WEBVTT 00:00:08.465 --> 00:00:11.028 So about 11 years ago, 00:00:11.550 --> 00:00:15.101 I gave a talk in California at the TED Conference. 00:00:15.671 --> 00:00:18.992 And it went really well. 00:00:18.992 --> 00:00:22.062 It was called "10 ways the world could end tomorrow." 00:00:22.546 --> 00:00:24.207 But it also went viral 00:00:24.207 --> 00:00:27.666 at a time before things started going viral, 00:00:27.666 --> 00:00:29.682 and it wasn't in a good way. 00:00:29.682 --> 00:00:32.747 It ended up on thousands of nutty websites. 00:00:32.967 --> 00:00:37.773 These are the kind of websites for people who think "Men in Black" is a documentary. 00:00:37.773 --> 00:00:39.700 (Laughter) 00:00:39.700 --> 00:00:42.780 It's the kind of websites for people who actually believe 00:00:42.780 --> 00:00:46.446 the Mayan calendar does predict doomsday. 00:00:47.503 --> 00:00:49.579 So if you'd googled me before this talk, 00:00:49.579 --> 00:00:52.133 you would have seen maybe nine or ten references to me 00:00:52.133 --> 00:00:54.046 as a science magazine editor. 00:00:54.551 --> 00:00:56.448 Three weeks after the talk, 00:00:56.448 --> 00:00:59.114 there were 418 references 00:00:59.114 --> 00:01:03.329 linking "moi" to little green men from Mars. 00:01:04.164 --> 00:01:05.222 Now, coincidentally, 00:01:05.222 --> 00:01:08.916 I was teaching my mother how to use a computer at the time, 00:01:08.916 --> 00:01:10.857 (Laughter) 00:01:11.051 --> 00:01:12.635 long distance, 00:01:13.035 --> 00:01:15.239 and I was teaching her about Google. 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:17.756 So guess who she googled first. 00:01:17.756 --> 00:01:18.911 (Laughter) 00:01:20.199 --> 00:01:21.577 So ... 00:01:21.577 --> 00:01:22.678 (Laughter) 00:01:22.678 --> 00:01:24.385 ['Steve, are you in trouble?'] 00:01:24.385 --> 00:01:27.302 I started worrying about my reputation a little. 00:01:27.302 --> 00:01:30.671 And I decided to call Chris Anderson, the TED curator. 00:01:31.275 --> 00:01:33.345 I knew Chris would not want TED speakers 00:01:33.345 --> 00:01:36.655 to be co-opted by every nut job on the web, 00:01:36.655 --> 00:01:41.314 and maybe he could get his friends Larry and Serge at Google 00:01:41.314 --> 00:01:43.220 to erase all this. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.567 I was a little disappointed. 00:01:46.567 --> 00:01:47.811 ['Hmmm, sorry about that'] 00:01:47.811 --> 00:01:51.012 Didn't exactly get the sympathy I was looking for. 00:01:51.012 --> 00:01:52.933 Chris thought it was funny. 00:01:52.933 --> 00:01:55.214 But he did ask me to do another TED Talk, 00:01:55.214 --> 00:01:59.350 and I jumped at the chance because I saw it as redemption. 00:01:59.678 --> 00:02:03.728 I could do "10 reasons to be optimistic about the future." 00:02:03.728 --> 00:02:06.037 And I did. It was a great talk. 00:02:06.037 --> 00:02:09.395 Honestly, my best talk ever. 00:02:10.255 --> 00:02:14.119 Full of surprises. Lots of interesting science. 00:02:14.519 --> 00:02:16.749 But it didn't go over so well. 00:02:17.389 --> 00:02:21.346 Everybody wanted another 10 ways the world could end suddenly. 00:02:21.346 --> 00:02:23.842 ['Why didn't you do 10 more ways the world could end? 00:02:23.842 --> 00:02:25.388 And what about global warming?'] 00:02:25.388 --> 00:02:27.746 And no one posted the optimistic talk. 00:02:27.746 --> 00:02:30.450 So when Mike and Linda asked me to give a talk at TEDx 00:02:30.450 --> 00:02:32.599 these many years later, 00:02:32.599 --> 00:02:34.728 I had lots of good ideas. 00:02:35.022 --> 00:02:37.089 But guess what they wanted. 00:02:37.089 --> 00:02:38.855 [8 Ways the World Could End Tomorrow] 00:02:38.855 --> 00:02:41.795 And that's why we're here. Dr. Doom and Gloom. 00:02:42.074 --> 00:02:45.327 So let's begin the 2013 countdown. 00:02:45.327 --> 00:02:47.062 [#8 - A pandemic is coming] 00:02:47.062 --> 00:02:49.700 Okay, you're looking at N1H1. 