Cooperation and the Call to Love (Michael Hanby, Aaron Carr, & Martin Nowak) | Ep. 47

In this episode of The Walkup, recorded live at the New York Encounter, we explore what it means to live deeply in today’s fast-paced, distracted world.

Professor Michael Hanby reflects on cultivating depth through education, art, and attention to the beauty of life. Aaron Richard Carr shares his personal journey of conversion, discovering Christ through encounter, love, and grace. And Harvard biologist Martin Nowak reveals how cooperation — not competition — is the hidden engine of evolution, preparing humanity for love and community.

Join us for a conversation that bridges philosophy, faith, and science — and offers hope for a world searching for meaning.

Subscribe on YouTube: @TheWalkupPodcast
Follow on Instagram: @thewalkuppodcast

Transcript

Speaker 5 0:00

Well, Dr. Hanby, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the Walk Up podcast here at the New York Encounter.

Speaker 1 0:05

It's great to be here.

Speaker 5 0:07

So glad to have you on. So I'm curious about what what's your initial impression of the New York Encounter? How did you get involved? Do you know Father uh Josani?

Speaker 1 0:17

I I didn't know Father Josani. I've known numerous people from the movement for years. I've actually done a New York Encounter before. Um in the other location, maybe about 10 years ago. It's been a while. Oh wow, okay. But I have many friends uh in the movement, uh many students uh who are in the movement and and done crossroads events and other other uh CL uh events, so that um uh this is a little bit old hat, though it's been a while, and and it's wonderful. It's grown since I was since I was here last. I've I only got in this morning, so I have not yet had the chance to go up and and look at the exhibit, but it's an exhilarating uh environment, and there were a couple of uh presentations this morning that I really wanted to see, but unfortunately missed because I was on the train. But uh uh it's a wonderful event, and it's great to see so many people from all over the country and all over the city and all over the church. Yes, uh uh turning out for it.

Speaker 5 1:15

Yeah, it this really there are so many people here, the energy is incredible. Um and your and your discussion especially I thought was very interesting. Um so I'd love to talk about um what what you had to say. Um if you don't mind. I know you've talked a lot, you're probably tired from your day of travel.

Speaker 1 1:35

No, I mean I you know um Aaron and John made it pretty easy. Yeah. Um so no, yeah, what would you like to know?

Speaker 5 1:44

Yeah, I I think one thing I heard in particular that, and I might bring this up with Aaron as well. Sure. Is uh you mentioned this this lack of uh discernment for for depth in our in our modern Americans today. And I I think that's a big issue. And how do you think Americans can cultivate this pursuit of depth today?

Speaker 1 2:05

Oh gosh. Um that's an enormous question because it's an enormous cultural uh difficulty. Uh it's a difficulty that's inscribed into um the very form and manner of our thinking. It's a difficulty that is um cultivated and exacerbated by being in a thoroughly technological society and offloading so many of our human capabilities onto our devices and so forth. I, you know, I think um there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts. So uh renewing education um through the arts, uh reading, um, learning uh habits of silence and being still and attending to things, which you know we're we're all uh, you know, it's it it's it's well known that the difficulty people have nowadays, even just getting through a book, um, are is is are kind of unprecedented. You know, we have to be mindful of the ways in which our capacity to recognize depths of are being taken from us uh and try and do things both individually and collectively um to to counteract those. And of course, um restoring ever more deeply beauty to the life of the church, yes. Uh to the celebration of the sacraments, um, uh to the the the the creation of of to the renewal of Christian art. I mean the the the task is is multifaceted because it's really bottomless.

Speaker 5 3:44

Right. That's so true. I I myself was uh trained early on in a classical education, and I think it was the best education I ever received.

Speaker 1 3:55

Yeah, I've been involved, you know, in trying to help um in in that movement, um in the in the movement of Catholic education renewal, and I'm hopeful. I see, you know, my children certainly have received a better education, a deeper education than than I did, and you know, there are little experiments going on all over the country that are are hopeful. And you know, it it's also one of the themes that we talked about was um uh in the discussion up there was the way in which even even sin can be can have a pedagogical dimension.

Speaker 5 4:34

Yes.

