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And that's what I’m wanting us to start  talking about is the discovery of the Earth;   so far, we've only colonized it. Welcome to FacingFuture! Today's guests are  Wes Jackson, the co-founder and President   Emeritus of the Land Institute in Salina,  Kansas. His many books include ‘Hogs Are Up:  
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Stories Of The Land, With Digressions' and  'New Roots For Agriculture'. Robert Jensen is a   Professor Emeritus at the School of Journalism and  Media at the University of Texas in Austin. He's   the author of 'The Restless and Relentless mind  of Wes Jackson, searching for sustainability',   and 'Plain Radical; living, loving, and  learning to leave the planet gracefully'.  
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Their forthcoming book, ‘An Inconvenient  Apocalypse - The Environmental Collapse,   Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity', will be  published by the University of Notre Dame Press   in the fall. The invention of agriculture 10,000  years ago marks the beginning of civilization's   degradation of the ecosphere. In the last  100 years, and principally since the 1960s,  
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the Green Revolution with its intensive chemical  agriculture and industrial animal operations has   brought Nature to its knees. Can we… should we try  to continue the resource-depleting civilization we   have now, or should we accept that its collapse  is forthcoming and prepare communities for a   transition to minimize human suffering and  ecological damage? Where do we go from here?  
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>>>Yep, well, where we go from here is by not  living with all kinds of illusions that are   predicated on a kind of modern religion, which is  that technology is going to solve this problem,  
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these problems. We have a form of technological  fundamentalism that is worse than the whole array   of religious fundamentalisms of the usual kind.  This, I think, is the most important moment   in the history of homo sapiens. If you imagine  that over this 200,000 years that we got along  
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all right in terms of a livelihood on  the planet until we started agriculture,   when we made the break and we didn't know -  I don't - we didn't know what we were doing,   and we've never known what we were undoing as we  were at it - I think Wendell Berry put it that  
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way - so here we are. We didn't know that when we  started agriculture that we were getting what Amri   Lovins called 'the young, pulverized coal of the  soil', in other words the carbon within the soil   was rather readily allocated to seeds and that  was the beginning of the extractive economy.  
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And so our carbon... our sense to go after energy- rich carbon is in all creatures, but we invented a   way to really get after it and once we had metals  then we were able to cut down trees and build   ships. So carbon one is the carbon of the  soil, carbon two of the forests and then  
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the third is the coal, the oil, the natural  gas, and so going back to the origin of life   in that journey from minerals to cells that  long, long ago journey carbon has been central.  I think it's important for us to know that  not only is soil more important than oil,  
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but that it's as much of a non-renewable resource. What effectively we did was start a Ponzi scheme.  We get the stuff at... the end of the tip; that'll carry us this year and then we do it again   next year and then you get the political world  doing the same thing and civilizations come,  
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all doing the same thing trying to get  ahead, and what that means is, almost always,   more people, more stuff and here we are  and now suddenly we got a down power,   because of what's happening in the upper  atmosphere which is embracing all of us. So,  
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in that down-powering world we don't know how to  do this. That's where the challenge comes and so   Bob and I are not going around whistling in the  dark on this; what we're saying in this book is  that we're not going to be solving  these problems in the usual sort of  
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upward slope. We got to think hard and in the  past most of our problems simply developed   and then we would find a solution, but those  solutions were always of the bailout variety,   not a corrective source. So, we got  to figure out how to be corrective;  
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we got to figure out a different way of being  in the world and as a consequence of that,  recently, I have become a curator, and that  curator is to find some of Nature's charming stuff   in the woods, in the soil and so on, and you start  looking at all that beauty that's out there in  
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Nature, and it is... well - you know - it's a way  to help us stay amused while we live till we die,   and I think it's a far more joyful  way to be in the world which is to   be looking at the Nature that is left, and  so I call this project 'Art without Ego'.
