Register or on a website or you can get on a mailing list. Come at the next couple nights, tomorrow night Legendary Music writer rick berlin will be talking about his latest book about boston music scene. And then on whats today, monday . Wednesday night Sarah Moriarty will be out with her debut novel in north haven and on and on so please come back. Peter brannen is a journalist writing about science, not religion. So the ends of the world he is writing about are not armageddon but massive extension that occurred over the last halfbillion years of the worlds history. You will notice the book is entitled the ends of the world added to think im getting way too much when i take that the world has basically ended five times in the last halfbillion years and thats not even counting last november. [laughing] peter was born and raised i have a kind of jokes here. [laughing] ill be back again at 11. [laughing] peter was born and raised outside boston, graduated from boston college. I learned from his website that is a placental mammal. [laughing] it was on the internet. His work has appeared in the new york times, atlantic, washington post, wired, slate, the guarding among others. He was a 2015 journalist in residence at duke, dukes National Center and at 2011 Ocean Science journalism fellow. He got his start as reporter for the gazette. As you will hear his book tells us we can learn a lot from geologic history about what to be scared of but also perhaps some small ways in which we can find ourselves slightly optimistic or at least not terrified. Please join in giving a warm welcome to peter brannen. [applause] thanks everyone for coming. This is a great turnout. Im very honored that you all showed up. I figured that since i am in the boston okay. There we go. I figured i would start with a boston themed reading which comes early in the book to set the stage where i talk about kind of some thoughts that are a little controversial but i just roll with it. All right. It starts. Im from boston. Conveniently this means its only a short commuter ferry ride across the harbor to see what might be some of the earliest fossils of large complex life in the history of the planet. Marina with the condos is a beach studded with a rusty spikes of some bygone wharf. At the far end of the neglected beach bowtied reveals ancient seafloor draped in seaweed sloping into the sea. The rocks in the bottom of the ocean off the coast of a supercontinent near the south pole lookout not far from the bed bath and got popular. Ayes dimension wahlburgers but figured no one knew what that was outside of boston. There were more than half a billion years old. The plaque marker indicates theres anything particularly interesting about them. Brushing back to rock reveals concentric ovals no larger than a quarter to pop the service of the stem. The anderson rings in the rock might mark the imprint where a first shaped creature anchored itself to the slimy silt at the bottom of the ocean at the thought of complex life. This is where the story starts. On a planet that shares our name but thats about it. Its impossible to grasp how long ago these creatures lights on the antarctic boston c4. Its impossible to grasp how old the planet is not insignificant the role of humanity has played. Carl sagan helped illustrate how utterly marooned with our in our tiny are flung corner of space. We are marooned in time between incomprehensible eternities. Luckily geologists have come up with mental tricks to help us. One of them involves a footstep analogy echo Something Like the following. Imagine eac it to be decrepitud0 years of history. The simple conceit as to the fight implications. Lets begin our walk. Well start in the present and head back. As you lift up your heels theres no internet, onethird of the earths core reappear. Taliban finally reassembled come to world wars are fought in reverse pick the electric glow in the knights of the is extinguished and when your foot plant the Ottoman Empire exists. One step. After 20 steps you stroll by jesus. A few paces later the other great religions begin to go out of existence. With each footbal footballer cul milestones get more staggering. First Legal Systems and writing disappear and then tragically so does beer. After only a few dozen steps to 40 can reach the end of the block all of reported his tribute of, all of civilization the gadget and woolly mammoths exist. That was easy. You stretch your legs and perhaps prepare for what couldnt be much longer a walk. Perhaps its a short tilt of the dinosaurs of further still to the kilobytes. You get the formation of the earth by sundown, not so. In fact, you have to keep walking 20 miles a day every day for four years to cover the rest of the plants history. Then theres little footnote to reach the big bang to have to keep doing that for almost another decade. Cleared the story of the earth is at the story of homo sapiens. Almost all of that walk would be through a forbidding landscape with no complex life on it whatsoever. Not in the deep sea, not atop the mountains, not in the tropics on the endless bernd granted interiors of the continents. Save for the wind and the waves, ours was a site plan for the most part during this nearly eternal preamble to him alive. Those first creatures stand in the rocks a Boston Harbor and elsewhere came after 4 billion years on earth without anything on the typeface of the plan more exciting than pond scum. In fact, views between 1. 