May 2021. Vol. 42, No. 3 Discover

Citation preview

WHY TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPING

p. 12

®

SCIENCE

THAT MATTERS

MAY 2021

SAVE THEEARTH! A HOW-TO GUIDE

WHAT YOU CAN DO (THAT

REALLY WORKS) p. 30

CAN TREES IMPROVE HEART HEALTH? p. 50 INSIDE AMERICA’S SECRET WATER SOURCE p. 38 WHY HUMANS NEED NATURE p. 44

DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

BONUS

ONLINE CONTENT CODE p. 3

PLUS

ALIENS AND OUR ECOSYSTEM p. 58

A R C H A E O L O G I C A L

PAT H S

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COVER STORY How to Save Planet Earth Your individual behavior won’t fix climate change. Five experts share more meaningful ways to think green. TIMOTHY MEINCH

38

Ebb and Flow America’s biggest aquifer depends on these damaged wetlands. What happens if we fail to fix them? JOHN RICHARD SAYLOR

44

Human + Nature: According to Werner Herzog The documentarian and his co-director, Clive Oppenheimer, talk about celestial rocks, fake news and the “Disney-ization” of the wild world.

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Can Trees Heal Hearts? Researchers in this polluted city are planting thousands of trees in a bold health experiment. NANCY AVERETT

MARK ZASTROW MAY 2 02 1 . D IS C OV ER

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CONTENTS

HOT SCIENCE P. 11

Explore how dragonflies and damselflies are different, what time really means, how Vancouver’s marmots are saving themselves, what to read next and more!

p. 11

COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS

6

58

Cycles of Change

Gaming the Ecosystem

A lot has changed in the world of recycling since our editorial director was a trash collector.

p. 62

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A video game about battling aliens could help ecologists study life on Earth. JAMES DINNEEN

INBOX Our readers reflect on the top stories of 2020, and more.

62

22

Did optical effects from volcanic aerosols inspire the artist’s new direction?

The Tumors That Weren’t

STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA

VITAL SIGNS

A mysterious mass in the left kidney. Lesions in the stomach and lungs. All signs pointed to cancer. What else could it be? DOUGLAS G. ADLER

26

PIECE OF MIND

Let’s Talk About Reef Grief Climate anxiety is real, and psychologists are starting to take notice.

p. 21

TECH NOTE

MARTA ZARASKA

OUT THERE

Georges Seurat’s Sky

66

#SCIENCEIRL The paradox of internet-famous wilderness. TIMOTHY MEINCH

FROM TOP: CLAUDIO ROSSI; DETROIT INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; HQUALITY/SHUTTERSTOCK

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M AG A ZINE

STEPHEN C. GEORGE Editorial Director ELIZABETH M. WEBER Design Director

Cycles of Change

EDITORIAL TIMOTHY MEINCH Features Editor ELISA R. NECKAR Production Editor ALEX ORLANDO Associate Editor JENNIFER WALTER Assistant Editor MOLLY GLICK Assistant Editor HAILEY MCLAUGHLIN Editorial Assistant ANAMARIA SILIC Journalism Resident

O

ne of my first summer jobs in the early ’80s was as a trash collector — well, assistant trash collector, helping my uncle (the collector-in-chief) on his Friday morning run through our little town. We started at dawn and finished around lunchtime, and during those hours, we solved the world’s problems and shared opinions on the day’s news. One morning, after collecting rubbish from a neighbor who was evidently disposing of a lifetime collection of beer cans and plastic bottles, I shared something that I had read recently about a community that just started a curbside recycling program, one of the first in the nation. With all the wisdom of my 14 years, I proclaimed this to be an enlightened program that would save the world if it enjoyed widespread adoption. “Never work,” my uncle spat. “Even if you got folks to go to the trouble, what would it help? You want a real change? Don’t recycle the plastic. Recycle the companies making the plastic.” My uncle was suspicious of any corporation larger than his own small business. We moved on to other topics and never discussed recycling again. But I remembered his snap judgment, especially as we prepared this issue. As Features Editor Timothy Meinch reveals in “How to Save Planet Earth” (page 30), my uncle may have had a point. The modern approach to recycling — and the responsibility it places on consumers rather than corporations — is a broken model and something of a misdirection. Is it a complete waste of time? I hate to think so. But there are other steps we should all consider if we want to contribute to a better future than my beloved uncle might have imagined.

Stephen C. George Editorial Director Feel free to send comments and questions to [email protected]

Contributing Editors BRIDGET ALEX, TIM FOLGER, JONATHON KEATS, LINDA MARSA, KENNETH MILLER, STEVE NADIS, JULIE REHMEYER, DARLENE CAVALIER (special projects)

DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM MEGAN SCHMIDT Digital Editor DONNA SARKAR Digital Content Coordinator

Contributors BRIDGET ALEX, ERIC BETZ, ERIK KLEMETTI, LESLIE NEMO, SCISTARTER, TOM YULSMAN

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INBOX

ERRATA

(“Is the Universe Infinite?”, Dec 2020)

In the article is this statement: “Soon they learned the universe was expanding, too, with galaxies retreating from each other at ever-accelerating speeds.” If this is correct, there can be no collisions between galaxies. But then how does one explain spiral galaxies, the origins of which are explained by the collision of two or more galaxies? James Adie Enterprise, Ala. Author Eric Betz responds:

For brevity’s sake, we omitted a detail pertinent to your question. Galaxies in general are retreating from each other, or red-shifted. This was first established observationally by Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble, and it’s been confirmed by repeated observations over the past century. However, from our local perspective, a handful of galaxies, like Andromeda, are actually blue-shifted, or moving closer to us. Eventually, over something like a trillion years, these galaxies will merge together to form behemoths, and there will no more blue-shifted galaxies. All galaxies will cease interacting.

CAPITAL QUESTIONS (“Black in Academia,” Jan/Feb 2021)

I have a sincere question: Why is Black capitalized, but white is not? C.J. Stoddard, Nampa, Idaho Production Editor Elisa Neckar responds: Thanks for your question, C.J. 

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Black is capitalized while white is not because this is current Associated Press style, and Discover, like many publications, follows AP guidance in style questions. As to why that is AP’s current guidance, here’s what they say: “There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are

THE TOP SCIENCE STORY OF THE YEAR? (“Hindsight Is 2020,” Jan/Feb 2021)

It is understandable that so much of the world’s attention has been on COVID-19 this year. As usual Discover does an excellent job of addressing this important issue. We should never lose sight, however, of the impending disastrous effects of global warming. Global warming should be on our radar more, and we should and must make robust plans to protect our little planet for future generations. One lesson from the pandemic is that the sooner a problem is addressed the better. Just as COVID-19 has affected virtually the entire population of the planet, global warming is and will also affect us all. The news media is too silent on the threat global warming possesses. The result is that many still are not taking this threat serious enough. Paul Robinson Mansfield, Ohio

• “Science … or Just Fiction?”, from the Dec 2020 issue, stated that cyanobacteria were among the oldest species on Earth, at 3.5 million years old. They are, in fact, 3.5 billion years old. In “Looking for Signs,” from the Dec 2020 issue, the statement that about 25 billion stars lie in a habitable zone should correctly read: “About 25 billion stars, roughly one-quarter of those that reside in the Milky Way, have planets lying within a habitable zone.” In “Killer Pollution,” from our Jan/Feb 2021 issue, we reversed the labels on the maps; the map on the left is the fine-particulate matter in 2016, and the map on the right shows the fine particulate matter in 2000. While the amount of PM2.5 has decreased over the past decades, it has not decreased enough: Researchers found that lowering the standards from 12 μg/m3 to 10 μg/m3 would have saved an additional 143,257 lives in one decade.

•

•

LORENZO COMOLLI/NASA

ON A COLLISION COURSE

Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world. That includes the shared experience of discrimination due solely to the color of one’s skin. There is, at this time, less support for capitalizing white. White people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color.” You can read more about their decision at www.apstylebook.com/ blog_posts/16. As with all matters of style and language, this is constantly evolving, so our team will keep a close eye on how this may change as the AP continually reevaluates in the future.

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HOT SCIENCE TH E L AT E ST N E WS A N D NOT E S DEFINING TIME • MARMOT RECOVERY • WILDFLOWER LAWNS • BOOK & PODCAST REVIEWS • THE PULSATING EARTH • PARANOIA-FREE THC?

DAMSELS AND DRAGONS Below those bug eyes, hidden behind the leaf, are four pairs of wings that you might mistake for those of dragonflies. Damselflies belong to the same taxonomic order, but are smaller and slimmer than dragonflies. You can tell them apart by how they hold their wings at rest — damsels can fold their four wings along their body, while dragons hold them flat like a moth. There are around 2,600 known damselfly species; in September, researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences and the Zoological Survey of India added three more. The new arrivals were found in India’s biodiverse Western Ghats mountain range. — WILSON CHAPMAN; IMAGE BY CLAUDIO ROSSI

MAY 2 02 1 . D IS C OV ER

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HOT SCIENCE

How we define time is up to us. What if it was more in tune with the health of the planet?

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What Is Time? THE QUESTION IS MORE PHILOSOPHICAL THAN PHYSICAL — WHICH MEANS WE CAN REDEFINE IT ON OUR OWN TERMS.

OPPOSITE: SEAMIND224/SHUTTERSTOCK. THIS PAGE: ANCHORAGE MUSEUM/ALASKARIVERTIME.ORG

In 1826, time took a strange turn in New Haven, Connecticut. According to historian Michael O’Malley, over several months, a new clock installed atop Town Hall ran slow and then fast in comparison with the clock that had set the local standard time for decades, at nearby Yale College. After cursing the clockmaker, the citizens discovered that both clocks were accurate, but each kept time according to a different principle: The old clock at Yale had complicated gearwork that varied in speed with the seasons to emulate the time indicated on a sundial, which shifts with Earth’s annual orbital wobble. The more modern timepiece turned at a steady rate, like my wall clock does today. Time defies easy definition. Early fifth-century philosopher St. Augustine of Hippo famously wrote that he knew what time was unless someone asked him. Albert Einstein added another wrinkle when he theorized that time varies depending on where you measure it. Today’s state-of-the-art atomic clocks have proved Einstein right — there’s actually a detectable difference between a clock in an airplane and one on the ground. Even advanced physics can’t decisively tell us what time is, because, as the residents of New Haven learned, the answer depends on the question you’re asking. Forget about time as an absolute. What if, instead of considering time in terms of astronomy, we related time to ecology? What if we stopped timing planetary phenomena from an outside perspective — expecting the world to run like clockwork — and allowed environmental conditions to set the tempo of human life? We’re increasingly aware of the fact that we can’t control Earth systems with engineering alone, and realizing that we need to moderate our actions if we hope to live in equilibrium. What if our definition of time reflected that? Recently, I conceptualized a new approach to timekeeping that’s hitched to circumstances on our planet, conditions that might change as a result of global warming. We’re now building a clock at the Anchorage Museum that’s calibrated by the aggregate flow of several major Alaskan rivers, including the glacially sourced Matanuska and Knik, which are sensitive to local and global environmental changes. We’ve programmed it to match an atomic clock if the waterways continue to flow at

their present rate, as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey. If the rivers run faster in the future on average, the clock will get ahead of standard time. If they run slower, you’ll see the opposite effect. As a simple mental picture, imagine a clock with gears connected to a waterwheel instead of a motor. The clock registers both short-term irregularities and longterm trends in river dynamics. Fluvial variations are visible in terms of hourly fluctuations, and the years may drift away from the Gregorian calendar. It’s a sort of observatory that reveals how the rivers are behaving from their own temporal frame, and allows us to witness those changes on our smartwatches or phones. Anyone who opts to go on Alaska Mean River Time will live in sync with the planet. Anyone who considers river time in relation to atomic time will encounter a major disequilibrium and may be motivated to counteract it by consuming fewer fossil fuels or supporting greener policies. Even if this method of timekeeping is novel in its particulars, early agrarian societies also connected time to natural phenomena. In pre-Classical Greece, for instance, people “corrected” official calendars by shifting dates forward or backward to reflect the flowering of artichokes or the migration

ALASKA RIVER TIME Marcus Aurelius once said time is like a river. A project at the Anchorage Museum takes that one step further, with an actual clock that ticks according to the flow levels of Alaska rivers.

of cranes. Temporal connection to the environment was paramount to their survival. Likewise, river time — and other systems I’m developing that will pace clocks to match the growth of trees or the circulation of oceans — may encourage environmental awareness in a world increasingly alienated from nature. When St. Augustine confessed his inability to define time, he evoked one of time’s most salient qualities: Time becomes meaningful only in a defined context. Any timekeeping system is valid, and each is as meritorious as its purpose. — JONATHON KEATS

MAY 2 02 1 . D I S C OVER

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HOT SCIENCE

ON THE BRINK

MARMOT SCHOOL ONCE CRITICALLY ENDANGERED, VANCOUVER ISLAND MARMOTS ARE NOW TEACHING EACH OTHER HOW TO RECOVER.

