Joe Rogan Experience #1259 - David Wallace-Wells

Joe Rogan 0:00 (sniffs) Four, three, two, one. David. So, first of all, thanks for doing this.

David Wallace-Wells 0:13 Oh, my pleasure.

Joe Rogan 0:14 And-

David Wallace-Wells 0:14 Really excited.

Joe Rogan 0:15 How much trouble are we in? Legitimately?

David Wallace-Wells 0:17 I mean, it's pretty bad already and it's gonna get, I think, a lot, lot worse, so-

Joe Rogan 0:22 It's not bad right now, right here. It's raining. It seems nice out. The hills are green.

David Wallace-Wells 0:25 I mean, how long ago were the fires? Right, right around the corner.

Joe Rogan 0:28 I got evacuated (laughs) . It was October.

David Wallace-Wells 0:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:30 Yeah, it was rough but, in all fairness I've been evacuated three times over the past 20 years.

David Wallace-Wells 0:35 Yeah, no. The fires, California's fires are kind of interesting in that, um, they both seem like it's like the future, the apocalypse, they're here. But also it's so familiar from like decades of wildfires. Um, but you know there are scientific estimates that say that they're gonna get, by the end of the century, 64 times worse.

Joe Rogan 0:53 What?

David Wallace-Wells 0:54 Yeah, I think that number's a little high, 'cause that would mean more than half of California burning every year. But, um, I mean it's gonna get, yeah, it'll get, it'll get crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:02 And there's no way to avoid any of this wildfire stuff?

David Wallace-Wells 1:06 Well, I mean, you know if we don't raise the temperature of the planet then...

Joe Rogan 1:10 (sighs) But is, is that the only thing that's causing wildfire- I mean like obviously if the temperature raises, uh, there's more brown dry-

David Wallace-Wells 1:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17 ... leaves and grass and stuff like that. But is-

David Wallace-Wells 1:20 Yeah, no, there's a, there's a lot of preventative stuff you can do. I mean, not building in certain areas-

Joe Rogan 1:24 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 1:24 ... like, I mean it used to be, you know, the Indians who lived here before the white people came, um, did a lot of controlled burning. They like lived among fires and, um, I think that's like a probably more responsible way to be. But we've now built up the whole state so that they're all these homes that we don't want to burn. They're all these, you know, properties we don't wanna burn. And when you, um, when you like restrict the ability of natural wildfires to burn that means that like more tinder gets built over time, and then you know at some point something lights the match and it all burns. So that, I mean you could, um, you could do more controlled fire. You could take more aggressive action in terms of, um, you know, like spraying foam and that kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 2:04 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 2:04 Um, you could have a lot more firefighters. But I was just talking to a guy yesterday, I'm out here actually doing some reporting on wildfires, and um, who was saying that no Santa Ana powered wildfire has ever been stopped by firefighters. And he is like a environmental historian.

Joe Rogan 2:19 Wow.

David Wallace-Wells 2:20 Um, it's like you can hope that the winds redirect them but like the action of firefighters is basically just spitting in the wind.

Joe Rogan 2:25 So the action is not to stop it, it's to kind of contain it-

David Wallace-Wells 2:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:29 ... as best they can.

David Wallace-Wells 2:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:30 And minimize property damage?

David Wallace-Wells 2:32 Yeah, but you know it's hard 'cause you, you have a lot more, it's a lot easier to do that when, um, you know, if the land was totally raw you'd be like, "Oh, let's, we'll just like try to direct the fire in this direction."

Joe Rogan 2:41 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 2:42 But if the land is like full of homes you're like, "Well we can't." You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 2:45 Have you ever seen it live-

David Wallace-Wells 2:46 Not in person.

Joe Rogan 2:46 ... have you ever been to one?

David Wallace-Wells 2:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:48 I've... One time, uh, we were filming Fear Factor and we were, uh, way up, uh, on the, uh, on the 5 like, um, probably I would say maybe 75 miles from here. And for a full hour, driving about 50 miles an hour, there was fire on the right-hand side of the road. For a full hour. I mean like Lord of the Rings, end of the world-

David Wallace-Wells 3:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:15 ... like you're waiting for Satan to come riding on a burning ph- phoenix over the top of the hill. It was crazy. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. That was the worst one I've ever seen, but I think that was just because of placement. I think that this past one was actually worse in terms of physical damage and size. It's just I didn't see it-

David Wallace-Wells 3:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:34 ... the way I saw this one.

David Wallace-Wells 3:36 Well, uh, the, last year there were, there were flames like hopping over the 405, right?

Joe Rogan 3:40 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 3:40 I mean, um-

Joe Rogan 3:40 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 3:41 ... and that's-

Joe Rogan 3:42 That happened.

David Wallace-Wells 3:42 ... that's really like crazy to me because, you know, I'm a New Yorker. I've lived my whole life in New York and I just feel in my bones, I now know it's sort of not true, but like my inner emotional perspective on the world is that I live in a fortress. I don't live in nature.

Joe Rogan 3:55 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 3:55 Like I walk down on concrete streets, I look up at steel buildings. Nature can't come for me.

Joe Rogan 3:59 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 3:59 But when you see like fire straddling the 405, that's, you know... This is a major metropolis here, um-

Joe Rogan 4:06 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 4:06 ... and we're not safe. We're, we're certainly not totally safe. Um, and that's like, for me, that's a major, like a major revelation I've had is that wherever you live, no matter how defended against nature you are, climate change is teaching us that, you know, you still live within climate and when it gets fucked up, it will fuck you up.

Joe Rogan 4:23 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 4:23 It will affect you in some way.

Joe Rogan 4:25 Yeah, there was, uh, the, both sides of the 405 were on fire last year. Last year or the year before last, o- one of those. But it was insane. It was, uh, it's, it was hitting Bel Air and people were like, "Well this is, this... We've never seen this before." I talked to a firefighter once, and this was years ago, and he told me, "With the right wind it's a matter of time 'fore a fire hits the top of LA and burns all the way to the ocean." And he goes, "And there's not going to be anything we can do about it." He goes, "If the right wind catches and a fire starts at the top of Los Angeles, it'll just go straight through LA..." Look at this. (coughs) What is that from, Jamie?

Narrator 5:03 That was the 405 fire, but it's just-

Joe Rogan 5:05 Yeah, okay.

Narrator 5:05 ... above it.

Joe Rogan 5:05 Oh, that's it. That's the crazy video. So this is Bel Air on the left-hand side.

David Wallace-Wells 5:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:10 And so these are people driving down the 405 looking at, you know, the most (laughs) ins- insane sight for a place that has 30 million people, or whatever LA has, to see the entire hillside on fire.

David Wallace-Wells 5:23 And Bel Air, to me Bel Air is really interesting 'cause it's... You know, most climate impacts, they hit the world's poorest first.

Joe Rogan 5:29 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 5:30 And like the wildfires are... They work in the reverse 'cause it's like people living in the hills.

Joe Rogan 5:34 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 5:35 Um, those are the rich people. But it just shows you like no matter how rich you are, no matter how comforted by that wealth you are, like, you know, you might get hit.

Joe Rogan 5:43 Well the best example was, uh, Point Dume.

David Wallace-Wells 5:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:47 And, uh, we were flying over it. My friend, uh, Bill, uh--- has a helicopter license, and so we went, uh, around the peak of Point Dume. It's crazy because you know these are like $20 million estates.

David Wallace-Wells 6:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:00 These massive bluff-side homes. They thought they were living in the peak of luxury, overviewing the ocean, and like, "Wow! We're on top of the world," and the fire just scorched it to the ground. Like, that's what it looks like now.

David Wallace-Wells 6:13 Yeah, it's so crazy.

Joe Rogan 6:14 Well, it's really crazy 'cause you, like, the, they couldn't even... 'Cause people have always said, "Oh, well, they'll protect the rich folks." They didn't protect these ones.

David Wallace-Wells 6:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:21 They, they can't protect anybody when it gets this crazy.

David Wallace-Wells 6:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:23 Th- uh, I think they lost more than 600 homes in Malibu alone.

David Wallace-Wells 6:27 Yeah, I mean, and that's... I mean, yeah, and you think about Miami Beach going underwater and-

Joe Rogan 6:31 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 6:32 ... I mean, it's, uh-

Joe Rogan 6:32 Well, Miami Beach is a weird one, right, because the, the ground is porous.

David Wallace-Wells 6:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:36 Yeah, so it's inevitable.

David Wallace-Wells 6:38 I mean, it's-

Joe Rogan 6:38 You gotta get out of there.

David Wallace-Wells 6:39 There's basically a sandbar that, like-

Joe Rogan 6:40 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 6:40 ... some developers in the '20s decided that was, "Oh, we can make this into a fake paradise."

Joe Rogan 6:44 Oh, really?

David Wallace-Wells 6:45 Yeah. I mean, there was... Yeah, it was, um... I mean, LA's kind of the same way. Like, nobody looking at LA in 1850 would have said like, "Here's a great place to build a city."

Joe Rogan 6:52 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 6:52 Um, but we did it anyway. Like, America, in its, like, imperial swagger, was like, "No, we can create some paradise out of this completely inhospitable land-"

Joe Rogan 7:00 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 7:00 ... "in both places." And then, you know, it's just a lesson that, like, you know, it's just a matter of time.

Joe Rogan 7:05 Well, the most cocky people are the people that have those houses on stilts on the water-

David Wallace-Wells 7:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:09 ... in Malibu, like... (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 7:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:11 How long is this gonna work out for you?

David Wallace-Wells 7:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:13 Like, this thing moves back and forth over time, and it has forever.

David Wallace-Wells 7:17 I mean, if you think about, like, the long, long sweep of human history, most human settlements didn't happen on the coast.

Joe Rogan 7:22 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 7:23 Um, like, people lived in... Maybe they lived on a river. Maybe you'd have-

Joe Rogan 7:26 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 7:26 ... like, a little community on a river. But the, you know, the last, like, 50 years, we- or 100 years, we've built up s- especially in America, so much more on the coast. And that's, like, uh, you know, really inviting disaster. I mean, all of-

Joe Rogan 7:37 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 7:37 ... Houston, like, all of that is like... That was floodplain that, like, nature was like, you know, swampland. It was... And now, it's, you know, new suburban developments made out of concrete, and that just means more and more flooding.