85850 million to years ago were so uneventful that even geologists have taken to referring them as the boring billy. When a geologist call something boring, wheel in horror. As a search liferaft of the plants this is something to keep in mind. Even the earth was a desolate wasteland for 90 of its history. One of the only signs of life in the rock record for billions of years is the presence of an inspiring amounts of fossilized microbial slime. Then you read 635 known years ago a tiny whisper of complex life, rocks found in oman their 24 isopropyl, stain, ive never had to sit outline, a mouthful of the chemical that todays produce only by certain sponges. As the smithsonian stucker when rice humanity owes a special debt to sponges. Something to keep in mind the next time youre using one to wipe bacon grease off a fan. Then around 579 million years ago during the eed akron. After a spell of sterilizing global ice ages aptly called snowball earth the champagne bottle of life was in court and large complex creatures finally and suddenly appear as fossils on the ancient floor. Though this is recent history in the 4,500,000,000 year lifespan of the planet, it still unspeakably old, or than 200 million years before the supercontinent pangaea symbol to more than 500 million years before t rex. At five and a second million years ago with a 5 9 million years before modern humans whose hoosiers on the plan are measured in hundreds of thousands rather than millions of years. Even for geologist these past all understanding. So i figured that would be a good way to set the stage of what sort of timestamp were talking about, and so the first, im ignoring the boring billions for good reason. I think some geologists would that be too thrilled about that but this book focuses on the last halfbillion years when we have had things that we would recognize as wildlife. Fish in the ocean, at some point life comes onto land. You have trees and you start to build these ecosystems. This is the age of animal life in the age of mass extinction. There is five times in last halfbillion years when the majority of life on the planet goes extinct and what is geologically a very brief period of time. At the most this was a few tens of thousands of years. We know from rock dating, and it couldve been only a few thousand years, they could even a few centuries. Its hard to tell. The most recent one of these, just give you some perspective, was 66 million years ago. This is also the most famous one. This is a mass extinction that takes out the nonbird dinosaurs. We we still have bird dinosaurs, birds. So this i this is a most famous. As one knows an asteroid hit in 1980 Walter Alvarez and his dad lose alvarez at uc berkeley discovered what is essentially a layer of asteroid dust in the layers between the age of dinosaurs in the age of mammals. In the early 90s paleontologists identified a 1an peninsula in mexico. You had this very unique story was starting to come together the reason why dinosaurs and most of life on earth at the time went extinct, the big marine reptiles, most mammals come these big things called ammonites that are select squid like things, this toy made sense that you have this asteroid that hit, and most life on earth goes extinct. So Popular Culture notice this. In the early 90s a lot of baboons came out like deep impact and armageddon. The reason why i voted this sort is because in the popular imagination that sister of mass extinction. Theres these things happen when asked which of the planet. In the last 30 years since then a totally different story has emerged that i didnt think it really reached the public yet. It had, but i wanted to add my voice to this. So its as if it was a most mass extinction was one that took up the took out the dinosaurs. These really alien worlds that you dont hear much about, people always ask me what went extinct . Its hard to describe because they really are unfamiliar worlds. You have this world of alternate universe of crocodile relatives that goes extinct in the triacid, some of them wouldve been on two legs and eating, or plant eaters and others where these athletic predators and dinosaurs were there. Before that you have these, another alternate universe of protomammals reptiles, these things would eventually one line would become mammals but most of them were these deadend, weird, somewhere rino like with tasks and other ones were sort of wolf or tige tiger like. That all gets destroyed. Mass extinction before that, youre this world of big armored fish. These things are sort of like deep teens for miles and his bony armored heads. Its hard to summarize this stuff. In the book i do my best over a few hundred pages. Then as you get to the oldest mass extinction that happen 445 million years ago and it does look like anything today. Theres a vast ocean in the northern news there, almost no plan at all. Africa is over the south pole because the life on land at all. In the ocean theres hardly any fish and is dominated by this world of sort of creepy crawlers, a lot of chemicals and things that look like horseshoe crabs. These worlds were all just of the dinosaur world was destroyed, these worlds were abated by catastrophe. Armed with the knowledge that it seems like a pretty, the picture was pretty clear that asked which can wipe out the world, so this book was called mass extinction. Geologists have gone back looking for evidence of asteroids because they figured thats the story of mass extinction, the story bastards. The surprises, they didnt find any big craters. They did my english of asteroid dust at any of the other extinctions. At most of them they found these unimaginable volcanic events, these things called continental flood defaults. When is a unimaginable, these are the biggest