The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Global Warming Works

23:13Kids, teens, and adults can start anytime. Fencing is one of the fastest growing NCAA sports, with new colleges adding programs every year. Many clubs have loaner gear. Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one. Find a beginner class near you at tryfencing.org. That's tryfencing.org. eczema is unpredictable but you can flare less with Epglyss, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial 4 month or longer dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking Epglyss achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at 1 year with monthly dosing Epglyss, LibriKizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema.

24:01Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Evglyss and visit evglyss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

24:42All right. So we're back. I think everyone probably understands the greenhouse effect. If you remember your hot car. Yeah. It's kind of a nice, easy way to think about it. Sure. So when you were explaining the more, like, the Earth's version of that with getting absorbed, hitting things in the atmosphere, we're talking largely about three things. Carbon dioxide, methane gas, actually four things, nitrous oxide, and water vapor.

25:12Chuck Bryant:And there are a lot of others, but as far as like stuff that really has the biggest impact on global warming, it's these guys. Yeah, so we'll start with CO2 because that's the one you hear about most often, carbon emissions. It gets all the glory in the headlines these days. Carbon, CO2 is colorless. It's gas. It is a byproduct of the combustion of organic stuff. And it makes up a very small part of the Earth's atmosphere, 0.04%. And most of it that's up there has been there for a long, long time. It's from volcanic activity. However, we are pumping lots and lots of CO2, additional CO2. And remember, there's a delicate balance going on up there as it is.

26:00So like you said, Mother Earth doesn't need us adding to this. And we have been adding CO2 like it's gangbusters.

26:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So like that, remember when I was talking about how water turns into vapor and rises and then falls back down? That's the rain cycle. There's also a carbon cycle where carbon molecules just kind of go back and forth between the atmosphere and the earth. And apparently every year, 230 gigatons of carbon are released into the atmosphere from the earth, from plants, from rocks, from us. and then about the same amount, another 230 gigatons comes back down and is locked into Earth from the atmosphere, right? And it's, like you said, Chuck, like a pretty, pretty nice balance. The Earth has got this.

26:45Chuck Bryant:Please don't mess with it. But when we take carbon and unlock it from these carbon sinks, like, you know, we bust up rocks in mining operations. We burn fossil fuels that have carbon locked into them. We cut down trees and burn those things as fuel. that releases more carbon and it messes up that delicate, pretty much even exchange between the atmosphere and the Earth. Yeah, and that's a big problem because carbon has a knack for absorbing infrared radiation. So that energy that escapes the atmosphere, that's the form that it comes in. So all this extra CO2 means basically like your car, just an overall increase in temperature.

27:27Right.

27:27Chuck Bryant:And so not only does it absorb infrared heat and hang on to it, there's a lot of it. We just finally, in the first time in the history of the human race, all of humanity, not since the Industrial Revolution, but ever since humans have been around, the Earth reached 400 parts per million. Meaning that out of every million molecules that you just snatch out of the air and count, you're going to come up with 400 of those as carbon atoms, right? Yeah. Or carbon dioxide molecules. Yeah. So that's new. That's a big deal. And the problem with that is, is not just that there's a lot of carbon dioxide in there, but it's like you said, the more carbon dioxide there is, the more radiative heat that comes back down to Earth that doesn't escape into space, and the higher the global temperature gets.

28:21Yeah, and just to put it into perspective, 400 parts per million now, and that's 2017 numbers, I guess? I think in 2015 we hit 400, and we're up to like 404 now. So that pre-industrial revolution was about 280 parts per million. So it has swelled by about 124 parts per million since the industrial revolution, which is pretty staggering.

28:49Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and there's apparently a way that you can tell when you're actually measuring the carbon dioxide molecules themselves where they came from. And ones that are introduced into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels have a specific signature that we can detect. And we have seen that as the global temperature has increased and more and more carbon dioxide has been introduced into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, so too has the concentration of that specific type of carbon dioxide. So there's a strong correlation between the fossil fuel burn carbon dioxide that we humans have put in the air with rising global temperatures.

29:32All right. Moving on to nitrous oxide, which we did a whole podcast on this, right?