Hiking across Vancouver Island’s Mount Washington, marmot keeper Jordyn Alger is perplexed. “I’ve never not seen a marmot on a walk here before,” she says. Despite her radio-tracking equipment, she’s come up short this hot July afternoon. But as Alger speaks, as if to reward her optimism, a tagged wild marmot appears on a log, eyeing us. The consistency of her sightings reveals an exceptionally effective program of rehabilitation, bringing critically endangered Vancouver Island marmots (Marmota vancouverensis) back from near extinction. The species is distinguished from the other five North American marmot species — and 14 more worldwide — by its dark brown fur. Landscape changes, often linked to trees encroaching on their preferred open spaces, on Vancouver Island throughout the 20th century fragmented the marmots’ mountain habitat, leaving populations isolated. By 2003, there were fewer than 30 left in the wild, and they were so sparsely distributed that many couldn’t find mates. Experts hoped they could breed marmots in captivity, where the animals

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could be raised safe and healthy before being released into the wild. But captive breeding alone wasn’t enough to bring the marmots back from the brink of extinction: The animals struggled to integrate into their natural mountain habitats. “These captive-bred marmots have so many challenges when we release them into the wild,” explains Cheyney Jackson, field coordinator at the Marmot Recovery Foundation. With no experience of the outside world, the captive-bred marmots didn’t know how to dig hibernation burrows, how far to roam or how to respond to predators. “Everything is new for them,” Jackson says. They have the right instincts, but need help to remember

By 2003, there were fewer than 30 marmots left in the wild, and they were so sparsely distributed that many couldn’t find mates.

them. So the scientists founded the world’s first and only marmot school. By introducing the captive-bred marmots into an existing marmot colony, the scientists could get them the education they would need at the hands of marmots who had lived their lives in the wild. The tough, wild-born marmots would teach their softer cousins the ways of the mountainside. After a year, the graduating students would be transplanted to a new site to repopulate abandoned or struggling colonies. The marmot watching us from its log is right to be suspicious: By the end of the summer, it will be recaptured and relocated elsewhere. The translocations have been remarkably successful — not only have the six bolstered colonies survived, but they’ve spun off another four on their own. There are now upwards of 200 of these marmots in the wild. The success of the program is drawing attention from other breeding programs for endangered species, and although there’s no tiger school in the works yet, it’s easy to see how any captive-bred animal could benefit from a little education. — JIMMY THOMSON

FRANK FICHTMUELLER/SHUTTERSTOCK

Scan this code with your phone’s camera for more: Our List of 32 Animals That Are Closest to Extinction.

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HOT SCIENCE

The Lawns to Wildflowers app has arrived, sharing pro tips on how to turn grassy lawn into buzzing habitat.

BIOLOGISTS ARE RECRUITING EVERYDAY GARDENERS TO SAVE POLLINATORS, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A SMARTPHONE APP.

Anyone can build a tiny habitat amidst the sea of green that is our lawns. Whether it’s a strip of right-of-way outside your urban apartment, your manicured suburban lawn or many mowed acres surrounding your house in the countryside, we’ve all got a little sod we could consider giving back to nature. Researchers have been learning more and more about declines in native pollinators, all while finding out the ways mowed, watered, fertilized and herbicided lawns can negatively affect the environment. That’s why University of Central Florida entomologist Barbara Sharanowski teamed up with ecologist Nash Turley to create the Lawn to Wildflowers program. They’ve developed an app to coach users on how to turn any patch of lawn into native wildflower habitat; it will also collect valuable data. Discover spoke with Sharanowski about the new project, which launched in May 2020. 16

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Q: Some people might shrink at the thought of more bugs in their yard. What do you wish people knew about them? BS: I’m an entomologist, and I love bugs. I think everybody should love bugs. Anyone can go out into their backyard and look at plants and see the interactions that they have with beneficial insects. Not all insects are something that you want to kill or you need to manage. Most of them are just doing their thing, and many are even helping us out, either controlling pests naturally, or pollinating our flowers and crops. So, I want people to go look at them, and be excited about bugs rather than afraid of them.

Q: We know that bees are in trouble. How will Lawn to Wildflowers help? BS: Even though a lot of people talk about honeybees and colony collapse disorder, that’s a non-native, managed species in the U.S. What we really want to promote are native plants that improve biodiversity and abundance of native pollinators, of which there are thousands of species. Meanwhile, there are so many lawns in the world, and they use a lot of water and provide no resources for biodiversity. It’s kind of a waste, especially when even planting a small 6-foot-by-6-foot pollinator garden can really do a lot for

NASH TURLEY (4)

Urban Oasis

The goal of the project: Create something that contributes to the greater health of the environment.

the native insects. So we’re trying to get anyone who is able to convert part of their lawn into a pollinator habitat. That’s the whole end goal of the project: Create something that contributes to the greater health of the environment. Q: What’s in the app? BS: The app gives people information on how to convert a patch of lawn to wildflowers. There’s information like how to kill the grass in sustainable ways and what plants are best. We recommend using very different plants in different regions, but all you have to do is click your region to find the right mix for pollinators in your area. We also want people to collect data for us, because we want to know about pollinator abundance and diversity in the plots that they’ve made. So we’ve built a training game into the app, which teaches people to recognize major pollinator groups — things like honeybees versus bumblebees versus all kinds of other bees, plus butterflies, and some flies and beetles. People can play those games

to study, and then once they get good enough at it, they can start to count pollinators in their plot and submit data we’ll use for our research. Q: What will you do with the information the gardeners submit? BS: We’ll use the data to study factors affecting pollinators in the U.S. and Canada. For instance, we want to see how different elements around the neighborhood, like how much natural area is nearby, impact pollinator abundance and diversity [meaning, population numbers and variety of species]. Q: What are some of the biggest barriers to getting people to do this? BS: We did a big mail-out survey and discovered that the largest barriers are time, and not knowing how to plant a pollinator garden. Time will obviously always be an issue, but we’re hoping the resources we provide in the app — like videos, howtos and other information — take away that latter barrier. The other persistent barriers are things like homeowners’ associations and local ordinances that might restrict unmowed areas. We can’t do a lot about those, but we’re hoping to motivate people to encourage their homeowners’ associations to provide an allowance for pollinator habitat, because it does beautify things. It doesn’t make it unkempt; it actually makes the neighborhood prettier and better serves biodiversity. — ANNA FUNK

MAY 2 0 2 1 . D I S C OV ER

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HOT SCIENCE

WHAT WE’RE READING Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct By Abigail Tucker

N

aturally, Mom Genes starts off in a maternity ward — for sheep. Science writer Abigail Tucker is assigned to watch the pregnant ewes and assist if any of the huge, clumsy mothers-to-be go into labor. It’s an odd scene. You can feel the impatience and anticipation in both author and sheep, as well as a sense of awe. The scene is one of many instances where Tucker highlights the complexities of pregnancy, birth and parenthood. Beyond the illustrative moments from both her own life and others’, Tucker has a knack for unravelling the science behind the many processes that researchers Tucker’s have studied in enthusiasm mothers (and radiates on fathers). For every page, and starters, you may her dive into the have heard of the wacky world so-called “maternal instinct.” Is of motherhood that even quantifiis fascinating able? And how whether you are do the brains of a mom, have a mothers change mom or know a postpartum? mom — of any Even if those questions aren’t species. ones you’ve pondered, don’t sell this book short. (I had reservations before I cracked it open, since I’m not a parent.) Tucker’s enthusiasm radiates on every page, and her dive into the wacky world of motherhood is fascinating whether you are a mom, have a mom or know a mom — of any species. — JENNIFER WALTER

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More Pages to Turn The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens — and Ourselves By Arik Kershenbaum Aliens: We don’t know what they’re like, but we can dream. Unless you’re zoologist Arik Kershenbaum, in which case you’ll argue that there are already ways to understand what extraterrestrials might be like without ever meeting them. Zoology meets ecology and evolution in this fascinating look at the systems that shape our natural world — and potentially the worlds of others. Kershenbaum doesn’t spew unfounded speculations, but instead reflects inward on patterns we use to predict and explain life on Earth. The book taught me as much about the study of the natural world as it did about our potential neighbors in space.

Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer By Steven Johnson We might not have the secret to immortality, but science and medicine have come a long way in extending our life spans. Author Johnson explores several advancements, from vaccines to antibiotics to farming, that have grown into monumental success stories of public health and prosperity. Extra Life is not an exhaustive account of everything that makes modern life prosperous, but gives important insight into the history of a few specific leaps and bounds we’ve made as a species to outwit disease, famine and even the safety threats posed by our own inventions. — J.W.

TUNE IN Wild Wild Tech Studio71

Ever hear about the pandemic in World of Warcraft that helped scientists fight COVID-19? What about the computer algorithm designed to protect musicians from copyright infringement? In this podcast, you’ll find hosts Jordan Erica Webber and Joshua Rivera at these intersections of research, technology and culture. Like lively tour guides, the pair takes listeners through the oddest tales in tech — while still approaching some of the more grandiose ideas with a healthy dose of skepticism. — J.W.

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SPECIAL ENHANCEMENTS: The front is enhanced with selective color and depicts the mission’s launch, its interplanetary journey, and destination, Mars. An inset portrays the Perseverance Rover and its landing site. The back showcases an American Eagle and Mars, inspired by the design of the historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing mission patch.

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On February 18, 2021, mankind took its next big step into space exploration, as the Mars 2020 Mission sucessfully landed NASA’s Perseverance Rover on the mysterious Red Planet. After its seven-month, 290 million mile trip, this technological marvel will help us explore Mars as never before. Allowing us to virtually see, explore, and even hear Mars, we can share its search for clues of ancient microbial life. Perseverance will also drill and store samples of the Martian soil for later recovery. Plus, it will launch Ingenuity, the first-ever Mars helicopter, and new microphones will let us hear Mars “rock.” It bears a chip with the names of 10.9 million supporters, as a special plaque honors the perseverance of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, this historic arrival inspires The Mars Perseverance Proof Coin from The Bradford Exchange Mint.

