A book with these events are made possible by more than 200 sponsors and more than 1,000 volunteers. Special thanks to the arizona daily star, the university of arizona and the tucson medical center. Todays conversation is presented by western National Parks association, a nonprofit partner of the park Service Since 1938 and sponsor of the National Series tucson festival of books. Sign up for the festival newsletter visit tusconfestivalbooks. Org. Visiting todays bryan walsh, graduate of Princeton University and correspondent editor at the times. He founded the awardwinning [inaudible] and reporter for more than 20 countries on science and environmental stories like Global Warming and extinction. Hes also the founder and editor of technology and science 510. His book is aimed at time n. Tif guide to the end of the world. Welcome. Thank you so much for being with us. Guest than guest thank you for having me. Host the book is about existential risks which are risks that could eliminate all of humanity or enough of humanity that survivors would be able to rebuild society to what it is now. Lets start with the big question, or the east an east a . Guest it certainly feels that way, more than it did when i finished and published the book in august of last year. The book explains we are in a unique period of peril. Big Natural Disasters, dinosaurs knocked off by an asteroid, volcanoes, things like that with what is changing now is we have new technology that is very powerful and also giving us a way to destroy ourselves, intelligence, biotechnology that can lead to pandemics worse than we are experiencing now, of course natural pandemics. It means we are at a time in our power is getting ahead of our ability to control it and dangerous place to be and what i try to focus on. Host going off on that, the book does cover risks, asteroids, artificial intelligence, aliens. How would you choose specifically what threats to cover in the book and are there any now you wish you had included . Guest i try to focus on the ones im talking to experts to go through the research had the biggest threats to the future of humanity. So, you know ones like nuclear war. In the background it is a very real danger, one of the biggest dangers that could have been right at this moment. And we also got further along this Newer Technology that isnt quite there yet but very close. And then last, what we have seen happen before in this case it could happen again, they were definitely wants to include. Once i didnt include that i wish i had, people were included to be too interested in space weather and things that knock out the power grid. I wish i had focused a little bit on that but im glad i went with the onesided. This committee and the second edition we can add more of the space stuff. Guest exactly, the sequel. Host lets focus on one of the topics you cover which is Climate Change. You write Climate Change is unlike any of the other risks covered in the book for a few reasons. One of the reasons is that it is out of control for individual action. There is something scientists are working on but are there any other normal things everyday people can do to help reverse Climate Change . Guest the biggest thing you can do about Climate Change is active politically. Climate change is a threat and National Problem and why it is hard for individuals to make a difference. It is a tiny drop in the bucket of Climate Change, so to make a difference really we need to pass laws that restrict Carbon Emissions and put money towards infrastructure that told us about Climate Change and the way you do that is a number of forms. There are candidates do care about this issue and will spend money and resources on it. Its been impressive to see a younger people taking to the streets and make a difference on this issue. That to me is what makes the difference on Climate Change. [inaudible] we have to stick together as a society, a country and world. Host what do you think are the most significant contributors to Climate Change right now . Guest the most significant how do we generate electricity, how much are we using. Thats the single biggest factor of using fossil fuels like coal engines, oil or natural gas is cleaner or are we switching to renewables or ones that have other environmental issues, so hopefully it is a question about how we power the world and if we can figure out a way to do that, that will create dangerous Climate Change. I would urge people again its a situation we need to think about how do we change is a country. Host youve already answered this question a little bit with that answer but there is a lot going on in the world all the time especially right now and peoples attention is being pulled in different directions. Why does Climate Change deserve some of tha the attention right . Guest Climate Change is one of those problems that just gets worse and worse every passing year. It compounds, which is unusual. Its kind of always present in the background. It gets a little bit worse and a little bit better but you dont have too announced a change every year it compounds almost like a debt is the way i like to think about it. Someone got a loan and dont make an interest payment, the principal gets bigger its the same with Climate Change. While there will always be other issues that in a moment well have a more pressing perimeter attention, if we dont put Climate Change first and foremost or very far up their we will continue to lose ground in the territory and it will be harder and harder with a devastating consequence. Host all right. On that note, is there anything else you would like to tell the audience about Climate Change or talk about or are you ready to move onto another thread . Guest so many threads. What i like to focus on is the need for technological innovation. We need to think about ways to get carvin directly out of the atmosphere. It isnt going to be cheap or easy but the reality is it will get so out of hand in a decade or two decades we might need extreme solutions. Better to begin the investment now and experiment so we are not left kind of grasping for emergency measures after the fact. Host all right. Lets switch over to pandemics which is a topic right now. In may of 2017 you wrote a cover story for times called the world isnt ready for the next pandemic. You wrote for th that the conses of a major pandemic would be world changing. Do you think we are at that point with covid19 . Guest i think covid19 is going to be world changing but i dont think it will lead to the end of the world. It is truly awful in every life lost is one too many but rather it shows how it doesnt rank among historys greatest killers. All through the course of the entire world but that underscores toomey [inaudible] in the sense of how this disease came about and began to spread around the world but also the economic effect. The political effects that change the relationships of countries to each other and we are rolling back because of this pandemic. Again this isnt the apocalyptic virus that we feared and we have mishandled it that badly and to me that worries the about what is to come next. Host when you first started working on the journal, in the book you write this is the first emerging global disease of the 21st century out of nowhere and how formidable the modern world was to disease like this. How is the pandemic chapter of the book different if you were writing it now during covid19 . Guest it would definitely be a lot longer although i have a hard time figuring out how to conclude it becausinclude it bes good to happen with covid19 and i become weary of making those kind of predictions. To me it shows much more just how the virus really works. Sars was a surprise and deadly and dangerous but it didnt have the ability to spread around the world. When it breaks out in places its never really took off that way. It passed the within a couple of weeks so it would really focus on this disease and also spend more time focusing on how. They are manmade disasters and their mismanaged enough way without excuse and frankly not something that i would have predicted. It shows how with a lot of other countries they can take a Natural Disaster and turned it into a much more stagnant one. Guest the sense that i got is the way that you address the fears one might have about any or all of these risks are personally was risks is to learn about them. Do you have some recommendations for the resources and that can help people learn about and deal with everything happening right now . Guest theres a few other books on this that have come out. There is one that is a book by an oxford scholar named toby ward that goes indepth but its still readable and then also to think about the ethics of it. Theyve grown up around this and [inaudible] should you go and work in congress they really go in depth into that. Host can we look forward to a new edition . Guest the future correspondent had a strange job title. I focus on it as a subject of looking at the technologies. A lot will depend on how we live and work. I think we have new ways to look in the next few years. Id like to write about them. Host is there anything else you would like to say to everyone listening right now . Guest it showed us the world isnt as stable as we hoped for assumed it was. I have every confidence that we will take a listen here that its much better to prepare for the risks and headed them off as early as possible then to wait. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you to everyone stay safe and happy reading. Thank you for the conversation and thank you for writing the book. One of my enduring frustrations in washington we Work Together 18 hours a day and almost no opportunity for t