29:39Chuck Bryant:Yeah. That was a good one. That was a great one. Mainly because of that tank that we had here in the studio. I know. We're method podcasters. That definitely enhanced the whole thing. So N2O is another greenhouse gas, super important. And we are not releasing, like human activity is not releasing nearly as much as we are CO2. But N2O absorbs a lot more energy, like 270 times as much as CO2. So that makes it something we really need to pay attention to. And we are paying attention to it. It just doesn't get all the headlines. No, it definitely doesn't. Just because there's so, so much less of it, right?

30:20Chuck Bryant:And whereas it takes like tens of thousands of years for, you know, the 20 percent of any given carbon dioxide emission to leave the atmosphere, it takes about 114 years for a full emission of nitrous oxide to leave the atmosphere. Yeah. As far as man-made, it is also a byproduct of combustion and a lot of fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer that they use on crops releases the N2O into the atmosphere as well. See, to me, all you have to do is seed the atmosphere with a bunch of hippies and let them huff all the nitrous oxide right out of it. Problem solved. That's right. Because you've also gotten rid of— Great fish concert in the sky.

31:01Chuck Bryant:Exactly. What else do we have? Methane? Methane's a big one, and this is super overlooked, but I remember hearing about this when people first started realizing, like, oh, that's a really big problem. There's very little amount of it, Whereas like there's 404 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere these days, we can measure about 1.7 parts per million of methane. But it absorbs and emits thermal energy like gangbusters as well, far more than CO2, I think about 20 times more. And there's a lot of different places where it comes from. Like when we mine coal, it releases methane. When our ample herds of livestock fart, they release methane.

31:52Chuck Bryant:No joke. That's actually a huge contributor of greenhouse gases. Oh, yeah. We talked about that, I feel like, years ago in another episode. Surely we have. Another one, Chuck, was, do you remember our plasma waste incineration episode? Yeah, sure. Well, remember one of the things we talked about was that the average landfill gives off methane. And that's a huge problem, too. So, like, if you go to a landfill and you see that there's flames around it, they're actually burning that stuff off because the CO2 it releases after it's burned is actually preferable in that case to the methane just being allowed to escape.

32:31Chuck Bryant:That's bad news. It is bad news. And there are scientists who have even posited that maybe tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago that large-scale venting of methane into the atmosphere, like if a big block of ice cracked open and unlocked a big methane bubble from under the ocean, that could have caused maybe a mass extinction because it was released so quickly into the atmosphere. Yeah, like we're doing now, basically. Yeah, on a slower basis. I don't think anyone's saying that's going to happen. No. I don't know. I think that is a concern that as Arctic ice melts, that methane bubbles could be released, which would just be a nightmare on top of a catastrophe.

33:17Chuck Bryant:That's right. There's another problem with methane, too, that in the atmosphere it frequently converts to CO2. So it just not only contributes itself, it also contributes to the CO2 emission problem. Man. There's also, Chuck, another thing. called short-lived climate pollutants, SLCPs. They don't get a lot of press either, but a lot of people think that if we focused on these, we could really see some real results in the short term. Supposedly, SLCPs account for something like 30 % to 40 % of global warming, but they are particles like black carbon, methane counts as one of them,

34:02Chuck Bryant:hydrochlorofluorocarbons. Nice. And they can live in the atmosphere from, say, like days to tens of years, and then they go away. And if we really cut down on some of those emissions, we would see the effects of that very quickly. Wow. Yeah. So speaking of effects, I guess we should kind of talk about what this all could mean and does mean. Yeah. And is meaning. Sure. Number one, we can talk a little bit about sea level. or sea levels. Glaciers and ice shelves are melting all around the world. And losing large chunks of ice like this can accelerate this warming because there's less of the sun's energy.

34:46You know, we talked earlier about it being reflected by ice sheets and things like that, these reflective surfaces. Less reflective surface means less is getting reflected away. So just at like the very base level, that's going to be an increase in temperature.

35:00Chuck Bryant:Yes. But also, depending on where the glacier is, it could contribute to sea level increases, too, as we'll talk about. Yeah, I mean, we might as well hit that, huh? Okay. So, one of the things that I learned from this that I just absolutely did not know but makes total sense is that the Arctic sea ice, if it melts, it will contribute zero to a sea level increase. Yeah, interesting. I had no idea, but it makes total sense because it turns out that Arctic sea ice in particular floats on the sea. So it's already in the sea, and it's already contributed to the sea level rise. If anything, if that stuff, if we went through an ice age and all that stuff froze into basically a frozen land mass, then you'd see a sea level decrease.