Richly plated in 24K gold Richly plated in 24K gold, this thrilling tribute’s front recalls the mission’s launch on July 30, 2020, its interplanetary journey, and its destination, selectively enhanced with vivid color. An inset depicts the Perseverance Rover at its landing site. The back showcases an American Eagle and Mars above the Earth, inspired by the historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing patch. Proof quality coining dies create this non-monetary coin’s polished, mirrorlike fields and raised, frosted imagery. It arrives secured for heirloom preservation in a crystal-clear capsule.

Strictly Limited ... Order Now! Order now at the $39.99*, issue price, payable in two installments of $19.99 each. You need send no money now, and you will be billed with shipment. Your purchase is backed by our unconditional, 365-day guarantee and you may cancel at any time. Strong demand is expected from space enthusiasts, adventurers, and history buffs everywhere. Don’t miss this thrilling next step, return the coupon today!

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subject to product availability and order acceptance. By accepting this reservation you will be enrolled in The Mission to Mars Proof Coin Collection with the opportunity to collect future issues. You’ll also receive a deluxe wooden display box — FREE! You may cancel at any time.

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HOT SCIENCE

The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don’t Agree About Why LIKE CLOCKWORK, SEISMOMETERS ACROSS MULTIPLE CONTINENTS HAVE DETECTED A MYSTERIOUS PULSE SINCE AT LEAST THE EARLY 1960S. lot — certainly not enough that you’d feel it — but just enough that seismologists on multiple continents get a measurable little blip on their detectors. Though this pulse has been observed for decades, researchers don’t agree on what’s causing it. The pulse — or microseism, in geologist lingo — was first documented in the early 1960s by researcher Jack Oliver at the Lamont Geological Observatory (now known as the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory). Oliver figured out that the pulse was coming from somewhere “in the southern or equatorial Atlantic Ocean,” and that it was stronger in the Northern Hemisphere’s summer months. In 1980, Gary Holcomb, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, used new tech to look at the microseism: digital seismometers. But both his and Oliver’s work would mostly be forgotten to time, while the constant seismic drumbeat would go on, unnoticed, beneath our feet. Then one day in 2005, graduate student Greg Bensen was

working with seismic data at his lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. His advisor, seismologist Mike Ritzwoller, walked in and asked him to show him what he was working on. As Ritzwoller tells it, Bensen pulled up some data, and there it was: a strong signal, coming from somewhere far off. The team triangulated the pulse to its origin, a single source in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western coast of Africa. They dug up Oliver’s and Holcomb’s work, and published a study in 2006 in Geophysical Research Letters. But no one as yet has really confirmed the cause of the regular seismic activity. Though many assume it’s caused by waves, some speculate that it’s caused by volcanic activity. “We’re still waiting for the fundamental explanation of the cause of this phenomenon,” says Ritzwoller. “I think the point [of all this] is there are very interesting, fundamental phenomena in the Earth that are known to exist out there and remain secret.” It may be up to future generations of students, he says, to truly unlock these great enigmas. — ANNA FUNK

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BAKING SODA AND BAKING POWDER?

B

aking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, leavens your baked goods because of the chemical reaction it undergoes when mixed with acidic ingredients. Baking powder, on the other hand, is a mix of baking soda, an accompanying acid and a buffering agent. They can’t be used interchangeably unless you’re prepared to do some extra chemistry — like adding an acid, like vinegar, in just the right amounts to activate your baking soda when the recipe calls for powder. And since baking powder packs extra ingredients into the formula, recipes tend to call for larger volumes; putting an identical amount of baking soda in a recipe that calls for powder will ruin your dessert, at best imparting a salty flavor, at worst, a soapy one. It’s safest just to wait until you can get some more. — LESLIE NEMO

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FROM TOP: SERGEY NIVENS/SHUTTERSTOCK; LUIS ECHEVERRI URREA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Every 26 seconds, the Earth shakes. Not a

DELTA-8-THC PROMISES A HIGH WITHOUT PARANOIA OR ANXIETY








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A VARIATION OF THE FAMILIAR DELTA-9-THC COMPOUND IS GROWING IN POPULARITY AMONG CANNABIS CONSUMERS.

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Delta-9-THC, the main drug in cannabis plants that gets people high, can also be a potent medicine. It can treat extreme nausea and stimulate appetite, which is especially helpful for people who have HIV or are going through chemotherapy. A synthetic version of THC, called Dronabinol, has been used to treat these conditions since the 1980s. But while marijuana is a relatively mild drug with few side effects — at least, compared to alcohol or tobacco — too much Delta-9-THC has its downsides. It can sometimes spark paranoia and anxiety, or trigger dizziness and headaches. That’s why many cannabis consumers are turning to an obscure analogue of Delta-9-THC called Delta-8-THC. Preliminary evidence suggests the compound might have fewer negative effects, as well as additional medicinal properties. Both THCs are made by cannabis plants. The main difference between Delta-8 and Delta-9 comes down to the location of a specific bond between two of the atoms that make up each THC molecule. That may not sound like much, but the limited science






available suggests it can be enough to change how the body reacts. “I think it’s been shown that there’s a difference,” says Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician at Harvard Medical School who specializes in medical marijuana. “People report [Delta-8] as being less anxietyprovoking, less sedating and a little more clear-headed than THC.” But he also cautions that the alleged benefits of cannabis-based drugs shouldn’t supersede the evidence: “Whenever there’s another minor cannabinoid that people start puffing up, I always worry that the marketing claims and the desire to line people’s pockets is going to outpace the actual science.”

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VITAL SIGNS BY DOUGLAS G. ADLER

vanish for weeks at a time. This time, he had been at home, feeling fine, when suddenly he was overcome by abdominal cramps and nausea. He ran to the bathroom and retched severely, eventually bringing up the blood. Naturally, the episode terrified him. He called 911 and here he was. At the time of our first visit, Albert seemed fine. He had been in the hospital for just under a day and was feeling like his old self. He wasn’t taking any of the medications known to promote the formation of stomach ulcers — overthe-counter anti-inflammatories such as aspirin or ibuprofen are among the most common — and he denied ever having reflux symptoms. His physical exam and blood tests were essentially normal. I suggested that we schedule an upper endoscopic exam for the next day, which would involve inserting a flexible camera into his mouth to evaluate his esophagus, stomach and the beginning of his small bowel, in order to look for a source of blood loss.

The Tumors That Weren’t A MYSTERIOUS MASS IN THE LEFT KIDNEY. LESIONS IN THE STOMACH AND LUNGS. ALL SIGNS POINTED TO CANCER. WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?

I

was called to see Albert, a 35-year-old man, while he was an inpatient at our hospital. Albert had experienced a bout of hematemesis (vomiting blood) and had been admitted to determine the cause. Although dramatic in nature, hematemesis is a common complaint that we gastroenterologists are trained to evaluate and treat. Most patients have garden-variety problems, such as stomach ulcers or esophagitis (inflammation in the esophagus from acid reflux), that can lead to hematemesis; these troubles are generally easily managed. But not this time. Albert told me that he had been feeling poorly for several months, with symptoms that seemed to come and go. He often experienced severe left-sided back pain that would come on out of the blue, leave him in agony for a few days, and then suddenly disappear. Sometimes, he would get abdominal pains that would leave him doubled over, only to have them

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Albert had been at home, feeling fine, when suddenly he was overcome by cramps and nausea.

Upon arriving at the endoscopy lab the next day, I couldn’t help but notice that Albert’s name had been removed from the schedule of patients. I asked our receptionist what had happened and was told that Albert had been moved to the intensive care unit; he was too unstable to undergo his endoscopic procedure. Assuming that he had vomited blood again — recurrent episodes of hematemesis are also common — I went to the ICU to see him, only to be told some startling news by the physician in charge: Albert had experienced severe hemoptysis (coughing up blood from his lungs), which had prompted his transfer to intensive care. He was currently on a ventilator as he was struggling to get enough oxygen on his own. This was a striking development; hematemesis and hemoptysis are very different clinical entities, and usually the diseases that lead to one do not lead to the other. Could Albert have two separate disease processes occurring simultaneously?

KELLIE JAEGER/DISCOVER

OFF TO THE ICU

VITAL SIGNS

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they saw similar spots. I suggested that they biopsy them as well, and began to wonder about Albert’s missing spleen. Perhaps we were wrong about his diagnosis.

VENTING HIS SPLEEN

I have performed many endoscopic procedures and seen more than my share of cancer. But these lesions did not look like cancer at all!

The next day, the pathologist assigned to the case phoned me regarding Albert’s biopsies. He wanted to be sure we had biopsied the right areas. What he saw under his microscope didn’t look like stomach or lung; they appeared to be biopsies from the spleen. Now we were getting somewhere. Albert didn’t have cancer, I concluded: He had splenosis. This is a rare condition where tissue from a patient’s own spleen migrates to other parts of their body. Trauma to the spleen — in the case of a car accident, for example — can result in splenic tissue being released into the abdomen and/or the bloodstream. From there, the tissue can take up residence almost anywhere in the body. How tissue from the spleen is able to transplant itself is not well understood. Splenic lesions can be solitary or multiple, and we were not the first doctors to think a patient with splenosis had cancer. Sometimes the lesions in splenosis are totally asymptomatic, but they can cause bleeding or pain, compress other organs, and even lead to seizures if they find a foothold in the brain. The treatment for splenosis is to remove or ablate symptomatic lesions. The pulmonologist and I repeated our respective procedures and, using devices capable of cauterizing tissue, burned off as much of the errant splenic tissue as possible. We also removed the mass in Albert’s kidney; it too was splenic tissue. All of this was a consequence of a car accident that had happened almost two decades ago. The splenic tissue had been alive in Albert all this time. Why the lung and stomach lesions decided to bleed at nearly the same time remains a mystery. Albert still has splenic implants in his body that can be treated if need be in the future, but he was overjoyed with his final diagnosis. It was certainly better than metastatic cancer. D Douglas G. Adler is a professor of medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City. The cases described in Vital Signs are real, but names and certain details have been changed.

KELLIE JAEGER/DISCOVER

It was possible, but seemed unlikely. I still wanted to get a look at Albert’s esophagus, stomach and small bowel. The ICU doctors also wanted to get a good look at his lungs via a different type of endoscopy, known as a bronchoscopy. We agreed that we would both perform our respective examinations the following day, in the ICU, where he could be monitored closely. I also suggested we get a CT scan of Albert’s chest, abdomen and pelvis. That evening, I got a call from the radiologist on call regarding the CT scan results — never a good sign. Albert appeared to have a mass in his left kidney as well as similar smaller lesions in his lungs and in the lining of his stomach. The radiologist told me that this appeared to be kidney cancer that had already spread to many other sites in the body. This was obviously very disturbing and ominous news. Still, it seemed to explain Albert’s symptoms and provide a unifying diagnosis; cancerous lesions in the stomach and lungs can and do bleed. I logged on to my computer from home to look at the CT scan myself, and it certainly looked to me just as the radiologist had described. But … I also noticed that the radiologist also reported that Albert had undergone prior surgical removal of his spleen, a fact that Albert had not mentioned to me when I asked him about his prior medical history. By the time I arrived in the ICU the next day, Albert had been removed from the ventilator and was breathing on his own. He had already been told the results of his CT scan and was understandably dejected. As we were setting up to do his endoscopy and bronchoscopy, I asked him what had happened to his spleen. “Oh, yeah,” he said, clearly recalling something he had not thought of in some time, “I was in a car accident in high school and my spleen ruptured and had to be removed. I forgot all about it.” After Albert was sedated, I inserted the endoscope through his mouth. His esophagus was normal. I did see several raised red lesions in the lining of his stomach. I have performed many thousands of endoscopic procedures and seen more than my share of cancer. But these lesions did not look like cancer at all! I was cautiously optimistic. Still, the lesions were abnormal, so I dutifully biopsied several of the worrisome spots. The rest of his exam was normal. When the pulmonologists looked in Albert’s lungs with their bronchoscope,

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tragically went so far as to set himself on fire in 2018 to protest the use of fossil fuels as a global pollutant.

