Camille Collett Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Ask a Scientist, the podcast for kids and adults to ask scientists questions about anything they want to know. There are so many scientists out there doing a lot of cool scientific research. In the news, we’re constantly hearing about scientists and their ideas and where those ideas are going to take us in the future. But just who are these scientists? In this podcast, we will learn a little more about who they are and what inspires them as scientists.
I’m your host, Victoria. Every other week, I’ll sit down and ask a different scientist questions written by you, the listeners, and by students from classrooms throughout the country.
This week, we’ve got an extra special episode for you. This episode is all about climate change, and we also have some special guests.
This week, we have students from Bromwell Elementary and some of the listeners tuning in to ask their questions in person.
Victoria:
Hello listeners. Welcome back to the next episode of Ask a Scientist. This week. We have an extra special episode for you focused on climate change. We have an expert here who’s going to talk to you all about climate change, and climate change that we’re experiencing today and what it might look like in the future. I am so excited to welcome Camille Collett.
Thank you so much for being here.
Camille:
Thank you for having me.
Victoria:
We are so excited to learn more about climate change. But before we get into the questions, would you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Camille:
Yeah, definitely. my name’s Camille Collett, and I’m a geologist. I have both a bachelor’s and a master’s in geology, and I studied A lot of, kind of geomorphology and tectonics and things like that and mountain building.
But I got really interested in climate change when I worked in Yosemite National Park. And I think it probably started on a backpacking trip I did with my boss there to survey the Lyell and Maclure Glacier which are really tiny and puny. They’re the last remaining glaciers in Yosemite National Park. And it’s, yeah, it was just pretty shocking how small they were and how much they have diminished because of human caused climate change. And then, we would also take, I would kind of help out my boss, Greg Stock, with some field trips and he would always explain climate change to the participants, and he just did it in a really like simple way that it was just clear and really understandable for everyone to grasp.
And, yeah, it just inspired me to start talking about it more. And I ended up making a climate change t-shirt with the CO2 and temperature graph on it. And then that eventually led me to have an educational booth at Santa Barbara Earth Day in 2017. And then, yeah, just, I did some writing on climate change. I volunteered with the Sierra Club to help with local environmental issues in Santa Barbara. Yeah. And it’s just something I care about. And I think is really important for people to know about, especially for kids, because they’re the ones that are going to be, you know, inheriting the Earth and, yeah, just, we just need to take care of it.
Victoria:
So. Awesome. That is so fantastic. And as an extra special bonus, each of the students that asked questions for this week’s episode will be getting one of your awesome climate change shirts. Thank you!
Camille:
Yes, no problem. I’m so excited for them to have these.
Victoria:
(Thomas – When did climate change start?)
Me too. I’ll post a picture of the shirts and the description of the episode. So everyone can see what they look like.
And with that, why don’t we get to the questions? These questions were written by fourth graders in Mr. R’s class at Bromwell Elementary and submitted by listeners through email.
Our first question comes from Thomas. “When did climate change start?”
Camille:
Yeah. So this is a great question and really important for just knowing the basics of climate change and how it started.
So, it pretty much started when the industrial revolution got going. So this was in the 17 and 18 hundreds. And this is when humans started burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas to power big factories, which make, you know, all of the really cool things that we have today. Cause when we burn fossil fuels, it puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which causes the planet to heat up.
So it really kind of started in the industrial revolution when we just started burning a ton of fossil fuels and putting a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Victoria:
(Mae – Is it possible for climate change to affect our normal life?)
All right. And a good follow-up to that. About how climate change affects us, comes from Mae. “Is it possible for climate change to affect our normal life?”
Camille:
Yeah, definitely. Climate change affects so many things in our normal life. Like how much water is available for us to drink and grow crops, and grow the animals that give us food. And it makes the Earth hotter, which is just harder for people and plants and animals to deal with and live their normal lives. It will result in sea level rise, which can flood people’s homes and places they live and make them have to move and rebuild. And it can make more intense storms and hurricanes, which could be dangerous to humans and animals and plants. And even more there’s, there’s a ton of ways that climate change affects our normal life.
Victoria:
(Ella – Could climate change adjust when hurricane season happens?)
Wow. And speaking of all of these effects of climate change, the next set of questions, the next group of questions that we’ll go through is all about these effects and how everything, like you said, sea level and temperature is how everything is being affected and how we might see those effects.
So this next question is from Ella. “Could climate change adjust when hurricane season happens”.
