If space command. So why are the countries hit hardest by coronavirus instead focusing on preparing for conflict among the stars . Joining me now to talk over 1000 in the new cold war space race is the western worlds most famous astrophysicist neil de grasse tyson. Neil, thanks so much for coming on. What a privilege it is before i get to any of that, i have to say, given that millions of people have watched your t. V. Programs. If there are people out there who come from disproportionately socio economically vulnerable groups. How on earth can their interest in this does translate to becoming like you, not only a communicator, but a research or an innovator when it comes to science . Thats an important question and a lot depends on what kind of, what is this system that surrounds you . So for example, there are many countries where if you spot someone who is otherwise poor, but its like reading math books and physics books and theyre right in the street doing that. There are many countries where some will say, hey, we need to provide an opportunity for that person because 2 things are going on 1st, it would be good for the person, but deep down, you know, its better for the system if everybody rises to that their potential not only their potential that they can achieve, but the potential of their ambitions and without a system to connect those with ambitions to where they land, youve got nothing and brilliant people end up staying suppressed in your society. And basically at the end of the day, your society goes nowhere. Ok meant, why is your country doing so badly when it comes to corona virus . And i can give the obvious answers, but i think what were really after are deeper insights into peoples conduct. And in the United States, we like thinking of ourselves as free rights, free to the point where i should have the right to put my own life at risk. All right, so their whole states here where there is no law requiring that if you ride a motorcycle that you must wear a helmet that people can ride without helmets. That is their sense of freedom. So heres the difference. The difference is if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet and are in an accident, your chances of dying go up, but you dont really put someone elses chance of dying on the table. And so freedom stops where you infringe on other peoples free other peoples freedoms. And so, so we have a mixture of people who do take warnings for medical professional, seriously, and those who just want to america to be the land of the free, and that conflict pumped by political alignments and all this, that spoutings that has gone on on the political platforms has made for a very unfortunate situation, but its also true that coverage is going up all around the world in the 2nd wave that happened in 1918 as well. There was a 2nd wave. In fact, more people died in the 2nd wave in the 1918 pandemic, then died in the 1st wave. So we need to take cues from history here and be very serious about the advice from medical professionals. And to be clear, then obviously that was, that was returning from the trenches of world war one, jimmy cliff. If there are any and vaccines out there, any bill that are refusing to abide by government restrictions, you would recommend that everyone with as mosques and full as their governments restrictions on their freedom. If its evidence based on, you know, i mean this, i mean, you dont have to listen to me to give advice. Every medical professional is giving that advice. So, for me to give that advice, im simply stelling you, i listen to medical professionals. Ok, you know, we live in an era where everyone where, where each persons ignorance is declared to be greater than another persons expertise. And thats a dangerous combination, especially when it leads to actions that put health at risk. And that is a just that you alluded to political power, you can presumably understand the connection between inequality, distrust, of power and the cherry picking of science in a way that harms them yet. So, but i think of it differently. I think of it, there was a day, not many decades ago, where the political leader was also a primary conduit between you and things you should do for the greater good of your family and for the country. Ok. And because they had the platform, the politicians are not the experts in medicine. The medical people are and medical people do have platform. Scientists do have platform. People who have have have insights into the plight, not only of your health, but of the world with regard to Climate Change. You dont have to wait for your politician to tell you what to do about that yet. They control policy. See yes, policy matters. And that policy should be influenced by the objective li, established truths by the methods and tools of science. And when they are not, youre putting says youre putting civilization at risk. Im going to get on to the existential threat of Climate Change in a moment. But you know that the Opioid Crisis in your country killed thousands of people more than thousands. I think under the obama administration. Surely thats, that unknown would trigger some people to be suspicious of medical professionals as you put it. So there are sort of bad players out there. Yes. And so yes, you need to see when there are better players, watch the flow of information as it comes out. Look what medical professionals are telling you who do not otherwise have a financial interest in the outcome. Thats a big issue here because you want to know whos controlling the strings of the word spoken by whoever it is. Thats. Thats in your sandbox. Big pharma. Possibly, but of course big pharma is also keeping us alive. Right. So its too easy to say all big pharma is bad. Oh, by the way, give me that aspirin. I need a headache. Give me my, my view profile. So yes, we need to be sensitive to that, no doubt about it. But what im saying is that politicians, because they spend all the time arguing with each other and claiming that theyre right when others would know theyre wrong. I guess i dont tend not to lean towards what politicians tell me. You joke about the systems of government from the earliest times in the 1st series of cosmo. So i think youre doing in a 2nd serious do you think that the greatest system of government weve ever had democracy is unusually predisposed to having politicians responding to constituencies that the damage enough to refuse vaccines to believe in refusing dividends and evidence as were in a session, thats a brilliant, really good question because we, we who live in democracies like to say that democracy is the best thing ever. And yet occasionally we are reminded how fragile they are. Great democracies are the ones that are susceptible to civil wars, to us. 1st 2nd, yes. If everybody has a vote, then you could have collective ignorance voting