Let’s Talk About Reef Grief CLIMATE ANXIETY IS REAL, AND PSYCHOLOGISTS ARE STARTING TO TAKE NOTICE.

I

’m trying to work but my heart is pounding. I’m in my daughter’s bedroom, the only air-conditioned room in our house. Outside, the French summer roasts at 109 degrees Fahrenheit. But it’s not just the outdoor heat that makes me feel light-headed. I’m reading research papers on climate change with titles like “Accelerating Extinction Risk” and “Accelerated Dryland Expansion.” Everything seems to be accelerating, my pulse included. Thoughts race, too: How bad is it, really? Are we all doomed? Should I start homeschooling my daughter in martial arts, shooting and forest gathering? Should I get a Xanax — or stay true to my Polish roots and just drink some vodka? Scientists already have several terms for what I’m experiencing. Some call it climate anxiety. Others call it pre-traumatic stress disorder or solastalgia — distress over seeing the natural environment negatively transformed. There is also “reef grief ” — named after the heartache people describe over the loss of coral reefs. Name notwithstanding, one thing is clear: Worry and fear surrounding global warming is sharply increasing, taking a toll on many. An American attorney, David Buckel,

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One thing is clear: Worry and fear surrounding global warming is sharply increasing, taking a toll on many.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they feel at least somewhat worried about the climate in a late 2018 survey by Yale and George Mason universities. Twenty-nine percent said they’re very worried, double the rate found in a similar study conducted four years earlier. Britons feel nearly as much anxiety about climate as they do about Brexit. Groups like the American Psychological Association have started to take note of the global trend, acknowledging in a 2017 report that some people “are deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change.” I can relate. Yet apart from surveys and anecdotal data, we still lack much solid research on what exactly climate anxiety is and how it may differ from more traditional fears — like that of heights or general uncertainties. Among the few studies done on the issue, I found one particularly reassuring: When researchers surveyed more than 130 participants, they found almost zero correlation between ecological worry and general anxiety or any specific personality traits. I can rest assured that my global-warming panic doesn’t necessarily mean I have an undiagnosed mental illness. Susan Clayton, environmental psychologist at the College of Wooster, in Ohio, compares it to anxiety felt before a job interview — it makes perfect sense, simply because there are plenty of real reasons to worry. That said, climate anxiety could turn pathological in some cases. “If it makes it difficult for you to sleep, to socialize, to work — if it’s interfering with your ability to

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world were less convinced climate change was real after reading about impending doom. It’s really no surprise, since we know how threatening information can paralyze us. Neville Ellis, an environmental scientist at the University of Western Australia, describes climate denial as a way that people cope with eco-fears. In his work with residents of Australia’s Wheatbelt, he says, “Some [people] were telling me, ‘Look, I can’t afford to believe in human-caused climate change because if that’s so, then my land is going to turn into a desert and that would be just too sad.’ ”

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SUMMERTIME SADNESS For me, the presence of sadness and grief rivals that of the anxiety. Just thinking about trees constantly falling in the Amazon makes me feel as if someone has died. That’s normal, Ellis assures me. Together with a colleague from Labrador Institute of Memorial University, Ellis investigated ecological grief among farmers in rural Australia and Inuit communities in Canada. They discovered that eco-grief often comes in three varieties: grief over physical losses (like flood devastation or deforestation), grief associated with loss of identity, and grief over anticipated future ecological losses. And these feelings pose an extra challenge since we’re not used to talking about them. “People might feel the grief, but it’s not something that has been legitimized in society,” Ellis says. Most of Western society lacks rituals to help us mourn nature. There are no monuments for the Amazon forest, no last rites for extinct species. Yet things are changing: In 2019, a community in Iceland came together for a funeral for a melted glacier. The coming together part is important. Clayton believes that talking to like-minded others makes it

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function in a general way,” you are in trouble, she explained. I’m not there yet. What’s fueling your climate fears matters, too. A recent study, for instance, showed that nature and animal lovers face more overwhelming fear than, say, a skier worried about losing fresh powder on the slopes. People who just worry about climate cramping their lifestyle aren’t feeling the stress in the same way. Research also shows that when concerned nature lovers act on their climate anxiety, it can prevent depression from setting in. As I’ve plunged deeper into my own climate anxiety, I’ve felt envy toward those who seem untouched by such fears. Admittedly, it would be nice to go about my days without my blood pressure skyrocketing over extinction risk. But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that climate change skeptics may be using their beliefs as a shield to deal with such an overwhelming threat. In one experiment, researchers polled participants’ thinking before and after reading either an apocalyptic-sounding article, or a similar story with a positive spin. People who believed in a just

Earthmovers (left) clear trees for a palm oil plantation in Malaysia. Floodwater (right) inundated La Lima, Honduras, after Hurricane Eta in November 2020.

easier for climate scientists to deal with eco-anxiety. Climate researchers often use dark humor and develop thick skin to keep going. They also play up the positives — focusing on the meaning they get from their jobs, being part of a community and their love for science.

STRESS THERAPY Clayton tells me I might benefit from emulating these scientists. I could find a close-knit community to talk through my climate dread, and seek meaning in the environmental challenges our planet is facing. Write letters to decision-makers. Engage myself more in making my town more climate-friendly. In fact, focusing on how to solve problems is one of the best ways to deal with stress related to global warming. One study found that, besides problem-solving, four key strategies work well to

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Most of Western society lacks rituals to help us mourn nature.

relieve environmental anxieties: expressing emotions, taking pleasure in nature, focusing on your own health and, rather bizarrely, wishful thinking, or hoping that things will somehow work out. When I step back, one thing becomes clear. We need role models for how to talk about our climate worries and how to deal with them. We also need to start discussing these issues openly, admitting our fears without shame. We should do it together, almost like group therapy. So, I’ll go first: Hello, my name is Marta, and I have climate anxiety. I’m scared about the future of our planet. I’m grieving. Your turn. D Marta Zaraska is a Canadian science writer and author of Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100.

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COVER STORY

YOUR INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR WON’T FIX CLIMATE CHANGE. FIVE EXPERTS SHARE MORE MEANINGFUL WAYS TO THINK GREEN.

HOW TO

SAVE PLANET BY TIMOTHY MEINCH

EARTH

a you ever held a product in your hands ave a and considered the existential weight of your purchase? Beyond each price tag hides a ripple p effect. It expands from soil to waterways, e grocery aisles to kitchen plates, factories to g ffulfillment centers and mail slots to landfills. This global impact has become less hidden Th

PREVIOUS SPREAD: SEPP PHOTOGRAPHY/SHUTTERSTOCK. LEFT: ABDUL RAZAK LATIF/SHUTTERSTOCK. BIO PHOTOS, FROM TOP: COURTESY OF TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG; COURTESY OF ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ; MARCUS BRANCH; BEOWULF SHEEHAN; COURTESY OF DANIEL WILDCAT

in the past decade, and ignoring the of the environmental movement is having people downstream from us has grown everyone focus on these small things that increasingly difficult. We’re more aware everyone can do,” says Ayana Elizabeth than ever of the mark our consumpJohnson, a marine biologist and co-host tion leaves on planet Earth, which now of the podcast How to Save a Planet. sustains nearly 8 billion people. Somehow, That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. humans are still pumping more than There are just more meaningful and 30 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per long-lasting ways to expend your energy year into the atmosphere, despite the in the climate fight. Most of them involve mountain of evidence that CO2 is the top organization and collective action. contributor to greenhouse gases causing “Individuals join together to colglobal warming. Similar conundrums lectively have far more power changing apply to use of plastics and consumption the system than they can as individuals,” of meat and other goods. We know we says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of need to do better, but we feel helpless the Yale Program on Climate Change and overwhelmed. Let’s call this the Communication. He and many researcheco-stential crisis; it applies on a deeply ers who have run the numbers say even personal level for most environmentally the most valiant voluntary lifestyle aware humans, and on a global scale. modifications — going vegan, refusing Climate journalist and author Tatiana to fly or investing in green energy for Schlossberg says even a simple trip to the your home — fall far short of the change supermarket can feel paralyzing in 2021. we need. These experts propose other “I want to buy the local thing, but it’s not key steps that every human can take organic. Or, maybe it’s in a plastic box,” toward a better future. But first, you must she says. In her 2019 book Inconspicuous understand some of the facts and myths Consumption, she ventures way beyond on the current playing field. the store aisle and into the web of less THE FOSSIL FUEL NARRATIVE apparent ways that humans are damaging Climate journalist and author David Earth. For example, your internet use Wallace-Wells puts the climate reality in is tied to extensive carbon emissions stark terms. “We need to get from about and energy consumption. The solution 40 gigatons a year of carbon emissions to to this problem, however, is not for you zero in the next few decades if we want to stop using the internet, according to to stabilize the planet’s climate below Schlossberg and a host of other climate what’s been called a catastrophic level of experts. The world is more complicated warming,” Wallace-Wells says. His recent than that. book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After In fact, being a good citizen on planet Warming, paints a bleak, evidence-based Earth has never been more complicated. picture of the near future on Earth. The On your own journey with climate book shot to No. 1 on The New York Times concerns, you’ve likely asked or agonized bestseller list in 2019. over this question: What should I do? It’s His take, and that of his peers, is that easy to get lost in the blizzard of supposed voluntarily shaving back your answers swirling around social personal carbon output by media, the latest data sets some percentage — or buying and “eco-friendly” marketing actual carbon offset credits campaigns. So, we took this while you keep using fossil question to five people who fuels — is a less significant have immersed their careers, fight. More specifically, research and writing in the it’s the fight that fossil fuel realities of climate science. companies told consumers One of their most consistent AVERAGE ANNUAL to take on. insights may surprise you: ICE LOSS IN “It’s a diversion. It’s Consumer responsibility — GREENLAND, an extremely successful and guilt-ridden behavior 2003–2018; PR campaign to make modification — misses A RECORD us all feel terrible about the mark. 532 BILLION TONS our individual decisions “One of the major failings

259 BILLION TONS

OF ICE MELTED IN 2019.

THE EXPERTS

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Tatiana Schlossberg climate journalist, author of Inconspicuous Consumption

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Anthony Leiserowitz senior research scientist at Yale University, founder and director of Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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Ayana Elizabeth Johnson cofounder of Urban Ocean Lab, co-host of How to Save a Planet podcast, cofounder of All We Can Save project

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David WallaceWells editorat-large at New York magazine, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

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Daniel Wildcat professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, member of the Muscogee Nation, author of Red Alert!

