In this bonus episode, let me warn you and apologize in advance. We're gonna scare the out of you. But because this isn't about Halloween and this isn't political this is real, this is real numbers. And it isn't about the everyday politics and Trump stuff, but [00:00:15] the numbers we're about to show you are super scary. But you need to know them, you need to know them. Otherwise, we're not gonna take the action we need to take. Okay, having given you that prelude, here we go. >> Speaker 2: An alarming new scientific study suggests that the collapse of [00:00:31] the West Antarctic ice sheet may be unavoidable at this point, regardless of anything we do in response to climate change. Now, as you all know, we're not even doing enough to deal with climate change. But even if we were hitting our goals in cutting CO2 emissions, [00:00:49] it is unlikely, according to this study, to really impact what's happening with the West Antarctic ice sheet. So the study was published just this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. And if the authors are in fact right, the consequences will be absolutely [00:01:05] devastating, especially in coastal parts of the country, including in New Orleans and also in Florida. South Florida would basically be underwater. Now, the West Antarctic ice sheet near the southern tip of South America is considered to be one of the most important potential contributors to [00:01:24] sea level rise because of climate change, right? So the ice melts, and that increases the level of the water. Now, the new study suggests that changes to ocean circulation caused by global warming allow more warm water to eat away at the ice shelves in the, [00:01:43] I can never say this right, the Amundsen Sea, accelerating melting. The ice shelves buttress glaciers with the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Those glaciers would likely see irreversible retreat, collapsing the ice sheet, the study says. [00:02:01] Now, how exactly did the researchers come to this conclusion? Well, they looked at something known as basal melting, and that's when warm ocean currents melt the ice from beneath. And then they analyzed the rate of ocean warming and [00:02:17] ice shelf melting under different climate change scenarios. Now, they found that if the world limits temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is not on track to do, [LAUGH] we're not on track to do that, climate change could still cause the ocean to warm at three times the historical rate. [00:02:37] Even significantly cutting planet-heating pollution now will have limited power to prevent warmer oceans from triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, the report found. And so Kaitlin Naughten, who is an ocean modeler, she doesn't model near the ocean. [00:02:56] She looks at the ocean and what's currently transpiring with it [LAUGH] with the British, I'm trying to make this a little less devastating than it really is. So she's with the British Antarctic Survey, and she's also the lead author of this new study. [00:03:12] Here's what she says about their findings. It appears we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century. I really wanna stop having to say West Antarctic. I'm having difficulty with it, but nonetheless, West Antarctic ice sheet [00:03:29] melting is one impact of climate change that we're probably just going to have to adapt to, and that very likely means some amount of sea level rise we cannot avoid. Coastal communities will either have to build around or be abandoned. And based on what the study says, it sounds like they're just gonna have to [00:03:47] abandon it, especially if you live in areas like South Florida. It will be underwater. Now, the study does leave some key questions unanswered, including how much melt our emissions to date will cause, and also how fast it is expected to happen. [00:04:05] Super curious about that. I think that's an important question to answer. Now, what we know for sure is that this year, Antarctica saw alarmingly low levels of sea ice. And here's more on that. >> Speaker 3: That growth of that sea ice is so massive, [00:04:20] it doubles the size of the continent every single year. But the problem is that this year and last year to a similar extent, that ice has not been growing nearly as quickly. I wanna put up this other chart here. This shows the traditional, [00:04:36] that line at the top is what a normal growth of the sea ice is. That red line below is where we are now. It is a marked difference that is roughly the size of Alaska that is missing ice now in the southern ocean. >> Speaker 2: That's pretty terrifying. [00:04:52] Okay, so the most recent study doesn't make specific sea level rise predictions, but other researchers have estimated that the total collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet could contribute to about 10 feet, 10 feet to overall sea level rise. [00:05:08] And that melt process would likely take several centuries. However, without