Camille:
Yeah. So, with temperatures on Earth getting warmer, seasons are shifting, and the other thing, so hurricane season might shift, and then also climate change can make hurricanes more intense. Because a hotter planet means that there’s more evaporation happening. And since water is like fuel for storms, then more evaporation means more fuel for stronger hurricanes.
So, it can adjust the timing of hurricane season because seasons are actually adjusting because the planet is warming. So the start and end of seasons are shifting. And it can make hurricanes and storms more intense because it’s warmer.
Victoria:
(Addy – Are you scared about the Earth flooding?)
Wow. And speaking of water changes and all the evaporation, Addy wants to know. “Are you scared about the Earth flooding”
Camille:
Yes. I am scared about the Earth flooding. So I grew up in California near the beach, and my family still lives there. And in fact, my mom, brother, sister-in-law, my niece and my two nephews live on an Island. That’s only maybe like six feet above sea level. So yeah, with climate change and sea level rising, it does scare me and make me worried for, you know, my family and friends that live near the coast.
But the whole Earth probably isn’t going to flood. There’s, there’s just not enough water in the ice caps to melt to actually make that happen. So, yeah. It won’t be the whole planet, but the coastlines will, yeah, sea level will start to rise and encroach on some of these coastal areas. And it already is happening.
Victoria:
(Ella – What will happen when the earth gets too hot?)
Yikes. So those were questions about water related climate change effects. And now we’ve got some temperature related climate change effects. This question comes from Ella. “What will happen when the Earth gets too hot?”
Camille:
Yeah, this is a great question. And this is, you know, one of the biggest problems of climate change. So a lot of things happen when the Earth gets too hot.
You know, one of the big things is just a lot of plants and animals and people just can’t keep up with how fast the temperatures are rising on Earth. There, you know, we’re just not used to things changing this fast. Things usually change over much longer timescales. Kind of like if you’ve ever gone on a hike on a really hot day and not brought enough water, you know, it’s just hard to deal with. And this can result in a lot of migration of different plants and animals, and also the extinction of some things. It also means that the ice caps are melting faster, and you know, like polar bears won’t have a home anymore.
It means more extreme weather, like we talked about before, like more intense storms and fires. And again, it means sea levels gonna rise, which will make people have to migrate and rebuild. And it can make it harder to grow food and for people to live, you know, comfortable life.
Victoria:
Wow. So it sounds like everything’s all connected when the temperature rises, the water levels rise, and everything melts.
Camille:
Totally. Everything is affected by temperature on Earth. Definitely.
Victoria:
(Gavin – Will there be no snow if this doesn’t end?)
Yikes. Well, speaking of temperature, Gavin wants to know, “Will there be no snow if this doesn’t end?”
Camille:
That’s a great question.
I don’t think so. I think that there will probably still be snow, but there might be less of it. And another big problem is that the snow pack in the mountains isn’t lasting as long through the winter. And this is how a lot of people, you know, get their water in the summer.
Victoria:
(Ella – Could the ocean get too hot to swim in?)
All right. Another temperature related question comes from Ella. “Could the oceans get too hot to swim in?”
Camille:
That’s a great question and a very scary thought. So the ocean has been super important in keeping the Earth cool. And so, because it’s so deep and cold at the bottom, and because it circulates water with ocean currents and something called Thermohaline circulation, it’s actually acted like a big AC or air conditioning system for the planet. And without it, the planet would be much warmer by now with human caused climate change.
So I suppose it’s not impossible for it to get too hot to swim in, but it probably would take, you know, millions, thousands to millions of years to get to that point. So, yeah, hopefully not, but.
Victoria:
At least in our lifetimes, it won’t be too hot to swim in.
Camille:
Exactly.
Victoria:
(Eve – How hot will the Earth be in 2031?)
All right. And this is another question about how hot things will get. This question comes from Eve. “How hot will the Earth be into 2031.”
Camille:
Yeah. Great question. So today average global temperatures, so across the whole Earth, are around 14 degrees Celsius or 57 degrees Fahrenheit. And so this is a little more than one degree Celsius or two degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it was before the industrial revolution. And even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today, it’s still going to be a little bit hotter in 2031, cause there’s, there’s a little bit of a lag between putting CO2 in the atmosphere and then the Earth kind of reacting and heating up. So by 2031, it’ll probably be like at least a half to one degrees hotter than it is today.