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100 TIMES FASTER

THE ANNUAL RATE OF INCREASE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 OVER THE PAST 60 YEARS, COMPARED TO NATURAL INCREASES IN PRIOR YEARS. 34

D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M

and not actually focus on changing the fact that we have a fossil fuel-based economy,” Johnson says. As a prime example, three of our experts pointed to the history of the carbon footprint — a tool that tells you (or your business) how much pollution you are creating. The fossil fuel industry, particularly British Petroleum (BP), pushed this concept onto the masses in a hugely successful marketing effort roughly 20 years ago. Rather than try to defend its crude oil, petroleum and other fossil fuel products (which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now identifies as “the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions”), the industry handed its customers a method to feel bad about their consumption. Meanwhile, BP ranks sixth on the list of the world’s top contributors of CO2 and methane, according to 2017 data from the Climate Accountability Institute. Just 20 energy

companies were responsible for 35 percent of these pollutants worldwide. Another campaign that began with fossil fuel companies? The modern approach to recycling that has been integrated across the U.S. for decades, despite persistent criticism and concerns about the broken model. Essentially, the petroleum-reliant plastics industry framed recycling as a fix, while continuing to create new plastics with petroleum, natural gas and their byproducts, and profiting off the business. Meanwhile, only a fraction of what you responsibly toss in the proper bin gets recycled. “It’s totally bogus,” Leiserowitz says. “As long as you and I are left on the hook for this, [the companies] are free.” In a major NPR and PBS Frontline investigation in 2020, journalist Laura Sullivan wrote, “The industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work … all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.”

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Earth’s average global temperature has climbed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.

HIGH HEAT

CARBON DIOXIDE LEVEL (PARTS PER MILLION)

Scan this code with your phone’s camera for more: How Hot Will Climate Change Make Earth in 2100?

THE MODERN SURGE OF CO2 480 460 440 420 400 380 360 340 320 300 280 260 240 220 200 180 160

CURRENT LEVEL

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With this broader understanding of the crisis at hand, consumers can take informed and deliberate actions to shift our culture at large, as if our climate depends on it. Wallace-Wells says this doesn’t cancel out living your personal values with lifestyle and purchasing decisions. Sure, eat less meat, get rid of your petroleum-guzzling vehicle or boycott plastics. Those things generally carry a degree of benefit to the environment. But the urgent priority is to change the massive industries, policies and fuel source at the root.

DO ONE THING WELL Part of the challenge with the environmental movement is the staggering list of things we need to change: agricultural practices, transportation systems and power grids, to name a few. There is no singular environmental cause that everyone should be tackling in their personal life. Instead, try moving beyond the paralyzing

view of everything that needs fixed. Pick something specific in your life. “The question is not ‘What is the one thing everyone can do?’ but ‘What is the special thing that each one of us can contribute?’ ” Johnson says. Your specific interests and skillsets should guide you. And you can typically incorporate your effort where you are already working, living or playing. One recent example played out after Johnson attended a star-studded climate protest in Washington, D.C., with her friend Boris Khentov, a senior vice president at a financial planning firm. Feeling energized and motivated after the event, Boris asked whether he could attend another march. Johnson redirected him: “I told him, ‘No, Boris. You’re a finance executive. Go back to work and fix your company.’ ” In fall of 2020, Khentov helped launch socially responsible and environmentally friendly investment portfolios at Betterment. This mindset applies to everyone, whether

TOP 20 WARMEST YEARS IN MODERN HISTORY, THEY HAVE ALL OCCURRED SINCE 1997, BASED ON DATA TRACING BACK TO 1880.

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Scientific data now confirms that “human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Most of these gases in the U.S. come from fossil fuels in transportation, electricity and heat. Transportation makes up the biggest portion, at 28 percent, followed closely by electricity at 27 percent, according to a 2018 EPA report. Agriculture contributed 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gases in 2018.

you’re a line cook, maintenance employee, pastor, rural farmer or corporate executive. Your specific work setting and social circles would benefit on a large scale from your individual passion and example. It just requires some initiative. And that’s one of the best investments of your energy and time. “What are you good at? And how can you use those skills, resources and spheres of influence?” Johnson says. The specific answers to those questions will identify what she calls “your super powers.” It’s much easier to take on a second or third cause (both personally and systemically), once you have implemented one change and seen success.

TALK THE WALK This same principle of doing one thing well can apply to consumer decisions, such as committing to alternative transportation or installing solar panels on your home. Do that one thing well, then realize the crucial shift happens when others witness your concern, decisions and behavior change. “The real power comes in your role modeling, your social signaling to everyone around you,” Leiserowitz says. “When you drive an electric car, you’re socializing it. Everywhere you go, you’re signaling to people that these things exist.” This is about shifting the daily narrative toward the climate. Leiserowitz says this

requires talking often about the environment with others in your life. As a parallel, consider the public opinion on smoking indoors just 30 years ago. How would you respond today to someone lighting a cigarette in your house or car without asking? Leiserowitz says the culture at large needs to embrace a similar attitude about pollution. These important conversations about climate can play out naturally and casually in your personal life. But they should also involve joining climate organizations. If you don’t have the time to volunteer and show up, Leiserowitz says to donate to local groups that are organizing in your community and applying pressure to lawmakers. Better yet, do both.

ACT, VOTE AND THINK LOCAL People often overlook the weight their own neighborhood, city, county and state carries on the environment. To address this, we must maintain connection with our immediate community, says Daniel Wildcat, a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation and professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. “We need to be publicly engaged in that democratic process and public life,” says Wildcat, who holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in social sciences and public policy. The concept stems from being connected to the land and all that we share with it.

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DANGEROUS EMISSIONS

MIKEDOTTA/SHUTTERSTOCK

DEVELOP A CLIMATE WORLDVIEW

“Indigenous people’s cultures were born out of this symbiotic relationship with a place,” Wildcat says. The land determined “the kind of food they ate, the kind of home they lived in, the kind of clothes they wear.” Some people today think local on food purchases or art, such as shopping at farmers markets and artist fairs. The same should apply to the democratic process. Local policies determine building codes, infrastructure for alternative transportation, public energy consumption and land use, Wildcat says. Most of these matters are dictated by locally elected officials and public input, where you as a resident and voter have considerable influence. Leiserowitz underscores the roles of mayors as well as the U.S. president. “Vote for climate champions, at every level of government,” he says. “It’s one of the single most powerful acts you can take.” The experts also highlight how the adverse and immediate impact of climate change tends to hit the most vulnerable countries and communities first. So, even if you are not yet suffering the effects, your neighbors might be, and so will generations to follow. “The effects disproportionately affect Black communities and other communities of color in the U.S., and low-income communities here and around the world,” Schlossberg says.

Wallace-Wells directs anyone who is interested in preventing famines, economic collapse and unprecedented refugee crises to orient their worldview and politics around climate concerns. “Every aspect of human experience has some kind of climate change fingerprint,” he says. “No matter what you care about, if you really want to solve that problem, thinking about it through a climate lens is critical.” Wildcat says this is not a new idea, but one that many people have forgotten. His book Red Alert! shares how Indigenous knowledge could inform how we save the planet today, on both a personal and systemic level. He proposes that the term natural resources drives overconsumption, inequality and imbalance in the natural world. Instead, he teaches a kin-centric worldview in light of the Anthropocene — our current geological age, defined by humans being the dominant force on Earth. Viewing land as kin, he says, generates respect and sustainability, where humans are more open to learn from the natural world, rather than dominate it. “I don’t think there’s anything romantic about that. It fits very nicely with evolutionary theory and the science of ecology,” Wildcat says. “With rights comes inalienable responsibility. Now we start thinking of our relationships in the ecosystems in which we function as part of a moral and ethical universe.” Put another way: What’s downstream from you, and how are you honoring that life? Schlossberg also named responsibility when asked how humans should manage the eco-stential crisis before them. “I don’t think people should feel individually guilty for climate change,” she says. “But we should all feel collectively responsible for building a better world.” D Timothy Meinch is Discover’s features editor.

8–9 INCHES THE GLOBAL MEAN IN SEA-LEVEL RISE SINCE 1880, ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION.

In January, the U.N. revealed 64 percent of the world population views climate change as a global emergency, based on a landmark survey of 1.2 million people in 50 countries.

M AY 2 02 1 . D IS C OVER

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An aerial view shows the vast landscape of the Texas Panhandle. Like other areas in the Great Plains, its agriculture relies on water from the Ogallala Aquifer, which is sustained by playas.

AMERICA’S BIGGEST AQUIFER DEPENDS ON THESE DAMAGED WETLANDS. WHAT HAPPENS IF WE FAIL TO FIX THEM?

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BY JOHN RICHARD SAYLOR

Place yourself in the heart of the Great Plains, say, somewhere in the Texas Panhandle. A long, lonely stretch of interstate extends before you. Prairie grass and planted wheat cover the landscape out to the horizon, flat as a table in all directions. But it’s not truly flat. Even on these plains there are low spots, the ground sloping almost imperceptibly toward slight, bowlshaped depressions where the infrequent rains of this semi-arid environment collect. These are playas: wetlands that come and go, providing an oasis for life in an otherwise desiccated place.

When wet, playas harbor a plethora of amphibians, waterfowl, dragonflies and other species. But playas don’t just support the lives of birds and toads; they also support humans. Playas replenish the Ogallala Aquifer, a 948-trillion-gallon underground body of water that underpins agriculture in an eight-state region. Though these little wetlands comprise only 2 percent of the land area in the southern plains, they are the primary source of recharge for the Ogallala, which in turn sustains irrigation of the High Plains, thereby providing one-fifth of the food and fiber consumed in the U.S.

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But this aquifer is being depleted. Research published in 2020 suggests that in many areas, without irrigation, these dry lands will not continue to sustain agriculture. In some places, the dry-up has already happened. “There are ghost towns in the southern High Plains right now — today,” says Bill Mullican, a former executive at the Texas Water Development Board. Playas and the recharge they provide are one of the few things safeguarding $20 billion in crop value and the future of High Plains agriculture.

A GREAT LAKE, HIDDEN The Ogallala is massive. The largest source of groundwater in the U.S., it spans over 175,000 square miles beneath parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. Before the growth of irrigation on the plains, the aquifer contained approximately a quadrillion gallons of water, a volume that could fill Lake Erie more than eight times. New pumping methods and the dawn of centerpivot irrigation systems enabled removal of significant quantities of Ogallala water in the 1950s. Since then, farmers have managed to suck up over half a Lake Erie’s worth — some estimates are closer to a whole Lake Erie’s worth — of water from the aquifer. The explosive growth in irrigated acres transformed the High Plains from a vast expanse of semiarid prairie into the so-called “breadbasket of the world,” birthing the enormous green-circle mosaic that blankets this land today. Though the Ogallala is far from dry, the decline

PREVIOUS SPREAD: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION/ALAMY. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: BRITTANY SMITH; JAY SMITH

Above: A wet playa in northern Kansas. Below: The Ogallala Aquifer, which is replenished by such wetlands, runs from South Dakota all the way down to Texas.

in water levels presents a significant threat. In many places, the aquifer has already dropped to a level where irrigation is no longer feasible, and in most parts of the Ogallala, the water removed far exceeds that which is returned. Without some kind of change, the ability of farmers to use Ogallala water will cease, putting 10 percent of all U.S. crop value at risk.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: BRIAN O’NEILL (2); BRITTANY SMITH; CHRISTOPHER RUSTAY

REPLENISHING THE STORES

annulus, water continues to flow into the aquifer even after the cracks at the bottom seal up. Scientists think that this periphery allows the most recharge, though the reason isn’t entirely clear. It may be that, being higher up, these regions receive less of the silty, fine-grained sediments which can restrict infiltration through playa floors. Whatever the reason, some studies suggest as much as 80 percent of playa recharge occurs from annuluses.