adaptation, 10 feet of sea level rise would likely submerge much of Miami and South Florida make Baton Rouge, Louisiana, oceanfront property and inundate the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook [00:05:26] in New York City, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maps that give rough estimates of sea level changes. So look, I don't know what to do about this. [00:05:43] This feels too apocalyptic, and I'm not sure the message of, there's nothing we can do about it is really all that helpful. >> Speaker 1: No, look, I think that there is something we can do about it, but we all have to turn right now, and we're not even close to turning. >> Speaker 2: And we're not going to Cenk. [00:05:59] >> Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's see what happens. So now, the reason I say that is because we're about to show you some extra graphs that are even scarier. So this year is very, very likely to be the hottest year ever. September was the hottest September ever. [00:06:14] October is on track to be the hottest October ever. July was the hottest month in human history of recorded human history. And inside July was the hottest recorded day in human history. So this stuff is getting crazy, and all the numbers, as you're gonna see in a second, are off the charts. [00:06:31] It used to be a gradual rise, now it's spiking. It went from linear to exponential. So it is way worse than the scientists imagined. The right wing told us, don't believe the lying scientists, believe the oil executives. [00:06:47] Okay, and you talk to an average right winger now, they believe the propaganda. They're like, no way, man ExxonMobil's right. All the scientists are paid off, and the oil companies don't care about profits. But the scientists, they're the ones that are corrupt. All across the world, scientists in Botswana, and Nigeria, and Cambodia, [00:07:05] and Brazil, apparently they're all paid off, but not the oil executives. So they've gotten this propaganda to work. What we need you to understand is that's the same exact thing that the tobacco companies did. Don't believe the stupid scientist. [00:07:22] Smoking is good for you. Yeah, fill up your lungs with all this tobacco, it won't give you cancer. But eventually, Ana, what happened is people started getting cancer at such high rates that they were like, yeah, I didn't enjoy my wife dying. No, it turns out these sons of bitches were liars, right? [00:07:39] And that's what the oil executives are. And there's going to be a massive reckoning with the politicians and the executives that lied us into this worldwide oblivion, okay? And I wanted that reckoning to be political and rhetorical, etc. [00:07:55] I don't want anybody to do anything stupid, okay? Now, having said that, I have the Miami policy. I go as often as I possibly can, cuz I don't think we're gonna make it to the timeframe that they're talking about. I think Miami is gonna be gone in our lifetimes. [00:08:11] So now it's starting to flood in Miami when it doesn't even rain cuz the ocean is rising, okay? So all those things that the right wing said were apocalyptic before, no, the scientists were wrong in the opposite direction. They were too conservative. [00:08:27] It's happening much quicker than we imagine. So let's give you the rest. >> Speaker 2: So let's talk about these charts that you had mentioned earlier. So if you take a look at how quickly temperatures are rising and how severely temperatures are rising, a good way to visualize it is this following chart, [00:08:42] because it shows you September's unprecedented temperature spike. You see that on the right hand side. I mean, no previous September was close to as warm as last month, which was 0.93 degrees Celsius above normal. [00:08:58] The margin by which it was the warmest September on record was by itself record setting, and it followed a record hot summer and the earth's hottest month and day during July. >> Speaker 1: There's five other charts that look exactly like that. [00:09:15] Everything is spiking. And we're in a bad pattern too, because El Nino has come. So El Nino normally makes things warmer, but when you combine climate change with El Nino, it's through the roof. And so we've gotta get it under control. There is no planet b. [00:09:31] There is no other plan. We all live here. This is a moronic idea that Elon Musk put out a long time ago about, I'm going to build spaceships so we can move to Mars. Mars is a disaster. Why would we wanna move to a planet that is currently uninhabitable? Why don't we protect the one where we actually do live and can live if we don't [00:09:50] burn all the goddamn fossil fuels on the planet and destroy the thing? And it's because of short term profits. And so we've gotta find a way to get beyond that. If we don't, they're like the dwarves in Lord of the Rings. They're gonna dig and dig and dig until they release the Balrog. [00:10:08] And those charts are showing you that the Balrog is coming.