Joe Rogan 7:47 Yeah, I've been to Houston right after floods, and it's, uh... Houston is a crazy one. Uh, they, we lo- there was a hotel that we used to stay at whenever I used to do gigs in Houston. It's gone now 'cause the, the floodwaters just filled up the hotel.

David Wallace-Wells 8:00 So crazy.

Joe Rogan 8:02 I mean... (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 8:02 It's... I, I actually really love that city. It's kind of like a... Um, there's great food.

Joe Rogan 8:06 Oh, yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 8:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:07 Houston's super underrated.

David Wallace-Wells 8:08 I think so, too, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:09 It gets lumped into this weird sort of San Antonio vibe. I don't know why, but, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of Houston. I'm a big fan of Texas in general. They're fun people.

David Wallace-Wells 8:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:19 But yeah, if it gets hotter, they're fucked, too, 'cause it's just like... In the summertime in Houston, you know, when you're dealing with 100% humidity and it's 115 degrees outside-

David Wallace-Wells 8:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:28 ... you can't even, uh, explain to people what that feels like.

David Wallace-Wells 8:30 I mean-

Joe Rogan 8:31 You're getting cooked.

David Wallace-Wells 8:32 There's, uh, there are places in the world that are gonna be l- they're gonna literally cook you by 2050. So, cities in India and the Middle East, you won't be able to go outside during the summer without b- uh, being at risk of dying by 2050.

Joe Rogan 8:44 By 2050, like, what kind of temperature are we talking about?

David Wallace-Wells 8:46 Well, it's a combination of heat and humidity, so... But, you know, usually, the heat'll be like up in the, uh, around 130, combined with some bad humidity.

Joe Rogan 8:53 Phew.

David Wallace-Wells 8:53 Um, but the, you know, there've, there've already been... We've already broken that threshold. Like, there've been temperature records set every year, but, um, last year, broke 130 in Oman, I think. But, like, the, the scarier parts are not some of these crazy desert places that have gotten really hot. It's the, the cities. It's like Calcutta has like 12 million people in it, and you may not be able to... You may not be able to live there, um, in the summer in just 30 years.

Joe Rogan 9:15 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 9:16 And then you just think about where all those people are going and how much that's gonna destabilize everything.

Joe Rogan 9:20 You know, I've talked to people, uh, who are terrified about this, and I've talked to people who are nonchalant. Um, where, where do you sit? Are you, are you terrified? Are y- do- are you thinking that you're going to be physically in trouble yourself? Or do you think that with proper planning and just not being tied to one spot, you can move to another area?

David Wallace-Wells 9:40 I mean, I have, I have different feelings about it at different times of day 'cause it's that big a story. It's, like, gonna affect everything, I think. Um, you know, I think civilization's not gonna collapse. I think, like, there'll be people around even living, like, kind of rewarding, prosperous lives, um, forever. And the question is like what shape those lives take and where they're, where, where they are. So, me personally, you know, I'm like a relatively well-off person who lives in America, in, you know, New York. I think I'll be able to do okay. I think my children will be able to do okay, and when I imagine their future, I think it's a reflection of all of our kind of like cognitive biases and emotional reflexes that when I imagine like my daughter's future, I'm s- imagining a world that seems a lot like the one that we live in today.

Joe Rogan 10:27 Mm.

David Wallace-Wells 10:27 But when I look at the science, um, it paints a really, really bleak picture. So, you know, the question of like optimism and, and alarm, I think it's really all a matter of perspective, right? So, we're at 1.1 degrees Celsius right now. I think there's basically no way that we avoid two degrees of warming, which is like... This UN calls, um, catastrophic warming. The island nations of the world call genocide, and that's when we would b- be making these cities in the Middle East unlivable. It would mean like some ice sheets would start a permanent collapse, which could, if all of them melted, eventually bring 260 feet of sea level rise. Um, and we're on track for four degrees of warming, so that would mean $600 trillion in climate damages by the end of the century. That's twice as much wealth as exists in the world today. It would mean there'd be parts of the world scientists say where you could be hit by six simultaneous climate disasters at once. There'd be at least a few hundred climate refugees. The UN says the low-end estimate is 200 million. The high-end estimate is a billion, which is as many people as live in North and South America combined.

Joe Rogan 11:30 Can I stop you for a second?

David Wallace-Wells 11:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:31 Six simultaneous natural disasters at once?

David Wallace-Wells 11:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:35 What does that mean?

David Wallace-Wells 11:36 Like flooding, hurricane, um, famine, uh, you know, some public health issue, um, you know, like malaria. Uh, it's like every, every category of modern life can be in- affected by this, and, um, there aren't that many that could be hit by six. But, like, already right now in Australia, there's a crazy heatwave. It's like over 120 in lots of Australia. They're also dealing with like epic floods in other parts of the country.And that's kind of the problem actually with wildfires in California. It's not just that it's getting hotter, is that it's also getting wetter. So more rain means more growth, means when it gets hot again, that growth gets baked and then becomes, you know, fire starter.

Joe Rogan 12:14 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 12:14 Um, and that's the, you know, it's not just, um, it's not just the temperature, it's like higher temperatures mean crazier extremes in all directions. And, um, you know, that, that's why I think sort of looking big picture, there's not a life on earth that's going to be untouched by this force, like over the decades ahead. But that's not to say that we're all be destroyed by it either. I think like we will find ways to live and adapt and mitigate. It's just a question of how much it's going to screw up our politics, how much it's going to change the way we think of history. You know, like I'm an end of, I'm a '90s kid, I grew up end of History thinking the world was gonna get better, the world was gonna get richer, globalization was progress, et cetera. What does it mean if like climate change completely eliminates the possibility of economic growth? Which probably won't be the case for the US, but there are huge parts of the world where that is going to be the case if we don't change course now. So like, at the end of the century, if we don't change course, the economists studying this say global GDP could be at least 20, possibly 30% smaller than it would be without climate change. 30% is twice as big an impact as the Great Depression.

Joe Rogan 13:18 How did you get involved in this? How'd you get involved in studying this? And what was your perception before you got involved, and how did it shift?

David Wallace-Wells 13:24 So I'm, I'm a journalist. I'm an editor mostly actually at New York Magazine. Um, and, you know, I'm interested in the near future, like as a result read a lot of scientific papers, read a lot of like obscure subreddits and that kind of thing. And, um, just in 2016 started seeing a lot more of that, a lot more of the news from science was about climate, and a lot more of that climate news was really scary. And when I looked around at the other places that like we think of as our competitors, you know, newspapers, TV shows, I just felt like the scarier end of the spectrum was just not at all being talked about. So most scientists talk about this two-degree threshold as like the threshold of catastrophe. And I think most laypeople think that that means that that's kind of a ceiling for warming, like that'll be the worst it could get, but actually it's functionally the best-case scenario. And we, uh, we hadn't had any storytelling, any discussion around what the world would look like north of two degrees, and I just felt as a journalist, I was like, "Holy shit, there's a huge story here." Like the way that this world could be completely transformed by these forces is not something that anybody is writing about in part 'cause it's a long story, but scientists and science journalists were really, um, they were really focused on making sure that their messaging was hopeful and optimistic, and they-

Joe Rogan 14:36 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 14:36 ... weren't reluctant to talk about their scariest findings, and so I was terrified by the science. I looked at it and I was like, "Nobody's talking about this. It's scary. Gotta like sh- spread the word." And I wrote a big piece in 2017 that l- v- was very focused on worst case scenarios. So I mentioned before, I think two degrees is about our best case scenario, four degrees is where we're on track for now. This piece was looking at five, six, eight degrees of warming, so things were not likely to get this century at least. And it was a huge phenomenon. It was read by a bunch of million people, the biggest story that New York Magazine had ever published, and I just thought, "Man, I guess there are a lot of people like me out there who have intuitions about climate suffering and terror, but aren't seeing it in the way people are writing about the story." So I decided, you know, there's, there's more to say, and even beyond like telling the, the bleak story, telling the really dark, um, talking about the really dark possibilities, I just thought there are all these categories of life that we haven't even thought about how they'll impact us. So we, we know about sea level rise, but that's like, as I mentioned before, that makes you think if you live off the coast, you'll be okay, but-

Joe Rogan 15:45 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 15:46 ... the whole planet is going to be touched by this. Some places are going to be hit harder than others. India is going to be hit by like 29% of all global climate impacts this century, um, but everyone's going to be affected in some way, and the way that changes our politics, the way it changes our pop culture, the way it changes our psychology, our mood, our relationship to history, how we think about the future, how we think about the past, what we expect from capitalism, what we blame capitalism for, what we expect from technology, what we think technology can do. Can technology save us? Can technology entertain us while the b- world is burning? These are all these kind of like humanities questions that I felt really w- really had not been talked about. And so the book does like, it's a tour through what the world would look like between two and four degrees, but it's also, which is a kind of hellscape, but it is also, you know, about half of it is about we're going to live here, we're going to survive. In what form? What will it mean? Um, you know, myth, at the mythological level, what will it mean at the personal level? What will it mean the way we think about our kids and their futures and all that stuff? And, um,

David Wallace-Wells 16:47 you know, my, my, my big picture thinking about it is, um, yeah, it's really bleak. Um, and I think there are some possible ways that we could avert some of these worst case scenarios. I mean, there is technology that can suck carbon out of the atmosphere already. It hasn't been tested at scale, it's really expensive, but if we really, if we can over the, you know, the next decade or two really like build a, um, like global plantations of these carbon capture machines, then not only can we like stop the problem from moving forward, we could actually reverse it a little bit. Um, yeah-

Joe Rogan 17:22 I've seen those before. I've seen the designs for those where they had these enormous like, uh, apartment building sized air filter things.