Victoria:
Wow. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but I bet it’s a big effect, huh?
Camille:
Totally. Yeah. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it has major effects on a lot of different things.
Victoria:
(Thomas – What is an estimated temperature of how much the temperature will rise after 150 years have passed from now?)
This next question about temperature comes from Thomas. “What is an estimated temperature of how much the temperature will rise after 150 years have passed from now?”
Camille:
Yeah, this is an awesome question. and I needed to, I had to look up the exact numbers. So there’s some really good numbers for the year 2100, which is only 80 years from now, but it can give us a good estimate of that kind of timescale. So, it looks like temperatures could rise by as much as four to six degrees Fahrenheit if we don’t do anything by 2100. But if we do everything we can, then it’ll probably only rise by one to three degrees by the year 2100.
So if we fast forward 150 years from now to 2170, you know, estimates will probably be a few degrees more than both of those, so.
Victoria:
Yikes.
Camille:
Yeah. Could get pretty toasty.
Victoria:
(Wade – Will climate change shut down businesses if we’re not careful?)
Yeah.
All right. And looking to the future, speaking of 2031 and 150 years from now, we’ve got a bunch of questions about how things might change for humans on Earth in the future.
This question is from Wade. “Will climate change shut down businesses if we’re not careful?”
Camille:
It could. And yeah, especially places near the beach as sea level rises. And you know, places like mountain ski resorts could close. If there’s not enough snow pack in the mountains. Certain farms could get shut down if it’s too hot and there’s nine of water to grow food. So yeah. Places and businesses could definitely shut down, and there’s plenty of places in businesses that have already been affected by climate change. So, yeah. Good question.
Victoria:
(Brody – If climate change gets really bad, will future generations even be able even do anything outside?)
Yikes.
This next question comes from Brody. “If climate change gets really bad, will future generations even be able even do anything outside?”
Camille:
Awesome question. And it will probably depend on the time of year and where you live.
So I grew up near places in California, where it was over a hundred degrees in the summer. And with climate change, these places get even hotter, making summers outside almost unbearable. So it really depends on the time of year and the place that you live.
Victoria:
Yikes. The thought of not being able to do things outside is pretty scary.
Camille:
Yeah. You’ll need some, some water misters and lots of shade, and then an air-conditioned home to go inside. And that’s another thing that’s kind of a scary thought is, you know, the hotter it gets, the more air conditioning people are going to use, and air conditioners need energy to get powered. And that’s another important thing is, you know, we need the energy that we’re using to be renewable and like from wind or the sun and not from power plants and burning fossil fuels. So that’s another part of it. Cause if it just gets hotter and we’re using more air conditioning, which requires more energy, it could make the problem worse if that energy is coming from fossil fuels, which put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So that’s why it’s yeah again, important to use renewable energy. I think we’ll talk about that a little more in a little bit.
Victoria:
(Victoria – If climate change doesn’t stop, is the world in danger of ending?)
All right. Yes, we will.
This next question is from Victoria. Great name by the way. “If climate change doesn’t stop, is the world in danger of ending?”
Camille:
So the world is not going to end. it will just be a little more uncomfortable and hotter for all of us to live on. And it’ll be harder for plants and animals to live on too, which might mean there will be fewer resources for all of us to have.
But the planet is, you know, a big rock floating in outer space and it’s not going anywhere. Yeah, it just might get uncomfortable here for humans, and it could make our time here a bit shorter.
Victoria:
Yikes. Good to know that the Earth will be okay. It’s us we have to worry about.
Camille:
Yeah. Us and our effect on other creatures that live on Earth that, you know, don’t have the ability to do anything about human caused climate change. You know, we’re the ones responsible. So we have to take care of, you know, the planet and everything else on it.
Victoria:
(Mae – I enjoy winter and the cold. Would climate change really affect snow?)
Yeah. And we’ve got some questions coming up in a little bit, all about the other creatures, all about animals and plants, and how climate change is affecting them.
But this is a question, kind of in the category of other climate change effects. Mae wants to know “I enjoy winter and the cold. Would climate change really affect snow?”.
Camille:
Yeah. Good question, May. Climate change definitely affects snow. And as I mentioned before, with hotter temperatures, snow’s likely to melt faster, and also, you know, seasons and when they start and end are going to start shifting and that’s already happening.