00:02:49.700 --> 00:02:54.130 It's the original flu virus that caused the last great pandemic, 00:02:54.130 --> 00:02:58.552 the Spanish flu of 1918, 00:02:59.527 --> 00:03:03.341 which infected 50% of the world's population at the time, 00:03:03.341 --> 00:03:05.253 which was a billion people, 00:03:05.253 --> 00:03:08.373 and probably killed one out of every 10 people. 00:03:08.373 --> 00:03:09.440 [~100 million deaths] 00:03:09.440 --> 00:03:13.112 But here's the interesting thing about it, it came in three waves, 00:03:13.112 --> 00:03:17.336 three different waves pretty much about six months apart. 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:22.872 And the second wave killed every single person who got the flu. 00:03:23.414 --> 00:03:26.020 And that is how bad flu can be. 00:03:26.733 --> 00:03:28.437 Now, here we are in 2013, 00:03:28.437 --> 00:03:33.572 and in barnyards all over China there are ducks and pigs and chickens 00:03:33.572 --> 00:03:34.719 in close proximity. 00:03:34.719 --> 00:03:38.688 And that's actually where influenza originates. 00:03:38.688 --> 00:03:41.984 Now, viruses have gotten so good at mutating, 00:03:41.984 --> 00:03:43.479 and in these barnyards mostly, 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:45.780 that you and I have to get a flu shot every year 00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:47.042 to protect against this. 00:03:47.042 --> 00:03:49.282 Although I will tell you something interesting. 00:03:49.282 --> 00:03:51.896 Less than half of the population of the United States 00:03:51.896 --> 00:03:53.831 does get a flu shot every year. 00:03:54.251 --> 00:03:58.787 But that is not what keeps the Centers for Disease Control up at night. 00:03:58.787 --> 00:04:03.053 What they worry about is something called a recombinant flu bug. 00:04:03.053 --> 00:04:04.434 And here's how it works. 00:04:04.434 --> 00:04:05.916 There are two kinds of viruses. 00:04:05.916 --> 00:04:08.690 There are viruses that infect animals, 00:04:08.690 --> 00:04:11.559 and animals pass them easily to other animals. 00:04:11.559 --> 00:04:13.719 And then there are viruses that infect humans, 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:16.379 and they pass them easily to other humans. 00:04:16.379 --> 00:04:19.628 When a human has something like the Hong Kong flu, 00:04:19.628 --> 00:04:23.625 or in 2009 that H1N1 that came back, 00:04:23.625 --> 00:04:26.479 and they go to the market and they buy a chicken 00:04:26.479 --> 00:04:30.729 that happens to have one of these animal viruses, 00:04:31.819 --> 00:04:34.885 and they take it home and they don't cook it properly, 00:04:34.885 --> 00:04:37.815 and they eat it, they get the animal virus. 00:04:38.034 --> 00:04:40.567 And now inside that person are two kinds of viruses: 00:04:40.567 --> 00:04:43.740 a virus that transmits easily from human to human 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:46.943 and a virus that transmits easily from animal to animal. 00:04:46.943 --> 00:04:48.706 But in almost all cases, 00:04:48.706 --> 00:04:54.053 that animal virus is far more toxic and far more of a killer. 00:04:56.786 --> 00:04:58.895 Now, in just the last few weeks, 00:04:58.895 --> 00:05:05.603 a new very deadly animal flu called H7N9 has popped up. 00:05:05.603 --> 00:05:07.218 About 100 people are infected. 00:05:07.218 --> 00:05:09.286 A lot of them have died. 00:05:09.286 --> 00:05:12.985 And this is one that the CDC is really worried about, 00:05:13.209 --> 00:05:16.898 and we could be looking at another worldwide pandemic 00:05:16.898 --> 00:05:18.700 like the Spanish flu 00:05:18.700 --> 00:05:22.708 if a human being who has a human-type virus, 00:05:22.708 --> 00:05:24.463 that transmits easily to people, 00:05:24.463 --> 00:05:27.710 happens to eat one of these animals. 00:05:28.453 --> 00:05:30.393 Now, there are solutions to this, 00:05:30.393 --> 00:05:33.483 but we live in a very different world from 1918. 00:05:33.483 --> 00:05:36.048 There are 80,000 commercial jets 00:05:36.048 --> 00:05:38.846 that take off every day full of passengers. 00:05:38.846 --> 00:05:44.117 It would take a flu virus about two weeks to circle the globe. 