David Wallace-Wells 17:30 Yeah. I mean, it's basically like-

Joe Rogan 17:32 But only, only in theory.

David Wallace-Wells 17:33 They're, they're-

Joe Rogan 17:34 (coughs) .

David Wallace-Wells 17:34 They do exist in, in the real world, but only at a kind of, like in laboratories. They don't-

Joe Rogan 17:38 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 17:38 ... exist at anything like the scale they need to, but there's a guy at Harvard named David Keith who, um, has tested his machines. They're able to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at a cost of $100 a ton, which would mean we could totally neutralize the entire, um, the entire carbon footprint of the global economy. We wouldn't have to change anything. We could suck out all the extra carbon we're putting into the atmosphere for a cost of $3 trillion a year, which is a lot of money, but there are estimates for how much we're subsidizing the fossil fuel business that are as high as $5 trillion a year. So if we just redirected those subsidies to this technology, in theory-... we could literally solve the problem immediately. There are other complications. It's like, in order to store the carbon, you need an industry that's two or three times the size of our present oil and gas industry, which, and where that goes, and next to whose homes, and all that stuff. It's complicated. But we have the tools we need, it's just a matter of deciding to, um, put them into practice. And I think we're pretty, like, that, you know... Recent history shows that, um, we're not doing that fast enough. So one of the big, you know, points that I, like, I make in the book, and I, I, it sticks in my head so strongly is, you know, we think of climate change as this thing that started in the Industrial Revolution, like, centuries ago. But half of all the carbon that we've put into the atmosphere in the history of humanity, from the burning of fossil fuels, has come in 30 years, the last 30 years. That's since Al Gore published his first book on warming, it's since the UN established their climate change panel, it's since the premier of Seinfeld. So, like, you and I have lived through the lion's share of all of the damage done to the climate in all of human history.

Joe Rogan 19:17 Whoa.

David Wallace-Wells 19:18 Yeah. And the next 30 years are gonna be just as consequential. So we brought the world from the, basically a stable climate to the brink of total climate catastrophe in 30 years, one generation. We have about one generation to save it. To me, that's like... It makes me uncomfortable to use this language, but it's basically a theological story.

Joe Rogan 19:40 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 19:40 We have the entire fate of the planet in the hands of these two generations. What happens 50 years from now, 100 years from now will entirely be up to the way we act now and what we do. And the time scale is so crazy, because you have this really compressed, we-must-act-now-to-avert-these-worst-case-scenarios time scale, but also the impacts will unfold if we don't do anything over millennia. So, like, we could have... You know, if we really bring into being the total melt of all ice sheets, that means that eight centuries from now, 12 centuries from now, people will be dealing with the shit that we're fucking up today. We will be engineering problems for them to be solving 800, 1,200, 1,500 years from now. And that damage will be done, if it is done, in the next 30 or 50 years. So we are... I mean, we are really writing this epic story about Earth, humanity, and our future on this planet in the time of a single lifetime, a single generation. And that is, on the- on the one hand, it's sort of, like, overwhelming, but it's also empowering. You know, like, um, all the climate impacts that I talk about, all the climate horrors that are really terrifying, if we make them happen, we will be making them happen. The main input in the system is how much carbon we put into the atmosphere. There are feedback loops that people are worried about, there are things about climate that we can't control, but at least at this point, the main driver of future warming is what we do. And so we could... If we get to a four-degree hellscape with hundreds of millions or a billion climate refugees, that'll be because of what we're doing. It's not some system outside of our control, even though we're often kind of... We find it kind of comforting to think that it's outside of our control, 'cause that means we don't have to change anything.

Joe Rogan 21:34 Well, th- one of the problems with climate change is that human beings like to react to things that are immediate and right in front of them. And I think for us, it's very difficult to see the future, especially if it's inconvenient, es- especially if it does something to inconvenience or get in the way of our day-to-day routine, and that seems to be what ha- what's happening here. And that seems to me... (coughs) Excuse me. That seems to me to be why people are so willing to dismiss it, uh, so flippantly, because in front of them right now, it's not an issue. In front of them right now, this very second, this very day, I'm gonna go to Starbucks, it's right there, it's open. Look, I'm outside, it's 65 degrees out, global warming's not a problem.

David Wallace-Wells 22:15 Yeah. No, I think that's, I mean, totally true, and I feel it in my own life.

Joe Rogan 22:18 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 22:18 Like, I, I mean, I've been living, I've been working in this material so long, I know it so deeply, and yet when I look out the window, I'm like, "You know, things are fine."

Joe Rogan 22:27 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 22:27 And I think that has a really powerful anchoring effect. Like, we expect the world of the future to look like the world as it does today. But all the science says that's totally naive.

Joe Rogan 22:36 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 22:37 And we're gonna have at least twice as much warming as we've had to this point. And I think we need to think about the future of the world in those terms. Like, what it will be at two degrees, at three degrees, at four degrees. But it's not just, like, the immediacy. I think we have so many biases that make... Like, we want to be optimistic about the future. We have a status quo bias, we- we don't want to change things. We think that'll be complicated and expensive. We have a hard time holding big ideas in our head, like that the entire planet is, like, subject to these forces. Um, I mean, the- the- the list goes on and on. In the book, I have a little riff where I say, you know, there's this new, not-so-new now, 30, 40-year, um, discipline in economics, behavioral economics, which is about all of our cognitive biases, how we can't really see the world. Every single one makes it harder to see climate.

Joe Rogan 23:22 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 23:22 There's this, um... He's actually an English professor named Timothy Morton who wro- who wrote a book about, um, climate, and he calls it a hyperobject, which is like... It's a, it's a phenomenon that's so big that we can't actually hold it in our heads at once. We can only see it... It's like if you imagine seeing a four-dimensional object in three-dimensional space. It's that kind of thing, where you can only see it at an angle, only partially. Climate change is so all-encompassing that we can't comprehend it properly. Um, but I think that's... All- all of those things are reasons that we need to be listening to the scientists and what they're projecting. Not to say that everything they're saying is gonna come true, will come true exactly as they predict it. Obviously, that's not how science works. It gets revised, some things are alarmist, some things are extreme, something's just wrong. But, you know, I've been really working on this stuff for a couple years, and the number of papers I've read...... that show- that make me have a more optimistic idea about the cl- future of climate, I could count on two hands. And the number of papers I've read that make me have a bleaker view of the future, it's in the thousands. And when you look at the totality of that, whether the six climate-driven natural disasters prediction is gonna pan out exactly as those authors say, who knows? But when you see, you know, so many- so many terrifying studies that you could fill, like I did, a 300-page book with them, you realize that, like, there's a huge margin for error, and it would st- like, we would still be really in bad shape, you know.

Joe Rogan 24:53 Is there a, um, uh, I mean, I- I'm sure there have been, uh, some studies that made mistakes in terms of, like, past studies that projected that by now, we'd all be dead, um, uh, are those a pr- those seem to be a problem with this whole, uh, concept we have of wrapping our head around it, and if we find anything that we could point to and say-

David Wallace-Wells 25:13 Totally.

Joe Rogan 25:14 ... "Oh, back in the '80s, they said we'd all be dead by now, and we're fine-"

David Wallace-Wells 25:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:17 "... we're gonna be fine."

David Wallace-Wells 25:18 Th-

Joe Rogan 25:18 That kind of thing is- th- that- that is an issue, correct?

David Wallace-Wells 25:21 Totally.

Joe Rogan 25:21 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 25:21 Yeah, there was, um, there was a really famous book in the middle of the 20th century called The Population Bomb, so this is a guy named Paul Ehrlich, Erhlich, um, who- he was like, you know, "The world just cannot support this many people. Like, if we get to eight billion people, there just won't be enough food. There won't be- you know, the- the planet can't sustain that." And he's often pointed to as this sort of, like, prophet of doomsday that- and his prophecy totally didn't work out because we had this thing that's called the Green Revolution. Basically, we figured out ways to make crops way, way, way more productive, and that's encouraging. Human civilization does that a lot. We figure out a way out of foxholes all the time.

Joe Rogan 25:59 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 25:59 Um, but that revolution was literally, like, one dude, Norman Borlaug, who figured out how to grow crops differently in- one guy, one set of innovations, and he completely transformed the whole fate of the planet.

Joe Rogan 26:13 What did he do?

David Wallace-Wells 26:14 He just basically did, um, like, genetically modified crops before, like, the- you know, before the name. It was like, um...

Joe Rogan 26:22 Is he the golden rice guy?

David Wallace-Wells 26:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:24 Oh, okay.

David Wallace-Wells 26:25 Yeah, and, um, and you know, the whole developing world benefited enormously, and you're still seeing that today. Like, we see all these charts that, you know- so much less poverty, so much less infant mortality in- in the developing world, and that's great. That's, like, incredible progress. But a lot of that has- was powered by the industrialization of those countries, so that bill is gonna come due going forward. Um, and, you know, I think, like, when you look at climate change, you know, if there was just one threat- like, let's take agriculture since we're talking about agriculture. Estimates say that, um, if we continue on the path we're on, by the end of the century, grain yields would be half as productive as they are today just by the temperature effect. So we'd have just as much land, just as much grain crops as we have now, but the food we get from it, we'd only get half as much as we get today.

Joe Rogan 27:17 What's the cause of that?

David Wallace-Wells 27:19 It's just the temperature effects. Plant-

Joe Rogan 27:20 Just the temperature alone makes-

David Wallace-Wells 27:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:22 ... wow.

David Wallace-Wells 27:23 I mean, there are other impacts too on food-

Joe Rogan 27:24 (clears throat)

David Wallace-Wells 27:24 ... um, like insects. There's-

Joe Rogan 27:26 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 27:26 ... you know, hotter temperatures means more insects, which is bad for crops. Um, carbon has a complicated relationship to- to crop growth. Like, and s- some plants grow breader- better with more carbon, but actually they're- like, the weeds and the ones that we like to eat don't grow better with more carbon. Um, and, you know, by the end of the century, so we could have half as much grain, and we could have 50% more people than we have right now. Um, now there's a way you could imagine, oh, well, like, maybe they'll be another Norman Borlaug. Maybe he'll figure out a way through that, but when you look across the spectrum, it's like agriculture. It's, you know, conflict. For every half degree of warming, you're gonna get between 10 and 20% more war. So if we get to the end of the century, we're gonna have more than twice as much war as we have today.