And if you really liked snow, and being outside and doing other outdoors things, there’s a really cool organization called Protect Our Winters or POW that helps people who love the outdoors. protect the environment from climate change. So you could check them out online or ask your parents to make a donation, but see what you can do to help protect the wintery places that you love.
Victoria:
(Addy – Do you enjoy the winter and worry about having less snow?)
Oh, that’s awesome.
And another question about snow. Addy says, “Do you enjoy the winter and worry about having less snow?”
Camille:
I do enjoy the winter. I love the winter. I grew up snowboarding in Mammoth a lot in California, and I just I moved to Colorado about a year ago, and I’m so happy to live there now and be able to snowboard and backcountry snowboard and, and just play in the snow.
And yeah. So it’s definitely something I worry about. And I enjoy very much.
Victoria:
Yeah, Colorado is a good place to be for snow.
Camille:
Definitely.
Victoria:
(Johann – Do you think climate change can cause drastic environmental changes so as to cause another mass extinction event, and wipe us out like the dinosaurs?)
All right, now we’ve got all those questions about animals and other residents of planet Earth. This first question in that category is from Johann. “Do you think climate change can cause drastic environmental changes so as to cause another mass extinction event, and wipe us out like the dinosaurs?”
Camille:
Yeah. So I think humans, and I hope, are pretty smart. And since climate change is happening relatively slowly over time. I hope, you know, that we can learn to adapt and ideally live more sustainably with the planet and do something about it.
But it’s definitely not going to make things easier. And if, even if humans can survive, there’s a lot of plants and animals that might not. And one thing, you know, that’s really gonna affect humans is if we can’t grow food anymore, if, you know, if the Earth keeps getting too hot or too polluted.
So it probably, you know, the dinosaurs got wiped out by a big meteor impact and that happened really fast. And climate change, you know, manmade climate change is happening pretty quickly, but you know, we know what’s happening, we know what to do, humans are really, really smart and, so I think that we can do something about it, and so that we won’t be responsible for our own extinction, hopefully
Victoria:
(Sari – How many species of animals are endangered because of it?)
That’s good. That’s very helpful. I like that.
Alright. And the next question about animals. Sari wants to know “How many species of animals are endangered because of it?”.
Camille:
This is an awesome question. And I had to look this up. So, I think this was according to the World Wildlife organization. More than 25,000 species, almost a third of those known, are in danger of disappearing. And that climate change will be responsible for about 8% or 2000 of these species.
And again, so the previous five extinctions that have happened on Earth, were due mainly to meteorites and volcanic eruptions.
But you know, this potential extinction or endangerment of species, this would be caused by humans and not a meteorite, right, or a volcanic eruption. And that’s a little sad, I think, because we all love animals. And I looked up a few of the ones that are particularly endangered by climate change. And so here’s a few that are on that list is the polar bear, snow leopard, giant panda, the tiger, the Monarch butterfly, green sea turtles, African elephants, mountain gorillas, Asian elephants, cheetahs, frogs, coral, pika, penguin, koala, cod, seal. There’s a lot of animals that are affected by climate change, and especially with changes in the growing seasons and changes in where species can migrate and where natural places exist for them to live. These can affect all types of animals and plants. So.
Victoria:
Wow. Some of my favorite animals are.
Camille:
I know, I know, me too, some awesome animals.
Victoria:
(Thomas – What can we do to help the animals affected by climate change?)
Yeah.
This is a great follow-up question to that from Thomas. “What can we do to help the animals affected by climate change?”
Camille:
Awesome question, Thomas. So, the biggest thing is that we can do everything we can to stop burning fossil fuels, and, cause again, this is what puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And instead move towards renewable energy to power, you know, the factories in our cars, and the energy we use in our houses.
And then also, we have to stop taking away the natural areas like forests and jungles and wetlands that are really good at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere naturally. Cause remember plants and trees, they absorb or breathe in or kind of drink carbon dioxide, and then they, you know, expel oxygen for us to breathe. So plants and forests and jungles are really important because they actually take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. So protecting those places, and you know, planting more trees and things like that is another thing that you can do.
And then one other thing is, you know, you can volunteer or donate money to organizations like the World Wildlife Foundation or the Nature Conservancy or the Wildlife Conservation Council, or do things like plant milkweed in your garden for the monarchs. Yeah, there’s lots of things that we can do, and even on an individual basis.
Victoria:
(Sari – What is one species of animals that are completely unaffected in every way by global warming?)
Awesome. That’s good.