00:05:44.424 --> 00:05:49.161 Private producers cannot make enough vaccine fast enough to save us. 00:05:49.161 --> 00:05:50.926 The only thing that we can do 00:05:50.926 --> 00:05:53.438 is what the Australian government has done, 00:05:53.438 --> 00:05:55.011 which is to create laboratories 00:05:55.011 --> 00:05:57.239 that are ready to go on a moment's notice 00:05:57.239 --> 00:06:00.220 to create vast quantities of flu [vaccine]. 00:06:00.220 --> 00:06:01.869 We should do this. 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:04.930 Second, we need to make a simple dip stick test. 00:06:04.930 --> 00:06:07.290 You go to the drug store, you buy a swab, 00:06:07.290 --> 00:06:08.557 you put it in your mouth. 00:06:08.557 --> 00:06:10.262 If it turns blue, you have the flu. 00:06:10.262 --> 00:06:12.280 How many times have you gone to the doctor: 00:06:12.280 --> 00:06:14.772 "Do I have the flu? Do I have a bacterial infection?" 00:06:14.772 --> 00:06:16.492 Half the time they don't even know. 00:06:17.166 --> 00:06:20.809 When a pandemic comes, you want to know if you have the flu, 00:06:20.809 --> 00:06:23.175 and you will not be able to find a doctor. 00:06:24.212 --> 00:06:27.288 Thirdly, we need to invest in a really good public health system. 00:06:27.288 --> 00:06:30.170 We've actually been firing about 50,000 public health workers 00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:31.808 in the last three years. 00:06:33.448 --> 00:06:35.636 You know, 40-50 years ago, 00:06:35.636 --> 00:06:38.667 this country built thousands of bomb shelters 00:06:38.667 --> 00:06:41.349 because we thought nuclear war was a real threat. 00:06:41.349 --> 00:06:44.064 If we can do that, we can build a public health system 00:06:44.064 --> 00:06:46.771 that will take care of us in a pandemic. 00:06:48.816 --> 00:06:50.340 Number seven. 00:06:50.340 --> 00:06:51.779 (Applause) 00:06:51.779 --> 00:06:52.802 Isn't that beautiful? 00:06:52.802 --> 00:06:56.130 That's a mass coronal ejection coming off the sun. 00:06:56.130 --> 00:06:59.970 It makes something called a solar flare look like kindergarten. 00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:01.159 [#7 - The sun brightens] 00:07:01.159 --> 00:07:04.879 It shoots uncountable numbers of atoms 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:08.219 that have been broken apart into little particles 00:07:08.219 --> 00:07:10.917 and radiation out into space. 00:07:11.529 --> 00:07:14.275 Almost all of these blasts miss the Earth 00:07:14.275 --> 00:07:17.820 because the sun is like this huge yellow beach ball in space, 00:07:17.820 --> 00:07:21.534 and we're like this little tiny BB at the end of the auditorium. 00:07:21.534 --> 00:07:24.099 So no matter which direction the sun sends these out, 00:07:24.099 --> 00:07:27.828 it's very unusual for us to get a direct hit. 00:07:27.828 --> 00:07:31.797 However, happened last August, and it happened a month ago. 00:07:31.797 --> 00:07:36.246 And you would not have been wanting to have been in an airplane at that time. 00:07:36.832 --> 00:07:42.039 In 1859, a coronal mass ejection took the brand new US telegraph system 00:07:42.039 --> 00:07:44.079 and basically melted it. 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.631 It started fires. It shocked the operators. 00:07:46.631 --> 00:07:48.729 And the wires disppeared. 00:07:49.129 --> 00:07:51.857 Most of the time our magnetic field in our atmosphere 00:07:51.857 --> 00:07:54.694 protects us from coronal mass ejections. 00:07:54.694 --> 00:07:56.576 But a severe direct hit 00:07:56.576 --> 00:08:01.459 would take out the entire world's power grid at once, 00:08:02.388 --> 00:08:05.041 and all the satellites in orbit, 00:08:05.251 --> 00:08:09.995 plunging us essentially into a 19th-century existence. 00:08:11.390 --> 00:08:14.712 It would take 20 years to restore half the grid 00:08:14.712 --> 00:08:17.403 because we do not have back-up. 00:08:17.403 --> 00:08:20.105 Try to imagine life without electricity. 00:08:20.105 --> 00:08:23.665 Almost all cities would become uninhabitable. 