Joe Rogan 28:06 And this is projected because of battles over resources?

David Wallace-Wells 28:09 Mainly that famines, droughts, um, weather- you know, weather impacts. Basically, everything about unstable societies get stressed by temperature rise. The Syrian Civil War was- you know, wasn't singly caused by climate change, but it was- that's one of the causes. There was a f- a drought, um, that produced it, and that conflict- it's not just at the level of nation-states or even civil war. It's also at the level of individuals, so if you look at crime statistics when temperatures go up, there's more murder. There's more rape. People get admitted to mental hospitals more when there's- when it's warmer out. Um, babies develop less well in the womb when it's hotter out- if there's- for every day over 90 degrees that a baby's in the womb, you can see those days in that baby's lifetime earnings, and we're living- we're gonna be living on a planet that's considerably warmer. That's gonna have real dramatic effects on everything. Um, air pollution- there's a big study that I write about in the book that's totally alarming and eye-opening. Just between 1.5 degrees and two degrees of warming, just through the effects of air pollution, would cause that one half degree of warming would cause an additional 153 million deaths, which is 25 holocausts. That's just air pollution, just between 1.5 and two degrees, and two degrees for me is our best case scenario. So our best case scenario is 25 holocausts worth of death from air pollution, and that sounds terrifying. People- when I say that to them, they're like, "Holy shit, how could we possibly... That's unconscionable." But already, nine million people are dying every year from air pollution, and we don't pay attention to it. So I think the likeliest outcome (laughs) even as we enter into this, like, climate hellscape is that we find ways to turn away and not look at, like, the real pain of people, especially in the developing world. But to a- to answer your earlier question, you know, like, you can imagine agriculture getting f- figured out, but when you see just how many impacts there are, it's like- it's everywhere, everything will be changed, and it just makes the challenge that much bigger and more complicated because how are you g- you know, how are you gonna solve the conflict problem? How are you gonna solve the- the problem of having 30% less economic growth, you know? Like I said that's an impact that's twice as big as the Great Depression, and it would be permanent.... um, 600 trillion dollars in, in climate damages, twice as much wealth as exists in the world today. Um, and that's just, you know. Then you deal with the re- uh, refugees, food, I mean, it's- it's- it's so all-encompassing. And I think, um, that's another reason why we don't wanna look at it closely, because it's terrifying.

Joe Rogan 30:44 Well, there- there's also a matter of how it's being projected to the public, right? Like, in- in certain circles particularly, right wing circles, uh, there- there are people that are trying to paint this with rose-colored glasses, right? They're trying to maximize short-term profits and sort of dismiss the risks of climate change, and dismiss the risks of- or rather the impact of, uh, our, uh, what we've done in terms of raising the carbon in the atmosphere.

David Wallace-Wells 31:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:15 There's some people that point to that like, "This- this is nonsense science. This has been disproven." There's a few people like that, but it's a overwhelming- the overwhelming consensus of scientists who study this are terrified of it.

David Wallace-Wells 31:27 Yeah, I would say, uh, there was some recent report that said it now passed the standard of physics, that like climate science is now more, um, reliable than physics. Um, but-

Joe Rogan 31:37 That's hilarious.

David Wallace-Wells 31:38 (laughs) But, you know, the, um, to the- to the deniers who say things like, "You know, the planet was hotter than this before," that's true-

Joe Rogan 31:48 Yeah, dinosaurs lived here.

David Wallace-Wells 31:49 Humans were not here.

Joe Rogan 31:51 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 31:51 I mean, if we were four degrees warmer, four d- the last time the planet was four degrees warmer, there were palm trees in the Arctic. Um ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:57 What? (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 31:58 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:59 Really?

David Wallace-Wells 31:59 We've already exited the entire window of temperature that enclosed all of human history, so the planet is now warmer than it ever has been when humans were around to walk on it, which means, to me, it's an open question whether humans would've ever evolved in the first place.

Joe Rogan 32:13 And this is all from the Industrial Revolution, from then on.

David Wallace-Wells 32:17 Yeah. And, uh, yeah, and like- and-

Joe Rogan 32:20 (coughs)

David Wallace-Wells 32:20 ... to that question, it's like there are people who say there's some natural warming going on. I don't think that's true. I think most scientists would say it isn't, but I also think if what we're seeing is natural warming, that should terrify us even more-

Joe Rogan 32:32 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 32:32 ... because it would mean that it's outside of our control. And if we're really heading down the path that we're heading down and we have no control over it, that's even more scary. It should be a comfort that we're doing it-

Joe Rogan 32:41 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 32:41 ... because that means (laughs) we can stop doing it.

Joe Rogan 32:43 Right. Well, it should be a comfort that there's people smarter than the people that don't think that we're doing it, that there are people that can possibly consider some sort of way to mitigate this.

David Wallace-Wells 32:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:54 And what- what are the- what are the ways that are being proposed, and how seriously are they being taken? Other than this, um, the idea of building these machines to extract carbon from the atmosphere-

David Wallace-Wells 33:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:03 ... I'm sure you're probably aware of, um, there's some of the programs that they've talked about, uh, s- suspending reflective particles in the atmosphere-

David Wallace-Wells 33:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:11 ... to- to minimize the amount of solar radiation we receive.

David Wallace-Wells 33:15 Yeah, so it's interesting. This guy who I mentioned earlier who's, like, done the most- the sort of most innovative carbon capture machine, I talked to him a few weeks ago, and he- he was like, "No, no, no, but we shouldn't be using carbon capture."

Joe Rogan 33:26 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 33:26 "We should be doing solar geoengineering," which is what you're talking about. Um, and that means probably suspending sulfur is like the most useful thing in the atmosphere.

Joe Rogan 33:35 (coughs)

David Wallace-Wells 33:35 Um-

Joe Rogan 33:35 Oh great, we're gonna smell like sulfur?

David Wallace-Wells 33:37 Well, the s- the sky would get red.

Joe Rogan 33:39 Oh, Jesus.

David Wallace-Wells 33:39 There are all of these aesthetic effects too which nobody talks about, so like trees are gonna just turn immediately brown.

Joe Rogan 33:44 Oh.

David Wallace-Wells 33:44 They're not gonna turn color.

Joe Rogan 33:45 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 33:45 It- there was a study a couple weeks ago that the oceans are gonna change color. Um, there-

Joe Rogan 33:49 This is if we do that, if we suspend these particles?

David Wallace-Wells 33:50 No, no, no, this is just from warming-

Joe Rogan 33:52 Period?

David Wallace-Wells 33:52 ... just from warming.

Joe Rogan 33:52 The ocean's gonna change color? To what?

David Wallace-Wells 33:54 Yeah, I think just from more green to more blue, but, um-

Joe Rogan 33:56 That'd be nice.

David Wallace-Wells 33:57 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:58 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 33:59 Um, but yeah, so the- the sulfur thing is, um, I- so we could, you know, we could suspend these, um, basically an umbrella of sulfur around, um, in the atmosphere, which would mean that it would- some of the sunlight coming to the Earth would be reflected back into the atmosphere, and that would mean that the Sun would absorb less sunlight. I mean the Earth would absorb less sun- sunlight, which would make it a little bit cooler. Um, the problem is that would have some crippling impacts on agriculture, and we basically don't know other side effects that it would have.

Joe Rogan 34:29 And how would you take that stuff out?

David Wallace-Wells 34:32 Well, you could just stop doing it. It has a shelf life of, I don't know what it is, 10 years, so you could just stop doing it. And that's a big concern actually because if we did that just to mask the amount of global warming that we were doing, then h- whatever program was responsible for it would be really vulnerable to terrorism, um, to war, because if we s- if we were- if the planet were functionally warmed say five degrees, but we were suspending enough sulfur that it was actually only two degrees warmer, then if we just, for instance like somebody bombed the facility that was doing it, the planet would be immediately tripped into a much, much hotter state and that would be completely catastrophic, even more catastrophic than a more slow approach to five degrees.

Joe Rogan 35:14 'Cause we would adjust to it.

David Wallace-Wells 35:16 We-

Joe Rogan 35:16 In some way.

David Wallace-Wells 35:16 Over a century or several centuries we might-

Joe Rogan 35:18 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 35:18 ... in ways we'd be able to adjust to it, but if it was immediate-

Joe Rogan 35:20 So it'd be im- immediate.

David Wallace-Wells 35:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:21 Now, wh- why sulfur?

David Wallace-Wells 35:24 I think it's just something about the particular characteristic of it. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 35:27 Wouldn't it smell hor- I mean, it would literally be like hell, like that's what you-

David Wallace-Wells 35:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:31 ... you always hear about with horror movies, right? The devil smells like sulfur.

David Wallace-Wells 35:34 Yeah. And I mean it's the, um, it's what farts smell like.

Joe Rogan 35:38 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 35:38 And the reason that we s-

Joe Rogan 35:39 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 35:39 ... the reason we're able to smell farts is because sulfur is, um, also, I mean, some related, uh, compounds, hydrogen sulfide, are, um, are really toxic, and so-

Joe Rogan 35:50 Wh- that brings-

David Wallace-Wells 35:50 ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:50 ... me to methane. That's another issue as well, right?

David Wallace-Wells 35:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:53 If a cow is producing methane gas-

David Wallace-Wells 35:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:55 ... 'cause, uh, large-scale agriculture.

David Wallace-Wells 35:57 Yeah, wait, let me just say one more thing about-

Joe Rogan 35:58 Sure, please.