Speaker 1 4:35

Well, um cultural disintegration uh can also have a pedagogical dimension, right? I mean things that we perhaps could that my generation at least uh could take for granted uh and uh assume quite comfortably, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago are no longer foregone conclusions, just about uh whether it's on the moral front or um uh with respect to uh cultural and social institutions and their authority. And in, you know, in um when a culture is as divided and as fragmented and fragmenting as ours seems to be, there's an opportunity and there are occasions there for uh looking at things anew and and and looking at them more deeply. So you know you don't want uh to be a party or a witness to uh uh civilizational disintegration, but there are you know things that are possible now that um perhaps 10 or 15 years ago we wouldn't have imagined. So there's a curious kind of hope in that also.

Speaker 5 5:43

I completely agree. In discussing some of these issues with my friends, I've always come to the conclusion that I think we live in one of the coolest times to be alive. There is so much opportunity for growth, for change, for beauty, and uh how do you how do you think we're gonna see that in the future?

Speaker 1 6:03

Well, I mean it it it's fascinating. I don't know. I mean, you know, one of the I I ride a fair bit about um, you know, I try and think about contemporary events in somewhat timeless terms. Um I guess would be one way to describe what I try to do. One of the things that I've discovered, or one of the things that's really been impressed upon me of late, um, is that history is a fast-moving target. Um things that I saw or thought I saw or thought, you know, uh 10 or 15 years ago, which seemed like they might have been cutting edge or radical or what have you, are either obvious now or or things have changed so much that they're obsolete now. And um uh so it's it's really hard to predict what, and and no one has a a real push to ball into the into the future, but there's a it seems to be a pervasive sense um that we're living in a uh some kind of historical paradigm shift, uh, that we're living through um uh times that are weighted, maybe, uh, that have more uh gravitas than um recent generations have done. You know, uh time will tell, as they say, whether that's true or not, but that's there there's people on different who who disagree about a lot of different kinds of things seem to agree on that sense, maybe not able to pinpoint you know what what the issue is. But um if that's true, uh then all kinds of opportunities for rethinking, um uh revisiting, re you know, looking once again at how we organize our society, looking again at our at our politics, looking again at where what institutions have authority, um, looking again at um uh things we've come to take for granted um about justice, or you know, all of those are potentially on the table.

Speaker 5 8:04

So I think it's obvious here at the New York Encounter that there are so many young people, and there's clearly a hunger for truth in today's world. What advice do you have for the younger generation?

Speaker 1 8:17

Uh that's a great question. I'm not sure I have a pithy answer to that. Um would be simply to remain hungry, you know, keep searching. Um, discover the value of, I mean, there's value in understanding. One of the curious things that I would have said just a few years ago, and maybe the sort of social and political upheaval that we're experiencing at the moment would cause me to reassess this, I don't know. But one of the things that I've noticed is that there seems to be this coincidence on the one hand of, you know, we possess as as a people, you know, the power to do things that no other, no previous generations have had. I mean, with the things that the internet have made possible, for example. The things that our technology have made possible, make, make, you know, give us, the developments in medicine give us enormous powers that preceding generations have not possessed. And yet, on the other hand, there seems to be a somewhat pervasive sense of powerlessness oftentimes among um people who have been atomized and individualized by uh our culture and confront this great power exercised corporately and think my own contribution really doesn't avail for much. Yes. And I think a certain kind of despair or or or hopelessness can sometimes come from that. Um what I would want to say by way of advice is don't undervalue um the value of understanding, of coming to see more deeply, even when you, you know, as long as you can see the truth, um uh you're free. Even though you might be powerless to effect, you know, enormous change immediately. Yes. And so one of the things I would like to see is a re is is a recovery of uh the value of thinking and the value of uh of understanding and to realize that that understanding the truth is doing something, even if you can't do much else. So um advice, read books, read good books. Um and uh uh do you have any book recommendations to close? Oh gosh, I mean we just finished discussing a wonderful book that's just been translated into English by Father Gisani. I mean, that might not be a bad place to start. Um searching for the human face, I think, is is close to the title of it exactly. Um but I mean it's hard to I have a list, but it's hard to to isolate one or two. One of the um uh uh principles of the of the movement here in the United States, Carlo Lancelotti, has has been translating, has translated three and soon to be four volumes of the Italian philosopher Gusto Del Noce, who seems to have had real prescience um writing in the 1980s about the shape of our own present. Um I I I've recommended and benefited a lot myself from uh Del Noche's work, and then you know, read something beautiful.

Speaker 5 11:31

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time here. You're welcome, this is an incredible discussion. Enjoyed it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 11:36

Enjoyed it tremendously.