When wet, playas are home to a variety of waterfowl, amphibians, insects and plants.

Sustaining an aquifer requires recharge from the land RETURN TO THE BIG DRY above. But over most of the Ogallala, particularly its Though agriculture depends on playa recharge, many southern part, a cementlike substance called caliche agricultural practices degrade playa performance. hinders rainwater from getting through. For many Playas suffer when crops are planted in them roads are years, researchers thought playas, which have clay soils, built through them, for example. In the past, farmers were practically impermeable too — just low spots often dug pits in the center of playas. These small, deep where water collected and subsequently evaporated. holes reduced the surface area of the water, thereby Recent research has revealed the exact opposite. reducing evaporation and keeping the water around Not only do playas contribute to recharge, they for irrigation and other agricultural needs. While this dominate recharge. During the early minutes of a rain helped farming in the moment, it reduced recharge. inundation, water flows through cracks in the clay soil Perhaps the most common — and most insidious and into the zone just beneath the playa floor. These — way that playas have been degraded cracks, which form when the playa is through sedimentation. Also called runs dry, can slice as deep as 3 feet. siltation, this process happens when They facilitate water flow into the clay sediments run off the land, typically subsurface at rates up to 116 inches per from tilled agricultural areas, and settle hour. But this flow can quickly slow: THOUGH THE in the cracks of the playa. Just as the clay shrinks and cracks OGALLALA IS Since 99 percent of playas exist on when dry, it swells when wet. Within FAR FROM DRY, privately owned land, the protection minutes, the cracks close up enough THE DECLINE IN of existing playas, and any restoration to severely limit any water passage WATER LEVELS of damaged ones, falls into the hands through the playa. PRESENTS A of farmers and other agricultural But at the playa edge, called the

SIGNIFICANT THREAT.

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producers. Several federal and state programs pay farmers to let the playas on their land lay fallow. These programs also provide technical support and funds for remediation. Non-governmental agencies help educate farmers on the utility of playas and encourage participation in playa restoration, which involves activities such as removing sediment, eliminating invasive species and planting a vegetation buffer around the playa to filter silt. Motivated in part to provide habitat for birds, Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV) has been working to protect and restore playas in five of the eight Ogallala states since 1989; a sixth was added in 2003. The organization estimates that of the nearly 72,000 playas in their region, less than 22,000 are healthy. But more than 32,000 healthy playas are needed to provide wetland habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.

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FROM TOP: CHARLIE RIEDEL/AP; BRIAN O’NEILL

Farmers rely on water from the Ogallala Aquifer to sustain their land. When playas — like this one in Colorado (above) — dry up, the aquifer cannot be replenished.

Moreover, playa restoration takes time — in 2017, only 150 playas were improved. Though the speed of remediation may be slow, the work is important, especially since there is the potential to develop a sustainable aquifer that can support irrigation for the long haul. According to Mike Carter, Joint Venture Coordinator of PLJV, many irrigators would only need to cut back by 30 or 40 percent in order to become sustainable, at least in western Kansas. Thirty percent may sound like a big ask for farmers, but in some cases, such cutbacks in irrigation are possible. For instance, on a family farm, irrigation methods are often simply handed down from one generation to the next; they’re not necessarily best practices. “If Dad turned on the pumps in May, and Dad turned off the pumps in October, then, you know, that’s [just] what we’re going to do,” Carter says. Opportunities may exist to reduce water consumption and maintain crop yields. In any event, some kind of change is needed. Researchers at Texas Tech University predict that for a 13-county area between Lubbock and Amarillo, the reduction in the aquifer level and other factors will reduce the amount of land that can be irrigated by 60 percent between 2010 and 2059, from just over 2.3 million acres to around 925,000. Similarly, a study by Erin Haacker, now at the University of NebraskaLincoln, and her then-coworkers at Michigan State University indicates that in the High Plains, the

reduced aquifer level will render 40 percent of the entire region unsuitable for irrigation by 2100.

HOPE IN A CHANGING CLIMATE? One possibility of a brighter future for the Ogallala comes from an unlikely source: climate change. Models of future changes in the planet’s climate typically provide bad news — and many climate change models do predict average rainfall will decrease over the southern High Plains where threats to the Ogallala are most significant. However, the most recent National Climate Assessment also suggests that future rainfall will occur in briefer, more intense bursts, rather than over relatively longer periods of time. This new weather pattern would cause rapid runoff toward playas, increasing the recharge over that which would occur

if the same amount of water had fallen during longer, less intense storms, when more of the water would be lost to evaporation. But, as with climate change models in general, significant uncertainty exists. Variation in the predictions of these regional models of precipitation is so great that it’s not clear if aquifer recharge will increase or decrease in the future. Given the decline in the Ogallala Aquifer that is and has been occurring beneath the High Plains, perhaps the future will include a new focus on playa remediation. The lives of countless toads and dragonflies depend on it — as well as those of humans. D John Richard Saylor is a professor of mechanical engineering at Clemson University. He is currently writing a book about lakes for Timber Press. Find him at johnrichardsaylor.com. 

WHEN THE LAND COMES TO LIFE

FROM TOP: BOB DAEMMRICH/ALAMY; KRISTA LUNDGREN/USFWS

To survive the dry times, the spadefoot toad will spend years of its life burrowed down in the mud beneath the playa floor. There, it waits for rain. Once a playa fills with water, these temporary wetlands enable amphibians to survive where they would otherwise perish. But in dry times, the toads take a more subterranean approach to survival. Once the rain comes, these long-dormant animals come forth in

Water is pulled from the Ogallala Aquifer to irrigate cotton fields in Texas.

great abundance and with great vigor. They respond almost instantly, sometimes beginning to wriggle up through the mud as soon as they hear thunder. Once wet, life boils forth from the playa. “These things can lay four or five thousand eggs,” Loren Smith, a biologist at Oklahoma State University, says of the toads. Tiger salamanders, too, can lay more than 5,000 eggs. The Great Plains toad can lay an incredible 40,000 eggs in one

SPADEFOOT TOAD

clutch. Once the eggs hatch and the tadpoles become toadlets, these creatures will carpet the shores of the playa from which they were born. Scientists have observed more than 10,000 toadlets emerging on a single night. “It looks like the land is moving out on that playa,” Smith says. And playas sustain far

more than just amphibians. The playas of the Central Flyway, the great migratory path taken from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico by millions of birds, provide a stopping point for these birds, a pit stop for them to rest and feed. Though vast, harsh and arid, because of playas, the southern High Plains teems with life. MAY 2 0 2 1 . D IS C OVER

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A 150-foot-wide, ironnickel meteorite crashed into Earth about 50,000 years ago, creating Meteor Crater in Arizona.

+ ACCORDING TO WERNER HERZOG

Prolific filmmaker Werner Herzog, 78, has directed nine films just since 2015.

THE ICONOCLASTIC DOCUMENTARIAN AND HIS CO-DIRECTOR, VOLCANOLOGIST CLIVE OPPENHEIMER, TALK ABOUT CELESTIAL ROCKS, FAKE NEWS AND THE “DISNEY-IZATION” OF THE WILD WORLD. BY MARK ZASTROW

n Werner Herzog’s latest film, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds, you’ll find no diagrams, no green screen backdrops, no points where the narrator stops to define terms. It’s not your typical science documentary. Of course, you wouldn’t expect that approach from Herzog anyway. The prolific German film and opera director has created Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga and roughly 70 other films (fictional and documentary) over the past 50 years. He also made an acting appearance in The Mandalorian series — even though he’s never watched Star Wars. Most of his work, in one way or another, explores the recesses of human nature, often in the natural world.

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Herzog teamed up with volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer for a second time to make Fireball, released last fall on Apple TV+. This film examines rocks from space that have collided with Earth, highlighting the people who study them and how these objects have shaped our planet and culture. The film jumps between labs and locales all over the world, including the ice fields of Antarctica; the limestone sinkholes of the Yucatán Peninsula, where the Chicxulub impactor left its 110-mile-wide mark 66 million years ago; and Mer Island in the Torres Strait, where Melanesian Meriam elders recall myths that describe how meteors are a link to the afterlife. A conversation with Herzog and Oppenheimer offers insight not just into the making of their film, but the intersection of humanity and nature — on our planet and beyond.

Q

Werner Herzog: Well, I think nature is indifferent to what we are doing here. It is not interested in human beings. The universe couldn’t care less about our existence here on this little planet. And I do not like the Disney-ization of wild nature — that bears are fluffy creatures, and you better sing a song to them and hug them. I’m not a tree hugger. I’m not a bear hugger. And I do not want to hug the universe. It’s totally chaotic, violent and unfriendly out there. And it doesn’t smile at us, period. You don’t need to be a scientist to know that.

Q

 But there’s clearly something that fascinates you about people who are fascinated by nature, or perhaps think that there is something more to nature.

Herzog: Sure, of course, I’m fascinated by science and I’m fascinated by the awe of science. And, of course, my terrain is moviemaking, and moviemaking has a sense of awe — at least, in all of my films. Clive Oppenheimer: What fascinates me is the cultural significance of these phenomena — the sight of shooting stars, the stones themselves that have fallen from heaven, and the impact craters. These are sites that become imbued with tremendous significance by human cultures throughout time and around the world. And that’s what really intrigues me and fascinates me about many geophysical phenomena — volcanoes, obviously, included — that there’s much more to them

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than their nature and their scientific aspects. It’s what they mean to us. Simon Schaffer, a historian of science at the University of Cambridge, is asked in the film, “Why are you so interested in meteorites as a historian?” He says it’s that they have meaning, that when they’ve hit the ground and have been found by humans, their journey is just beginning.

Q

 There is a scene in the film, Werner, that you called “science at its best” — a clip of geologist Jong Ik Lee on the ice fields of Antarctica, falling on the ground and shrieking in ecstasy at finding a meteorite on the ground. How did you find that clip and why did it resonate with you?

Herzog: Well, it’s sheer ecstasy. It’s just the incredible joy of discovery. It’s very cinematic. And then something odd happens: Somebody in the background is entering the frame with his rear end first. It’s the wrong timing. No apparent motivation. It’s very odd, and it has everything — the joy of filmmaking, the joy of science. And Clive saw this material from Lee.

PREVIOUS SPREAD, FROM LEFT: ANDERM/DREAMSTIME; COURTESY OF APPLE

 Your film, Fireball, is all about the ways nature has appeared to speak to people through meteors. What is it about this topic of communicating with nature that intrigues you?

In Fireball, Clive Oppenheimer, left, plays the on-screen host and curious expert, while Herzog is the man behind the camera.