00:08:25.380 --> 00:08:28.325 We build sky scrapers 80 stories high and up 00:08:28.325 --> 00:08:30.336 and two stories underground. 00:08:30.621 --> 00:08:33.114 We need to create safety zones beneath our buildings. 00:08:33.114 --> 00:08:37.071 We should be building down eight stories for every 80 stories up, 00:08:37.071 --> 00:08:39.437 and we should make that part of our building code. 00:08:39.437 --> 00:08:43.955 The state of New Jersey is rebuilding 20,000 bridges in the state 00:08:43.955 --> 00:08:47.372 because they know there will be a massive earthquake on the East coast 00:08:47.372 --> 00:08:49.183 sooner or later. 00:08:49.487 --> 00:08:54.234 If we can do that, we can have different building codes for our buildings. 00:08:54.444 --> 00:08:59.660 We should also view transformers and wires as vulnerable and expendable, 00:08:59.660 --> 00:09:03.484 and we should have hardened, underground power plants 00:09:03.484 --> 00:09:06.200 ready to go in an emergency. 00:09:06.927 --> 00:09:08.655 [#6 - We develop a new life form] 00:09:08.655 --> 00:09:13.260 This is a synthetic genome invented by the Craig Venter Institute 00:09:13.260 --> 00:09:16.553 and inserted into a bacterial cell 00:09:16.553 --> 00:09:19.490 to create what I would call a new life form. 00:09:20.022 --> 00:09:25.195 This life form never existed before, and it can reproduce. 00:09:28.008 --> 00:09:29.949 It was done three years ago, 00:09:29.949 --> 00:09:31.911 and the goal is noble. 00:09:32.291 --> 00:09:36.443 It's to produce anything we want from a cell. 00:09:36.767 --> 00:09:40.075 Takes in certain things, puts out stuff that we want. 00:09:40.366 --> 00:09:43.758 For example, they could make synthetic vaccines. 00:09:43.758 --> 00:09:47.425 Or they could turn carbon dioxide into usable fuels. 00:09:47.685 --> 00:09:50.024 Now, what could be wrong with that? 00:09:50.911 --> 00:09:55.822 Our history is littered with examples of bad things that got out of secure labs 00:09:55.822 --> 00:10:00.024 and things that go amok when we try to tamper with Mother Nature. 00:10:00.268 --> 00:10:01.905 And here's a low tech example. 00:10:01.905 --> 00:10:06.998 We brought kudzu here from Japan to control soil erosion. 00:10:06.998 --> 00:10:08.737 Didn't work out so well. 00:10:10.127 --> 00:10:13.278 And meanwhile, labs around the world are experimenting with biotech 00:10:13.278 --> 00:10:14.760 in ways you cannot imagine. 00:10:14.760 --> 00:10:18.635 You can create a perfect in vitro male baby 00:10:18.635 --> 00:10:20.921 with blond hair and blue eyes, 00:10:20.921 --> 00:10:24.503 and you can make modified corn do anything you want. 00:10:25.548 --> 00:10:30.868 Now, is genetically modified corn saving us from famines? 00:10:31.142 --> 00:10:37.269 I see it as a threat to the only purely wild corn genome left in the world 00:10:37.269 --> 00:10:39.247 that grows in Mexico. 00:10:41.931 --> 00:10:45.194 Look at number one here: watch closer, regulate more. 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:47.297 Watch closer, regulate more. 00:10:47.734 --> 00:10:52.808 No single federal agency or a single law governs this vast new world. 00:10:52.808 --> 00:10:55.000 Instead, there's a hodge podge of regulations 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:57.009 from the Food and Drug Administration, 00:10:57.009 --> 00:10:59.054 the United States Department of Agriculture 00:10:59.054 --> 00:11:00.549 and the EPA. 00:11:00.897 --> 00:11:04.079 We need a new single agency of the government 00:11:04.079 --> 00:11:05.946 to bring order to this. 00:11:07.422 --> 00:11:11.409 Meanwhile, less watched people are entering this field all the time, 00:11:11.409 --> 00:11:13.796 and amateurs will follow. 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:19.753 Kickstarter just got its first proposal for a synthetic life form: 00:11:19.753 --> 00:11:23.080 a plant that would glow at night 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:25.692 so we can sprinkle its seeds along roadsides 00:11:25.692 --> 00:11:28.140 and eliminate street lights. 