April 18, 2019 9:00 pm

Friday, Save the Planet with Al Gore and Neil deGrasse Tyson

On this week’s episode of StarTalk Radio, it’s time for us to save the Earth. Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with environmental activist, Nobel Prize winner, and former US Vice President Al Gore to investigate ways to combat the climate crisis. This is not Al Gore’s first StarTalk rodeo as some of our fans might remember. He was on back in 2016 to discuss, you guessed it, climate change.

Graphic depicting the DSCOVR Deep Space Climate Observatory, originally championed by Al Gore. Credit: NASA.

The DSCOVR Deep Space Climate Observatory was originally championed by then Vice President Al Gore. Credit: NASA.

Joined in studio by co-host Chuck Nice, and previous StarTalk guests journalist Andrew Revkin (who was on that previous show with Al Gore, among other episodes) and climate scientist Kate Marvel, Neil and company ask the tough questions and prepare for the complicated answers that will help us fight climate change.

To start, you’ll hear why Al Gore thought it was time for a sequel to his Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The sequel, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power takes a look at our modern climate crisis and educates us on what is truly at stake if we don’t take action against climate change.

We discuss how to deal with climate deniers. Explore the practices of the fossil fuel industry and how they share similarities with how the tobacco industry buried, blocked, and delayed scientific information being released to the public. Andrew addresses the responsibilities of journalists to report the truth of stories in arenas doused in politics. We also ponder how to balance the needs of a capitalist society with safeguarding the planet.

Discover more about the Paris Agreement from 2016. You’ll learn just how bad humans are making it for other species on Earth. We also dive into conversation about the broader impact humans have had on the Earth during the Anthropocene era.

Then, Al Gore takes us on the journey of getting the DSCOVR Deep Space Climate Observatory into space, why its launch was delayed, and what its primary duties are. And, climate scientist Kate Marvel jumps into the conversation to hammer home just how amazing the Earth actually is. She also tells us about the misleadingly named “positive feedback loops” caused by global warming. All that, plus we answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about climate change, and, Al Gore asks Neil his own questions about the multiverse!

Please join us tomorrow night for Saving the Earth, with Al Gore at 7pm ET right here on our website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
-Ian Mullen

Get the most out of StarTalk!

Ad-Free Audio Downloads
Ad-Free Video Episodes
Stickers & Mugs
Live Streams with Neil
Priority Cosmic Queries
Early-Access Videos
Learn the Meaning of Life
...and much more