THIS SPREAD: APPLE TV+ (2)

Q

He actually had the video and Clive immediately understood:  Werner, you’ve been known to sometimes modify facts in your documentaries to We need to have that for our film. better capture what you call “the ecstatic Oppenheimer: That’s right. Jong Ik Lee and his wife, truth.” Did you modify any facts for this film, and Mi Jung Lee, are both leading Antarctic geoscientists in if not, were you tempted to? Korea. They were the ones who’d invited me to the Korean Herzog: Not really. I think when you do a film of this nature, Polar Research Institute in the first place three years ago. you just take facts as they are and you respond to it. And my And he invited us to film, to join them on a meteorite response has always been a response of awe, and that’s a form search up on the polar plateau near the Korean research of ecstasy where we almost step out of our own existence. That’s base in Antarctica, Jang Bogo Station. quintessentially cinema. But you see, there’s And Jong Ik — he’s someone who truly nothing wrong with modifying facts, for comes alive when they’re in the field, when digging into a much deeper truth. they’re out there against the elements and For me, the witness of all witnesses is looking for things and finding them. And Michelangelo, with his sculpture of the Pietá, so the wildness to his character hadn’t really Jesus taken from the cross. The body of Jesus struck me. I’M NOT A TREE is the body of a 33-year-old man. And his In the clip, his exuberance on display was HUGGER. I’M NOT mother, when you look at her, is 17. So, I have so, so wonderful. I mean, Jong Ik is in floods A BEAR HUGGER. to ask, did Michelangelo try to cheat us? Give of tears. And I totally understand that — as a AND I DO NOT us fake news? Lie to us? No, he emphasized the geologist, if I found that, I would be in floods WANT TO HUG THE deeper truth of both persons. So that’s what I of tears, and I was almost in floods of tears UNIVERSE. IT’S like to do. just watching this video. TOTALLY CHAOTIC

OUT THERE.

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Oppenheimer, right, was featured as a volcano expert in Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World in 2007, before collaborating with the director on Into the Inferno (2016). As co-directors on Fireball (opposite), they traveled to far-flung islands and multiple continents, including Antarctica.

Q

You mentioned fake news. In this era of alternative facts, where we are awash with misinformation, do you feel like maybe the world at this moment doesn’t have room for the ecstatic truth? That maybe people would just settle for the plain truth?

Herzog: No, we have to — let’s not get into the definition of truth. We’ll continue until we are blue in the face. Don’t complain about misinformation and fake news and things. It has existed as long as we have evidence in writing. We know, for example, inscriptions on pyramids speak of the glorious victory of the pharaoh and we know now, because a treaty between Egypt and the Hittites exists, that it was an inconclusive battle. When the Roman Emperor Nero died, fake Neros popped up — quite a few of them, in Northern Greece, in Asia Minor. We had Potemkin villages where a nobleman close to Catherine the Great, to show that his province was thriving, built facades of beautiful villages, but they were only papier mâché facades where the czarina drove through. [Editor’s note: Potemkin villages are an apocryphal tale.] So, we have had it all the time, and there’s nothing particularly new about it. But we have to get smart in the era of the internet. We have to understand how the internet is functioning, to sniff out the fake news. And you can do so very, very quickly. Oppenheimer: My mum always said, “Believe none of what you read and only half of what you see.” That’s a useful precept, I think. The best way to avoid it, actually, is to shut your ears to it. I’ve found that my life is better when I don’t switch on the radio every day, in the morning, lunchtime, afternoon, to get the latest news. It doesn’t improve my life.

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Herzog: I am interested in news and I’m interested in the world around me. And when something doesn’t sound right, I immediately try to corroborate the news. And that’s why it’s healthy to corroborate what you hear on Fox News or what you hear on CNN with, for example, Al Jazeera, of all places. All of a sudden, you have a different perspective. Or Russian television. Or go on the internet and find out and read the full speech of a politician and then you will know. Oppenheimer: But the challenge is, you’re not corroborating news. You’re comparing propaganda. This isn’t straightforward. Herzog: Yes, but you can filter certain things. I’m for looking at various sources and using common sense. Just use your common sense. And you know, “Oh, this not only stinks like a lie against the wind, it is a lie.”

Q

Clive, I read that you chose the characters for this film — the researchers and the subjects. It shows science as it’s done by people all over the world, including scientists who are women and people of color. It also touches on Indigenous knowledge and traditions. Was that a conscious decision for both of you?

Herzog: I think so, yes. And I love the fact that we have a citizen scientist in our film — the Norwegian jazz guitarist Jon Larsen. [Editor’s note: Larsen searches for micrometeorites by dragging a magnet through gutters in the parking lots of buildings with large, slanted roofs, like sports arenas, where tiny grains of fallen space rock collect.] He is fascinated by micrometeorites, finds a new methodology — very primitive; I mean anyone, every schoolkid could do it — and he finds micrometeorites. And when they are magnified 3,000 times, they look like fantastic sculptures, the most beautiful things you can ever lay your eyes upon. And there’s deep science in it and deep mysteries in it. They are messengers from out there, and they, along with meteorites, are the oldest thing you can ever touch, barely visible on your fingertip, like a tiny speck of dust. And you know that this

A fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite that fell in Russia, 2013.

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The French writer André Gide once famously said, “I modify facts to such a degree that they resemble truth more than reality.” It’s a very deep statement for me. [Editor’s note: Discover’s fact checkers could not verify that Gide said this. When asked about the quote’s source , Herzog said, “I may have invented it.”]

speck of dust is 4,500 million years old, from the origins of our solar system, or older. So, it has this inclusion of characters and unexpected participants in it that makes a lot of life for the film. Oppenheimer: [Diverse cast was] an imperative. It’s not always easy. If you’re filming elders, if you’re filming priests, often you’re going to encounter men. But the biggest imperative was the film itself, for it to be authentic and to have authentic voices. Those were the guiding principles in identifying our cast — and also to cover the different themes, whether it’s archaeoastronomy, Indigenous knowledge or the perspectives of the Catholic Church.

APPLE TV+

Q

reformer, Martin Luther. He was famously asked, “What would you do if the world went under, if the world disappeared tomorrow? What would you do today?” And he answered, “I would plant an apple tree.” [Editor’s note: Scholars cannot verify this Luther quote, which first surfaced in 1944.]

Q

And would you plant a tree? Or would you start a movie?

Herzog: No, I would start a movie. I would start the first shots of a movie and then let the planet go under. Oppenheimer: I’d think about the music track to accompany it. And I would put it on my CD player and play it really loud.

In the film, you make reference to a scene from the 1998 film Deep Impact — the climactic scene when the asteroid hits Earth. And that scene is all about the choices people make in the face of the end of the world and how they choose to spend their last moments. So, if you knew there was an asteroid coming tomorrow, how would you spend your final moments?

Q

Herzog: Oh, there’s a beautiful answer we have from the

Mark Zastrow is senior editor of Astronomy magazine.

What track would it be, do you think?

Oppenheimer: Well, I think it would depend whether it’s a stony-iron or an ordinary chondrite asteroid. I’d have to think about it. Something that says on the label, “Play loud or not at all.” D

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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CAN TREES

HEAL HEARTS?

Volunteers have helped plant nearly 10,000 trees in Louisville, Kentucky, for the Green Heart Project.

RESEARCHERS IN THIS POLLUTED CITY ARE PLANTING THOUSANDS OF TREES IN A BOLD HEALTH EXPERIMENT.

FROM LEFT: MIKE WILKINSON; RANDY OLSON

BY NANCY AVERETT

olunteers buzz around the front lawn of a Baptist church in Louisville on a bright October morning. Sporting navy T-shirts with the words Citizen Forester emblazoned across the back, they divvy up spades and shovels, grab buckets and hoses. Behind them looms the church’s imposing white-columned entrance and a sign that declares, “Prayer Works.” Across the street, a row of small clapboard-sided homes stretches down the block. A pair of dogs bark furiously behind a chain-link fence. Then everyone turns to the man in leather loafers and a linen suit coat. His ambitious idea — one that may or may not work — is the reason they’re here. “We all intuitively believe trees are good for you. But we don’t know if it will help the health of the population to be living among trees,” Aruni Bhatnagar says to the volunteers. “Come back in a year to see if it’s working.” Bhatnagar, director of the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute at the University of Louisville, is overseeing an effort MAY 2 02 1 . D IS C OVER

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ARUNI BHATNAGAR

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called the Green Heart Project. The team behind the initiative is betting $14.5 million on the idea that trees could prevent heart disease in humans. The big test involves injecting a massive amount of vegetation — up to 10,000 trees over the past three years — into neighborhoods throughout Louisville. “It’s a clinical drug trial,” the scientists based at the Envirome Institute like to say. “But trees are the pill.” Oak trees were once plentiful here in the Oakdale neighborhood, along with the ashes, maples and elms, that once lined many of the city’s streets. But in recent decades, worsening heat, storms, diseases and attacks from invasive beetles have ravaged the trees. The city government, facing plummeting funding for such projects, failed to replant, leaving neighborhoods like this one with a rapidly diminishing canopy. Each day, about 150 trees perish in this city. Residents struggle to survive here, too. Homicide, suicide, cancer and drug addiction all take a toll, as do the volleys of upheaval after the killing of Louisville resident Breonna Taylor last year. Heart disease, too, has become a major threat. Louisville has some of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the country. It also has dirty air, which Bhatnagar suspects is more than coincidence. The American Lung Association consistently gives Louisville a failing grade for its

D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M

pollution levels. And over the past 15 years, researchers have become increasingly aware that air pollution plays a key role in the development of heart disease. The guiding mission behind the Envirome Institute is to conduct environmental research to create healthier cities. That has included discovering how the chemicals that pour out of exhaust pipes and smokestacks can cause blood to thicken and arteries to constrict. The Envirome Institute recently ran a pilot project and found that planted trees reduced 60 percent of the pollution around a local school. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Nature Conservancy have each donated millions of dollars to the group, and researchers from universities around the country have signed on to do supplementary investigations. Still, the Green Heart Project, which began in 2018, is a gamble. Dozens of studies have examined the effects of trees on human health, yet they are all based on associations, meaning people’s health improved when they were around trees but other factors — perhaps their exposure to trees occurred when they were also exercising — could not be ruled out. In other words, none has shown definitely that exposure to trees actually caused human health to get better. Bhatnagar knows that this more complicated science is needed to influence policy and those in power — pharmaceutical executives, hospital administrators, Rust Belt mayors. “It’s hard enough inside the lab to show a relationship

FROM TOP: MIKE WILKINSON; TOM FOUGEROUSSE/UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

Air pollution research has shown an eddy effect with some highway walls, where excess vehicle exhaust builds up and spills into neighborhoods.