people into office who share a collective, who share that ignorance and then try to Institute Laws and legislation. Thats a product of that. It of that ignorance, thats bad so that the solution for to nurture a democracy is to have an educated electorate and educated electorate. So i, as a scientist, youll never see me hitting politicians on the head because that implies you can just swap one out, put another one in and then all will be fine. If they are duly elected, i turn and face the people who voted for them, and i say, do you realise you just voted in a way thats not in your selfinterest . This is what i as an educator, this is right duty and should be the duty of all educators in all systems of teaching. Because what, by the way, i dont mind political fights, political fights are fine when youre talking about policy and legislation, but you should never have a political fight about whether some Scientific Research that is a bit objective. We shown to be true in german Peer Reviewed journals, to have a debate about whether thats true in a scientific, in a, in a political circle. That is, has a recipe for disaster. Well, you know, the economic hit taken by countries because of coronavirus, the biggest funding out of this crisis continues to be in terms of increases weaponry. Do you think that education is needs the extra spending after this coronavirus pandemic . Well, i think that education always needs spending now weaponry that theres always been money in the, in the, in the coffers for weapons. I mean, if you look at the u. K. Especially how many years the u. K. Has been at war, its a fundamental part of an annual budget in sovereign nations is to protect itself and some that are more aggressive to sort of take themselves around the world. What im saying here is that the wisdom of a budget allocating body is not oh, were spending money on weapons, but we should be spending more and we shouldnt. Its what is the proper balance of all of these items in the budget. Ok, and this is the problem with, with regard to poverty and homelessness. If you look at the balance of that budget, never should it be put to a binary decision. Are we going to defend our country, or are we going to know is a balance of monies that can do it all . And if its done wisely, you will do it all. Not only that, its hardly ever just weapons. Theres research that could lead to weapons, right . This is with the space force is that theres this, people want to protect your assets in space. The if theres a bad player. Ok, what im saying is i just, i wrote a book, a good 2 years ago. That its tracks the history of Scientific Research, especially my field astrophysics with the history of warfare. And its a 2 way street. And we dont want to admit that, you know, and that my sealed is, is, is liberal antiwar and historically. And currently, im just saying that our understanding of the universe and understanding of so many things on the frontier of science do overlap with military means. And children watching this in a yemen, being bombed by us weapons, 3 years by the Saudi Air Force think they can, that you do actually youre actually on the Defense Innovation board of the pentagon, as i understand it. What is that rules . Are you have a 3 year term in the role of this is to explore ways that a modern Defense System is, isnt sort of trapped in old ways of doing things just because youve always done them that way. These are things that the corporate world, especially the i. T. Sector, have done brilliantly in recent decades. And so the military is reaching into these places that are think and think of that sort of capital as an asset. So that the pentagon has many boards. I dont think ive lost count. This is one of the newest boards trying to think about what could best serve those needs. Now the grass is not stop you. There. More from the western worlds most famous astrophysicist. After this break, join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guests of the world of politics, small business, im show business. Ill see that its called, ill never will know. Well, you know, but you know, its in your vocal chords. It was a march toward was to be with the boy in the looking. You must have been some of these but i heard him in the local listen to this and like, oh well its just like you lose your meanings. Theres just a look at your bullshit to look at this all sure that you would like to welcome back. Im still here with the worlds most famous astrophysicist neil de grasse tyson. Now i know youve talked to the boss about the externalities when it comes to accounting. Does that come up at the pentagon, boyd, because presumably weaponry defense, this has a knock on effect on Climate Change. And our existence will threat that we face today. I can tell you this, that there are 2 sectors that are not in denial of Climate Change. One of them is the insurance industry. And the other one is the military. Because Climate Change creates problems, 1st, financial problems, because you start flooding, coastal flooding, coastlines, most of the greatest cities in the world are on rivers or on coastlines, london included, you start raising the sea levels, you lose all of those cities, but thats not even whats going to happen 1st, which can happen 1st, you going to lose entire countries in the south pacific, where the average elevation is just half a metre above sea level a metre above sea level. When you start displacing communities, you have a refugee problem that big climate refugees which destabilized the world. The military is paying very close attention to that, but bombing them with ever more sophisticated weapons is nothing to do with that. Thats the research that backs up the existence of Climate Change, not bombs and weapons. Well, you know, usa, what does the military think about Climate Change . And im saying they take it very seriously with regard to weapons that are used by one side against another. Thats an entire other geo political conversation, by the way, i think there should be no war anywhere in the world. I can tell you flat out. I cant imagine a future world where no one is bombing anybody. Nobody is invading anybody. And we all get along peacefully. Ok, and i dont necessarily know entirely what that rule require. I think a lot about American Military build up in presence domestically and around the world. I think about that one time i was visiting greece and i visited there their war museum and park out front was one of the airplanes they used in one of their 20th century battles. I think it was with turkey and was one of our airplanes. It was like an american girl, and i was 5, felt my heart just dropped them in another country looking at their warm using them. And its our weaponry that was they wielded in that cause. And i felt sick, briefly sick. And then i walked in and i saw, oh my gosh, the United States didnt invent war. Oh, my good, the greeks been fighting wars for thousands of years. And i said, oh my gosh, this is not an american problem. Its a human problem. Its a problem. Its a humans cant get along. So United States is a johnny come lately compared to all the wars that have been fought. It all across europe multiple times. The u. K. And france just lead the list and how many years . 