(Conversation recorded on August 6th, 2024)
Show Summary
The damaging effects of humanity’s disconnected relationship to Earth’s ecosystems are broad and deep. Yet, despite targeted efforts to address these issues and mitigate risks, our insatiable appetite for fossil hydrocarbons continues to grow at an alarming rate. What will it take to reframe our relationship with nature to move forward in a symbiotic, life-supporting path?
In this episode, Nate is joined by longtime colleagues Tom Murphy and D.J. White for an in-depth exploration of the mounting ecological crises driven by human behavior and unsustainable energy consumption. Together, they offer both scientific insights and personal reflections on trends such as the rapid decline in wild animal populations, the rise of microplastic pollution, the overwhelming scale of human-built mass, and many other facets of this unparalleled time in human history.
Why is it so difficult for society to recognize the scale of ecological destruction, and what needs to change to raise awareness? In what ways is academia struggling to provide the systems understanding we need to address the pressing environmental challenges of our time? How could recognizing our kinship with all living beings reshape our relationship with the planet?
About Tom Murphy
Tom Murphy is a Professor of Physics at the University of California San Diego and is the Associate Director of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences. He is also the author of Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, and continues to write regularly on the challenges associated with long-term human success through his blog Do The Math.
About DJ White
DJ White is a co-founder of Greenpeace International and founder of EarthTrust. He has played a leading role in protecting dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and countless other marine animals, including successfully stopping a national dolphin drive kill, and breaking the deadlock in capping the Kuwait oil fires. He was the driving force behind the transition to more dolphin-friendly tuna as well as stopping widespread use of ocean drift nets in the 1980s.
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Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 – Tom Murphy info + TGS Episode + Frankly, textbook: Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, blog: Do The Math, video series: Metastatic Modernity
DJ White info + TGS Episode, Greenpeace, Earth Trust
04:07 – Reality Blind vol. 1 + The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century
04:27 – The Carbon Pulse
05:38 – Distribution of mammalian biomass + visualization + paper
05:58 – The Living Planet Index found an average decline of 69% in vertebrate populations since 1970
06:01 – We are losing 1-2% of insect biomass per year
06:02 – Decline in bird populations
06:38 – 6th Mass Extinction + Has the Earth’s 6th Mass Extinction already arrived?
11:41 – Passenger Pigeons
12:22 – Our brains evolved from primates in the African Savanna
12:43 – Rocky Mountain locust
13:14 – Shifting baselines
14:18 – The changing ratio of human to wild mammalian biomass over time + original paper
16:12 – The human gene catalog
16:24 – Humans share one third of their genes with amoebas + original study, universal common ancestor
17:54 – Genetic similarity between humans and: mushrooms + bananas
20:36 – Overshoot
20:54 – Hamilton’s rule + original paper
21:24 – J.B.S. Haldane
24:13 – Kin selection theory
25:33 – Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass, and plastic mass doubles animal mass
26:51 – 96% of the human body is made up of air and water
28:56 – Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals
31:29 – 80% of nitrogen in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process
32:34 – Renewables are actually rebuildables
34:00 – Anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss
35:19 – Dennis Meadows + TGS Episode
36:58 – Renewable energy infrastructure relies on fossil energy
39:03 – Replacing and recycling solar panels
39:19 – Deep time
41:09 – The Mordor Economy
41:42 – Baseload electricity
42:34 – Electricity production by source
42:56 – The fragility of complex supply chains
43:38 – 98% of humans exposed to global warming
45:14 – Resource degradation through recycling cycles
47:21 – Maximum Power Principle, 19 terawatt global economy + data
48:11 – Peak oil
48:29 – Global decline in fertility rates, fertility rate by country, Tom Murphy on: population projections + peak power
50:44 – Per capita energy use by country
1:00:54 – Elon Musk volunteers sperm to populate Mars
1:02:06 – Gerard K. O’Neill
1:17:45 – Human appropriation of Net Primary Productivity
1:23:14 – Dunning-Kruger effect
1:24:57 – Energetic Remoteness
1:27:01 – Metastatic Modernity series