RANDY OLSON

between two variables,” Bhatnagar says. “Then we go out into the real world, and it’s amazing that we make any sense of it at all.”

the blood vessels are very sensitive to environmental pollutants.”  One of his labs in the Envirome Institute is now testing how benzene, another chemical in car exhaust, FROM LAB TO NEIGHBORHOODS impacts mice. Long ago, research found it to be a When Bhatnagar arrived at the University of cancer-causing agent. But no one has done a study to Louisville in 1998, he hadn’t planned to specialize in examine how it changes the heart and blood vessels. environmental cardiology. He was studying nitric “Surprisingly,” Bhatnagar says, “it’s not known.” oxide, a molecule essential to heart health; it both  Unlike the mice in the lab, the 700-some Louisville regulates insulin in the body and increases circulation residents enrolled in the Green Heart Project don’t by relaxing the inner muscles of blood vessels. One stay in glass containers for six hours a day, inhaling day, while perusing the literature, he discovered one specific type of polluted air. And no graduate both cigarette smoke and pollution impair nitric student scoops an exact amount of nutrient-dense oxide production in the body. Intrigued, he and his pellets into everyone’s food twice daily. Instead, the staff began toxicology studies to see how all sorts of participants move from home to the office to the gropollutants affect the cardiovascular system. cery store. Some work the day shift, some nights. But They learned that exposure to the compound toxicological studies on both the mice and humans acrolein, found in both cigarette smoke should track important changes. and car exhaust, results in extensive In 2018, Rachel Keith, a nurse cardiovascular injury in rats and practitioner and physiologist at the mice. In addition, the fine-particulate Envirome Institute, collected blood, matter in air pollution causes vascular urine, hair and toenails, along with damage in humans and suppresses cheek swabs, from Green Heart “IT’S A CLINICAL stem cells, which are needed to repair participants. Those samples were anaDRUG TRIAL. BUT blood vessel damage, in mice. lyzed for biomarkers of cardiovascular TREES ARE THE “People think poor diet and lack disease with the idea that Keith would PILL,” SAY THE of exercise are the only things that compare a residents’ cardiovascular SCIENTISTS AT lead to heart disease,” Bhatnagar profiles with the pollution profile THE ENVIROME says. “But in reality, the heart and collected outside their homes. When

Landscapers and volunteers plant a sweetbay magnolia within the Green Heart study area.

INSTITUTE.

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the coronavirus pandemic hit, the researchers had to recalibrate. Keith plans to begin taking new samples by mid-2021. Included will be an antibody test to see if any of the participants contracted COVID-19. Data for those patients will be analyzed separately to see if the virus had an effect on their cardiovascular system.  The human measurements will continue throughout the study. “Traditionally with a clinical trial, participants get something out of it, such as a pill that may cure their cancer,” says Keith. “But with our trial, all we can say is we’re going to put trees in the neighborhood and maybe you’ll see some benefit.” On the other hand, she says, “when you give someone medication, it treats one person. These trees could treat a whole neighborhood.”  

NATURE FOR PEOPLE’S SAKE

Trees are dying in Louisville, faster than they are being replaced. That was the grim conclusion in a 2015 report on the city’s tree canopy. Just 37 percent of the city had tree coverage, the 114-page document

MEDICAL RESEARCH BRANCHES OUT Investigators around the country have launched studies attached to the Green Heart Project. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, are looking at how the greening effort impacts residents’ sleep, while scientists at Murray State University in Kentucky will look at how the increased vegetation shapes wildlife biodiversity and human health. For

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example, could an uptick in singing birds affect residents’ moods and lower their stress levels? Arizona State University researchers are examining sewage to see if there’s a connection between trees, air pollution, and the levels of prescription cardiovascular medications that residents excrete. Washington University in St. Louis is a key partner on the

project measuring air pollution. St. Lawrence University is studying people’s attitudes to existing and future greenness. And scientists at Yale, Stanford and Johns Hopkins universities will explore, among other things, whether social behaviors change — expecting that plants may draw people outside for more neighborly interactions. — N.A.

FROM LEFT: 8TH.CREATOR/SHUTTERSTOCK; ELENAEMILIYA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Studies suggest tiny hairs on tree foliage capture airborne pollution. Urban evergreens pose the advantage of cleaning the air year-round.

noted, and much of that was in city parks rather than residential spaces. Louisville was losing 54,000 trees a year. What’s more, the report warned, due to the arrival of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle from east Asia, “tens of thousands of ash trees will be lost” within five to 10 years.  Around the time that report came out, scientists were publishing a plethora of studies on urban trees and their ability to absorb different pollutants. Some showed that the hairs on tree leaves, called trichomes, may increase a tree’s ability to capture fine-particulate matter. Others revealed the importance of tree placement and vegetation type — in particular, conifers like pines are more effective than deciduous trees, since they stay green year-round. This emerging research was on Bhatnagar’s mind one day in 2015 when he met with Christina Brown, the local philanthropist who funded the Envirome Institute. Their discussion turned to the city’s dirty air and high heart disease rates. “We always say we need better regulations and less traffic,” Bhatnagar recalls Brown saying. “Is there something else we can do to make a difference in the air quality?” He replied, “Well, we could certainly plant trees to absorb some of the pollution.” But he knew a study to validate such an effort would be enormously expensive and complicated.

STEFANO BOERI ARCHITETTI

Brown perked up. “Let’s do that.”  It took two years for Bhatnagar to convince the NIH to help fund the project. He revised grant proposals, held long conference calls and conducted several pilot studies. One of those studies planted evergreens in front of St. Margaret Mary Catholic School, which lies on the eastern edge of Louisville along busy U.S. Route 60. The not-yet-published results show the trees substantially reduced particulate pollution around the school and improved heart health biomarkers in students and teachers. Finally, a representative from the NIH told Bhatnagar he was getting close to convincing them, but warned: The NIH is not in the business of planting trees.  Around the same time, the Nature Conservancy launched a new urban initiative, picking Louisville as a target cities. It was a shift for the national organization, which for most of its existence has focused on buying up ecologically important land to preserve. “We’ve been saving nature from people, not for people,” says Chris Chandler, director of urban conservation for the Conservancy’s Kentucky chapter. When Chandler and his colleagues heard about Bhatnagar’s proposal, the study seemed to fit perfectly with their new mission. Within six months, the nonprofit agreed to spend over $8 million on trees.  Part of that money will fund an evergreen wall

near a stretch of single-story homes in Louisville’s Beechmont neighborhood. This spot is in the heart of the tree-study territory, which spans a 3-square-mile radius between Churchill Downs and the Louisville International Airport. The tree barrier will abut Watterson Expressway/Interstate 264, where a quarter-million cars fly down five asphalt lanes daily. Currently, an 18-foot barrier blocks the traffic from the neighborhood — installed years ago by the government to dampen sound. What state highway officials didn’t realize is that when car emissions hit the wall, it creates an eddy effect. Picture a rock in a stream, where water builds up only to flow more forcefully around it. So, instead of dispersing into the atmosphere, fine-particulate matter from exhaust pipes concentrates on the traffic side, travels up the wall, then spills over the top and dumps into the neighborhood.  To fix the problem, the Nature Conservancy will plant huge conifers on both sides of the wall, using semi-trailers and cranes to drop them into place. “We’re looking to extensively green up these corridors that run alongside major highways,” Chandler says. They’re aiming for landscaping that will either capture pollution at its source, or help it disperse back into the atmosphere, rather than fill neighborhoods.

The world’s first “forest city” is in development in Liuzhou, China (rendering above). The full plan by Stefano Boeri Architetti calls for nearly 1 million plants covering parks, a hospital, schools, offices and apartments.

M AY 2 0 2 1 . D IS C OV ER

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THE HARD PART

to back it up. For example, in 2014, Italian developers  After Bhatnagar’s brief speech to the volunteers in completed Bosco Verticale (Italian for “vertical forest”) front of the church, the planters disperse around the in Milan. The double skyscraper was built to hold 800 study’s six neighborhoods. One group ends up a halftrees, 15,000 perennials and 5,000 shrubs that spill mile from the church on Beecher Street, in front of a over terraces and cover most of the facade. The archiyellow vinyl-sided bungalow. Shovels clang from the tects claimed it offered health effects for its residents. side of the house as half the group chips away at a dry, Two years later, Chinese officials took the idea one rocky channel of soil along the driveway; the other half step further and commissioned the same developers to are on their knees in the front installing two different build the first “forest city,” in the province of Guangxi. kinds of junipers. Slated for completion this year, the community will Months before these volunteer planters stepped foot have 1 million herbaceous plants and 40,000 trees. in someone’s yard, canvassers knocked on doors. They Bhatnagar has also found dozens of studies that asked homeowners if they’d like to participate in the show correlations between living near green spaces study and possibly get some trees in their yard. and health outcomes: lower stress levels, asthma Some residents, like 37-year-old Jenell Glymph, rates, depression rates and more. One notable 2013 jumped at the chance. “Anything we can do to get study by the U.S. Forest Service found an association people off their couches and outside is a good thing,” between the recent loss of over 100 million ash trees she said. But not all residents were as nationwide and increased death from enthusiastic. cardiovascular and lower respiratory “Some people say, ‘Oh this is tract illness. great!’ and they want to stand on the None, though, showed causaporch with you and talk for an hour,” tion. “So, OK,” Bhatnagar says. Bhatnagar says. “Others say, ‘I have all “Everybody agrees, ‘Let’s plant trees to “WHEN YOU these problems, who cares about your make people healthier.’ But if you ask GIVE SOMEONE f------ trees!’ ” why, nobody knows.” He throws up his MEDICATION, He laughs heartily then turns hands. “So we need to do the science IT TREATS ONE more serious as he contemplates how … and that’s the hard part.” D PERSON. THESE the notion of using trees for health TREES COULD Nancy Averett is a science and intervention has captured the popular TREAT A WHOLE environmental writer based in Cincinnati. imagination despite any hard science

NEIGHBORHOOD.”

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D I S C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M

— RACHEL KEITH

BALAZS SEBOK/ALAMY

The dual-tower Bosco Verticale in Milan houses more plants and trees that human residents.

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TECH NOTE

Gaming the Ecosystem

Aliens face off in StarCraft II. Traits vary between species, just like in the real world.

A VIDEO GAME ABOUT BATTLING ALIENS COULD HELP ECOLOGISTS STUDY LIFE ON EARTH.

L

ou Barbe wouldn’t call himself an avid gamer. As an ecologist at the Université de Rennes in France, he spends most of his time with plants. But one game has captured his imagination since childhood: StarCraft, the popular online strategy franchise in which players accrue resources and construct armies of alien fighters to wage war across extraterrestrial landscapes. “I’m not at all a very good player,” says Barbe. “But I understand what’s going on.” While playing StarCraft II — the latest version of the game — a few years ago, Barbe realized that amid all the explosions and lasers, something else was happening. StarCraft was behaving a lot like an ecosystem. “We have an environment,” says Barbe. “We have resources. We have organisms that are competing in this environment. That’s the definition of an ecosystem.” Barbe filed the idea away. Then, in 2019, DeepMind, the AI research subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, pitted an AI agent called AlphaStar against some of the world’s best players of StarCraft II. AlphaStar trounced 99.8 percent of human players, achieving the coveted

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Amid all the explosions and lasers, something else was happening. StarCraft was behaving a lot like an ecosystem.

distinction of Grandmaster — the game’s highest rank — and adding another victory for computers in the march to AI supremacy. It occurred to Barbe that AlphaStar’s powers might not be limited to manipulating aliens on a virtual planet. If StarCraft functions a lot like an ecosystem, maybe game-playing algorithms could help study ecological problems on Earth. Writing in Trends in Ecology and Evolution in 2020, Barbe, along with other ecologists from Université de Rennes and Brigham Young University, explain how AlphaStar’s abilities to manage the complex, multidimensional dynamics of StarCraft could be repurposed to test ideas about the dynamics of real-world ecosystems that have flummoxed traditional models. For instance, researchers could deploy AlphaStar agents on StarCraft maps designed to mimic realistic resource distributions, in order to model how different organisms respond to disturbances like invasive species or habitat loss. The AlphaStar algorithm, Barbe says, might have accidentally become the

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT (2); THE_MOLOSTOCK/SHUTTERSTOCK

BY JAMES DINNEEN

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