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This is taking limbs where insects  have made some beautiful artwork,   all of it beats the Mona Lisa and the stuff  that appears in our various museums and so on.   We've got to start getting back into the beauty  of the Earth and the glory of the skies and so on,  
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and that's just one little suggestion of what's  available to us. But we got to rethink where we   are. Now, the wonderful thing that's happened  during this period, of course, is we now know   about our origins in a way; we know about the  Big Bang, such as it is, and we know about   how the galaxies are formed and how the carbon  in our bodies had been cooked in a dying star,  
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and from it at lower temperatures came nitrogen  and oxygen. We know a whole bunch of things   that we didn't know 10,000 years ago that we  didn't know 50... 5,000 years ago, that we didn't   know 200 years ago and so here we are with all  this wonderful knowledge, right at some kind of  
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a pivot point where we have all of this available  and maybe that's what will help us stay connected   to the need to down power and hang on to it  rather than to simply run amok, like we're headed.  So I think maybe I've talked long enough,  now I’m gonna go drink my coffee. >>>Well,   thank you, Wes! I read your book and  it's full of incredible insights, 
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one of which is that - you know - the natural  world is... what we want to save; civilization and   its industrial processes are another question and  I think the environmental movement divides there   are people who are trying to save - you know - the  industrial complex, the extractive economy and...   the economy and such, and there are people who are  saying: 'No, the economy is based on growth, and   we live on a finite planet; that's insane! We need  to save the forests, the land and the oceans, and  
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there are people, many people, who are saying that  - you know - our abusive animals, particularly our   eating of fish and meat, and you know 60 billion  animals raised for food have replaced the wildlife   on the planet. We've wiped out 70 percent of the  wildlife, so we need to - you know - that would   be one thing we could start doing right away is  to stop eating meat and fish and let the oceans  
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recover and the forests recover, and the soil  is something that you guys are more expert in   in understanding that soil is not infinitely  replaceable which people don't really understand.   >>>Well, let me first of all point out I am  not an expert in soil, that is Wes's domain.   In the book ‘An Inconvenient Apocalypse’ we  talk about the temptations of dense energy   and Wes, I think, one of his most important  insights is to start looking at that,  
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not just during the Industrial Revolution, not  just the fossil fuel era, but back to the origins   of agriculture and we have to take seriously the  temptations of dense energy which are attractive   not only to rich capitalist exploiters, but to all  of us, and so in this book what we're trying to do   is inject a bit of humility; that we're not just  pointing the fingers at the obvious bad guys - you  
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know - CEOs of oil companies or something  like that. We're talking about human nature,   and Wes and I both come from the progressive -  you know - left side of the political fence and   sometimes folks on that side are uncomfortable  talking about human nature, talking about shared   responsibility, but if we are going to honestly  confront the ecological crises, what we call the   multiple cascading ecological crises, it's not  just climate change; it's all of these: soil  
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erosion, chemical contamination, biodiversity.  They interact in ways we cannot predict and if   we're going to deal with that I'll go back  to Wes’s first point about fewer and less,   we are going to have to think about what is a  sustainable level of the human population at   what level of consumption. That's one of what  we call the four hard questions that not only  
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the dominant culture ignores, but I think much  of the environmental movement ignores as well.   >>>I found it interesting the suggestion that we  should live in communities of say 150 people that   that's the cognitive capability of our minds and  our actual being, that we would have much more...   a much better life if we weren't living in these  enormous cities and so forth; that maybe as we  
