The mind-bending probability of our existence | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview | Big Think
What if your existence hinged on a single cosmic accident that took place millions of years ago? Biologist Sean B. Carroll examines the chain of events that made humanity’s domination as a species possible.
From the specific chemistry of an asteroid to Earth’s shifting atmosphere, Carroll unpacks how a series of fortunate events made our planet the perfect cradle for mammals.
...and, as for your individual existence once humans exist? You are one it 70 trillion!
00:00:00 Part 1: The role of chance in the creation of life
00:00:16 What are the odds that life exists on any given planet?
00:00:48 What developments led to life on Earth?
00:01:58 Where do you begin our origin story?
00:04:51 What is unique about the last 3 million years on Earth?
00:06:04 What mass extinctions has Earth faced?
00:07:33 What events allowed humans to flourish?
00:15:37 Why was the K-Pg asteroid so devastating?
00:18:25 How did life on Earth rebound from the K-Pg asteroid?
00:19:57 How much have we evolved since the age of hunter-gatherers?
00:24:16 Are we lucky to be here?
00:27:20 Part 2: The resilience of nature.
00:27:30 Would nature heal itself if humans ceased to exist?
00:29:36 How much of an impact have humans had on Earth?
00:33:16 Can we think of Earth as an organism?
00:37:16 What are the “Serengeti rules?”
00:39:48 What is the leading cause of biodiversity loss?
00:46:56 How resilient is nature?
00:51:12 What did COVID teach us about nature’s ability to rebound?
00:53:09 Why is biodiversity critical to human flourishing?
00:54:04 What can we do to protect both us and the planet?
01:00:39 Is there time for the planet to rebound?
01:04:42 PART 3: The evolution of human experience.
01:04:52 Has the quality of human life improved over time?
01:06:27 What impact has medical science had on humanity?
01:08:23 How have agricultural advances changed lives?
01:10:12 Why is it important to understand the rules of life?
Thousands of Succulents, millions of dollars. a real world theft of highly prized plants that are worth BIG money.
In northern California, a Game Warden uncovers an illicit network of succulent poachers after mysterious packages containing native plants are reported, and with the help of citizens, biologists, and authorities, he races against time to halt the destruction before permanent damage is inflicted on the land.
Winner of Emerald award Coronado Film Festival 2021
✳️A note from the Filmmakers
Hi there, it all began with reading a news article in The New Yorker describing the case and Officer Freeling's big break. We decided to call him up and ask to talk on camera about it, not really knowing where it would lead but understanding it was incredibly bizarre and interesting. We self-funded the whole project and are proud of what we were able to pull off with very little money. We're very grateful to have been accepted into prominent festivals like SXSW and Doc NYC. In documentary filmmaking, finding an audience that cares about the issues in your film is crucial, so festivals are huge. Please share the video; the more people who know that plant poaching is a real issue, the better!
UPDATE⚠️: Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 223 by Assembly member Chris Ward (D - San Diego) into law, making it unlawful to sell, or possess with the intent to sell, any Dudleya illegally taken from its natural habitat on state lands. AB 223 makes it unlawful to sell or possess with the intent to sell any Dudleya illegally taken from its natural habitat and establishes minimum penalties of $5,000 per plant for the first offense, and $40,000 per plant for any subsequent offenses.
– Seen from above, it’s not the undulating rows of square houses that make American suburbia so recognizable. It’s the wide rivers of lush, almost neon-green grass that cut through the landscape. And on long, hot summer days, the lawn is where suburban living reaches its idyllic peak.
But while the lawn may be a powerful symbol of American postwar prosperity, it’s also an ecological dead zone that’s sucking the nation’s aquifers dry.
In this video essay we argue that it’s time to kill your lawn, not just to save the planet, but for your own health and sanity too. And while the idea of euthanizing such a beloved member of the family might seem harsh, we show the alternatives that could make the loss more bearable.
This morning, President Biden formally approved the Willow Master Development Project, a massive oil drilling development across federal land in Alaska’s western Arctic.
Despite his promises to stop drilling on federal lands, and against the actions of millions who urged his administration to stop Willow, President Biden decided to approve the massive oil project. The project would lock-in pollution equivalent to the emissions of 76 coal-fired power plants over the next 30 years.