whatever which now comprises the huge area of siberia that still is made of soft which at one point was lawful erupted in islam at the inn of the permit, the worst mass extension ever, it wouldve been enough lava to cover the lower 48 states in lava a kilometer deep. So when we talk about the yellowstone being like the most dangers volcano on the planet today, if yellowstone went off it would be bad for agriculture and civilization and it would cover a few states and a few inches of ash. This thing would cover the lower 48 and a kilometer deep of lava. The scary thing, then use thing about this story of volcanoes rather than asteroid is that the way they rendered their destruction isnt through the lobby itself which sounds destructivdistracted but we knon recover in environments like that. How why did it is basically a big pile of lava and discover entries and wildlife and its a nice place. A few thousand years ago, thats what ive heard, i never been. A few thousand years ago canada was covered in ice a mile deep. So life can bounce back from pretty extreme situations. What geologists and paleontologists think how these arcane into the world so many times is huge injections of volcanic gas, the most important one wouldve been Carbon Dioxide. There are ways, really clever geochemist teresa figured out that the huge injections of Carbon Dioxide into the air. We know they got extremely warm at some of these events. One paleontologist described the worst mass extinction ever as, that the oceans around the topics wouldve been the temperature of hot soup. It got pretty extreme. Another thing Carbon Dioxide does is it reacts with seawater and makes it more acidic which makes it harder for a lot of animals to live, things that bell shells or skeletons out of calcium carbonate. We see huge Ocean Acidification at these extensions, huge Global Warming, and ocean starts to lose their auction mostly because of the warming. This should come it sound a little frightening because we are starting to see the first glimmers of this stuff today. It is getting warmer. The oceans have become 30 more acidic since the start of the industrial revolution. Already a rent and arctic the Southern Ocean some kind of plankton that calcify are starting to dissolve the more acidic waters. In the Pacific Northwest oyster growers are having trouble growing or should a more acidic waters. The oceans are losing the oxygen as a as a result of both warming and pollution from industrial agriculture. I think theres a lesson that geology can teach us, which is that so far humans interaction with the environment to the extent that weve negatively influence it has been through direct interference. Weve done a lot of hunting. We have overfished. We have destroyed habitat and theres been a lot of habitat fragmentation, things like that. I think we stopped, the planet would recover pretty quickly. Once you start really messing with the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere things are starting to meddle with these geological forces that of only really been at least in the most extreme events there are associate with the worst things that hav are literally ever hapn in the history of the planet. I think the good news is we are not there yet, which is good. Were certainly not, i mean, so i did into trouble because one of the excerpts published a set were not in a mass extinction yet which both i was trying to be, good news and bad news. Its good news that were not in the end when the fossil record goes almost silent for millions of years. You cant find trees for 10 million years so were not there yet, which is good news i guess. But we are starting to see very faint glimmers of these things. So far i think conservative estimates are in the last few hundred years human beings have wiped out on the order of 1 or less of species that we have documented. The worst mass extinctions upwards of 90 . There still time to get to the worst but a lot of geology and astronomy drive home the point you are kind of like not that big in the big picture. But the next few decades we have the capacity to make decisions about how we live on this planet that really could start to affect the planet for, if youre a geologist, 100 million years ago you could see like we might become important in a geological sense. Before we hit that point, i think we have a lot to learn from these events can even as alien as the planet was, theres still things we can learn from geology. So i guess thats the more of the book and im sorry if that was rambling or two technical or anything, but thanks for being here and a im happy to open up the floor to questions. Do you have any . [applause] i know i rushed through a lot there. Josh. Were any of these extinctions controversial during the time that you were reporting and writing the book . Better understanding of any of them change if he had to do with shifting ground . The mass extinction is famously controversial in that you had these two warring camps, one which vouches for the importance of asteroid, and there was an incredibly big volcanic event in india at the exact same time. So for about 30 years these two camps have been going at it, people of lost professional relationship over these things because they are in volcano camp of asteroid cant. One guy told he wouldnt comment on this extinction because it was too political. But theres a fascinating sort of beginning of reconciliation in that the more time people spend in india dating these volcanoes, the closer it gets, the closer the worst episodes get to the extinction of bounty which is really interesting. Answer even