35:50Chuck Bryant:But the way it is right now, there wouldn't be a sea level rise if it melts completely. There are other places around Earth where the glaciers and ice caps are basically land masses. And if they did melt, then you would see a sea level rise just from that melted water, right? Yeah, I mean, we're talking about Antarctica there. And the likelihood of Antarctica thawing out is not great, which is good. Well, not all of it, but there's certainly parts of it could. Yeah, for sure. And then same with Greenland, too. Well, yeah, Greenland's a problem because it is much closer to the equator. So temperatures are higher there anyway.

36:31It's not like negative 37 degrees on average like it is in Antarctica.

36:35Chuck Bryant:Right. So I feel like I have to say that so specifically. Antarctica. Yeah. And the other problem, too, with this loss of ice, people might say, like, no, it's crazy. Like, I see plenty of glaciers there still. But if every season a little more melts off than is replenished by snowfall in the winter, you have a net loss of ice. And then over time, if you look at it on a scale of a decade or two decades or three decades, that's a substantial amount of lost ice. And that is what increases the sea level. That leads to sea level rise. Yeah, so as far as the IPCC is concerned, they estimate that sea levels rose about a little over 6 1⁄2 inches in the 20th century.

37:24Doesn't sound like much, but it is a lot. Sea level rise in low-lying coastal areas can mean pretty bad flooding at just mere inches. They proposed that if things continue to go this way, they could rise by as much as 22 inches, almost two feet by the year of 2100. And brother, if that happens, we're going to have to redraw the world map.

37:48Chuck Bryant:That's true. I was looking, I was like, how high is Miami Beach? Miami Beach is apparently just under four feet above sea level. New Orleans is like zero feet. I think it's maybe at two feet, basically. There's a lot of coastal cities, Singapore, I think Copenhagen. they're all like very close to sea level or just slightly above sea level. And so, yeah, two feet rise. I know the Maldives is frequently mentioned as like being under real threat from sea level rise. But even if you don't necessarily live in a coastal area that's two feet, you know, just two feet above sea level, consider this. If the sea level rose just six inches like they were saying, that means that when you have extreme weather events which go hand in hand with global warming and are part of climate change where it rains really hard and there's more major flooding than before then it's already working with an extra six inches than any flood that you've been used to before.

38:54Chuck Bryant:So the floods are much more extensive and that's a really good example of how interconnected the global climate system is where if one thing gets messed up a little bit It has all these other widespread effects around the world and on regions, too. Yeah, because I think they found that there are not necessarily more frequent, like, tropical storms and hurricanes and things, but they are becoming much more intense, and that's the issue at hand. Yeah, and that one in particular has to do with the surface temperature of the oceans increasing as the temperature of the world increases, because that's where those storms, hurricanes and cyclones, get their energy from is from the warm surface of the sea.

39:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So if it's warm, that's like you'll see them like hit land and like lose steam. And then when they go back over the ocean, they'll start to like regather their strength. That's because they're over warm water again. And that's where they get it all from. Yeah. Plus there is, I don't think we mentioned this yet about the density of water. No, no, I don't want to go anywhere near it. You take this one. Well, very simply, water is most dense at four degrees Celsius. So that's its kind of homeostasis of where it needs to be. Anything above or below that temperature and the density is going to decrease.

40:14So the overall temperature of the water is going to increase naturally. And this is not like human cause. But that will also cause the oceans to rise. I mean, that's just a natural thing.

40:25Chuck Bryant:Right. Well said. All right. I'll just leave that one. I'll park it right there. I'm glad you mentioned that, though, because you don't see that really ever. Like, no one ever mentions, like, oh, yeah, water is just going to expand as it warms. I've never thought about that one either. Or cool's, I think, right? Yeah, or cool's. It's a weird, weird thing. Weird, weird material. So let's take another break, and we'll get back to explaining why global warming is a real thing.

41:27Chuck Bryant:We'll see you next time. iHeartRadio. Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Select plans only. Not available in all areas. Use a fiber coaxial cable. Looking for something new? Try fencing. The Olympic and Paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun. It's like chess meets cardio. Quick feet, quick decisions, and a satisfying beep when you score a point. Kids, teens, and adults can start anytime. No experience needed, and many clubs have loner gear. Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one. Find a beginner class for your kids near you at trifencing.org.