00:11:28.914 --> 00:11:32.365 Remember, genetically modified crops 00:11:32.365 --> 00:11:37.690 are not driven by a need to produce a better world 00:11:37.690 --> 00:11:39.674 and to save people from starvation, 00:11:39.674 --> 00:11:42.019 they are driven by money. 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:44.958 And synthetic biology is about money too. 00:11:46.739 --> 00:11:49.288 Now, for a little humor. 00:11:49.288 --> 00:11:50.891 [#5 - Robots take over] 00:11:50.891 --> 00:11:53.688 I'm going to tell you this. You're not going to believe it. 00:11:53.688 --> 00:11:56.504 Computers will be smarter than us in 20 years. 00:11:57.957 --> 00:11:59.191 You know this stuff. 00:11:59.191 --> 00:12:02.067 You know that Deep Blue can play chess 00:12:02.067 --> 00:12:04.375 better than anyone on the face of the planet, 00:12:04.375 --> 00:12:05.964 and you know that the Google car 00:12:05.964 --> 00:12:08.735 can drive itself better than you can drive it. 00:12:08.735 --> 00:12:09.771 [Solutions] 00:12:09.771 --> 00:12:12.254 It's hasta la vista time. 00:12:12.254 --> 00:12:14.850 Time to wake up and smell the silicon. 00:12:14.850 --> 00:12:19.913 If you want to get ahead of this curve, you are going to have to become a cyborg. 00:12:20.333 --> 00:12:22.183 (Laughter) 00:12:22.332 --> 00:12:25.190 Number four: A lot of volcanoes go off. 00:12:25.348 --> 00:12:28.198 These things are huge trouble. 00:12:28.623 --> 00:12:31.735 We do not live on a nice, stable solid planet. 00:12:31.735 --> 00:12:34.384 It is mostly molten rock and iron 00:12:34.384 --> 00:12:38.520 and it probably has a nuclear reactor in the center of it that keeps it hot. 00:12:38.520 --> 00:12:40.840 We're, like, on these life rafts 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:44.479 floating over all this molten rock. 00:12:44.584 --> 00:12:48.208 Earth's crust is so constantly folding in on itself 00:12:48.208 --> 00:12:51.469 that we cannot find a stone on the surface of the Earth 00:12:51.469 --> 00:12:53.859 that is as old as the planet. 00:12:55.749 --> 00:12:59.443 Ninety-eight percent of all the species on Earth have gone extinct. 00:12:59.764 --> 00:13:02.471 And volcanoes are the biggest reason why. 00:13:02.722 --> 00:13:06.859 Of the 11 biggest extinctions, four were caused by volcanoes. 00:13:07.325 --> 00:13:10.638 A new study that links the late Traissic extinction 00:13:10.638 --> 00:13:13.258 of volcanic eruptions and outflows - 00:13:14.008 --> 00:13:18.150 or a new study links this amazing extinction of life, 00:13:18.150 --> 00:13:20.045 95 percent of life on Earth - 00:13:20.045 --> 00:13:23.836 to volcanoes that essentially stretched - and it all went off at the same time - 00:13:23.836 --> 00:13:26.547 essentially stretched from what is now New Jersey 00:13:26.547 --> 00:13:28.239 to what is now Morocco. 00:13:31.338 --> 00:13:33.998 In our past, Earth has opened up many times 00:13:33.998 --> 00:13:35.977 and flowed out for centuries. 00:13:35.977 --> 00:13:39.522 India is an outflow of volcanism. 00:13:39.741 --> 00:13:42.968 Volcanic activity fills the sky with soot and hot ash 00:13:42.968 --> 00:13:45.037 and buries every living thing 00:13:45.037 --> 00:13:48.189 and blocks the sun for so many summers, 00:13:48.189 --> 00:13:51.739 the plants on land and plankton in the sea die, 00:13:51.739 --> 00:13:54.505 and when they die, we die. 00:13:55.307 --> 00:13:59.289 Volcanoes can also produce so much carbon dioxide 00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:03.712 that they will massively warm the planet and create a runaway greenhouse effect, 00:14:03.712 --> 00:14:06.830 which is the opposite of what we often expect from them. 00:14:07.546 --> 00:14:13.604 In Holland, they grow most of their food in greenhouses with synthetic light 00:14:13.604 --> 00:14:15.307 24 hours a day. 00:14:15.307 --> 00:14:16.930 We can do that. 00:14:17.827 --> 00:14:21.625 When I was putting this talk together, I just had this weird idea. 00:14:21.625 --> 00:14:25.638 I went to Amazon, I looked to see how much they were and how good they are. 00:14:25.638 --> 00:14:29.293 Gas masks are the cheapest insurance you can buy. 00:14:29.293 --> 00:14:30.932 They don't take up much space, 00:14:30.932 --> 00:14:33.546 and they get you through a lot of hard times. 