central interviews we got was with with the eyewitness, Greg. I learned
[00:29:02] learned afterwards look pretty striking. striking. Secret service is looking looking at us from the top of the
[00:29:06] the barn. I'm pointing at that roof. roof. You spend your whole life interpreting
[00:29:09] interpreting the world through what what you hear. Because I can't see.
[00:29:12] see. I just listen to what he says. says. I listened and I asked the the same questions over and over
[00:29:15] over again. He remained consistent. consistent. He sounded credible. credible. It was the thing that persuaded
[00:29:19] persuaded me his listening and telling telling stories. That is the core
[00:29:22] core of what we do. We get the experience experience of all people we serve
[00:29:26] serve because we have people of all
[00:29:29] all kinds in this organisation.
[00:30:13] Live from Washington. This is
[00:30:16] BBC News. Ukraine's president repeats
[00:30:18] repeats his plea for more missiles
[00:30:20] missiles to intercept air strikes strikes after another deadly Russian
[00:30:23] Russian attack just outside the capital,
[00:30:26] capital, Kyiv, as cases of Ebola
[00:30:29] Ebola pass 4000 in D.r.congo. The
[00:30:31] The head of Africa CDC tells the
[00:30:33] the BBC the outbreak could become
[00:30:36] become the largest the world has
[00:30:38] has ever seen and football's world
[00:30:40] world governing body Fifa responds responds as questions mount about
[00:30:44] about president Gianni Infantino.
[00:30:46] Infantino. Personal and professional
[00:30:48] professional conduct.
[00:30:59] Helena Humphrey. Good to have