Walter Alvarez of a cigarette the papacy it was an asteroid published a paper last year or the year before saying the asteroid miner disrupted the planet mantle so much that a cause the worst episode of volcanoes and it really was this tagteam effort from asteroids and volcanoes at the same time. Its been cool to watch what was officially acrimonious fight sort of become this coherent story about how just miserable things got at the end of, for dinosaurs and Everything Else that was alive at the time. I had a question that oddly enough you covered a vision of the world and had a question on the same exact point in there. I was curious if there was any comment from the woman who kind of did the research on the after some guy spoke saying that he thinks they could of been related. Has the volcano camp come back and commented on that . So this lady who has been forever kind of out anyone this because she dismisses the asteroid completely. I went to a conference where Walter Alvarez was maybe, afterwards i dont know what they said, but they had this like reunion where it seemed like that a real heart to heart afterwards which is funny to see. She hasnt softened at all. You go to conferences and she dismisses it at hand. Some people call her stubborn but i think shes, she is certainly an interesting lady. Anyone else . I want to pick out a couple pieces of the research of of the really stood on your mind as surprising and memorable. Maybe your entire work. The entire process was memo. I think the most surprising thing to me was that geology really, you think about people going out to the southwest every year for field camp to dig up dinosaurs and things. You think a paleontologist, something that happens after in remote places. But the extent to which these incredible like stories of earths history are all around us. The thing that i live in boston i had no idea. I knew you could find fossils in the middle of the outback and newfoundland. Then assign a footnote and said also at this place in Boston Harbor. That blew me away. My dads side of the feminism since then. He did know anything about the geology of cincinnati and it turns out this is one of the most famous fossil sites in the world for the earliest. Period so you can pull over on the side of the road and just in these highway road cuts if you look at a close it looks like a coral reef basically. Theres coral and all sorts of these seashells just falling out of the side of the highway. Then the palisades in york, ive driven down the west side of a million times and always thought they were kind of grand and majestic to look at, but then in 2013 i saw this paper by columbia and mit folks a this thing that youre used to actually cause one of the worst mass extinctions in our history. That was kind of the big revelation for me was geology is all around us. No matter where youre standing, if you look at the geological history of the rock your standing on, its just a fascinating story. I kind of caught this bug late in life and ive the zeal of the recent convert i guess to geology. So is it understood what causes these Massive Volcanic event . Theres a few theories. The leading one is so it starts to get into pretty high level of geophysics which is hard to understand some of the papers that are written on it, but i know mantle plumes is the biggest three, just that you this especially hot like plastic blob of magma that services to the surface to one of the mass extinctions take place when angie is drifting apart making it more susceptible to one of these volcanic events to come through it. But yeah, i mean, theres a lot of debate on why these happened. Is there any pattern to the cycle . I dont think so. People love looked for like mass extinctions. I think the work is kind of, people are skeptical about it. But for the big continental flood default i dont think theres any pattern to it. Yellowstone was on top of one of those speakers yellowstone is on top of a big chamber but im not really sure whats going on. Its a totally different style. I dont know where i was listening, it it ever stops, old smokey, if those ever stop, get on the plane to new zealand right away. Actually one geologist i hung out with said whenever geologist have a few peers they start to talk about whats the sign yellowstone is about to blow, that he really get scared about. And what is said that when the geyser is shut off, he will run for the hills because thats been the magnum has come up into the plumbing basically. Another person said if Yellowstone National parks stops tweeting, they will know. I dont know if that is still applicable these days. Were you a geology major in college . No. I was a total fraud. I was an english major. I took a few science classes. Ive always loved reading science nonfiction. I like to think that i imported the skills from reading good books into trying to write hopefully a decent book. Were there any books that inspired you with thinking about the structure of this or how to report it . I was lucky i could use a chronological structure and start from the beginning. I dont not organize the book really. Ive used each chapter kind of as its own standalone Magazine Article because it made it more manageable. There are books about mass extinctions that inspired me. Walter alvarez said a few times his book t. Rex and the crater of doom was a good one. In the early 2000 this guy who i interviewed the book wrote a book called under a green sky. It was the first time i had heard this story about co2 driven Global Warming has been associate with some of the worst things that have ever happened. He comes to me