Speaker 5 11:39

Okay, well, Erin, thank you so so much for being here on the Walk-Up podcast at the New York Encounter. I mean, it's an incredible energy, so much is happening. I want to talk about your discussion we just had. Um, an incredibly insightful discussion, and I think there's so many implications for not just cultivating depth in our society, but um for a younger generation discerning truth, finding truth and meaning in this secular world. So I think one pertinent question that I just asked uh Professor Hanby is there's this, there seems to be this lack of discernment of depth in modern Americans, especially our youth. How can Americans cultivate this search for depth and meaning in a world full of short-term gratification and technology?

Speaker 12:35

I think what Father Carran said something like uh either a heart attack or an education. You know, but sooner or later reality imposes itself. You can't you can't avoid it. So I mean it it's either in it's either in a real crisis of life or it's in a real commitment uh to an education. Um and that that I mean that's what I mean that's what the movement's all about. Uh that's the that's the mission of the movement is to educate the heart. Um you know, and uh beyond that, I mean, in terms of books, I mean they should go and get theology and social theory and uh of course uh um in search of the human face. I think that uh you know I mean it was great for me, it was an honor for me to be able to talk with with Michael Hanby about um about John with John Milbank, you know, because for both for both Michael and I, you know, the encounter with with John Milbank's work was also a decisive step uh in that search for the human face. And uh theology and social theory, like like Michael Hambey said in the in the panel, uh, was really for him a decisive uh a decisive event for me too. And so I I would commend it to another generation of young people coming up that are trying to orientate themselves in in the in this world, in a secular world, uh, and to ask themselves what a world uh without God means. And one of the the the key points that that John Milbank sort of proposes over and over again is that every every uh claim about the nature of reality is in itself a theological claim. And so there's no way outside the theological. And I think that this this is incredible because it it connects so so much with uh with what Father Gisani is doing in a here and now in a in a more um existential and um uh more as a personal work in in search of the human face, where um I'm really asked to look at the supposedly banal experiences in my life, the limits in my life, my sins, doing the dishes, whatever it is, to look at them with with a new gaze because those two, those moments too, are determined uh by a theological decision. The depth that I see in them is determined by my theological decision of how much I want to see. And I think that that's the the important thing is that's one aspect of uh of our freedom at play is the way that God proposes himself to us in this world is it's like we can only see as much of God as we really desire to see. And so if you desire to see nothing of God, it will not look like there's anything of God there. But if you really start to pay attention, this is, I mean, another thing which uh try to see if I can get the quotation right from the the Jusani book, he says that um Christianity is is is a search for a miracle in history, you know, and and that that that that that search for moments that happen in which the evidence of Christ's presence cannot be denied. And um, you know, I mean I think that that that's that that the education is that the education is not in the reading of books, but in paying attention again to my life, to those moments that I can't explain away. And then, you know, as Father Michael says, accusing Christ of what he's done.

Speaker 5 16:12

Yes. Oh, what an incredible answer. I I just I love what you had to say about the book because I think I think there's just so much depth and importance there. And it leads me to one quote that I think you brought up in the book. It was uh you were talking about Abraham and discovering the self or the eye. Um holiness uh is not not reflecting how much we give to God, but rather how much God takes from us. Could you explain that? Uh forgive me if I got the quote off a little bit.

Speaker 16:44

That's that that that's it. I mean that that that quotation is taken from uh Adrian von Speyer, who is um Hansus von Balthazar's collaborator and uh a woman that should be read too. Um and uh and Father Gisani quotes her because this this really shows that the the first protagonist in my life is not me. So the the way that I become holy is not by doing Exodus 90. Right? The way that I become holy is by looking at the things that happen to me, right? Uh another another way of putting it is this is something that Hansers von Balthazar says elsewhere. He says, the kenosis of Christ, the sort of self, uh, the self-extinguishing of his of his the giving away of himself that that happens. This is Philippians 2, you know, that Christ there was in the form of God, didn't consider a quality of God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. The self-emptying of Christ is that that to which we need to be conformed, and this can't be a project that we initiate. It has to be something that happens to us. And the place where our freedom comes in is that we say yes, and we we accept it and we offer it back to God. So that's like you know, another statement of Father Gisani is that you know can you either greet reality with clenched fists and you know up against reality like this or you accept reality, and acceptance is really the acceptance and love, I guess, is is is the is is is the great attitude of of the saint.

