March 2, 2021

EP. 94 — Humans Are An Invasive Species with Elizabeth Kolbert

Adam is thrilled to introduce one of his absolute favorite journalists and authors to the show: Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert. They discuss how humans have transformed the planet even more profoundly than we imagine; the dirty work of eliminating invasive species; how even getting to net zero emissions only stabilizes, rather than reverses, climate change, and how to carry the psychic weight of knowing we are destroying the things we love. Look for Elizabeth Kolbert’s newest book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, wherever books are sold. 

Transcript

Adam: [00:00:22] Hello, everyone, welcome to Factually!, I’m Adam Conover, and, you know, we’ve talked a lot about the environment on this podcast. If you listen to this podcast, you probably give a shit about the planet and you want to save it as best you can. I know I do. And, you know, just a few weeks ago, we had Saul Griffith on the show to discuss how we really can stave off the worst of climate change today if we can muster the political will to massively electrify our power grid. Now, that’s an incredibly optimistic, uplifting message, and I support it. I also don’t want that to prevent us from having a clear eyed view of how massively we have already altered the planet. The truth is that we can’t just fix the Earth or reverse climate change. All we can do is prevent the worst effects that are to come because so many of the impacts have already happened. I mean, there are seven billion humans alive today and every single thing we do alters the Eart

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