42:05Chuck Bryant:That's trifencing.org. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with EpGliss, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking EpGliss achieved itch relief and clear or almost-clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, Librikizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema.

42:39Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBCLIS and visit ebglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

43:20Chuck Bryant:All right, Chuck. So we talked about the ice caps melting. We talked about glaciers melting. We talked about sea level rise. Correct. There's also, I mean, people are out there saying like, that's great, but how does it impact me, a human? That's what I want to know about. Well, there's tons of ways because as technologically clever as we humans are, we are extraordinarily dependent on the earth. So as this climate change happens due to global warming, we're going to see all sorts of problems. And we already are starting to see problems. Yeah, so we did mention earlier that if you live in a temperate area, if you've got like four kind of lovely seasons, like let's say Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, you may have a longer growing season.

44:05You might have a bit more rain. It might be actually good for the crops here in Georgia in some ways. But other parts of the world, less temperate zones, are going to see big temperature increases, way less rain, and longer droughts, worse droughts, bigger deserts. it's not going to be so good for those places.

44:25Chuck Bryant:No, they apparently have found that every trillion tons of CO2 contributed to the atmosphere raises the global temperature average by about three quarters of a degree Celsius. Wow. And then they went and correlated that each one degree Celsius increase in temperature equals an evaporative increase of about 7 % to 15 % here on planet Earth in the soil, right? So, as temperatures increase, there's going to be less water in the soil, which affects crops, and leads to things like droughts and even desertification as well. And man, every time I throw out one of these terms, I'm like, we did an episode on that.

45:09Chuck Bryant:We did an episode on that. And droughts. Yeah. We've been dancing around this one for a while. We have. I'm glad we finally tackled it, man. Agreed. You're doing great, by the way. Well, hold on, hold on. So as the water evaporates from the soil and goes up and is locked into the atmosphere, again, it's eventually going to come down. And when it does, you're going to have far more severe flooding and precipitation than you would have normally when it was just going up and coming down and going up and coming down like on its normal cycle. Yeah. So that's one way that it can affect you because while it's turning to droughts, you got wildfires.

45:48Chuck Bryant:And then when the soil gets degraded and there's suddenly a lot of rain, you've got flooding. And people get carried away in their cars because they think it can drive across a flowing river.

46:00That's not funny at all, by the way. I guess not. Just the way you put it was. So one of the other devastating effects, and this one is kind of tougher to predict because we haven't really seen what can happen with our living human eyeballs, but ecosystems. And I think we did. Did we do on ecosystems as a whole or just have we talked about it forever and everything?

46:24Chuck Bryant:I think it's just popped up in so many of them, it seems like. Yeah, we definitely covered coral reefs and things like that. We're talking about living ecosystems, and we all know they're very delicate. and the delicate balance of the ecosystem is what makes it worse. And we've talked ad nauseum over the past nine years about how little, just little things can happen in an ecosystem that will create this chain reaction. It's all interconnected. And we don't know what might happen in terms of global warming in our living ecosystem. Sure, some animals might adapt. Some might move. but there would also be massive amounts of extinction.

47:05Coral reefs are already dying. We're seeing that with our eyeballs. Forests are dying off and turning to grassland. And it's not just like, oh, well, there they go. Now we have grassland instead of a forest.

47:18Chuck Bryant:Let's make some hula skirts. Yeah. Again, it's that domino effect that we're going to see. It's just no one knows what it's going to mean in the end. It's really troubling. Yeah, and I was like, well, how are ecosystems interconnected? I know they are, but how? So I looked up a good example and found salmon. So salmon are born in, like, little streams, and they end up, like, traveling down into bigger streams and eventually rivers and then estuaries, and then they actually go and mature out in the ocean, which I hadn't really thought of. And then when it's time for them to go breed, They swim back upstream, back into the rivers, back into the streams themselves.

48:01Chuck Bryant:Actually, they go back to where they were born to breed and then die. And as they're doing it, they're basically acting as nutrient transport systems between all these different ecosystems each step of the way. Yeah, it's like a seed being scattered in the wind. Yeah, very much so. But a seed that can actually come back home and bring all the nutrients that it gathered like out in the ocean back into its home ecosystem where it was born. So it's pretty interesting. And I mean, like, that's just a great example. Let's just salmon, you know? So, yeah, the ecosystems are very much connected. So if something happens with one, it's going to have an effect on all the other ones.