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transition we should really think about how could  we create these kind of communities that would be   not based on consumption, because we  know that's at the root of the problem,   but based on - you know - wow! How beautiful  is Nature! How wonderful are our relations,   as you suggest in your book, you know? Renewable  energy isn't going to step in there and make   everything work; it just can't as you've said. >>>That's another one of those hard problems:  
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what is the appropriate scale of a  human community, and the number 150   comes from research about how many people we  can kind of cognitively deal with at one time.   Wes and I don't imagine suddenly there's going  to be - you know - New York City is going to   break into separate communities of 150. But  here's where I think Wes’s experience in   a rural area is really useful and a lot of those  stories are in his previous book: 'Hogs Are Up',  
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and I think Wes... one of the things I remember  Wes saying many years ago that really had an   effect on me, Wes, in a talk you said: this is  not mere nostalgia, but a practical necessity,   so when you talk about rural communities in  the Great Depression, you're not just waxing   eloquent about the 'good old days', you're  looking for lessons, am I right in that Wes?   >>>That's right, that and those are loaded  with subtleties that have no standing  
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in the conventional culture. It has to do  with the nod of one farmer to another when   a conversation has been going on that has to  do with maybe coming over in the afternoon and   helping; none of this stuff computes in  the usual kind of economic forum. Well,  
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why didn't they just... why did they do it  that way? Well, because we're human beings that   evolved in the upper Paleolithic and we had to get  along with one another when we were out hunting   plant material to eat or to sneak  up on that deer that was in there,   the thicket the other morning. You know, there  were ways that we went at things, collectively,  
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and we got to remember we didn't have iron and  any of the metals. We were armed, so to speak,   with... well, that was what's... why it's called a  Stone Age. It didn't mean you picked up stones and   threw it at the deer. No, it simply meant that  you were living in a context and now that's who  
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we were and who, I think, to a larger  extent than most of us want to believe,   are still now. Let's live with that and see  where that takes us, rather than this 'g-whiz   stuff' that is taking us right down this path  of destruction. >>>We are actually a very  
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vulnerable animal, we don't like to remember  that we are an animal, and we have utilized our   environment as if we are the kings of it, which  we are not actually; we are part of a system that   we don't even recognize. We need to move to an  understanding of 'what is Nature', you know - and   respect it more highly, of course. We have...  I love your phrase 'the failure of success',  
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because that's literally what we are. We have  succeeded in taming aspects of the environment   that now are... you might say fighting back, and  meanwhile - you know - I also noticed in your book   the idea that people are waiting for God - you  know - to help them or technology to solve the   problem really takes the responsibility  of our own agency away from us. >>>Yeah.  
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You know, I think part of what Wes and  I are pointing to is the willingness   to stop believing we have solutions. You know,  often when you identify a problem people say   well we know the problems give us your solutions  and part of what Wes and I want to say is simply   there are problems without solutions. If by  solutions we mean somehow keeping this whole,   you know - 8 billion people on  the planet afloat indefinitely,  
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there really is no solution to that problem.  We have to recalibrate our goals. Now,   some people would say: well, there have been  societies that have lived more sustainably than   the contemporary U.S. and that's clearly true, but  we go back to this problem of the temptations of   dense energy - you know - human beings are like  other organisms; we tend to use all the energy   available to us and human societies using the  technology available to them tend to follow that,  
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so - you know - again, this isn't going  to be solved by nostalgically looking back   to some previous way of living. It's looking back  to those ways of living for insight into how to   face a future, that is - let's just acknowledge it  - is grim right? There aren't - you know - whether   it's in my lifetime or my child's lifetime that we  see a dramatic reduction in the human population.  