David Wallace-Wells 35:59 ... um, the solar geoengineering. So, the thing about that-

Joe Rogan 36:02 (clears throat)

David Wallace-Wells 36:02 ... that's real... this sounds horrifying, this program. People are excited about it 'cause it's really cheap. It's way cheaper than carbon capture, and, um, but- so there's a positive for it. But it's also, um ... We are basically already doing this, so we have what's called small particulate pollution, um, that's- or aerosol pollution, um, stuff suspended in- in the atmosphere. That's why like Delhi is really hard to breathe in, 'cause we have a lot of particulate in the atmosphere. That is already-... suppressing global temperatures by as much as a half degree, or maybe one degree. Which means, and that's the reason that those nine million people are dying every year from air pollution. So, if we solve that problem, if we solve the air pollution problem, save those nine million lives, we, every year, we would immediately make the planet at least a half a degree warmer, and possibly one degree warmer, which would put us at the threshold of catastrophe or above it. Um, so we're sort of already doing this program, just not in a systematic way. We're doing it in a haphazard way. Um, the methane that you mentioned, there are basically two big issues with methane. The first is, um, cows. Um, so yeah, cows produce a ton of methane, which is, depending on how you count, about 35 or maybe 85 times stronger a greenhouse gas than carbon.

Joe Rogan 37:13 Whoa.

David Wallace-Wells 37:14 Yeah, it's really intense. Um, but there are also these like small-scale studies that show if we feed cattle just a little bit of seaweed, their methane emissions could fall by 95 or 99%. So, we could... If, if that was scalable, which is not clear it is, but if it was, we could immediately eliminate the entire carbon footprint of beef, which people talk about a lot now.

Joe Rogan 37:33 That's incredible.

David Wallace-Wells 37:34 Yeah, just... It, it's a reminder to me that like, you know, you get told, "Oh, you should eat less hamburgers," or whatever. But obviously this is like a problem that's too big to be solved with like individual choices. We need some kind of global policy, or national policy about it. But the scarier methane issue is, um, there's all this carbon stored in frozen permafrost-

Joe Rogan 37:52 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 37:52 ... in the northern latitudes. Um, that permafrost is melting, and when it melts, that carbon will be released into the atmosphere. We don't know the proportion that it will be released as carbon dioxide versus methane. But, um, there is in that permafrost twice as much carbon as now exists in the atmosphere, which means if it were all released, possibly in a relatively sudden way, it could make, um, our carbon problem immediately three times worse. Um, and it could be even... The effect could even be more dramatic than that if it was released mostly as methane, 'cause methane's a stronger greenhouse gas. Most scientists think that that's not something that we need to freak out about in the short term, but it's there, it is melting, and methane is being released at some rate, so-

Joe Rogan 38:35 The craziest solution that I ever heard for that one was to, uh, bring back the wooly mammoth.

David Wallace-Wells 38:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:41 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 38:42 They're trying to do that.

Joe Rogan 38:43 Yeah. And the, the idea that the wooly mammoth is gonna save us all by releasing them throughout Siberia (laughs) .

David Wallace-Wells 38:49 Yeah, it's crazy, right? I mean, I think that we're gonna have a whole, a century of shit like that, and shit like cows eating seaweed, that everything... You know, we'll have our... Global politics will be reoriented around climate change, so that you'll start to see sanctions put against nations that are behaving badly. Um, MBS, the guy who's, you know, the, like kind of thug who's running Saudi Arabia now, says he needs Saudi Arabia's economy to be totally off oil by 2050. And I think that's 'cause he knows that, you know, the global community will not tolerate someone producing more oil in-

Joe Rogan 39:23 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 39:23 ... um, as recently as, you know, as, as, as soon as a few decades from now. But the impacts are, you know, everywhere, so that like, um, yeah, like in California now, you can, you know, during wildfire season, you can buy, um, masks to, you know, to shield yourself from the smoke which is really, really damaging. Its effects on cognitive performance are really dramatic, can lower cognitive performance by like 10 to 15%. Its effect on the development of kids is really dramatic. Um, there was an incredible study a few years ago, where if you looked at places where they instituted EZ- Do you have EZ-Pass out here in California?

Joe Rogan 39:57 No, we don't, we don't have, uh, tolls.

David Wallace-Wells 40:00 Oh, right.

Joe Rogan 40:00 Isn't that amazing?

David Wallace-Wells 40:01 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:02 You guys are s- I think there- ... thing, what- It's like a one time- ... like one or two places. Yeah, but like depending on where you lived, you'd have to take that every day.

David Wallace-Wells 40:08 Dude, in New York, they're everywhere.

Joe Rogan 40:09 I know, and I know what you mean. Yeah, like the... Okay. All right, yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 40:11 So it used to be the case that cars had to, like, slow down and pay a toll.

Joe Rogan 40:14 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 40:14 And because they were slowing down, they produced more exhaust. When they instituted EZ-Pass, cars could just drive through.

Joe Rogan 40:19 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 40:20 And that meant they produced less exhaust. And the effect on the, on premature birth and low birth weight in the areas where they instituted these new EZ-Pass toll plazas, it reduced them by like 15% each.

Joe Rogan 40:30 Wow.

David Wallace-Wells 40:30 That's how dramatic just the exhaust effect is on development of babies. Um-

Joe Rogan 40:35 How much is it an effect of electric cars?

David Wallace-Wells 40:38 Yeah, that can... I mean, that, that will be huge.

Joe Rogan 40:40 Right now, it hasn't had enough of an end effect because there's not enough of them?

David Wallace-Wells 40:43 Yeah. Um, and... But yeah, I mean, the, that problem on the f- on like the technological level has been solved. We know how to replace cars with electric cars. We can make them even pretty affordable. Not quite as affordable as they need to be, but the new Teslas are like 35 grand, I think. If you get it down to 15 grand, that'll be, you know, that'll be a huge solution. But then there are a lot of other problems that are more difficult, like air travel.

Joe Rogan 41:08 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 41:08 You can't... We don't have electric planes around the corner. You can't fly planes. Um-

Joe Rogan 41:13 Is there anything like that on the horizon? Is it that-

David Wallace-Wells 41:15 There's some people who are tr- who are trying to develop it, but it seems like probably it, it's at least like a decade away. And, you know, one cross-country flight in the US is the equivi- one seat on one cos- cross-country flight is the equivalent of eight months of driving. Every time you fly from New York-

Joe Rogan 41:30 What?

David Wallace-Wells 41:30 ... to London and back, you melt nine squ- three square meters of ice. Every single f- seat on every flight from New York to London melts three square meters of ice. Um, of arctic ice.

Joe Rogan 41:42 What?

David Wallace-Wells 41:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:44 That's insane.

David Wallace-Wells 41:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:46 That's real?

David Wallace-Wells 41:47 Yeah. Yeah, I think it's-

Joe Rogan 41:49 Every, every-

David Wallace-Wells 41:49 ... the avera-

Joe Rogan 41:49 Every time you fly across the country, it's like eight months of driving?

David Wallace-Wells 41:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Whoa.

David Wallace-Wells 41:56 So globally, air travel is only 2% of the carbon footprint, so it's relatively small. But for people in, especially rich people in rich countries, it's a much bigger part of the footprint.

Joe Rogan 42:05 'Cause they fly around all over the place.

David Wallace-Wells 42:06 Yes. But yeah, no, the average American, I think the stat is the average American every year emits enough carbon to melt 10,000 tons of ice.

Joe Rogan 42:17 Jesus Christ.

David Wallace-Wells 42:19 That's just the average American.

Joe Rogan 42:22 And if you're a person like me who flies like every other weekend-

David Wallace-Wells 42:26 It's way worse.

Joe Rogan 42:27 Way worse.

David Wallace-Wells 42:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:29 Oh.

David Wallace-Wells 42:30 So (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 42:32 Holy shit. (coughs) When you put it in that perspective, it's-How much fucking ice is there?

David Wallace-Wells 42:37 I mean, there's a lot of ice-

Joe Rogan 42:38 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 42:39 ... but it's gonna melt. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:41 Yeah. Well-

David Wallace-Wells 42:41 That's how you get, you know, the out- the outside projections, the high-end projections for sea level rise are 260 feet.

Joe Rogan 42:47 Now, um, the, the plus sign is it's way better to get co- hotter than it is to get colder, right? Like, ice ages kill everything.

David Wallace-Wells 42:56 Well, the, you know, the, each of the ... So there have been five mass extinctions in planetary history, in earth history before. One of them was ki- was caused by an asteroid, but the other four were, um, were produced by global warming related to greenhouse gas, um, and one of them-

Joe Rogan 43:12 What about the Ice Age?

David Wallace-Wells 43:13 (sniffs) Well, the Ice Age doesn't count. It didn't-

Joe Rogan 43:14 Didn't kill as many?

David Wallace-Wells 43:16 No.

Joe Rogan 43:16 Really?

David Wallace-Wells 43:17 The, the biggest m- mass extinction, the end-Permian extinction, um, which was 252 million years ago, 90% to 95% of all life on Earth died.

Joe Rogan 43:27 (scoffs) When was that?

David Wallace-Wells 43:28 252 million years ago.

Joe Rogan 43:30 God.

David Wallace-Wells 43:30 So each of these mass extinctions basically is like a complete slate wiping of the evolutionary record. It's like we're starting over from scratch.

Joe Rogan 43:37 So we want to think that the, the asteroid that hit the Yucatan did the most damage in terms of the fossil record. Is that not true? Is the one that was the, the global warming, was that more?

David Wallace-Wells 43:47 Well, there, so there, there are five and four of them were from global warming and the worst, the worst one was f- just from, from greenhouse gas warming. But yeah, the, the one that killed the dinosaurs was also really bad. It was something like 70% of all life on Earth.

Joe Rogan 43:58 But it's less than the one where there was a-

David Wallace-Wells 44:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:00 ... temperature rise?

David Wallace-Wells 44:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:01 Wow.