48:37Chuck Bryant:And like you said, some things will survive, some things won't. But the thing that I think most of us here on Earth are agreeing to agree about is we should probably do something to stop those extinctions as best we can. even if we'll probably survive, you know? Yeah, and this is a very USA-centric show for the most part because that's where we're based. We try to think outside that box as much as we can. And in the case of global warming, the poorest nations of the world are the ones that are going to be hit the hardest. They're the ones, a lot of times, in the less temperate zones that are going to be hit with more devastating crop loss.

49:22But crop loss is going to be a big deal all over the world. It already is. There's something called the Carnegie Institution that estimates about$5 billion in crop losses per year due to global warming is already going on right now. And farmers are seeing a decrease of about 40 million metric tons of wheat, barley, corn, other cereal grains every year. So just one degree Fahrenheit, an average temper of an increase, could result in 3 % to 5 % drop in crop yields. Right. So it's a global issue. Sure, some of the poorest nations might be affected earliest and the worst, but it is going to touch every nation.

50:03Chuck Bryant:It definitely will, and it doesn't necessarily have to just be the poorest nations. It can be the poorest people of rich nations. Well, yeah, true. And it can be people who are very rich who end up living in areas that are hit, Like Houston saw a lot of increase in waterborne illnesses because of the flooding from Hurricane Harvey. That's something that they otherwise wouldn't have had to have dealt with. There's like that whole crop loss thing and starvation that it leads to. Like there's a lot of ways people can be affected. And just like salmon, like we're connected to other people as well, even if they're on the other side of the world.

50:40Chuck Bryant:and, you know, we're not really talking to them or don't really know them personally, we're still connected to them. So if they suffer a crop loss, it'll affect us all. And if they die of starvation, it ends up affecting us all. Yeah, I really like this computer model thing. Did you see that? Yes. That was pretty cut and dried, you know? Yes. So the IPCC, they used a computer model. And what they did was they tried to simulate climate change. and what they found was the only models that looked like today's climate that equaled, hey, well, this looks like what's going on today, were models that included the human contribution to global warming.

51:23When they did not plug in the human contribution, the answer that it spit out was, no, that climate doesn't look like what's going on right now. So that is basically proof that humans are contributing to this. Right.

51:38Chuck Bryant:Exactly. Yep. That combined with, you know, the signature of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, all that jazz. Yes. And we should probably get to this part. Like there's a tendency among naysayers to be like, you know, there's not even like scientific consensus. They're not 100 % certain that it's us creating this global warming, right? And so science has really kind of taken it upon itself in the last, like, decade or so to address this and say, yes, that's true. There's basically no such thing as settled science. But there has been so much, like, we've made it our business to create and conduct so much research and study all of this so closely over the last, like, 10, 15, 20 years that we have basically come up with a scientific consensus.

52:34Chuck Bryant:That basically if you take any scientist on the street, there is pretty close to 100 % chance that that person is going to say, yes, climate change is real. Yes, global warming is happening. And yes, humans are causing it. Right? Yeah, because they use words differently than we use words. And you sent this great article, certainty versus uncertainty, colon, understanding scientific terms about climate change. You know it's smart when there's a colon in the middle. No. And for the average Joe or Jane walking around on the street, if you say the word uncertain, that means, well, you just don't know.

53:10Right. Scientists, when they use the word uncertain, they mean how well you might know something or not. Right. So that's a big difference. It sounds like word games, but there is no, very rarely is there absolute certainty in science. So their job is to research and research and limit that uncertainty as much as possible.

53:30Chuck Bryant:No, and that uncertainty in their public broadcasting of that uncertainty has been used against them. It's been hijacked and used against them to fight doing anything about climate change, right? So they have started to use, especially if you go through like the IPCCs, like policymaker executive summaries, everything that they're stating, they will put like how confident they are that what they're saying is true. They have a structure to that now. Right. And so most of the stuff that they're releasing in their reports has something like a 90 % chance or greater of being correct. So they call it like a very likely outcome or a very high confidence.