Speaker 5 18:20

Yes. So to give you a little bit of background on me, I'm actually um converting to Catholicism right now. Oh, great. And uh word willing, I'll enter the church this Eastern. How old are you? I'm 23.

Speaker 18:32

23, okay. Three years younger than I was when I was baptized.

Speaker 5 18:35

Okay. Yeah, so I I wanted to talk about your conversion. What did that look like? What inspired you to seek these deep questions to seek God in such a profound way?

Speaker 18:46

Well, I mean it l like everything, it's something that happens to you in the first place. Um but for me, you know, I mean I had I had I think I had more religious questions uh that were that were coming up in my life and my studies and and my the interests I had in in art and stuff like that, politics. Um and then I was in Russia in 1996. I was in Russia and uh there it happened to be the Easter vigil, but there were people walking through the streets with candles, and so I was with a friend of mine who was um uh also a Canadian who was there, she was there studying English or teaching English. I was there studying Russian language, and we we followed these people sort of half knowing that it was Easter and that this is probably some kind of Easter thing, but neither of us were orthodox neither of us were church going. And uh we went into this little tiny church and we saw the the liturgy unfold. The Easter Vigil Liturgy in the Russian Orthodox Church is spectacular. And what I really was able to see very, very clearly was that if there is a mystery at the heart of reality, I mean if There is a God, it's certain that these people are in contact with that God. That led you to that conclusion. It was just obvious. I felt the same way. Yeah, I mean, just not justani as a quote quote quotes Aristotle in the in the religious sense that says, you know, there's nothing more irrational than denying what is in evidence. Yes. And I mean it's like, because. Well, I mean, but I can I can say, I can say, in fact, a little bit more. I mean, there's something about the solemnity and beauty of the liturgy, also the radiance of the little tiny church filled with incense and the candlelight. And then the popular piety of these little old Russian ladies coming in, kissing the icons, lighting the candles. It was like, man, this is something I've never seen before. There's something different here. I didn't convert to Christianity in that moment. It just opened a door. And I I kind of knew from that moment on that if I I remember feeling conscious that if I ever become religious or take a spiritual journey, it's gonna have to be Christian. And I think before that I thought, like, if I was ever gonna do that, the last thing I'd do would be Christian, I'd maybe be a Buddhist or something. But after that, I knew that if I was gonna really try to take a step in this direction, I would, I would, I would go down that road. But I I wasn't uh at the point of con conversion completely then. Or you know, maybe it's that that's what was just in Co it hadn't yet become explicit, but but it was it was the beginning of something. And then a few years later I had a you know personal crisis in my life, and I realized that I was gonna have to learn how to love and learn how to uh be connected to a greater love, and I knew that the figure of Jesus Christ was the the heart of that, and so that that was then I then I went in pursuit of getting baptized.

Speaker 5 22:02

So powerful. Yeah. If you don't mind, could we briefly dig into that crisis and what that experience was? You don't have to get into specifics at all, but um, yeah.

Speaker 22:11

I mean it was just I mean the the really the the simple thing is that someone who I really loved uh told me I always knew that you loved me, but you didn't love me well because you were you were selfish. You were it was always really about you. And what that person said was absolutely unequivocally true. I mean that that that accusation was not in any way violent, it was it was charitable because it really spoke the truth, and um it was incredibly wounding to me. Um, but I realized that I had lived uh a life really um run on on self-will um in an extreme sense, and so I I really wanted to learn how to love and uh learn how to be embraced by something greater than uh circumstances in life, you know. And so that's that's that's what happened. That's how that that began my journey. Wow.

Speaker 5 23:10

Yeah. And have you since discovered that love through Christ?

Speaker 23:17

Absolutely, but you know, I mean that that but that too is a journey, you know. I mean, there's there's many steps along the way. I was baptized an Anglican uh a couple years later. Uh I I was I was married shortly after I was baptized, uh, and then um a couple of years later my wife and I both became Catholic, and then a couple years after that we met we met the movement Communion Liberation. And that was uh I mean that was the that was the decisive uh for me the decisive uh event of of being able to really say you to Christ in in a concrete way. Yeah.

Speaker 5 24:01

Oh that's incredible. And these these stories always just stir something up in me. I mean they're I just to see Christ's love and it infect someone's life, and then now you're here in in front of thousands of people and spreading that love, that joy, the truth, this wisdom. Um I can't thank you enough for being here.