David Wallace-Wells 44:02 There was a, um, a volcano ex- This is a little bit sketchy science, but there was a volcano-

Joe Rogan 44:06 (coughs)

David Wallace-Wells 44:06 ... explosion, um, something like 30,000 years ago or something, I don't remember the exact dates, but that, um, volcanoes can cool, uh, global temperature for the same reason we're talking about with suspending-

Joe Rogan 44:18 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 44:18 ... particles because it basically clouds the atmosphere with, um ... and it dropped global temperatures, I think it was two degrees, and the human population at the time then shrunk to 7,000. So there was this-

Joe Rogan 44:28 Yeah, we've talked about that-

David Wallace-Wells 44:30 ... incredible bottleneck.

Joe Rogan 44:30 ... a bunch of times, yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 44:31 That's less people than live on Nantucket.

Joe Rogan 44:33 Poof. Whoosh. (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 44:35 And it just, it just makes you see, like, everything about the way that we live on this planet is dependent on climate conditions.

Joe Rogan 44:40 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 44:41 Like, we'll figure a way to, like, have a civilization, but it will be transformed. It will be very different if the world is four degrees warmer.

Joe Rogan 44:49 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 44:49 Um, and, you know, everything about the way that we take for ... Everything we take for granted today as, like, a permanent feature of the modern world, I think we're going to learn is much more precarious, much more unstable. Um, and yeah, like I said earlier, you know, climates were stable for all of human history. That's how we were able to evolve. It's how we were able to invent agriculture. The part of the world where we did invent agriculture, the Middle East, it's now getting almost too hot to grow crops. It's also going to be too hot to go to Mecca for a pilgrimage in just a couple decades. Weather, like, we're entirely outside of that, um, window of temperatures, which means we're functionally now living on an entirely different planet than humans ever lived on before, and it's gonna keep changing. So by the time we get to two, three, four degrees, we'll be, uh, living in, in a climate that's, you know, two or three or four times as much different as the one that we're es- now from the one before the Industrial Revolution. And yeah, it's like those impacts could be totally overwhelming and catastrophic.

Joe Rogan 45:53 Now, the Al Gore film is, uh, something that scared a lot of people, but i- it was also very widely dismissed by a lot of other people as well. How accurate was that movie?

David Wallace-Wells 46:03 I think it, it proved to be too sanguine. It b- like, it didn't deal with a lot of extreme weather. It thought that stuff was far away. And I think this is one of the, one of the big shortcomings of most writing about climate, most kind of communication about climate for 25 years, is that we were told it was slow. We were told it was going to be coming maybe at the scale of centuries, something we'd have to worry about for our grandchildren. But when you realize that half of all the damage we've done has been done in the last 30 years and you see already the extreme weather ... We had a global heatwave last summer, totally unprecedented. People died in Canada, they died in Russia, they died in the Middle East. The same season, three million people were evacuated in China from a typhoon, unprecedented rains in Japan. We had multiple hurricanes in the Caribbean all at once. There was an island in Hawaii, East Island, it's a small island, not one that most people have gone to, but got literally wiped off the map by a hurricane. They're thinking about inventing a new category of hurricane, category six. All of these impacts, um, were, are coming much faster than scientists predicted even a decade or two ago. And so I think The First Inconvenient Truth is a little too complacent. But Al Gore is also, you know ... I know him a little bit. I've talked to him a few times. He's, um, temperamentally he's a technocrat. He's an optimist. He thinks market forces can solve all this stuff. And I don't even totally disagree with him. Um, I think that market forces are really powerful. We've had a huge green energy revolution in the US that's, you know ... and had spillover effects elsewhere in the world. So solar power is now cheaper than anybody expected it would be decade or two ago. Although it's also the case that we haven't replaced any of our dirty energy with it. We've just added to our capacity. So the ratio of renewable energy to dirty energy is now the same as it was 40 years ago, so we made no progress. Um-

Joe Rogan 47:59 Why is that?

David Wallace-Wells 48:00 Because we just ... if we're like, uh, rather than saying, "Oh, let's retire this coal plant and replace it with a, um, you know, a wind farm," we think, "Oh, we'll have the coal plant and the wind farm. We'll have more energy."

Joe Rogan 48:10 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 48:11 You know, we just grow the pie of energy. Um-

Joe Rogan 48:13 And this is unnecessary? It's not because there's a, just a massive demand? Is it just because they don't want to end that industry?

David Wallace-Wells 48:20 Yeah, I mean, there is a demand. People-

Joe Rogan 48:21 Like number one-

David Wallace-Wells 48:22 ... like energy. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:22 ... Trump was talking about clean coal-

David Wallace-Wells 48:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:25 ... and everybody was like, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

David Wallace-Wells 48:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:28 "Clean coal?"

David Wallace-Wells 48:29 I mean, I think on some level, American policy is a red herring. The US is 15% of global emissions, um, and we're falling. The future climate of the world will be determined by China-... by India, by sub-Saharan Africa. Those are carbon footprints that are growing. China's now almost twice as big a carbon footprint as the US, and they're building all this infrastructure outside of China that doesn't even count, um, in Asia and Africa, you know, the Belt and Road, do you know this-

Joe Rogan 48:56 No.

David Wallace-Wells 48:56 ... project? So, they're basically taking the model that the US had with, like, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, and they're building the infrastructure of the developing world. So recently, they, they loaned, um, Kenya a huge amount of money to build a new rail line, which was g- being built with Chinese workers. They built the rail line, um, then they, Kenya couldn't pay back the debt, so China, um, is threatening to take over the entire port of Mombasa as debt repayment. And this is, like, going on all around the world. Highways across Africa, across Asia are being built by Chinese workers as an, in an effort to build a new em- imperial infrastructure for themselves.

Joe Rogan 49:41 And is the thought that they're doing this in terms of, uh, setting up the debt in a way that's unpayable so that they could take over?

David Wallace-Wells 49:48 I, that's one motive.

Joe Rogan 49:49 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 49:49 I think that the Kenya exam- but they'd be happy if the debt got repaid. I think it's, they're, they're stitching together an alternative to the Western infrastructure of trade and transit. They're basically stitching together an entire second system of how the world will work, how the economy will work-

Joe Rogan 50:06 Mmm.

David Wallace-Wells 50:06 ... and it will be conducted through their own infrastructure, and through their own ports, and through their own airports. And that's being done by their own standards, so China is now pouring more concrete, um, every three years than the entire, than the US poured in the entire 20th century.

Joe Rogan 50:22 Jesus Christ.

David Wallace-Wells 50:22 And if concrete were a country, it would be the world's third-biggest carbon emitter. So the, the, the path of development of these other countries, China, India, and l- sub-Saharan Africa, are really what's gonna be writing the story of the future. America has a kind of, I think, like, a mar- moral obligation to lead because historically we had the biggest carbon footprint, but at the moment, we're a relatively small part of the problem, and within the US, market forces are doing a lot of, are making a lot of progress for us. Um, so the real issue is, how do we figure out a new geopolitics that forces countries like China to act better? And one answer may be, as weird as it is to say, that, um, you know, Xi Jinping is basically a dictator. If he wants to impose, um, new standards, if he wants to invest aggressively in green energy, he doesn't have any of the o- political obstacles that we have in the US. And so there's this sort of weird sympathy among American climate people for that, um, authoritarianism, and he has, especially since Trump has been elected, been a lot more aggressive about talking about climate because he sees if America's not gonna be leading, this is an opportunity for China to be, like, the real face of climate. And that means they've paid, they've, you know, they've invested a ton in, in, um, solar and wind. They've done a lot with air pollution, so Beijing used to be really awful. In 2013, I think more than a million Chinese people died of air pollution, and now that's much better. Um-

Joe Rogan 51:54 What have they done?

David Wallace-Wells 51:56 Just imposing stricter standards on, um, on pollution, so-

Joe Rogan 51:59 So emissions, uh, b- coal plants, things like that?

David Wallace-Wells 52:02 That kind of stuff, yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:03 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 52:04 And, um, but, you know, we think about, we think about carbon and the whole problem, I think, a little too much, um, in terms of energy. Energy is just 30% of the global carbon footprint, and it's the easiest one to solve because wind and solar is actually really cheap now. Most parts of the world, it's cheaper than dirty energy.

Joe Rogan 52:20 What's the majority of the footprint?

David Wallace-Wells 52:23 Well, it's all, nothing's a majority.

Joe Rogan 52:25 Oh, okay.

David Wallace-Wells 52:25 But, so there's, um, energy, there's infrastructure, there's transportation, um, and agriculture is, like, a huge underappreciated part of it. It's something like, I don't know, 30% of, of the global footprint. Um-

Joe Rogan 52:36 And is it because of tractors, or what do, what is it because of?

David Wallace-Wells 52:39 Everything.

Joe Rogan 52:40 Everything. Everything that you need to do to run a farm.

David Wallace-Wells 52:42 I mean, really, everything you need to do to live in the world has some kind of carbon footprint, but, you know, if we were able to, like, feed all our cattle seaweed, that would have a, like, a big, that would have a big impact. Um, but all kinds of crops have, um, have carbon footprints, and they-

Joe Rogan 52:57 But they would still have to do something to get the seaweed and have the seaweed travel, the seaweed to, to-

David Wallace-Wells 53:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:03 ... deliver it to these farms.

David Wallace-Wells 53:05 Well, you could also do, you know, you could imagine lab-grown meat having-

Joe Rogan 53:07 Mm-hmm.

David Wallace-Wells 53:07 ... a much smaller carbon footprint. Um, I mean, it, it should if it, like, proceeds as we expect it will.

Joe Rogan 53:13 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 53:13 Um, and like I said before, like, when you look at each particular threat, there's, like, you can see reasons for optimism. You can see, like, "Oh, we'll figure it out in this way. We'll figure it out in that way." But the UN says we need to halve all of our global emissions by 2030 to have a chance of averting two degrees of warming, which they call catastrophic warming, and the projects that we need to put into place in those 11 years are just much bigger than I think we're capable of pulling off. They say, the UN says what is necessary is a global mobilization at the level of World War II against climate starting this year, 2019, and there's just no chance that we're (laughs) gonna do that anytime soon. I mean, maybe 10 years from now, we'll get there. That may even be optimistic. Um, but the, the total decarbonization that's required is, we need to totally zero out on carbon by 2050, they say, um, and I just think, you know, a lot of these sectors are much trickier. We could maybe zero out on energy, zero out on carbon when it comes to energy in 15 years if we wanted to, but again, that's just 30% of the total problem. Um, which is why I think there's, the negative emissions stuff, the carbon capture is so important, because it will allow us to move more slowly than the UN says we need to and still, if it works out, you know, keep the planet relatively stable, relatively livable. Um, but that's, you know, those technologies have been called magical, magical thinking by, like-... the n- Journal of Nature, which is like the biggest (laughs) scientific journal, um, writing about this stuff. So, it's sort of a leap of faith to think that they could solve that problem.

