Brian Toon on Nuclear Winter, Asteroids, Volcanoes, and the Future of Humanity

Future of Life Institute Podcast

English - October 13, 2022 10:03 - 49 minutes - 67.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 100 ratings
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Previous Episode: Philip Reiner on nuclear command, control, and communications

Next Episode: Alan Robock on Nuclear Winter, Famine, and Geoengineering

Brian Toon joins us to discuss the risk of nuclear winter.

Learn more about Brian's work: https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/people/brian-toon/

Read Brian's publications: https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/person/Brian_Toon

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:02 Asteroid impacts
04:20 The discovery of nuclear winter
13:56 Comparing volcanoes and asteroids to nuclear weapons
19:42 How did life survive the asteroid impact 65 million years ago?
25:05 How humanity could go extinct
29:46 Nuclear weapons as a great filter
34:32 Nuclear winter and food production
40:58 The psychology of nuclear threat
43:56 Geoengineering to prevent nuclear winter
46:49 Will humanity avoid nuclear winter?