00:14:34.179 --> 00:14:39.066 And finally, the ultimate solution to living on a planet like ours, 00:14:39.066 --> 00:14:41.884 which really is unstable and will not last forever - 00:14:41.884 --> 00:14:45.862 in four and a half billion years, the sun will take us in - 00:14:46.443 --> 00:14:51.206 our species will eventually die if we do not colonize other planets 00:14:51.655 --> 00:14:53.642 in other solar systems. 00:14:54.055 --> 00:14:57.679 Number three: a runaway greenhouse effect, I just spoke about that a little, 00:14:57.679 --> 00:14:59.609 or an ecosystem collapse. 00:15:00.628 --> 00:15:03.307 Okay, no surprise, we're heating up. 00:15:03.307 --> 00:15:09.063 In 1990, the mean atmospheric temperature of Earth was 14 1/2 degrees centigrade. 00:15:09.063 --> 00:15:12.892 In 23 years, we've gone up 3/4 of a degree. 00:15:12.892 --> 00:15:16.529 Never in the history of this planet - we know from ice cores - 00:15:16.529 --> 00:15:19.313 has carbon dioxide risen so fast. 00:15:19.313 --> 00:15:23.417 When we get to 16 1/2 degrees - that's 1 1/4 degrees from where we are - 00:15:23.417 --> 00:15:26.314 we will lose control of our climate. 00:15:26.479 --> 00:15:28.049 Or let me put it a different way: 00:15:28.049 --> 00:15:30.502 It will become extremely unpredictable. 00:15:31.255 --> 00:15:33.412 Every major extinction in Earth's history 00:15:33.412 --> 00:15:37.213 has been characterized by rapid increases in CO2. 00:15:37.213 --> 00:15:41.900 And we're now in an unprecedented period of increases in CO2. 00:15:42.323 --> 00:15:44.056 Normally the atmosphere releases 00:15:44.056 --> 00:15:46.706 about 10 percent of the heat we get from the sun. 00:15:46.706 --> 00:15:50.206 But as we heat up, more and more water turns to vapor, 00:15:50.206 --> 00:15:52.662 more global warming methane and other gases 00:15:52.662 --> 00:15:55.672 are released from the northern and southern permafrost, 00:15:55.672 --> 00:15:58.744 and at some point the Earth works like a greenhouse - 00:15:58.744 --> 00:16:00.477 gets into a feedback loop 00:16:00.477 --> 00:16:02.653 that eventually will turn us into Venus, 00:16:02.653 --> 00:16:07.214 where the average daytime temperature is 900 degrees Fahrenheit. 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.256 At the same time we're witnessing a huge extinction cycle. 00:16:11.256 --> 00:16:12.661 In the next 25 years, 00:16:12.661 --> 00:16:17.737 we will lose 25 percent of all the species in the Hawaiian islands alone. 00:16:17.737 --> 00:16:20.458 We're devastating our oceans by overfishing them, 00:16:20.458 --> 00:16:23.700 and we're killing our coral reefs with heat. 00:16:23.700 --> 00:16:28.644 Somewhere in the Amazon rainforest is what I like to call a marginal tree. 00:16:28.644 --> 00:16:32.403 We keep cutting down oxygen-producing trees, 00:16:32.403 --> 00:16:35.369 and someday, when we get to that marginal tree, 00:16:35.369 --> 00:16:40.391 we will see the beginning of the collapse of our oxygen ecosystem. 00:16:40.814 --> 00:16:42.880 We are still asleep at the wheel. 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:44.718 Global warming is an emergency. 00:16:44.718 --> 00:16:47.315 It's almost incomprehensible 00:16:47.315 --> 00:16:51.102 how much CO2 we have to stop putting in the air in the next 10 years 00:16:51.102 --> 00:16:53.165 to stop this process. 00:16:53.165 --> 00:16:58.006 And we need to prioritize the animals and the amount of nature 00:16:58.006 --> 00:16:59.504 that we're trying to save. 00:16:59.504 --> 00:17:01.268 We can't save it all. 00:17:01.268 --> 00:17:04.880 We need to save the species that help us the most. 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:06.303 [#2 - Nuclear war breaks out] 00:17:06.303 --> 00:17:07.445 Now, this is interesting 00:17:07.445 --> 00:17:10.227 because 11 years ago, this wasn't even on my radar screen, 00:17:10.227 --> 00:17:14.041 because I don't think nuclear war was any kind of significant threat. 