Joe Rogan 55:00 Do you think that we're dealing with like shifts and degrees of perception that it, it, it's things like your book, things like Al Gore's movie, things like, you know, any time there's a new story that's written in the New York Times or in any, any periodical, we need more of this. It needs to be hammered home to people, that it's nee- it needs to be something that's a, a global discussion that accelerates.

David Wallace-Wells 55:23 Totally, and I think that that's happening. You know, I think, um, there was this big report they, that the UN did in October that spurred a lot of conversation about it, and I think that in a grotesque way, the best teacher is just extreme weather. You know-

Joe Rogan 55:38 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 55:39 ... when you see every year these California wildfires, every year they're burning, and that is really dramatic. People I talk to in Europe are focused on the California fires. Even though they have wildfires over there, there's something about the California fires that they're really worried about. When you see these global heat waves, when you see unprecedented hurricane seasons... We just had a typhoon in the Pacific in February, first time in recorded history. Um, you know, when every day on the news there's some, um, there's some, you know, dramatic extreme weather, and when they come one after the other, I think that's a really powerful teaching tool. So, you know, there's this term, it's now outdated, but 500-year storm, you hear a lot about. 500-year storm means, you know, a hurricane that would hit a particular area once every five centuries, right? That means five centuries ago, there were no white people in America. So that means we're talking about a storm that would hum- come once as colonists came to America, as they, you know, committed genocide (laughs) against Native Americans, as they built their own empire, as they built an empire of slaves and cotton, as they fought a civil war, as they fought World War I, as they fought World War II. Everything that we've done would expect one, one storm of that kind in that time. Hurricane Harvey was the third 500-year storm to hit Houston in three years. We are living in such unprecedented climate that it's impossible to look at the news and not learn that. Uh, despite all of our inclinations, all of our reflexes to look away, I think it is seeping in. I think people are beginning to be more alarmed about it, and I think alarm is really useful. There are people in the climate community who think, you know, it's, it's dangerous to scare people, it turns them off. But I'm somebody who's awakened to this out of fear, and when I look at the history of environmental activism, when I look at activism generally, like we don't try to get people to stop smoking cigarettes by like messaging through optimism. We try to get them to stop because we tell them how bad it's gonna be for them. Drunk driving, nuclear proliferation, same thing. Rachel Carson, you know, wrote, um, Silent Spring about pesticides. It was called hyperbolic alarmist. It led to the creation of the EPA, and you know, when you think about that UN directive that we should be mobilizing at the scale of World War II to combat climate, we didn't fight World War II out of hope. We fought World War II out of panic, and I think that that should be part of how we think about this story obviously. I think, you know, when I look around the world, when I talk to anyone, when I talk to my family, when I watch TV, when I watch mo- whatever, read stuff, it just seems obvious to me that there are many more p- people who are still too complacent about this issue even if they're concerned about it a little bit, even if they're aware of it. Um, they don't think of it as like the overarching, all-encompassing story of our time that requires a- an existential response. And even saying those words make me uncomfortable because I like, it's hard f- it's hard for me to believe that the sca- the threat is that big, but that is what the science says. Um, and like I said before, some of that science is not gonna get borne out. But when you look at the full scope of it and just how, just how large, just how bleak the impacts will be, you realize like we really need to wake up to just how dangerous a world we're heading into and do everything we can to avoid it. Um, in addition to probably planning to adapt.

Joe Rogan 59:07 Now, w- you live in New York. Were you living in New York when Tribeca flooded a few years ago?

David Wallace-Wells 59:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:12 What was that like?

David Wallace-Wells 59:14 Well, I mean, I think in a situation like that, um, most people emerge from a particular disaster and think, "My God, since this is so awful, it must be an anomaly." And, you know, I think New York was really horrified as a city by Sandy, but there's gonna be Sandys, I don't remember the exact stat, like once every five years by the end of the century.

Joe Rogan 59:41 What cat- category storm was Sandy?

David Wallace-Wells 59:42 I think it made landfall as a Category 3.

Joe Rogan 59:45 So it's not even a 5.

David Wallace-Wells 59:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:47 So if a 5 hit N- is it possible for a 5 to hit New York?

David Wallace-Wells 59:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:50 Or is it too far north?

David Wallace-Wells 59:51 No, it's possible.

Joe Rogan 59:52 No. Totally possible.

David Wallace-Wells 59:52 I was talking to a, a really prominent climate scientist a few months ago who is like one of the, he was one of the lead authors on the, the UN report, um, lives in New York, does a lot of consulting with the city, and I said, "So are we gonna build a seawall to protect New York from flooding?" And he was like, "Oh, absolutely. You know, Manhattan real estate's way too expensive to let flood, so we'll definitely build a seawall. But an infrastructure project like that takes at least 30 years to build."

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 1:00:20 "And if we started right now, we wouldn't be able to finish in time to save Howard Beach and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, if we started right now," he said. He said, "The city knows this, and you'll see in the next few years, they'll stop doing repairs on infrastructure. They'll stop attending to the subway lines in those neighborhoods, and even a few years after that, they'll start saying explicitly to the people who live there, 'You might be able to continue living in these homes for a couple decades, but you're not gonna be able to live them, leave them to your kids.'"

Joe Rogan 1:00:51 Whoa.

David Wallace-Wells 1:00:52 This is in New York City. It's like the richest country (laughs) and the richest city in the world, and-... yeah, huge parts of, um, huge parts of Southern Brooklyn and Queens are going to be underwater.

Joe Rogan 1:01:02 So, for the people that live there right now, what parts are you talking about?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:06 Um, well the one that, the one that he mentioned most explicitly was Howard Beach but, um, which is, it's kind of an int- it's like a, a mob neighborhood and, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 It's still?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 Really?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:15 Well, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 Yeah?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:18 S- 'cause that was like the gaudy neighborhood, right?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:20 Yeah, that's where-

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:20 ... they buried all the bed- dead bodies.

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 Wow.

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:23 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:01:23 I didn't know that was still a mob neighborhood.

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:25 Well, you know, to the extent that there is a mob. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I mean, that's true everywhere on the coast everywhere. It's not just New York. New York's not exceptional.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:37 You know there are projections that like $30 billion of New Jersey real estate could be underwater by 2030. 2030. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:01:44 Why is that not as alarming?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:48 I mean, I-

Joe Rogan 1:01:48 I mean, I-

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:48 ... I was born in New Jersey too.

Joe Rogan 1:01:50 Yeah. (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:50 It's not as alarming. And then, you know, Miami Beach is, you know, Miami Beach is done for.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 Yeah, Miami Beach is, uh, almost inevitable, correct?

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:58 Yeah. T-

David Wallace-Wells 1:01:58 I mean, you know, they could, they could build a seawall but that, those projects-

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 But that's not gonna help because of the, the ground, right? Is it?

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:04 ... the c- the, and, and it's, it's just so expensive. So you really have to, um, you really have to pick your poison and then when you look around the world, you know, it's like Bangladesh, that country's gonna be almost entirely underwater. That's hundreds of millions of people. If we wanted to build a seawall, they can't afford that. Who's gonna afford, who's gonna pay for that?

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 And this is all because of the raising w- sea level, because of the melting ice, because of the temperature, and all-

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:30 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:02:30 ... this is happening.

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:30 And I think, you know, we think of sea level as really a thing that happens on the coastline, which it is primarily, but it also increases flooding on rivers because the water's-

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Right.

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:39 ... all connected.

Joe Rogan 1:02:40 Of course.

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:40 So, flooding in the UK is expected to grow 50 fold by the end of the century.

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 What?

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:47 Well, that London-

Joe Rogan 1:02:48 50 fold?

David Wallace-Wells 1:02:49 London is already like underwater a couple of times a year. I mean, not the whole city, but it's-

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 What is this, Jamie?

Narrator 1:02:53 This is Bangladesh. I just went to- ... like Bangladesh underwater-

Joe Rogan 1:02:56 Oh. Jesus.

Narrator 1:02:56 ... and this is like a video that pops up showing-

Joe Rogan 1:02:58 Oh my God, these people are fucked.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:00 Yeah.

Narrator 1:03:00 It says 18 million residents live here. It's a dump.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 That's a swamp.

Narrator 1:03:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 That looks crazy. Like, it, like if you were a real estate projector and you're flying over that, you're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we can't build here."

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:10 (laughs) Yeah, Jakarta will be totally underwater soon.

Joe Rogan 1:03:11 Like, look at those apartment buildings, like you could see the water level. Look, back up a little bit.

Narrator 1:03:15 S- this is just a running little thing. I can't.

Joe Rogan 1:03:16 Oh, but if you see, look at like doesn't that look like a water level in the, the apartment buildings on the right-hand side near where your cursor is?

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:23 Yeah.

Narrator 1:03:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 Like, l- like that's gonna go up to where that orange level is. Fucking Christ.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:29 Well, I mean, over a millennia, we're g- (laughs) they're gonna rise hundreds of feet.

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 Oh God.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:35 I mean, it's gonna take a long time so you can adjust-

Joe Rogan 1:03:37 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:37 ... to that a little bit. But, um-

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 But that's always been the case, right? The, the, the, I mean, they're still find, they find these artifacts and things in the middle of the ocean-

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 ... and areas where people used to be able to live and now they can't live anymore.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:52 Yeah. I think that'll be-

Joe Rogan 1:03:54 We have to move.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:55 People have to move. So what's a good spot? Alberta?