Speaker 24:23

Well, it's a pleasure for me.

Speaker 5 24:24

It's it's been a pleasure talking to you. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Speaker 24:28

Thank you.

Speaker 5 24:29

Okay, Dr. Novak, thank you so much for coming on the Walk-Up podcast here at the New York Encounter. Um, I'm so curious, how did you hear about the New York Encounter? What have been your first impressions?

Speaker 3 24:40

I I love the New York Encounter. I was here already about 10 years ago, so this is my second time uh at the New York Encounter, and I have stayed in touch uh with people uh from Memories Domini, from Communion Liberation, and I was very, very happy when they invited me to come back a second time uh to talk here.

Speaker 5 24:56

Okay. Well I'm so glad to have you here. And usually we try and listen to the guest talks uh before we've experienced some technical difficulties here, so I unfortunately I didn't get to hear yours. Could you give us some background into what you're discussing?

Speaker 3 25:09

So I'm uh I'm a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. I work on mathematics of biology, on mathematics of evolution. Wow. And um my my research uh uh has has been in the last 20 years uh to study the foundation of evolution, and the foundation of evolution in the classical sense recognizes two fundamental forces: they are mutation and selection. This is Darwinian evolution in the classical sense, but it leaves us somewhere in a domain of great competitiveness and great competition, and um therefore uh it is somewhat a pessimistic view of the world because it seems like everybody's fighting against everybody else. And also in the human realm, it has given rise to terrible worldviews where nations are fighting against each other in two world wars to have more space and only the stronger ones will survive and things like that. And so my work in the last 20 years has really emphasized a third fundamental principle of evolution, and the third fundamental principle of evolution is cooperation. So it is, and I have shown that cooperation is not something that happens just on the side, it is absolutely central to the whole history of life unfolding on Earth. So without cooperation, you don't have an origin of life. Without cooperation, you do not have the first cell, you don't have the first higher cells. So you don't go anywhere in evolution without cooperation, and ultimately cooperation then leads to the human realm, and that's the discovery of human language.

Speaker 5 26:35

Oh wow, okay, fascinating. So your focus is more on uh the organism's symbiotic relationships leading them towards a more advanced state?

Speaker 3 26:45

Yes, in a sense, so I I look at the the so what I what I call the master architect of evolution is cooperation and not competition. And there and cooperation for me then if we come to the to the uh spiritual or Christian world view is really a preparation for love. This cooperation means that we help others, we sacrifice for others, and so this is a preparation for agape, for fileia, but also for eros. It's it's love. And uh also for many years I have been working on the interaction between evolution and Christianity. So this is in the science and religion, and I'm writing books in this area, and my recent books I'm I'm very enthusiastic about them. They're called Beyond, and the other book is called Within. Okay, and in Beyond I describe a world, uh it is uh it's a poetic exploration of sort of human interaction and interaction with God. I describe a world that is beyond the confusion of selfishness, and this is a world that looks very differently and where suddenly some beauty arises that uh is as is unimaginable before. And it's uh that's the book Beyond, and within is the sequel, and within is the idea that if we turn within we find God as a teacher. God is our teacher within.

Speaker 5 28:04

Wow, fascinating. So you mentioned earlier uh how Christian narratives fit into this, and when I think cooperation, I think a sort of transactional relationship. How does true selfless love fit into that?

Speaker 3 28:19

It's very good that you make that point. I'm very impressed because it is true that in the normal mathematical analysis of game theory and cooperation, there is this kind of transaction. So game theory is always about calculating the payoff. And yes, I might cooperate with you, but ultimately only because I will win in the long run, because you will cooperate with me. So therefore, in this work that we have been doing for 20 years, uh I had this interaction with philosophers, with theologians, and uh a very good friend of mine, Sarah Cockley, a theologian, has always asked me but is this real altruism, is this real love, if it ultimately it's only like a payoff? And and if you talk about games, which game is won by a saint? And so these questions have very much led me to work on those books that I just mentioned, and these topics are discussed in there, in Beyond and Within.

Speaker 5 29:15

So beyond and within of the name. So just for our listeners, go go check those out. Uh they seem very interesting, and I'm sure Dr. Novak would appreciate you reading them. Um, so regarding the the rest of your discussion here and how it fits into the broader New York encounter narrative, why do you think what you're discussing today is so relevant uh for the audience here?