54:15Chuck Bryant:And I've even seen something called an extremely high confidence, which indicates 95 % or greater. And then the come on, which is 99 % or greater. Yeah, so there are five points which they have, quote, very high confidence, end quote, about, or even greater. So at least 90 % or greater certainty that the following. Right. Human-induced warming influences physical and biological systems everywhere. Sea levels are rising. Glaciers and permafrost are shrinking. Oceans are becoming more acidic. And ranges of plants and animals are shifting. So that's between 90 and 100 percent certainty on those things.

54:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah, they also say they're comfortable saying with certainty that the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They say there is no uncertainty about that. They also say that they've learned that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat through the greenhouse effect. They say, again, there is no uncertainty about this. and that the earth is warming because these gases are being released faster than they can be absorbed by natural processes. And then they say it's very likely, greater than 90 % probability, that human activities are the main reason for the world's temperature increase in the past 50 years in particular.

55:37Chuck Bryant:And so they're saying, like, we are scientists. We're the ones who are studying this. No, we can't say with unequivocal certainty that this is the case. But what really, people, what more do you need? Like we have studied this so closely. We are so close to 100 % certainty that like what's the problem here? Let's just get on board. And there was actually a study done in 2007 by this economist. It made the news cycle. His name was Dr. Peter Cigaris. and he basically said if you look at the cost of doing something and the cost of doing nothing, statistically speaking, it makes way more sense to take steps to mitigate climate change and be wrong about the fact that it was us humans than it would to take no steps at all and be wrong about actually, no, it actually was us humans.

56:38Yeah. I mean, that's where I get I don't want to get too much on a soapbox, but I get angry that there are people out there that say, well, you're not there's that 10 percent or less chance. So let's just gamble humanity, the future of humankind on that 10 percent or less chance. Because we don't want to get with the program and get behind green initiatives. Right. Because there's a chance. You're not 100 percent certain. And I just, I don't know. That short sightedness just is staggering to me.

57:11Chuck Bryant:Well, plus also that it's been proven. I've mentioned that book before, The Merchants of Doubt, that think tanks have been set up to basically influence public thought and point out like scientists aren't 100 % certain. Scientists aren't 100 % certain. And they're not looking out for you or the earth or your family. They're looking out for their business interests because it's the fossil fuel industry. They're the ones who benefit the most from not taking steps against climate change. But even if you look at some of these fossil fuel industry companies, they're like, no, we should probably do something.

57:51Chuck Bryant:We can figure this out. Even some of them are saying this now as of 2014. Amazing. So, Chuck, speaking of 2014, there was something big that happened, the Paris Accords. Yes. And in 2014, I think 195 countries came together and said, you know what, we're going to do something. We're going to do everything we can to keep the global average temperature from increasing two degrees above normal. Two degrees Celsius, I should say. Because that was kind of a largely agreed upon tipping point that there would be a lot more extreme weather, sea level rise. We would feel the effects of climate change from a two degree Celsius increase in global temperature.

58:38Chuck Bryant:And so they took this really interesting approach where they said, instead of us coming up with a multi-government group that decrees stuff, we're going to just decentralize the whole thing. And how about every country come up with what their country can do on their own to fight global warming? And then we'll bring them all together and everybody will take a pledge and we'll go do it. And it was hugely successful. Like out of 195 countries, 168 have ratified it. And the U.S. had a pretty good plan as well. I think we were going to pledge that we would reduce our climate emissions something like 26-28 % by 2025, which would be a huge, significant contribution to fighting global warming.

59:33But we got pulled out of that one, I think, in 2017. That's correct.

59:39Chuck Bryant:So now the rest of the world seems to be carrying on without us, fighting climate change through their own decentralized plans. But that's where the United States stands right now. We have said we're not going to be taking part in that. That's right. But that's not to say that the citizens of the United States can't do everything they can on their own in their own lives by doing some of the following things. First and foremost, decreasing our carbon footprint. And I'm going to put out a call for us right now to go ahead and do one soonish on carbon offsets. Because we're a few years down the road from when carbon offsets first became a thing.

1:00:20And it's much more understood now. Didn't we do one on this? I don't think so.

1:00:26Chuck Bryant:We did. We've done them on some. Oh, I know what it was. We talked about that kind of cap and trade scheme in the acid rain episode. Yeah. Yeah, we should do one on carbon offsets though because they're much better understood now. And then it's pretty clear now like the best ways to go about doing something like that. Cool. So we're not going to cover it too much here. But you can buy carbon offsets. Look for future podcasts. But reducing your carbon footprint is the biggest thing. I mean it's really simple. The stuff that generates the greenhouse gases, if we create less of it, that's a good thing.