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:57 (laughs) Anywh-

Joe Rogan 1:03:58 Is that good? It's cold as fuck.

David Wallace-Wells 1:03:58 Anywhere north, anywhere off the coast.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 Edmonton.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:01 That's the spot now.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:02 I mean, I think I would, uh, like people ask me that-

Joe Rogan 1:04:04 (laughs)

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:04 ... all the time and I say, you know, "Honestly, the place that I would move to is somewhere in Scandinavia."

Joe Rogan 1:04:08 Really?

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:09 Because, um, you know, I talked about the impacts of economic growth before but there are gonna be parts of the world that benefit economically from this, anywhere in the north. So Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia will benefit because-

Joe Rogan 1:04:21 But why s- c- don't go to Scandinavia. Go to Canada. It's right there.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:24 Well, but Scandinavia seems kind of like-

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 They're nice people.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:25 ... prettier to me. I don't know. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:27 I mean, all Canadians do.

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 Well, Scandinavia's nice but Canada's like our neighbors, they're like friends.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:31 Although they also, yeah, they have wildfires there too. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 Canada? Yeah, they do.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:34 And see, and in the Arctic Circle in Finland last year.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 They also have bears.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:37 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:38 And mountain lions.

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:39 But so, you know, thes- these guy, the economists who study this stuff say that, um, there is actually an optimal temperature for human productivity. It's 13 degrees Celsius, which is the historical median temperature of the US. It's also the historical median temperature of Germany.

Joe Rogan 1:04:52 What is 13 Celsius? Was that 60 degrees or something like that?

David Wallace-Wells 1:04:55 Yeah, I think it's like in the high 50s. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 What we got, Jamie?

Narrator 1:05:01 Uh, Google didn't help me.

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:03 (laughs) Google didn't give it to you?

Narrator 1:05:04 I had to do it from your thing, hold on.

Joe Rogan 1:05:06 I, whenever I'm in Canada I'm always like, "I don't know what you're saying."

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:08 Yeah, they're like, "Holy shit, it's 22 degrees."

Narrator 1:05:11 55.

1:05:11 55.4

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:12 Um, and so for every degree north of that you lose about a percentage point of GDP. So the US is now at about 13 and a half, uh, degrees Celsius at our median temperature. That means that we're losing about a half percentage point of GDP every year from it, but there are parts of the US that were cooler than 13 and are now brought up to this optimal level. Silicon Valley is like exactly at 13 degrees right now-

Joe Rogan 1:05:38 Mm.

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:38 ... um, which is, you know, notable 'cause they're like-

Joe Rogan 1:05:40 Super productive.

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:41 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:05:42 Um, and that's gonna be, so that'll be true for Scandinavia generally and it may be part of the explanation why there's been so much, um, economic productivity in Scandinavia over the last generation is that they have already started doing better with temperature. Crops are gonna be more bountiful in Russia. Like Russia will have better agriculture, um, because of glo- global warming which is why they m- they make such a, you know, they're, they're such a, um, complicated figure in the geopolitical story about climate. So they are a petrostate. They have, almost all of their economic activi- activity has to do with burning oil, but they're also poised to benefit from warming. So they're doubly motivated to produce more global warming.

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 Whoa.

David Wallace-Wells 1:06:18 And they have such a "fuck the wor- rest of the world" perspective that they're not gonna stop. Whereas Canada probably they're like likely to, even though they'd benefit from more warming, they'll probably get on board with any program to avert warming. But that is a, um, that's a dilemma that faces every nation. You know, like Justin Trudeau gets, you know, talks a lot of shit about Donald Trump and his climate policy but he, Justin Trudeau's also approving new pipelines. Angela Merkel does the same but she's retiring, um, nuclear so quickly in Germany that they're having to use dirty energy, um, and even though they've had this incredible green energy revolution there, their emissions are going up. Um, and every country in the world...... is, it's a collective action problem. Every country in the world is incentivized to behave badly and let the rest of the world clean up the mess. So, I was talking to this guy yesterday about wildfires, and he was like, "You know, California is doing so great, you know, with all of the emission standards." They're basically, you know, holding themselves to the Paris Accords, even though the country as a whole isn't. But that impact isn't local, it's global, so it's dissipated. The temperature impact on California wildfires will be determined by, like I said earlier, basically what China does. (laughs) So, in terms of, you know, what any individual area, what any, any individual nation is doing, the motivations are really, really complicated there. And in California in particular, this is a bit of a tangent, but, um, you know, you, the state has done incredible stuff with emission standards, fuel efficiency, green energy, and yet all of those gains now are wiped out every year by the fires. Because fires are trees, trees are burning. Trees are basically coal, in the sense that they are stored carbon. When they burn, they release carbon into the atmosphere. So, every time there are wildfires like there were last year in California, it literally wipes out all of the progress that the state made in all of its green initiatives that year. Um, yeah.

Narrator 1:08:18 Sh-sh-sh.

David Wallace-Wells 1:08:20 And you know about in, in that, in, in Brazil, the, um, the president of Brazil wants to r- like, basically deforest the Amazon. The Amazon is responsible for something like 30% of the world's oxygen, um, and is a hu- so all plants obviously absorb carbon and produce o- oxygen, um, so plant life is really good for fighting climate change.

Narrator 1:08:41 When you say he wants to deforest the Am- uh, the Amazon, like at what scale? What is he, what is he talking about doing?

David Wallace-Wells 1:08:46 So, the scientists who've studied his proposals say that, um, his plans would be the equivalent of adding, over a 10-year period, adding a second China to the world's global footprint.

Narrator 1:09:00 Jesus Christ.

David Wallace-Wells 1:09:01 Yeah.

Narrator 1:09:02 And this is just to pump up Brazil's economy?

David Wallace-Wells 1:09:05 Yeah. Well, he has a kind of a Trumpy, like, "I'm gonna fuck the environmentalists" perspective too. So, he's just, like, uh, l- a little bit, like, s- you know, f- whatever, flipping the bird to people who care about it.

Narrator 1:09:15 (laughs)

1:09:15 Oh my God.

David Wallace-Wells 1:09:17 And that just makes you think that, like, it seems crazy now, but it really won't be crazy, I think, a generation from now, for another country to threaten at least sanctions, and maybe military action, to deal with that. You know, after World War II, we built a whole liberal international order around the principle of human rights. That would've been unthinkable in the '20s, and yet it led to a series (laughs) of military invent- interventions over the next centur- half-century, because people were behaving badly towards their own citizens. If we could do that, it doesn't seem all that crazy to me that, say, 30 years from now, a- an empowered Imperial China looking at someone like Bolsonaro in Brazil would just be like, "No, you can't (laughs) do that. I'm just gonna, we're just gonna go in and, like, take you out."

Narrator 1:10:00 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:10:00 Um, and this is what I mean when I say it's a kind of all-encompassing, all-impacting threat. Our politics will be shaped by it, our geopolitics will be shaped by it, our, you know, our, everything will be shaped by it. We could have climate wars, like, in the not-too-distant future.

Narrator 1:10:15 Jesus Christ. How is this being received?

David Wallace-Wells 1:10:19 The book?

Narrator 1:10:19 Yeah. Are people, uh, are people resisting it? Is there any- anybody that wants to debate you on this?

David Wallace-Wells 1:10:24 So, I, you know, I wrote this article a couple years ago that produced, I mean, it was a huge sort of viral phenomenon, but it, it produced also some scientific criticism. And, um, you know, we published a fully annotated version where every single line, we showed where every single line came from. But there were still scientists who were arguing about whether the messaging was precisely calibrated, whether it was too bleak, too dark. Um, the book has had none of that. I mean, it's, first of all, it's been, it's a best- uh, first week, it was on the Time's bestseller list, number six. It's bestseller in England. It's been in and out of the Amazon top 10. Um, and all of the reviews have been really kind. Um, I think this goes to what you were saying before. I think, like, the conversation is changing. People are actually really interested in, um, talking seriously about just how big a deal this is, in a way that they might not have been just a year ago. Um-

Narrator 1:11:16 Where is the resistance though? Is there any resistance to it right now?

David Wallace-Wells 1:11:19 To the book?

Narrator 1:11:20 To the b- t- well, not just the book, but just the concept in general.

David Wallace-Wells 1:11:23 73% of Americans believe climate change is real. 70% of Americans are concerned about it. Those numbers are up 15% since 2015.

Narrator 1:11:31 Who are the 27 that don't?

David Wallace-Wells 1:11:33 I mean, I think it's, you know, it's, um-

Narrator 1:11:35 Hard right-wingers?

David Wallace-Wells 1:11:36 Yeah.

Narrator 1:11:36 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:11:36 But, you know, those numbers are, we live in a, we live in a culture now where, like, most people's worldview passes through a prism of partisan politics. So, like, you know, there's amazing studies that show that in the ni- in the early '90s, there was no partisan divide between, uh, on the up-, on the question of whether O.J. Simpson was guilty. When you controlled for race, Republicans and Democrats had the same idea about O.J. Simpson's guilt. That is totally unthinkable today, and there's now a huge partisan split on whether 12 Years a Slave deserves an Oscar. Partisanship has, like, c- totally taken over our, our minds, such that the fact that we have 73% of Americans who believe gl- global warming is real and happening, to me, that's a really fucking high number, actually.

Narrator 1:12:20 Right, right.

David Wallace-Wells 1:12:21 Um, because one of the two part- I don't think that the Republican Party is really any more a denier party. I think they're just a party of skeptics and self-interest. They wanna, like, look out for business interests, which actually, the calculus there is changing, which I'll talk about in a second. Um, but people don't wanna believe that horrifying things are real, because who would?

Narrator 1:12:41 Yeah.

David Wallace-Wells 1:12:41 It's terrifying. Um, but 73% of the country, that's a lot. I mean, that's, you know-

Narrator 1:12:46 Gigantic.

David Wallace-Wells 1:12:47 That's more support than there is for just about anything. Um, so I'm like, basically, and the speed at, at which tha- those numbers have grown is really dramatic. I said