00:17:15.224 --> 00:17:17.768 There's a good reason every major nation in the world 00:17:17.768 --> 00:17:20.531 wants to keep Iran from getting the bomb. 00:17:20.531 --> 00:17:24.249 But there's a larger reason that's really out of our control. 00:17:24.249 --> 00:17:28.842 Both India and Pakistan have more than 100 nuclear weapons each, 00:17:28.842 --> 00:17:32.182 far more than enough to create a nuclear winter, 00:17:32.182 --> 00:17:34.135 which will kill us all. 00:17:34.282 --> 00:17:37.804 They have fought three wars since 1947. 00:17:37.804 --> 00:17:41.197 And India is developing a nuclear submarine fleet 00:17:41.197 --> 00:17:44.636 so it can fire its missiles from anywhere. 00:17:46.520 --> 00:17:49.483 President Obama has spoken about this idea; 00:17:49.483 --> 00:17:51.396 it makes tremendous sense. 00:17:51.396 --> 00:17:54.283 And there's a huge rap against anti-missile systems 00:17:54.283 --> 00:17:57.895 because if we use it and we knock down everybody else's missiles, 00:17:57.895 --> 00:18:00.711 then we're left with all the good missiles. 00:18:00.711 --> 00:18:05.229 So part of the answer to this problem 00:18:05.229 --> 00:18:10.079 may be to develop anti-missle technology cooperatively 00:18:10.079 --> 00:18:13.994 with many, many other nations and place them where they are needed. 00:18:13.994 --> 00:18:16.068 You have to fire an anti-missile 00:18:16.068 --> 00:18:20.080 30 seconds after a missile with a warhead on it is fired 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:24.298 so that it catches it before it's on the downward curve in space. 00:18:26.689 --> 00:18:29.403 Number one: We cross paths with a really big asteroid. 00:18:29.403 --> 00:18:31.140 This is my favorite. 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:32.791 (Laughter) 00:18:32.791 --> 00:18:36.088 Now, there's a possibility I've been wrong about some of these things, 00:18:36.088 --> 00:18:38.912 the possibility some of these things won't happen. 00:18:38.912 --> 00:18:42.418 In the best sense of journalism, that's my disclaimer. 00:18:42.418 --> 00:18:44.291 But I am not wrong about this, 00:18:44.291 --> 00:18:46.244 and this is what keeps me up at night. 00:18:46.244 --> 00:18:48.103 This is my passion. 00:18:48.393 --> 00:18:50.893 Right now, somewhere in space, 00:18:50.893 --> 00:18:53.529 maybe in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter 00:18:53.529 --> 00:18:55.952 or farther out in the Kuiper belt, 00:18:55.952 --> 00:18:59.032 of large objects that exist beyond Neptune, 00:18:59.032 --> 00:19:01.784 there's a missile with our name on it. 00:19:02.435 --> 00:19:06.775 It could break out of its orbit tomorrow, or not for 100,000 years, 00:19:06.775 --> 00:19:08.807 but its fate is sealed. 00:19:08.807 --> 00:19:10.805 It will hit Earth. 00:19:10.805 --> 00:19:13.211 It has happened before many times. 00:19:13.211 --> 00:19:14.996 Get a telescope and look at the moon. 00:19:14.996 --> 00:19:17.391 It is covered with asteroid hits. 00:19:17.391 --> 00:19:19.867 And you'll see that in a video in a second. 00:19:19.867 --> 00:19:22.988 The Earth is just as pockmarked with asteroid hits. 00:19:22.988 --> 00:19:25.627 It's just that that folding crust that we have, 00:19:25.627 --> 00:19:27.465 that's hidden a lot of them, 00:19:27.465 --> 00:19:29.913 and vegetation has covered a lot of it. 00:19:30.510 --> 00:19:34.166 A large asteroid took out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago 00:19:34.166 --> 00:19:38.016 by creating shock waves and firestorms across this planet 00:19:38.016 --> 00:19:40.286 and created a sky so full of debris 00:19:40.286 --> 00:19:43.448 that summer did not return for at least 100 years 00:19:43.448 --> 00:19:45.335 and maybe 1,000 years. 