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We see a dramatic decrease in the energy per  capita that we use. We know that's coming,   and unfortunately, even large parts of the  environmental movement want to avoid that by,   as Wes said, a kind of technological  fundamentalism promising - you   know - electric vehicles are going to save us.  Well, electric vehicles are not going to save us.   And that's the kind of reckoning we're  trying to do in this book. >>>Yeah,  
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there's another thing that I hope is a derivative  of all of this. Joan, my wife, yesterday rescued   an insect that happened to  be a wasp that was on the window of the door. She rescued it and let it  outside. Well, I thought, she knows one big thing  
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along with the rest. Here is a  creature that happens to have the same   citric acid cycle as a whale, and a human, and a  corn plant, and a silvery bean. Here is the whole   creation of life with great commonality that  citric acid cycle may be the oldest molecule
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that is in existence. Now, think  about that. Here it still is that   wasp. It doesn't know it's got the citric acid  cycle, neither does the whale, and neither did we   until a short time ago. Now, why isn't  that being taught in the schools,   and I think this is what can bring on the great,  this Renaissance in the history of Planet Earth;  
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that renaissance that we had back there in  Europe, that's a pip squeak thing compared to the   renaissance that is now available to us, because  of what we now know, and that's the kind of hope   that I think is not hard to get onto. I - when  students come here - I like to show them a leaf  
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and then tell them to look at your watch, because  eight and a half minutes from now there is going   to arrive from the sun some photons that will  land on that leaf and start making sugar.   Well, that's wonderful. What can beat that?  There's not anything that can  beat that, nothing on Wall Street, 
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anywhere. It's not there. Now, that's to live for  and it ain't hard; it is not hard to get to know   those things and that's what I’m wanting us to  start talking about is the discovery of the Earth;   so far we've only colonized it.  >>>Well, we have a killing mentality,  
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to get back to your wasp - you know - most  people would go slam and kill the wasp,   right? We know this. Our chemical agriculture  is based on killing all the insects, let's kill   off the insects, and - you know - the weeds and  stuff like that - you know. We're killing the   life of our planet. It's kind of an insanity that  somehow we have to... how can we transition away   from that agriculture to what you're working on,  which is sustainable agriculture which, I think,  
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is very exciting the perennial food crops that  you've created. I've seen Konza already appearing   in the stores which is... I was thrilled to see.  Are there other crops and other agricultures   that you're working on, that would create a better  transition in the future/ >>>Well, yes, we are   working on other things. We've got a good group  of geneticists and soil people and so on here,  
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that are at work. See, here's... here just to  put out what our idea is that you don't stop   with an organism; you go all the way to the next  category called an ecosystem. In other words, this   species diversity within an ecosystem along with  the non-biota, you know, the soils and the rain  
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and the wind and the this and that. Why is it  that ecosystems are the only true economies?   They are economies. Those are real economies. This  other business is not an economy. What it all is   is a product of a disruption of the capital  that is built within forests and prairies and  
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swamps and ...and... and... and... And that is the  biggest mistake homo sapiens ever made was to go   after all of that, all of those ecosystems, but  the larger point is a whole bunch of problems   are able to be solved, if we can  get in harmony with the ecosystems   that gave rise to us in the first place. Yeah, it's yes, that's comical, and it's  
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stupid and it's this, that and the  other, but we got to begin to imagine   a world in which we're in harmony. You know,  what happened over there at the Eastern end of   the Mediterranean? Once they got those metals? Ah! You could go out and start cutting down   forests, and when you started cutting  down forests, you can now build ships  
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and when you can now build ships, you start  going across the Mediterranean and getting   involved in other people's business which  is none of your business - you know?   Why not stay where we were? No, no, no! We got  to get over there. Well, of course, if we had not   had those trips across that Mediterranean as a  result of having the metals to build the ships,  
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we wouldn't have ever got to knowing that  we're stardust; that we are born of a Universe,   and we would not have been able to contemplate  our own bodies and think - you know - at one time   essentially all of us were within a dying star.  You know - that's all wonderful that we can begin  
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to think about our journey, you see, but we...  until we start thinking about our journey we're   going to keep going around trying to set traps for  this problem of climate change. You know - we set   a trap here and we set a trap there, and we have  legislation here and legislation there, and then   think that's enough. I think we ought to be asking  ourselves: why has the environmental movement  
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failed to make the necessary transformation?  Let's just start talking to our buddies,   all in these non-profits, and for that matter  government: Why is it that it doesn't work?   Well, we got a big consciousness; we hear one  more report about what we must do, you see,   and I think we need to move over into the  realm of the possible. Now what this book of  
