Speaker 1: What if I told you that one of the most
Speaker 1: accurate predictions about the state of America today came not
Speaker 1: from a politician or a pundit, but from an astronomer.
Speaker 1: Nearly thirty years ago, Carl Sagan, the brilliant mind behind Cosmos,
Speaker 1: warned of a future America drowning in misinformation, stripped of
Speaker 1: critical thinking, and ruled by the powerful few, while the
Speaker 1: public clung to superstition over science. In his book The
Speaker 1: Demon Haunted World, Sagan didn't just anticipate our political division
Speaker 1: and scientific literacy. He nailed it. And yet, despite his
Speaker 1: warnings on climate change, we largely ignored him. In this video,
Speaker 1: I'll summarize how Carl Sagan's words still echo in our
Speaker 1: headlines today and why a renewed commitment to skepticism, reason,
Speaker 1: and collective action is more urgent than ever. And when
Speaker 1: I met we, when I said me, I really met me.
Speaker 1: We as in everybody right here. And also, so this
Speaker 1: story actually comes from scoop Upworthy by Vannie Coker on
Speaker 1: July seventh, twenty twenty five. So, Cindy, I'm coming to you.
Speaker 1: You know you talked about reading about this distract from
Speaker 1: the Demon Hunter World and you said you feel a
Speaker 1: little conflicted. Tell us about your conflict.
Speaker 2: Yes, my conflict is that On one hand, I think
Speaker 2: Carl Sagen was a really brilliant man. I loved his
Speaker 2: show Costmos, which is available on YouTube right now, and
Speaker 2: I suggest everyone to watch it.
Speaker 3: It's brilliant.
Speaker 2: He's a fabulous communicator, and he explains things in a
Speaker 2: way that they are understandable even by me, by you
Speaker 2: and me, by everyone. It's even complicated things. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he's brilliant. On the other hand, the thing he describes
Speaker 2: in this in his book, which was published in ninetety six,
Speaker 2: I think they were already very well.
Speaker 3: On the way when he wrote it.
Speaker 2: So like corporation, they were moving their factories to China.
Speaker 2: Studying in the eighties, the trickle low on economy that
Speaker 2: was supposed to be miraculous to everyone started.
Speaker 3: Twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Compared to his quote, inequalities had already started to increase.
Speaker 2: Because of that, the attacks on public schools studied at
Speaker 2: the same period, which is it sounds like a coincidence,
Speaker 2: But it all began with one man. I would say, so, yes,
Speaker 2: everything he says is true because it started already twenty
Speaker 2: years before he said it, and it kept on going
Speaker 2: because of the political makeup of the United States. But
Speaker 2: what people in the US feel when reading this is
Speaker 2: the same feeling that the rest of the world is
Speaker 2: feeling right now watching the US turning fascist.
Speaker 4: He's going to rub it in a little is going
Speaker 4: to He's going to rub it in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks a lot.
Speaker 4: We know, we know what's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we kind of do.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying yeah.
Speaker 2: But my point is I'm not trying to be mean here.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that this this this feeling that we
Speaker 2: have on the outside right now seeing this thing happening,
Speaker 2: and we know why it happens, we know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen, and we've been saying it for a decade
Speaker 2: and it's still happening. I'm pretty sure it's very close
Speaker 2: from what Carl Seiga was feeling at the time, and
Speaker 2: that's the reason why he wrote this back then.
Speaker 3: That's that's my point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we we're picking up what you're putting down,
Speaker 1: Cindy and and everyone. We have a new podcaster who
Speaker 1: has joined us as host. Everybody say hello to Raa Hi,
Speaker 1: say hi, Rah, Okay, very good. Do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about doctor Sagan. Okay, what do you got what
Speaker 1: you have to say about doctor Sagan? He's he did
Speaker 1: live in the house. Yeah, and he even he even
Speaker 1: testified in front of the House of Representatives. Did he
Speaker 1: didn't he about climate change? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I know. Yeah, smart n knows a lot about Carl Sagan.
Speaker 1: He does.
Speaker 4: He knows way more than me.