00:19:45.524 --> 00:19:50.028 Had humans been alive then, they would all have been wiped out. 00:19:50.657 --> 00:19:52.953 Now, here's some hope. 00:19:53.193 --> 00:19:55.691 433 Eros. This is a huge rock - 00:19:55.691 --> 00:19:58.249 it's bigger than the one that took out the dinosaurs - 00:19:58.249 --> 00:20:01.592 that orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 00:20:02.439 --> 00:20:03.767 At sometime in its future 00:20:03.767 --> 00:20:06.318 it will shift from a Mars-crossing orbit 00:20:06.318 --> 00:20:07.399 that it's in now 00:20:07.399 --> 00:20:09.089 to an Earth-crossing orbit. 00:20:09.089 --> 00:20:12.589 It will intersect with where our planet is. 00:20:12.759 --> 00:20:16.703 It is bigger than the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. 00:20:16.895 --> 00:20:18.990 But here's where this thing gets interesing. 00:20:18.990 --> 00:20:23.480 We took this photo from a space probe that left the Earth in the year 2000, 00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:27.706 a NASA probe, that was designed to study asteroids. 00:20:27.706 --> 00:20:32.184 And this spaceship settled into orbit around the asteroid. 00:20:32.184 --> 00:20:37.672 You can put a baseball in orbit around me if you're in space; 00:20:38.288 --> 00:20:40.028 there's enough gravity. 00:20:40.028 --> 00:20:42.941 Now, when the mission ended, there was a little leftover fuel, 00:20:42.941 --> 00:20:44.866 there was a little leftover electricity, 00:20:44.866 --> 00:20:47.836 and the mission controllers - this wasn't part of the mission - 00:20:47.836 --> 00:20:50.935 they landed the spacecraft on Eros successfully. 00:20:51.215 --> 00:20:55.841 And since then, we have intercepted three comets in deep space 00:20:55.841 --> 00:20:58.981 that move at 20 miles per second. 00:21:00.564 --> 00:21:03.650 Stop and think about the implications of those missions. 00:21:03.650 --> 00:21:05.962 For the first time in human history, 00:21:05.962 --> 00:21:09.329 we have the ability to fly into an incoming asteroid 00:21:09.329 --> 00:21:11.175 and change its orbit, 00:21:11.175 --> 00:21:13.001 but only if we know it's there, 00:21:13.001 --> 00:21:16.206 and only if we have a rocket ready to go. 00:21:16.386 --> 00:21:22.552 Most asteroids are found by amateurs when it's too late to do anything. 00:21:22.552 --> 00:21:25.657 NASA is looking for bad guys in the asteroid belt, 00:21:25.657 --> 00:21:28.155 and there are about 20,000 of them out there. 00:21:28.155 --> 00:21:30.028 But they can't look in the Kuiper belt, 00:21:30.028 --> 00:21:31.147 it's too far away, 00:21:31.147 --> 00:21:33.498 and it has 100,000 objects in it 00:21:33.498 --> 00:21:37.937 10 times bigger than the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. 00:21:38.357 --> 00:21:40.289 In only 20 years, 00:21:40.289 --> 00:21:44.274 we have developed the technology to change our fate. 00:21:44.274 --> 00:21:49.186 We can intercept an asteroid, and we can take it out of play. 00:21:51.306 --> 00:21:54.709 One day you or your children, or their children, 00:21:54.709 --> 00:21:56.041 or their children's children 00:21:56.041 --> 00:21:58.949 will wake up and this news will be real, 00:21:58.949 --> 00:22:01.759 the headline on the front page of The New York TImes: 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:05.469 Killer Asteroid Found on Collision Course with Earth. 00:22:05.846 --> 00:22:08.910 What happens after that if we're not prepared 00:22:08.910 --> 00:22:10.688 is really beyond horror. 00:22:10.688 --> 00:22:13.103 Most humans will not die from the impact, 00:22:13.103 --> 00:22:15.730 most will die of starvation. 00:22:16.161 --> 00:22:18.944 And the price of insurance to protect us from this 00:22:18.944 --> 00:22:22.365 is what we spend on one B2 bomber. 00:22:23.342 --> 00:22:26.890 The asteroid problem is stupidly obvious. 00:22:27.373 --> 00:22:30.538 A physicist said almost 100 years ago: 00:22:30.538 --> 00:22:33.222 "There are two kinds of civilizations: 00:22:33.222 --> 00:22:36.482 those who can protect themselves from an asteroid impact 00:22:36.482 --> 00:22:38.139 and those who can't." 00:22:38.820 --> 00:22:40.169 We're the former. 00:22:40.169 --> 00:22:41.545 What are we waiting for? 00:22:41.545 --> 00:22:42.839 Thank you. 00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:44.668 (Applause)