The world cannot afford to develop any new fossil fuel reserves to have a chance of keeping global temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement. The Biden administration must prioritize a just transition to renewable energy, stop new fossil fuel projects, and phase-out existing fossil fuel infrastructure.
Developing new fossil fuel projects is incompatible with a livable climate and puts communities' health and safety at risk. The Willow project will disproportionately harm the Alaska Native Village of Nuiqsut, which is already burdened by existing fossil fuel infrastructure and the impacts of climate change.
We'll keep you updated about what's next in the fight against Willow. In the meantime, here are links to a few of the responses from us and our partners that you can read and amplify:
4. This Twitter thread from us at Oil Change International echoing frontline calls condemning Biden’s approval of the Willow project.
Thanks,
Allie Rosenbluth U.S. Program Co-Manager Oil Change International
Oil Change International campaigns to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy. We are dedicated to identifying and overcoming barriers to that transition.
Want to support our work further? Click here to donate. We are a 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are fully tax deductible.
The general rifle hunting season opened recently across Montana. Thousands of hunters began pursuing elk and deer with the intention of putting meat in their freezer, hunting with a reverence for the wildlife they are pursuing. But there is another hunt going on, void of respect and with no purpose but to kill. So we sued.
WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote sued the State of Montana, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP), and the Fish and Wildlife Commission because the state’s extreme anti-wolf hunting and trapping policies violate the law, the state constitution, and the public trust.
We sued because the laws and regulations currently governing wolf management are clearly not based on science and thus do not provide an adequate foundation for conserving this iconic Montana species.
We sued because the state’s wolf ‘management’ is based on a 20-year-old, legally invalid wolf management plan. The science of wolf conservation has developed significantly since 2002, yet, for the second year in a row, the state will allow nearly half of the wolf population to be killed while its management plan is 20 years behind. Wolf managers in Montana illegally relied on the outdated plan to set the current quota and hunting regulations…
On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy.
It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains.
NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future.
BIG NEWS: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin reached a deal with Congressional Democrats on a sweeping climate and energy package that supposedly would address the climate crisis, now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The Senate passed the bill on Sunday, August 7, and the House of Representatives plans to vote on it this Friday, August 12.
This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating the just environmental and economic future the Biden administration promised voters. It should've been a major success for climate policy, thanks to tireless activists who worked to hold Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accountable to get Sen. Manchin to the table on climate.
But, among the desperately needed good progressive measures in the IRA are bad policies and hundreds of billions of dollars in poison pills – handouts to fossil fuels, false climate solutions, and Big Nuclear. These provisions would profit dirty and polluting energy industries that are causing climate and ecological crises at the expense of taxpayers, environmental justice, and TRUE investment in the 100% renewable, just, and sustainable energy future we deserve.
Frankly, the harm they would cause can’t be justified, and may actually block renewable energy and other real climate solutions in the bill.
Of the $369 billion dollars, up to $72 billion is slated for subsidies to aging nuclear reactors — a wasteful expenditure that will not create a single new job, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by any amount, nor make any progress towards climate action. The measure is nothing more than a corrupt bailout scam by the nuclear industry and their cronies in Congress. There is also:
$250 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans to prop up old nuclear and fossil fuel power plants
$40 billion in taxpayer loans that could go to building new reactors and fossil fuel power plants
$700 million to promote domestic uranium mining and enrichment
We cannot settle for the inadequate, unjust, and wasteful policies in the Inflation Reduction Act. We cannot settle for a bill that backs false climate solutions and sacrifices frontline communities. We MUST demand better from Congress: a strong national policy for climate, the economy, and for environmental justice. The time to act is now. Demand that Congress and the Biden administration eliminate the massive subsidies to nuclear power and other dirty energy.
More than 150 conservation, environmental, and social justice organizations have accused The Nature Conservancy of "promoting false climate solutions."
March 9, 2022
Since Putin's devastating invasion of Ukraine began, over 320 companies have announced their withdrawal from Russia in protest.