Speaker 3 29:36

I think the audience here is a very concerned audience. It wants to ask what can be done to make the world a better place? Um what can be done to help people, what are the challenges? So, as an evolutionary biologist, for example, I have a very long time scale. So I look at a time scale that is four billion years ago of life on Earth. And then there's this tiny, tiny line where intelligent life comes about, you know, maybe 200,000, 300,000, 500,000 years ago. And now we have this human species on Earth. And this human species is in a precarious state because it is undermining its own ecosystem, it is destroying the global environment. So the question for me as an evolutionary biologist is how long will the human species actually survive? Are we talking of a maybe a few more thousand years? Or is it longer? And why is intelligent life so unstable? And here cooperation again comes in because cooperation on a global scale and with future generations is needed to save the human species, to extend the life of the human species. And in my opinion, the only way how this can be achieved is by turning to God to actually to build a society that is not based on secularism, not based on atheism, but that is based on true love and that is committed to a universal love.

Speaker 5 30:58

Yes. And that I that's a it's a very bold um hope and dream. We're heading towards a world of secularism, and I think our country is certainly making a pivot back towards religion and to Christianity in general. But where do you think where do you think the culture is shifting? Do you have hope for the future that we will ultimately put God at the at the forefront of our desires and our purpose as human beings?

Speaker 3 31:28

I think I definitely have hope in the future because I believe in a world that ultimately uh so the primary cause for what we are looking at in the world is God. The final cause of what we're looking at is God. The purpose of human life is to find God by love. Whatever we will experience in the future, in some sense it will not be outside of God's providence. I mean God wants us to behave in a way where we are the guardians, we are the stewards of this beautiful creation. It is our responsibility to work together with God to make the world and the planet uh a beautiful place and habitat.

Speaker 5 32:11

Oh, that's that's beautiful, and and I'm so thankful that you as such a pragmatic uh you know mathematician and biologist can even still have hope for the future. So I thank you so much for your time, Dr. Novak. Uh you had some incredible thoughts here. So thank you very much.

Speaker 3 32:26

Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 32:28

Well, thank you so much for being here, Dr. Emmanuel, on the Walk-Up podcast here at the New York Encounter. Um you just gave a a discussion out there, and I'm I'm very curious to hear about it and um hear what you have to say and a little bit about your background, but first I want to hear what your first impressions are of the New York Encounter.

Speaker 2 32:46

Oh, it's very good. I think we've got an amazing array of talent they brought in on all kinds of different subjects. A very engaged audience. What's there not to like?

Speaker 5 32:56

Yeah, absolutely. I think the energy here is unmatched.

Speaker 2 32:59

Yeah.

Speaker 5 32:59

Like so many young people who are so curious. Um it's an incredible thing to see.

Speaker 2 33:04

It is incredible.

Speaker 5 33:05

So I want to get into your discussion a bit, and maybe let's start with some background about yourself and uh who you are, what you believe.

Speaker 2 33:13

Well, I'm an atmospheric science scientist, also a climate scientist. I uh spent most of my career, 42 years, at MIT, a few years before that at UCLA. I uh initially started out studying weather phenomena and still do for most of my career. I specialize in in the physics of hurricanes.

Speaker 5 33:32

Oh wow.

Speaker 2 33:32

But I've taught climate science at MIT for for several decades, actually, and uh got very interested in that as well. So I'm recently retired in quotes, which means I don't teach anymore, but I'm still very active in research.

Speaker 5 33:46

Okay. And what what was your discussion today?

Speaker 2 33:50

Well, the discussion started out as how do we know the climate's changing, how do we know it's because of us? And David and I presented evidence that's pretty conclusive that we are in fact changing the climate. There's very little, I would say at this point in history, no doubt among the professional climate scientists that that's the case.

Speaker 5 34:12

So if you could highlight maybe your your top three warrants for the claims you presented, could you could you do that? Some of the evidence?