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Bob's and mine is about is to say: Look!  Better get used to a different life, something different we didn't set out to  solve a problem; we set out to get used to   a down powering, maybe not 2 billion down to  where we were when my brother was born in 1928, no, it may be a… it'll be a  bigger number, probably, but  
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it's got to be a kind of a goal and  how do we get there? Well, anyway,   >>>Well, it's our… it's us and it's our stuff and  it's our animals. All of that. It's not just human   beings; it's all of the accumulation that we have  in our first world. We're all at an unsustainable   level. In the rest of the world people are in  some way better adapted for the transition,  
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although climate change is going to hit people  in the Global South first and very hard,   which is extremely sad and unfair, unless we, in  this first world, stop consuming our brains off   to all these unnecessary things we're creating in  our present time. >>>You know, I’d like to go back   to something Wes said - you know - traditional  and indigenous cultures are often presented in  
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opposition to modern culture and the scientific  revolution, and I think Wes made a point that's   quite important: the reverence for the Earth that  one sees in indigenous and traditional cultures   is not in opposition to modern science. Wes was  saying that modern science should deepen our   capacity for that reverence, because as we learn  more about the biophysical realities of the planet  
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the wonder of it should expand. Sometimes people  say that - you know - science desacralized, took   the sort of magic and wonder out of the world,  but I think Wes is right, it's just the opposite.  So we're not talking about going back  and we're not talking about just a   g-whiz future. We're talking about the  merging of those two; that's where we live.   How will we solve the ecological crises? Well,  it won't just be by trying to magically transport  
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ourselves back a few hundred years and it won't  be by trying to invent our way out of it. It will   be by utilizing science in this broader goal and  I think, at the Land Institute, that's what Wes   has established using modern science, genetics,  plant breeding, to try to create a world   that can, as Wes used the phrase earlier, down  power, because Wes is exactly right, I think , 
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whether we want to or not, we are going to move  into a down powering. There is really no other   option. It's what Wes has long called a 'sunshine  future'… the sunshine future is inevitable whether   we get there reluctantly, fighting it, or whether  we embrace it, I think, is the real question.   >>>>Yeah, I have one other thing to say to be  sure that we're clear: you mentioned animals  
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and we think about animals as what we call I think  it's dumb to say that, but ‘sentient beings’.   I don't know if this is correct, but I hope it is,  that it wasn't the killing of the animals at the   Eastern end of the Mediterranean that contributed  to this problem. It was the killing of plants,  
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the getting rid of natural ecosystems that feature  the plants, and it was the iron or the ore that   allowed us to cut trees to build the ships. We  may not have lost a single species of animal,   but we've got to be thinking  about the creature laid-ness   of all of this that includes both the plants and  the animals. There tends to be - I think - too  
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much of an ignorant… ignoring of what we are  doing, say, with the loss of rain forest -   you know – we… I have grandchildren that won't  eat animals and I don't either much anymore,   but the… it's the creaturely world and it's  not creatures only. It is that non-living world  
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that was brought into existence because  of the creatures that were at work. So,   how did the oceans get salty? They got salty  because it rained and came down upon the land   and then that washed into the ocean and now  we have more salt in the ocean than when   the planet was first formed. And if it hadn't  been for that - you know - those ancient seas  
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taking that salt set the pattern of ions in  our blood - you know - we are the product of   rainfall on land that took salt to the sea  and now here we are. Now, that's wonderfully   interesting to know and if that isn't enough,  think about the geese that fly over the Himalayas.   Why are they able to fly over the homeland  Himalayas? Well, because they're descendants of  
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dinosaurs. Back at a time in which there is less  oxygen in the air and the less oxygen in the air   sets it so their bones were more hollow  and therefore could hold more oxygen   and therefore they hang on to that for  goose hood to go over the Himalayas. Now,   look at what a world we got and that's knowable;  that was not knowable ten thousand years ago.  
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It wasn't knowable five thousand  years ago; it was not knowable at the time of Darwin. >>>So we are wiser, we  know more, perhaps we're wiser from it, but   so far we haven't used that wisdom to save  ourselves, but you know, all of these things - as   you say - are treasures of humanity and we should  have - you know - hopeful attitude, I love that, 
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toward our future because we do still live on this   incredible planet with this incredible system  of Nature of which we are a part. Well,   thank you both very much for this conversation!  It's been really enjoyable to talk to you and to   gain some of the wisdom that you have accrued over  the years. Thank you! Good to talk to you, too.
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you
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