before that i can only knew as this thing did happen in computer models and things like that. This idea we can actually, we can look at the most extreme examples to see what kind of hard limits are for planet earth. Earth. Its kind of a revelation to me. It was very good to talk to him for the booker i think is kind of i was starstruck. [inaudible] how the co2 levels return to normal after the so the plan as a few ways of getting rid of excess co2. There are shortterm ones like when the ocean turns over, some of co2 is removed. But the big ones really are rock weathering, which is hereto reacts with rainwater. Eightyearold roxanne eventually the co2 from the air is turned into limestone at the bottom of the ocean. That takes place over at least 100,000 years. Thats why Ocean Acidification is a problem. If we just injected tons of co2 but over a few million years it would matter because the earth system can keep up with that level. It can wash it out of the system. Ocean start to acidify when youre faster than these earths systems. So in the long term all the oil and gas and coal burning will end up as limestone on the bottom of the ocean but thats on a timescale, it doesnt matter for humans. Thats over 100,000 years. The scale of our current pcs loss is utterly dwarfed by the permian, but did you happen to talk about whether like we are tripping towards a Tipping Point but anyone talking about that . No. So as i said before we are not at the same level of extinction for species as happened in these past events. But the scariest talk i went to was thi the smithsonian paleontologist about mass extinctions unfolded same way that power grid failures do, which is that power grids, eastern seaboard is up and running and then theres, the straw that broke the camels back theres a Software Glitch in some control room in ohio and a whole eastern seaboard goes dark. It might be the things were doing now theres his term which is an all populations are much less any were historically, the range size are contraction. We might be edging up to the same thing as power grid filled with the ecosystem seems like its taking our abuse, its not what it once was, but then we might have some wine like where the whole ecosystem comes down all at once. At that point thats a mass extinction and its too late to do anything about at that point. We dont know where that line is so thats why conservation is even more, when i said we are not in mass extension people that those like a date against conservation biology that its an argument conservation is even more important than you might think because we dont know where the edge is that we might go up to this line and pass it and then game over. Good question. So there was a paper a few years ago called has first six mass extension arrived . It was reported in a paper like yes, it has even that paper says its a few hundred years, a few millennia of continued human destruction that you get to those levels. The fact were even in the same conversation as when an asteroid in india is covered in lava is pretty bad. That should give you some pause, i guess. Obviously so much of the geological record that we have now is from land and threequarters of the world isnt. To what extent do geologists think theres lots and lots and lots that they dont know because its under the oceans . And do we think theres going to be a time when we do understand that better and it might change . Thats a good question. So the old seafloor is from about 200 million years ago because the seafloor gives created and he gets destroyed at the edge of the continents. Sometimes it gets smeared against cotton. In japan you can find old ocean. C level for the most part was higher than it is, well, you can find ocean rocks on every continent in the middle of the continent, in ohio, you know, the middle of china. I think we have, its true like the fossil record is biased and we dont have at least a very fragmentary picture of what earths history was. There are ways to account for the bias, and on the whole winter pretty good picture of what life on earth looked like during these different periods. I dont know if that answers your question. You interviewed a lot of heavy hitters in very detailed specialist in the fields how well were you received by those individuals who thought the process to taking and the concept of the book . It was funny because the first year i went to like one of these geology conferences, i felt like an odd ball. I the one poking around like asking people questions. I think people look at me skeptically and given that the book didnt come out for two and half years after that, as i kept showing up at these coverages thought i was somewhere guy who said he was writing a book. I think now that its gotten, now they know its a real thing, and i become i was a friends with some of these people, its kind of cool that i have in some small way have been adopted sort of as an honorary paleontology nerd, i guess. Are you more or less spooked now than you were to and half years ago . Thats a great question. I went into this project very much, you know, i dont know if im a pessimist, lets say i am a realist. I was aware of humans, the way we negatively influence the environment. And i would say i was kind of went into this project was sort of an ecological gloom and doom attitude that maybe will take everything down with us, bu buti dont know if its optimism but i very much realiz realized thae plan will be totally fine in the long run. If that matters. It is seen worse than human beings. One paleontologist said the worst mass extinction was the best thing that ever