Nevertheless, some western companies have continued to operate in Russia undeterred; we identify several dozen companies with particularly significant exposure to Russian markets. In the days since we initially published our list, many of the "remain" companies have responded to public backlash and decided to withdraw, and we are continuously revising our list to reflect these decisions as they are made. The full, current list of companies that have curtailed operations in Russia as well as those that remain, as of March 9, can be seen below.
Welcome to the era of pandemics. Scientists have been warning us for years that new pathogens passed from wild animals will emerge more frequently, kill more people, and wreak more havoc on our interconnected economies.
As the human population continues to grow and we destroy more of the natural world and interact with more wildlife, we put ourselves at greater risk of diseases emerging that can infect people.
"The next pandemic will come within a decade," a G20 panel concluded recently. When you look at the past 25 to 30 years, that shouldn't be a surprise. Over the past couple of decades, we've witnessed the emergence of novel diseases like HIV, Ebola, SARs, avian and swine flu, and now Covid-19. On average a new infectious disease emerges every eight months…
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.
The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.
‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’
Listen to them:
The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…
There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.
Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
–– Tom Hirons at Coyopa - Tom's book, Sometimes a Wild God, which contains this and many other FINE examples of his wordsmithing is available via this link ---> http://shop.hedgespoken.org/products/sometimes-a-wild-god Please support artists & their work!
–– ––ART: Illustration by Janne Pitkanen & concept & photography by Harri Halme.
From the album cover The Spirit of Ukko by Finnish metal band Kiuas.
–– Title track – "The Spirit of Ukko."
Lyrics ––
Greetings, we are here tonight
To bring the flames of Ukko to your hearts
On this black night the stars are aligned
These ancient fireworks play their parts
Born from the dark to light a flame
What once had died shall rise again
Winds sweep the snow, resurrecting songs of darkness
Born from the cold to light a flame within our hearts
Winds sweep the snow, resurrecting songs of darkness
Born from the cold, now it's celebration time...
... The spirit of Ukko will burn with us tonight!
Let's bring back the good old times
When the true gods used to reign the northern skies
I’m writing you now for a very good reason. I have something fun for your holiday season. We made a short film, Mrs. Claus, the elves and I. (We teamed up with Avaaz and gave it a try.)
This one’s for the grown ups. It’s something that’s new. It’s about our kids’ fears, and what we can do. You can share it with them, if that’s how you feel. But we wanted to tell you, in case it’s too real.
So listen up friends, while your feet take a rest, To the Save Santa’s Home Global Speech and Address. It’s only two minutes. It’s a very short while. It’s funny. It’s hopeful. And it ends with a smile.
Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday season!
- Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Slushie the Bear
P.S. Thanks to all of your help last year, we won our campaign to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve! This is just the beginning of great things for The Santa Squad and our campaign to #SaveSantasHome and all our homes too!
by Jon Queally, staff writer "In his effort to appease Donald Trump and his supporters, Senator Cruz encouraged these terrorists to wage armed insurrection against America."
by Jon Queally, staff writer "I can say with 100% confidence I didn't give any Capitol tours to anyone last week," said Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on Friday. "Any Republicans out there who want to join us in answering this question?"
by Ralph Nader Congressional Republicans have aided and abetted, for four years, Trump's assertion that "With Article II, I can do whatever I want as president." Dangerous Donald did just that.
by Jon Queally, staff writer After Trump's lies disappeared from Twitter and Facebook, the dissemination of falsehoods and the conversations based on them fell dramatically.
by Jon Queally, staff writer "This is not justice," said the liberal Justice after the state murder of Dustin John Higgs as she excoriated the court's conservative majority for essentially rubber-stamping the administration's rushed death penalties.
by Kenny Stancil, staff writer "It literally is going to be a death sentence," said the World Food Programme chief about the U.S. Secretary of State's decision to label the Houthis a terrorist organization.
by Jessica Corbett, staff writer "We aim to provide leaders with a realistic 'cold shower' of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future."
african music, dance & drumming • art & photos by robert cherwink • balinese music & dance • hurdy gurdy • indian music (hindustani classical) • jew's harp • music • nuclear • various • watch this • zen
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