Speaker 2 34:21

Well, so we we only spent part of the time talking about that. Okay, there's no question that the carbon dioxide content and the methane content of the atmosphere has gone up. We know that going back hundreds of thousands of years from examining bubbles of air trapped in ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica, and we've been measuring it uh from Hawaii since 1958, there's no question. Looking at the chemical composition, the particular molecules of CO2, there's also no doubt that they arose from fossil fuel combustion, particular chemical content. So we know that we put the CO2 there. The CO2 is way out of bounds for how it's varied, it's more than it's been for about three million years at least on the planet. So we've d we are really pushing the atmosphere hard. Basic physics, and I don't mean big fancy computer models, just basic physics uh tells us that putting greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will warm the climate by a certain amount. It has been warming pretty much exactly along the rate that was predicted 120 years ago. Wow. Fonte Arenaus in uh Sweden made that prediction. And so this isn't all this isn't new science. There is a lot of new science, but uh there is no doubt that we are warming the climate. And to the extent that that there's anything that has no doubt in science, this is one of them. Okay. Wow. Um so that's not where the interesting questions lie at this point. It's what are the consequences of that? I mean exactly. What does it mean that the climate's gonna warm three degrees when we succeed in doubling the amount of CO2 from pre-industrial time? Okay, three degrees, what does that translate to? What we're worried about is not three degrees per se, but changes in the incidence of wildfires, of hurricanes, of tornadoes, hail storms, heat waves, droughts, all of which affect us and affect the economy. So all the action and the science side at this point is trying to figure out how those phenomena change. How will it actually change civilization in other ways?

Speaker 5 36:31

And so what are the implications of this? And how how can we repair it?

Speaker 2 36:36

So the implications depend on the phenomena. So let's take hurricanes, which are my specialty. Uh the science is fairly clear on some points and not clear on other points. Uh that it's clearly that it's clear that the intensity of hurricanes will go up. Uh recently we've been able to measure uh from space that they actually are getting more intense. Uh they will produce a lot more rain, and the big killer in hurricanes globally and in the United States is water. Rain, water uh producing flooding, as we saw in Asheville.

Speaker 5 37:10

Yeah, I'm curious what your thoughts are about that. Was there anything peculiar about that specific hurricane?

Speaker 2 37:17

Well, it certainly it's been a long time since they've had something like that in that part of the world. Right. Um climate change undoubtedly increased the probability of having rainfall of that magnitude. You can't say it caused that. Right. Something would have happened, but it might not have been a lot of different things.

Speaker 5 37:32

There's some correlation there though.

Speaker 2 37:33

Uh it's not just a correlation, it's physics. Okay. Right. Physics is really important. It's harder to explain to people, but it's really, really important. When you warm up air, it can hold and does hold more water vapor. That's not that difficult if that's the source of these rains. But also the stronger winds uh cause more storm surge on the coast, like a tsunami caused by wind. Okay. It's what flooded this city, New York, uh, in 2012 with sandy, and that was uh a big storm surge caused by a lot of effective wind across the water. We don't know, on the other hand, whether the frequency of those storms will go up or go down, or maybe not change at all. That's an unsolved problem we're working on. Uh something we have uh great confidence in is that the incidence of drought and ironically floods will go up, but that's also very simple physics. Um we think that the incidence of severe convective storms that produce phenomena like hail, which is terrifically damaging, we don't hear a lot about it, and tornadoes will probably go up, but we don't know that for sure. That's something that we need to do a lot more work on. The incidence of wildfires, that's kind of a no-brainer. You have more drought, you have more susceptibility. You can have more rain in the winter and more drought in the summer, as in Southern California. That's a terrible combination. Can you get more vegetation and then it dries out, it's a tinderbox. So it's dealing with these risks, right, quantifying the risks, quantifying the uncertainty around that it's our job. What's everyone's job in a democracy is to try to choose or figure out what to do about that. And I'm interested in that too, but that's a that's a problem for everybody.

Speaker 5 39:21

Well, very interesting. And I think amidst all of this uncertainty, where where do you see God in this? This is a Catholic event, and obviously a question that is pertinent, and I think on a a lot of these people's minds. What do you think?

Speaker 2 39:36

Well, my feeling about that, and and I'm um I'm not a theologian, is that among many other things, what I take away from the Bible is that we are stewards of our environment, we're stewards of the physical environment, of animals, and that doesn't mean we should shouldn't eat, right? Right. It just means we should take care of it. Absolutely. And I think It is our job to take care of the planet. And uh it's certainly we owe a lot to future generations. Everybody with children, you know, whether they're religious or not, even, is going to pay a lot of attention to what happens to their kids. Yes. And I have a kid, I'm very worried about that. I want to pass on a planet that they can comfortably inhabit. I think we should do what's in our power to do to bring that about.

Speaker 5 40:24

Okay. Oh, great answer. Well, thank you so much for your time, Dr. Emmanuel. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Speaker 2 40:32

Thank you, it's been my pleasure.