Okay, this next question is from Sari. “What is one species of animals that are completely unaffected in every way by global warming?”
Camille:
Good question. At first, I couldn’t think of anything, because everything is affected by temperature. And so, but then I thought maybe creatures that live underground, or like deep in caves that haven’t changed much since things started heating up. Or things that, that like living in extreme environments, like thermophiles in that live in volcanic springs. And, you know, I think humans evolved from creatures that lived underground during the meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs. So creatures like that might be, you know, unaffected in the long-term, maybe, from human caused climate change.
But, it’s really hard to say.
Victoria:
Yeah, all ecosystems are really interconnected, so it would be hard to find something not connected to the world around it.
Camille:
Yeah, exactly.
Victoria:
(Mae – Will animals be able to survive climate change without going extinct?)
Okay, let’s see. Another question about animals from Mae. “Will animals be able to survive climate change without going extinct?”
Camille:
So, some probably will, and, you know, new species will evolve over time. But again, the hardest thing is how fast things are changing on Earth. And that’s why it’s really tough on animals and the ecosystems, that they live in, you know, is because temperatures on Earth usually don’t change this fast. So probably some will be able to adapt and survive, but a lot of them, this is just not natural, how quickly things are changing, and they just might not be able to keep up.
Victoria:
(Sari – If a lot of species of animals are endangered, will our food supply get smaller?)
Yeah, that makes sense.
This next question comes from Sari. “If a lot of species of animals are endangered, will our food supply get smaller?”
Camille:
This is an awesome question. And it could. So fewer animal species means less biodiversity in the forest and other ecosystems, and that can make it harder to grow food.
And there’s two really good movies that just came out like this fall, I think. One is called Kiss the Ground, and that’s about farming sustainably, and how having, you know, a more diverse set of plants that grow in a field can make the soil much healthier and more resilient to, you know, pests and storms and things that make it harder to grow food.
And then the other one is David Attenborough’s newest film, called A Life On Our Planet. And this is, that movie is, you know, particularly about biodiversity and how important it is to have, you know, a rich and diverse set of species and places for animals and plants to grow and live in and flourish. And then on top of that, having these places means, you know, more green things in plants to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. So yeah, so it’s, it’s really important. Those two things.
Victoria:
And I will put a link to some more information about those two movies in the episode description. Just scroll down on your podcast feed.
Camille:
Awesome.
Victoria:
(Gavin – If this doesn’t end, will there be no food?)
(Addy – Will we have enough food?)
All right. And that question is a really good transition. Now we’ve got a couple of questions coming up here about food, and how climate change is going to affect the food that we eat and the food that we have.
So we’ve got two questions that go together. Gavin wants to know, “If this doesn’t end, will there be no food?” And Addy wants to know, “Will we have enough food?”
Camille:
Yeah, again, really good question. And I think humans are pretty smart, and, you know, we’ll figure out ways to grow food. But like we talked about before, you know, climate change makes it harder to grow food. And especially if it’s hotter and there’s more evaporation and less snow in the mountains, that means there’s less water to, you know, grow the plants and the crops that feed us, and also to grow the animals that we. But again, humans are pretty smart and, you know, we’re even working on how to grow food in space.
So hopefully we’ll figure something out, but, you know, we can make it easier by doing something about climate change.
Victoria:
Yeah. Instead of coming up with creative ways to grow food, if we just come up with creative ways to stop climate change, we can solve multiple problems.
Camille:
Exactly. That that would be the win-win.
Victoria:
(Eve – Will there be less pomegranates 10 years from now?)
All right. And then another question about food, very specific question from Eve. “Will there be less pomegranates 10 years from now?”
Camille:
This was a great question. I don’t know much about pomegranate, so I had to kind of do some research on this one. So it turns out that pomegranates grow pretty well under semi-arid conditions and can be grown up to an altitude of 500 meters above sea level. And that they thrive well under hot, dry summer and cold winter provided irrigation facilities are available. The tree requires hot and dry climate during fruit development and ripening.
But, the thing is that, you know, so some regions will be able to grow new things like pomegranate, but kind of only for a little while, when, you know, the right temperature conditions are at that location. And as like it said, you know, it likes to grow 500 meters above sea level, and as sea level changes, this can affect the regions where pomegranates like to grow. So, it might be able to grow well for short periods of time, but then, because temperature’s changing so fast, it might mean that, you know, growing these crops successfully, it’s, you know, only a short-lived thing. And then they have to move to a different area in order to grow them. So. Good question, Eve.
Victoria:
Yeah. Very interesting. I never, I didn’t know any of that about pomegranate.
Camille:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(Jacqueline – Is climate change inevitable?)
All right. So we’ll transition now into some questions about general climate change and things that we can do to stop it or prevent climate change from getting worse.
So this first question is from Jacqueline. “Is climate change inevitable?”
Camille:
Yeah. Good question. So the definition of inevitable is that it’s certain to happen and that it’s unavoidable. And so I don’t think manmade climate change is inevitable. I mean, it is happening now, but because we know what we have to do to stop it. I think that means that it’s not inevitable, and it’s not unavoidable. You know, we can, we can prevent this from happening. And we know what we have to do and things are already happening. We just have to keep it going.
Victoria:
(Baker – If we can do anything to stop global warming, how would we do it?)
That’s a great lead up to this next question from Baker about what we can do. Baker says, “If we can do anything to stop global warming, how would we do it?”
Camille:
Great question Baker. And this is the, you know, the key thing as, and there’s pretty much two main things we can do.
So number one is we have to stop burning fossil fuels, and we have to move towards renewable energy, like solar and wind to power our homes, our cars and the factories that make all of the things that we have in our lives.
And number two is that we have to stop cutting down the forest and getting rid of wild places that help absorb or take carbon out of the atmosphere. And again, this includes farming in smarter ways, that can help, you know, the soil on farm and crop lands absorb carbon more easily.
Victoria:
(Addy – If people know about global warming why are they making it worse? Why does no one care about global warming?)
Awesome. Okay. And a good follow-up to that. Addy wants to know, “If people know about global warming why are they making it worse? Why does no one care about global warming?”
Camille:
Great question Addy.
So I think the number one reason is because it’s really hard for people to make changes so fast when we’re all really happy and comfortable in our own ways. You know, some people just don’t like changing. Just like, you know, during this pandemic, when people didn’t like wearing their masks, you know, some people are kind of stuck in their ways and don’t want to change. And, I think a lot of people also, don’t like the idea of being responsible for a pretty unfortunate problem, but it’s true, you know, humans are the reason that unnatural climate change is happening on Earth.
And number two is I think a lot of people don’t fully understand what’s going on, and that’s why it’s really important to talk to people about climate change. And since you know, all you guys are now experts, this is now your job too.
And I think number three is because sometimes it can be really hard to see the effects of climate change in, you know, one’s own wife. People think it won’t affect them or their kids because, I mean, even though it is happening faster, it’s still kind of a slow process. But it really does have huge long-term effects that are gonna affect everyone on Earth, especially, you know, the younger generation, and future generations, you know. Children of today and are the kids now, their kids are going to be really affected by climate change. So.
Victoria:
(Paden – How can we cool the planet more quickly? Are there special technologies?)
Good answer. I like that. I think that leads in nicely to Paden’s question. “How can we cool the planet more quickly? Are there special technologies?”
Camille:
Good question, Paden. So, I think we talked about, you know, the big natural ways to stop climate change from happening so fast, you know, stop burning fossil fuels, invest in renewable energy and, you know, plant more trees, and support, you know, organizations and things that help grow forests and jungles and plants, things that absorb carbon.
But there are also some special technologies that people are working on, like ways to absorb carbon from the atmosphere artificially, like literally sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. And there’s another thing where that people are doing, where they’re working on ways to geo engineer our atmosphere to reflect more sunlight. Kind of like how white surfaces reflect more light than dark ones, which absorb it. But it’s hard to know what other effects things like these technologies might have, you know, in the long-term. You know, I think it’s a lot better to do things naturally by simply stop emitting so much carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and by promoting biodiversity and the growth of natural places.
Victoria:
(Alice – If we take care of the earth will climate change stop by 2050?)
(Wade – When will climate change start to go down?)
Awesome. And I think that leads in really nicely to our next couple of questions, all about how climate change will change if we do all of these things. So there’s two questions that go together from Alice and Wade. “If we take care of the earth will climate change stop by 2050?” And “When will climate change start to go down?”
Camille:
Good question. So, even if we stop emitting all carbon today, the planet will still heat up a little bit by 2050. But the good news is that the temperature rises and how fast it’s rising will start to slow down. And eventually it will come back to something much more natural.
And then, yeah, to Wade’s question, when will climate change start to go down. You know, it depends on how much we start doing and when we start doing it. So, we are taking action now, but we could be doing a lot more. And again, it takes time for our actions to take effect. And that’s why it’s important for you guys and for future generations to care about the planet and understand what’s happening, so that you guys can help protect it. So it can be around and in good shape for the future of humanity.
And so, yeah, it’s, even if we do everything now, you know, it still takes time for temperature to respond. But it’s important to do as much as we can now to make the change happen faster.
Victoria:
(Gavin – If we can make climate change go away, will it happen again?)
All right. And this next question is from Gavin. “If we can make climate change go away, will it happen again?”
Camille:
Good question, Gavin. I hope not. I think as long as humans are around and you know, intelligent enough, you know, we know what’s going on and why it’s happening. So hopefully we wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Victoria:
(Eve – Without global warming, would the earth still heat up?)
So these next couple of questions are kind of a fun thought experiment. Eve wants to know “Without global warming, would the earth still heat up?”
Camille:
Yeah. So this is a great question. So, the Earth’s climate does change naturally. And again, the climate change we’ve been talking about today is unnatural climate change caused by humans. But when humans aren’t around and burning fossil fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the Earth does heat up and cool down naturally. And this depends on things like how much heat the Earth is receiving from the sun. And things called Milankovitch cycles, which has to do with the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, how much it’s tilted towards the sun, and how much it’s wobbling on its axis. So the Earth, yeah, you guys all probably know, you know, the Earth is tilted and it orbits around the Earth, but it’s also moving like if you spin a dreidel, the axis of the Earth is actually wobbling. And wobble changes on, you know, tens of thousands of year timescales. And right now the Earth is about as hot as it’s been in the past, you know, almost a million years. So, we’re in a natural warm period, but we should, we’re kind of at the peak of that warm period and we should be soon moving into a cooler period and not getting even warmer like we are today.
Victoria:
So if humans weren’t putting any CO2, like if the industrial revolution hadn’t happened, would we be preparing to go into that cool period right now?
Camille:
Yeah, I think we’re kind of at the peak of one of those, you know, If you look at the CO2 and temperature graph, we’re kind of at the peak of one of those cycles and, you know, with natural climate change where we’re kind of in a warm period, which means, yeah, we would soon start to be cooling things off on Earth. But again, this happens over thousands of years and not, you know, hundreds of years, like men manmade climate changes.
Victoria:
Wow. Yeah. One of my professors in grad school, he got his PhD in the early 1970s and his PhD research was looking at what would happen when we go into an ice age around now.
Camille:
Hm, awesome. Yeah. So interesting.
Victoria:
(Paden – What would happen if the planet started to get cooler instead of hotter?)
Yeah. And this is a good follow-up question to that. Paden wants to know “What would happen if the planet started to get cooler instead of hotter?”
Camille:
Yeah. So, you know, like we were just talking about, when natural climate change occurs, cooling periods result in ice ages, and like, you know, the polar ice caps growing. And, you know, in North America, there’s really good evidence that you can see in the rocks and in the landscapes of when the ice sheets were, you know, all the way down to mid-latitudes of the United States. So yeah, so things, if the planet started to get cooler, instead of hotter, you know, we might slowly move into an ice age. And this, this could still be hard for humans to adapt to, but again, because natural climate change happens so much slower over such longer timescales, then other plants and animals and humans would hopefully be able to adjust to this more easily and more naturally.
Victoria:
(Brody – Can climate change affect other planets?)
Yeah, that makes sense. And this is an interesting and fun question from Brody and something I’d never thought of before reading this question. “Can climate change affect other planets?”
Camille:
Good question. This is a really fun one to think about. So climate change on Earth cannot affect other planets. again, the climate change we’ve been talking a lot about is caused by humans. And it’s, you know, unnatural climate change happening for mankind’s addition of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.
So, if humans went to other planets and their atmosphere was one in which carbon dioxide made the planet heat up and we, you know, did things as we’re doing today, then maybe we could make climate change happen on other planets. But otherwise, you know, probably other planets have their own natural climate change systems.
But what we’re doing on Earth has no effect on other planets.
Victoria:
(Eve – Who came up with the nickname “greenhouse gases”?)
That is good to know.
And this is our very last question. Another sort of fun question. Eve wants to know “Who came up with the nickname ‘greenhouse gases’?”
Camille:
This is a great question, Eve. And I had to look this one up, and I think typically people accredit the, you know, coining the term greenhouse gas to these two guys named Jean Baptiste Fourier and another guy named John Tyndall.
But apparently, a recently digitized copy of the American Journal of Science and Arts actually suggests that a woman might’ve beat these guys to it. And this digitization includes a presentation by a woman named Eunice Foote. And this presentation was for a top US science conference in 1856, where she described filling glass jars with water vapor, carbon dioxide and air, and comparing that to how much they heated up in the sun. And she wrote that the highest effect of the sun’s rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas, or carbon dioxide.
I think initially this term was kind of accredited to experiments that Jean Baptiste Fourier and John Tyndall doing, but you know, this woman Eunice Foote may have beat them to it.
Victoria:
Awesome. That’s very cool.
So that is all of our questions, but before we go, I have two other questions for you.
First, we mentioned the climate change shirts that the students will be getting.
Camille:
Yeah.
Victoria:
I was wondering if you would just describe what the chart on the shirt means for the students?
Camille:
Oh yeah. Yes, I would love to, and this is, you know, it’s really important that you guys understand what’s on the shirts so that you can talk to other people about it when they pointed out. You know, that was the whole reason why I made the shirts.
So basically, what is on the shirts is this very important graph that has the record of carbon dioxide and temperature levels on Earth over the past 500,000 years. And these records actually, you know, go back even farther to like 800,000 years. but what you can see on the graph is that, over the past 500,000 years, carbon dioxide and temperature have been doing the same thing over time. So if carbon dioxide levels are high, temperature levels are high. If carbon dioxide levels are low, temperature is low, or it’s colder. So they’ve just been locked in tune, kind of going up and down with natural climate change over the past 500, 800,000 years, almost a million years on Earth.
But what you can see on the shirt and in these graphs is that around the industrial revolution in the 17 and 18 hundreds, all of a sudden there was a huge spike in carbon dioxide levels. And so based on, you know, looking at the graph and the past 500, 800,000 years of data, if carbon dioxide levels have spiked to a really high level, then what do we think temperature is going to do? You know, it’s gonna rise, and it already is starting to rise.
And I’ll just, I’ll say one more thing is that the data on the graphs come from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, which are really good at recording atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature on Earth. And I, you know, I know people that have helped drill these ice cores, and we know that the data are totally good and legitimate because they’ve also compared ice core records with instruments from the 1950s and onwards. And, you know, they totally matched. So we know that the ice core records are good and really accurate representations of what has happened in the past.
Victoria:
Awesome. Thank you. I’m so excited that the students get the shirts, and I’m sure they are too.
Camille:
Me too. I can’t wait.
Victoria:
Yeah. And my last question for you is, do you have any questions for the listeners?
Camille:
Oh, yes. I think my number one question that I hope you can answer now is what are the two main things that we can do about climate change to stop it and to slow it down.
Victoria:
Awesome. And do you have any professional social media accounts or email addresses that the students can use to get in touch with you?
Camille:
Yeah. You guys can email me at my personal account, which is Camille. So C A M I L L E dot M as in Mary dot Collett C O L L E T T@gmail.com. (camille.m.collett@gmail.com)
And I, so I also have a personal website where I have some photography and a blog on climate change. And this website is camille-collett.squarespace.com.
Victoria:
Awesome. And we’ll put a link to that in the episode description. So you can just click on it to visit the website.
Camille:
Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.
And then when one more place you can find me is on Instagram and I have three basic climate change, kind of climate 101 lessons, which include the causes, the effects, and solutions to climate change. And so my Instagram is @cam_collett.
Victoria:
Awesome. Those posts are fantastic. I’ve used them a couple of times in teaching about climate change. So they’re really, really useful.
Camille:
Nice. Awesome.
Victoria:
All right. Well that is everything that we’ve got for today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Camille:
No problem. Thank you so much for having me.
Victoria:
Thank you so much for joining us on Ask a Scientist. I hope you learned something about climate change and enjoyed meeting Camille.
But before you go, we are going to be doing a Ask a Scientist T-shirt giveaway. We will be giving away a T-shirt to the first listener who can send in an email correctly answering Camille’s question. So if you know the answer to the question that Camille asked, what are the two main things that we can do about climate change to stop it and slow it down, sending your answer to askascientistpod@gmail.com. The first listener to send in the correct answer will receive one of Camille’s climate change T-shirt. Check out the picture of the T-shirt in the description of the episode to see it. Good luck!
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