happened for us because right after it you get dinosaurs, crocodiles and mammals. Like the world that we know would not have been possible and less this worst thing ever happened. I would say its renewed my faith in the plan is resilience. I think things could get pretty unpleasant for civilization in the next couple of decades, centuries. Bubut i think in the long run te earth will be just fine. If we can make it through these are growing pains that were kind of having as a species, i dont know. I would say i am more optimistic. I might be less optimistic about the shortterm, more optimistic about the long term. I was just wondering what you thought the hardest part of writing your first book was . Definitely the learning curve here i basically had to take like a crash phd in all this stuff. Ive set it off the cover wouldve written a book proposal and how much i didnt know when i wrote it. I never wouldve been to think i could write a book about the stuff. Theres some pretty arcane geochemistry and theres so much a jargon in geology. Theres like 20 different ways to call the same rock the same rock. There are words therefore reason, but like getting the vocabulary and learning a lot of the basic concepts, but yes, that was the hardest. And organizing the whole thing, too. Are you going to write a book on something entirely differently . I think i definitely, i know have kind of become obsessed with the topic a little bit. I kind of feel like i have some hard base of knowledge now that will serve me well as a right other stories. I wrote a story about the evolution of wales a few months ago where i was able to link some of these big geological concepts into how the climate and tectonics change over time and now that influenced whale evolution b. If i didnt have that background that story wouldve been impossible to write basically. Im not quite sure, im going to try to save is as simple as possible. You are accumulating so much arcane information from so many wellversed, arrogant and many degree people. How did it feel than to go back to your writing and just write as you write by infusing those things which are taken from them into your own vernacular . Because as i am thumbing through this i see how readable it is, how accessible and is just sort of a relief and a pleasure not to have endless footnotes. But, i mean, you had to deal with the story, so you cant be cutting corners. Its that language and asking. That was something i constantly had remind myself was about i would write a sense and be like is that close enough to the technical definition to be totally ironclad from an academic point of view . And then i would have to step back and be like im not writing this book for geologists, even though i want to win the respect of the only people i been hanging out with for the last three years that its okay to call a cmos to because most people would not know what is talking about. I wish is constantly reminding myself of that. Even that said i was afraid i might have gone to in the weeds with some of the technical staff, but i like to think i struck the right balance of keeping people on the edge of what their comfortable reading but also making it readable. It is very much felt like my job was translation. Some of these people were just so flattered that someone wanted to talk about it. [laughing] that they would talk to me for hours and didnt understand much of it. Do you think earth is alive . Like the hypothesis on talking, ive a friend whos arguing the earth is alive. You said the plant will survive at the end. What does that i think they gets into some philosophical ground. Theres an interesting ways in which the planet, through these big cycle that self regulate in pretty interesting ways. So the rock weathering cycle is also known as earths thermostat. When co2, theres too much co2, gets warmer and rainwater gets more acidic and its turned into limestone in the bottom of the ocean and it is sequestered away. Theres this white earth stays in balance which is reminiscent of a complex system like a life form or Something Like that. I dont know if i buy really the thing where its some sort of super organism or anything like that. But yeah, it is certainly interesting. The lifespan of the planet has an interesting characteristics. So first there is bacterial life, then animal life. 800 million years it will get too hot for animal life and will go back to bacteria. Bacteria will be back on the state and then it will die. Life was show up in the reverse order that it showed up on stage, almost like, like the old baby, like whatever, the ages of, the sinks, okay. I dont know, yeah. Thats a good question though. Anyone else . I want to take this opportunity for small to thank all of you for coming, and especially to thank peter. [applause] for sharing his first book with us. Even though it is his first book he already knows what all authors know, which is they love to sign books and will sign as many of them as you purchase. Hes going to sit right here. Well get him a little table. We have books about the register if you dont have yours. If you have followup question im sure youll be happy to answer them while he is sitting and sunday. So thank you again, and thank you, peter, and thank you cspan. Thank you, everyone, for coming. [applause] seven ages of man is what i was thinking of. Great talk. Thank you. Im thrilled you guys came. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at two books per month senator patrick is reading this summer. [inaudible conversations] good evening. [applause] my name is tom campbell at the regulator bookshop and we are