[Flash Forward] EARTH: The Sunshade

EARTH: The Sunshade

05/03/2019 by Rose Eveleth

Web player: http://podplayer.net/?id=64898970
Episode: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/PPY3931455590.mp3?updated=1551833253

We’re back! Did you miss me? Don’t answer that please. Today’s episode kicks off Season FIVE of Flash Forward. This year, I’m doing things a little bit differently. Instead of doing a new episode every other week, you’re getting little mini-seasons. Each little block of five episodes will come out weekly, and center around a theme. This week we’re starting our EARTH series. Five episodes, five different future Earths. Buckle up, I hope you’re ready for some fun. And some terror. This is Flash Forward after all.

Today we travel to a future where humanity decides to pull the climate emergency break, and spray sulphuric acid into the upper atmosphere.

Guests
Anthony Jones, climate model researcher at University of Exeter
Jane Flegal, climate science and policy advisor, program officer at The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust
Kate Marvel, climate scientist at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Romaric Odoulami, climate scientist at the University of Cape Town
Prakash Kashwan, political scientist at the University of Connecticut

Actors
The Snowglobe Narrator: Brent Rose
Lenny Haywood: Evan Johnson
Farah Mousterian: Zahra Noorbakhsh
John Jacob Siwa: Joseph Jones
Juana Aguilar: Tamara Krinsky
Thor Surtr: Oliver Blank

Special Thanks
Women’s Audio Mission studios, Maryam Qudus, Stephanie Lopez
The Potluck Podcast Collective, The Potluck Podcast studio, Quincy Surasmith

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

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Start Date: 2019-04-29

Finish Date: 2019-04-30

Notes:

• Has the cheerful information that even if spraying sulphuric acid into the atomsphere works to cool the Earth down, a) if you stop doing it, you get an immediate global warming catastrophe; b) it doesn’t fix the ocean acidification brought on my excess carbon dioxide; c) we don’t currently have aircraft capable of accomplishing this.
• The bonus episode for patrons, which talks about chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and what motivates conspiracy theorists in general, was actually even more interesting. It reminded me of a reason.com piece on why The X-Files was so much a product of the nineties (short version: every conspiracy theory has a nugget of anxiety caused by real world abuse at its heart. My counter: what on earth is the grain of truth at the heart of Flat Eartherism?).