Our Greatest Unintended Experiment

For years, scientists, activists, and politicians have tried to warn the world of the potential catastrophic consequences of dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: Think of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. Or NASA scientist James Hansens’ testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1988, in which he said that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.” Or go all the way back to 1856, when Eunice Newton Foote first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide could send global temperatures soaring. 

Writer and climate campaigner Alice Bell lays out the history of evolving climate science and our forays into different energy technologies in Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis. Despite our current emissions trajectory, Bell says there’s still reason to hope: “We have been left a lot of opportunities and we still have got some time to seize them.”

Guests:

Alice Bell, climate campaigner, author, Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis

Meera Subramanian, environmental journalist 

Katerina Gonzales, climate scientist

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices