Brian Toon on Nuclear Winter, Asteroids, Volcanoes, and the Future of Humanity
Oct 13, 2022•49 min
Episode description
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?