Speaker 1: He has a pretty good you know source. But you know, Tracy,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to talk about doctor Sagan and how
Speaker 1: he was. You know, can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think Cindy pretty well laid it out.
Speaker 4: He seemed to have just been a guy who was
Speaker 4: really well plugged into what was going on economically in
Speaker 4: society around him at the time. He had to have been,
Speaker 4: in order of in order to have made a prediction
Speaker 4: that that, you know, came true. But thanks to Cindy,
Speaker 4: I now know that it's kind of like, uh yeah, duh,
Speaker 4: that was already going on. It was sort of like
Speaker 4: the wars and rumors of wars thing. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's yeah, clearly, good job. There's gonna be weather today.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, wonderful prediction. I'm a lot less impressed with him,
Speaker 4: thank you for disillusioning me, Cindy, I'm sorry. You know
Speaker 4: I'm not being No, thank you for disillusioning me. I
Speaker 4: love I love being disillusioned because I thought it was
Speaker 4: pretty impressive. But now that you pointed that out, that
Speaker 4: it was already all going.
Speaker 5: On, Yeah, all right. I wasn't born yet. I couldn't
Speaker 5: have made that call.
Speaker 4: So, you know, just.
Speaker 2: Just one thing I'd like to point out about critical
Speaker 2: about climate change. In the late seventies, there was a
Speaker 2: big meeting, international, international meeting between big powers, and they
Speaker 2: knew back then that climate change was starting to be
Speaker 2: an issue. The problem is, at the time there was
Speaker 2: also the Ozonnayer problem, and so the powers that be
Speaker 2: decided that it would be too much for the public
Speaker 2: to handle both issues, so they decided to focus on
Speaker 2: one and they pretty much solved it. We have to
Speaker 2: be honest with that. The ozon layer is now almost
Speaker 2: one hundred percent back and that problem has been almost solved.
Speaker 2: But it was at the detriment of climate change, and
Speaker 2: so when people say it's a new thing, it's definitely not.
Speaker 2: It was already a thing in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Listen, let me tell you, let me talk to you.
Speaker 1: All about something if you are not a person that
Speaker 1: watches like old episodes of Doctor Who. Yes, I'm about
Speaker 1: to get into my Hoovian life there. Yeah, I'm moving
Speaker 1: out right now. There was an episode that actually had
Speaker 1: a professor on it that talked about and protested different
Speaker 1: companies in the UK, in the UK and the UK
Speaker 1: that were contributing to the in the ozone layer. And
Speaker 1: so since they were talking about also all these particular
Speaker 1: issues that were happening with global warming and climate change
Speaker 1: m h. And so since this was the case, we
Speaker 1: know that this is not a new topic, right. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not a new topic, right, It's not it's not
Speaker 1: a new topic, right. So basically, you know, Carl Sagan
Speaker 1: was they was talking about a lot of the different
Speaker 1: things that was happening at that particular time. Is this
Speaker 1: particular right exactly? You know. And so since we we
Speaker 1: know this is the case, we know that we had
Speaker 1: people who happened to be in power that would actually
Speaker 1: try to turn to something else in order for us
Speaker 1: not to talk about these things, right, And so now
Speaker 1: we are in this place where we have climate change deniers, correct,
Speaker 1: climate change deniers, right, ro Yeah, exactly, Yeah, it's and
Speaker 1: it's a problem, isn't it raw? Yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a problem. And now that we are dealing with what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with now, even though, like I know that
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan was necessarily a profit but he definitely could
Speaker 1: read the times. So I want to ask you both,
Speaker 1: what would a serious human centered approach to an existential
Speaker 1: threat like climate change actually look like? And why has
Speaker 1: the political will to act remained weak despite decades of
Speaker 1: morning Tracy, I want to start with you, and then Cindy,
Speaker 1: I want you to follow up.
Speaker 5: All right, what would what would a human centered approach
Speaker 5: to an existential threat like climate change look like?
Speaker 3: Jen?
Speaker 4: From my understanding, what a good, strong, human centered approach,
Speaker 4: what it would have been would have been to cut
Speaker 4: our emissions drastically some number of decades ago. I think
Speaker 4: that there is stuff that we can do, but I've
Speaker 4: heard a lot and once again, I'm very not educated
Speaker 4: on the ins and outs of climate change, but I
Speaker 4: mean there's always a certain amount we can do, right,
Speaker 4: we can cut back on whatever we can. But my
Speaker 4: understanding is that we have kind of abused our atmosphere
Speaker 4: in such a way and abused the earth in such
Speaker 4: a way that we've kind of hit a point of
Speaker 4: no return along several different axes, Like we're never going
Speaker 4: to get all of the plastic out of the world
Speaker 4: that we've dumped into it, and that is a problem.
Speaker 4: But for the weather, for the climate change, I don't
Speaker 4: know what the current experts are saying would be the
Speaker 4: best course of action, but I think maybe just listening
Speaker 4: to them instead of ignoring them and saying it's more
Speaker 4: important to chase after money.
Speaker 5: And that's how we got to this point.
Speaker 4: A lot of it was chasing after money, things were
Speaker 4: too expensive to do at a certain time, and and
Speaker 4: things of that nature. But what did you have to say, Cindy,
Speaker 4: You have probably a much smarter thing to say that
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: I don't think we want to have a human centered
Speaker 2: approach to fight climate change because humans are not the
Speaker 2: only ones impacted by climate change.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We need to take into account all the the entire
Speaker 2: ecosystem of the earth. Uh and and and any any
Speaker 2: attempt at solution that would be human centered, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: would be incomplete.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and Tracey said, it's it's you.
Speaker 2: You can't solve the issue when, uh, the source of
Speaker 2: the issue is capitalism.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's that simple.
Speaker 2: The conception society that's the source of half of the issue.
Speaker 2: Lobbys decided decide pretty much everything that happens in the world. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the source of the problem. Until we solve this,
Speaker 2: we won't be able to solve climate change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even though like I understand that, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not just like human beings that's impacted by climate change
Speaker 1: or even like that's impacted by any of the policies
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with as an electorate. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: it's still going to take you know, people who happen
Speaker 1: to be in the seats that make the decisions to
Speaker 1: actually have that mindset. And I know that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of organizing on the ground that is pushing for
Speaker 1: policy change and also it's pushing for a new direction
Speaker 1: when it comes to how we handle what we're dealing
Speaker 1: with right now, because like, unfortunately, capitalism is not just
Speaker 1: driving like how America is responding to climate change, it's
Speaker 1: also driving how we are putting other policies into effect,
Speaker 1: and how it's also affecting the people who happen to
Speaker 1: be around us, right and unfortunately, here we have an
Speaker 1: uphill battle. We have an uphill battle because right now,
Speaker 1: the more that we have people who deny, deny, deny, deny,
Speaker 1: climate change is a thing, and deny, deny, deny that
Speaker 1: some of the other policies that have come out as
Speaker 1: of late are harmful. We're going to constantly deal with
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over and oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the thorough road is, but I know
Speaker 1: that we can't deal with what we're dealing with, like
Speaker 1: there's going to be a breaking point and how that
Speaker 1: looks and how it's how it's going to you know,
Speaker 1: show up. I'm concerned. I mean, especially since we have
Speaker 1: our co host right here. Unfortunately, he's going to be
Speaker 1: one of the ones and the generations that's going to
Speaker 1: inherit the issues that we are dealing with over because
Speaker 1: of you know, what's in front of us right now.
Speaker 1: I'm just just hoping, because I just keep on going
Speaker 1: back to this about you know, the importance of critical
Speaker 1: thinking and skepticism and also the importance of making sure
Speaker 1: these particular thinking patterns are in our kids, because you know,
Speaker 1: without you know, sounding you know cliche that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, with Whitney Houston saying that she believes the
Speaker 1: children are our future. They are they're the future leaders,
Speaker 1: and it's an incumbent on all of us to really, like,
Speaker 1: you know, be that person that's in front of them,
Speaker 1: that's actually teaching them that, hey, thinking is a thing
Speaker 1: and questioning is a thing, and just because somebody is
Speaker 1: over authority over you and they want to not deny
Speaker 1: basically like you know, don't who you're gonna believe me
Speaker 1: or your line notes, I yeah, my eyes are not lying,
Speaker 1: you know. It has to be that to that particular
Speaker 1: point where you know, we're telling our kids and we're
Speaker 1: telling our future that you know, we need to be
Speaker 1: more leaning on empiricism and skepticism and critical thinking and
Speaker 1: also being able to say to the ones who happened
Speaker 1: to be above us, know, what you're saying is wrong
Speaker 1: and how you're doing it is incorrect, and we need
Speaker 1: to change course. I wish I knew what's the best
Speaker 1: way to confront these myths, but the only thing that
Speaker 1: I can really think of is just making sure that
Speaker 1: we're teaching those who happen to be under us how
Speaker 1: to spot them. What are your thoughts on that, Tracy?
Speaker 1: I want to start with you and then sendy you.
Speaker 5: I think you're right. It's too long of a battle.
Speaker 4: It's far too long of a battle to be solved
Speaker 4: in my lifetime, probably in our little co host's lifetime, even.
Speaker 4: I mean, it'd be great, be great if so. I'm
Speaker 4: just that's not where I'm putting my money. We need
Speaker 4: to keep passing on the value of such things and
Speaker 4: just hope that it continues to be.
Speaker 5: Passed on in that fashion.
Speaker 4: I don't have, don't have much else.
Speaker 5: What do you got to say, Sandy?
Speaker 2: So last week friends decided to end the well to
Speaker 2: allow again the use of some pesticides that were not
Speaker 2: permitted to use since I think it's twenty twenty. And
Speaker 2: so when the congress people were interviewed that, I remember
Speaker 2: specifically one who was asked, well, you know, scientists say
Speaker 2: that those products, nicotinoids, they are killing all the bees
Speaker 2: and all the insects, and they're also bring cancer to people.
Speaker 2: And the congressman said, yeah, no, no, that that's not true.
Speaker 2: That's not proven. We don't know that. And the guy
Speaker 2: who was interviewed in said, no, we have quite a
Speaker 2: lot of social studies and and and and and we
Speaker 2: have evidence of this. Scientists are pretty clear on this,
Speaker 2: and and the guys, oh scientists, you know, like yeah,
Speaker 2: we we know what scientists say. They always you know, uh,
Speaker 2: bring fear to people.
Speaker 3: That's that's what what it was.
Speaker 2: So that there's there's a world of difference between the
Speaker 2: French democracy and the US democracy, and yet we still
Speaker 2: end up with this, uh, with these kind of problems here.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a global issue, it's a global phenomenon.
Speaker 3: It's uh.
Speaker 2: I I don't know how we can fight it, because
Speaker 2: if you if you fight it incrementally, like if if
Speaker 2: you try to create a source of power, like like
Speaker 2: a party that would follow some and and skepticism and
Speaker 2: and start from the bottom and go your where your
Speaker 2: way up, it would take fifty years to change things.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, the only way to change this
Speaker 2: is to topple the billionaires that are in charge and
Speaker 2: make sure that no change ever happens. But how can
Speaker 2: you do that because they have all the money, all
Speaker 2: the power. So yeah, I agree, it's going to be
Speaker 2: a very feel bottom.
Speaker 1: You know. My final reflection, guys, I would say that
Speaker 1: Karl Sagen wasn't a prophet. He was a scientist's arm
Speaker 1: with reason. History and a deep concern for humanity. His
Speaker 1: predictions weren't mystical revelations, but the results of clear eye
Speaker 1: observation of where we were headed. If we continue to
Speaker 1: abandon critical thinking and civic responsibility today, we face the
Speaker 1: very real crisis he warned about, climate inaction, and crisis
Speaker 1: of truth and widening gaps between power and people. But
Speaker 1: unlike superstition, humanism doesn't offer false comforts. No, it does
Speaker 1: not offer false comfort, now, does it? No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It costs for us to think harder, act wiser, and
Speaker 1: care deeper, and for the planets and each other. The
Speaker 1: future is not foretold, it's forged, and it's ours to
Speaker 1: shape our with reason, compassion and courage. And if you
Speaker 1: have courage, if you have courage, If you have courage. Though,
Speaker 1: do you have courage? Are you brave? I'm courage right,