1:01:00So you doing that on a local level can make a big impact if a lot of people are doing that. Using less energy, obviously, is just sort of a no-brainer. And this is just period in life, like just being less wasteful.

1:01:13Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Whether it's water or your lights that you're turning on or riding your bike instead of driving your car. Like all of that makes a big difference. And with electricity in particular, one thing we always mention is that even though it seems like your light bulb is fine, it's getting its power most likely from burning coal. So is that electric car that you bought? That's plug-in for sure. Yeah, and your electric car is only as good as the energy that it's where it gets its energy from. Yeah. Um, and we can, that's a whole rabbit hole into itself, hybrids and electric cars and how green they are.

1:01:56But, um, the, the research I did today, uh, roundly says that in the end, a hybrid and electric car is, has a much smaller carbon footprint than a combustion engine.

1:02:08Chuck Bryant:Sure. And I know about the batteries and I know where they get this stuff. And this is considering all the costs that go into making these cars and what happens to these cars over the years. There are a lot of smart people that put this all together, and it's still a better option than, you know, a combustion gas engine. But that's, you know, I'm not here to say go out and get a hybrid or an electric car. That's up to you. Well, that kind of raises one of the issues, too, is like it can be expensive to be eco-friendly, you know, which really sucks. Yeah, you can also save money, though. Yeah, in the end.

1:02:42Chuck Bryant:It's just the upfront costs are sometimes, you know, greater, which is a problem for, you know, for people who can't afford, like, a more expensive car. It's the same thing with, like, food, you know? Like, the better your food, the more expensive it is, which sucks, too. Yeah, but you can use less energy in your home and pay less of an energy bill. Yeah, no, no, there's plenty of other things you can do. Like, it doesn't cost anything to recycle, you know? Yeah, exactly. And all this stuff, like recycling, you think, well, I mean, I know that's good because there's no trash, but no trash means it's not going to that landfill, and that means it's not releasing bad gases into the atmosphere.

1:03:19So this all affects your carbon footprint, recycling to how long you take a shower because you're using hot water, and that water has to be heated somehow.

1:03:27Chuck Bryant:Yep. And I mean, if this has become like an issue for you, then make it one of the things you vote on too. Like, vote for people who care about this and we'll make sure that regulations are put into place that fight climate change. It's a big one. There are politicians out there that care very much about this. Yeah, I remember after we pulled out of the Paris Accord, like, a few cities said, we're still doing this. We're going to stick to it regardless. Yeah. Yeah, you can do it. Your city can do it. Other people can do it. The rest of the world is doing it. except for Nicaragua and Syria, if I remember correctly.

1:04:06Chuck Bryant:You remember? Yeah. If you want to know more about global warming, just step outside. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this So Smart I Don't Get It. But remember during the Buildering podcast, we read a Listener Mail about, we asked why you get sleepy when you read? Yes. Well, we had a chiropractor write in, and he says he has the answer. And I don't know if this is right or not, but it certainly sounds good to me. So he's a chiropractor, and he studied functional neurology in school. And he said the answer is that when you're reading, your eyes move laterally as they scan the page.

1:04:48This involves the lateral rectus muscle of the eye, which is innervated by the sixth cranial nerve, the abduxins. So the abductions originates in the pons and the brainstem. And what happens is that as you activate this nerve through reading, you also activate the pontomedullary reticular formation or PMRF. One job of the PMF is to dampen the sympathetic response of the interomedial lateral cell column in the spinal cord, which activates the sympathetic nervous system. In short, reading dampens the sympathetic response and relaxes you. Nice work. I think that's the takeaway. I hope you find this interesting.

1:05:33Love your podcast. Use a lot of your knowledge you teach for Trivia Tuesday that my coworkers and I play at my clinic. And that is from Dr. Michael Hilton in good old Washington, D.C. Nice. Or the district. Thanks, Dr.

1:05:49Chuck Bryant:Michael, the chiropractor from D.C. That's right. If you want to get in touch with us like Dr. Michael did, you can tweet to us at Josh M. Clark or S-Y-S-K podcast. Both me and Chuck are on Facebook and you can go to our official page at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

1:06:23For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com.

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