2 countries have conflicted, have been in conflict. So im so yeah, this is a, its a global problem. You know, one way to make everybody peaceful is to have everybody be exactly from the same tribe. Ok, but thats not how the world is. And the challenge is how do we all get along . I try to remind people i did in my twitter stream, twitter, that at least i attempted to remind people that as much as we divide each other by color, thats you know, skin color, religion, sexual preference. All of these ways that we divide people. The coronavirus doesnt care, the coronavirus only cares that youre human. I would have thought that when the coronavirus landed, that we would have all banded together and say were all human and that is a common enemy. Like, like ammi an invasion or right weve, weve all seen in the movies. Weve got to be together on that one. And that did not happen to my great disappointment in our species. Anyone watching because musson, the thing, most people would believe, youd be disappointed, they didnt know the united humanity given how small you make the earth sound in the end, the universe, you know, i dont know whether youre aware and i want it to be clear. Its not how small i make it sound, its how small it is. Nothing to me. Its just just lets be clear about that science fact. Well, we know we dont have any time for Climate Change denial, but i dont know whether youre aware of that new Michael Moore film, which we did. And he says to how Renewable Renewable Energy is given the amount of fossil fuel emissions it costs to make solar panels and hydro. And i know as you say, in your work, its all solar really and what would you make of that . Yeah, its an important point. There are a lot of hidden, by the way, there are hidden elements in all of this, right . So you know, what is the actual cost of oil or a and, you know, with the tax monies paid for the whole foundation of an entire Automotive Industry that then use gets petrol. And so that you look at the total cost, its usually bigger than just the simple sum of a Quarterly Report accountings. So yes, if you drive an electric car, the cost to obtain the rare earth elements that go into the batteries and the electronics and all of this, that its not in ass clean, as we want to think it is. But its cleaner than the alternatives, and i make something clear. All right . If you have an internal Combustion Engine car, you have to put petrol in it to run it, right . If you have a battery driven car and you pause it into the wall, you dont really think or care yourself of whats generating that electricity. Ok, so what that means is yes, it might be produced by coal, but you could swap out coal and put in nuclear. And if you dont like nuclear, you could swap out nuclear and put in wind or solar or hydro, or tidal power. All of that pumps in through your wall socket. My point is that if you go electric, then you dont have to completely swap out your car when they swap out the source of fuel for it source of power for it. Whereas once your car is made, that has to use gasoline based on, on petroleum, youre stuck. And youre, but you built into the geopolitics of access to oil and the United States, where were, were riding on it led by iran musk some years ago. But now other companies are following suit, and thats an important these are important 1st steps. Of course, now, famous for all these a space launches that people can catch on on you tube. I mean, again, you may going down to accountancy, howd cheap is Space Exploration relative to this kind of spending that governments spend every year . So you know that the 2 levels in there, lets just think about nasa for the moment. So when nasa had the shuttle running and we were maintaining our section but built, we built the space station and maintaining our portion of it. So the shuttle, the space station, the hubble telescope, 10 nasa centers, all of the space probes that are visiting the planets. We want to pluto add all of that up at all of that up. It was 4 tenths of one percent of the federal tax budget. But if so, how do i leave visible . You get people saying, why are we spending money up there when we should be spending money here while we are spending money here, 90 9. 6 percent of all money is getting spent here. So, so again, returning to my earlier point about a wise governance knows what and how to balance things so that you get it all done in the service of all the needs of a nation. So yes, Space Exploration is expensive compared to the cost of your dinner, but its not expensive compared to cost of waging war. Then theres the, this is more than of an answer than youre bargaining for. Then theres the vision that, that brings the next generation. Oh, my gosh, were going to mars i want to be part of that. I want to be an engineer. I want to be a biologist to think about the search for life and all of a sudden you stoke, and the stam fields, science, technology, engineering and math with the ambition of students in the pipeline. And you know, and i know, and everybody who knows knows that innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrows economies. So if you care about the economy, then that kind of investment inspires people to be creative in all the ways that stoke well of what youre saying. Clearly not lost on the communist party of china. Youve, you talked about the fact they have the biggest telescope, right . Now on the chinese, you think the telescope, where the alien communication would likely be through 8 radio waves. So if illions send signals to earth, the chinese will be the 1st to hear. We dont know these. I know what its like trying to argue for more money with the government fits based programs, let alone important as your physics research. But do they sometimes say, you know what, why dont you get your own house in order and solve some of these basic problems like when the protons decay, new chilling is also laid out as a sun generate reversing magnetic field. Feel what he is sort that i have asked here. Rather than spend money going up there, let alone the space was. All i can say is no, theres no one panacea that solves all problems in any given moment. But there are pockets of research where you have ambitious people who are creative and smart and they want to learn how the sun generates its energy and how, you know how to get to pluto and in so doing, they invent stuff. My physics professor from college was one of the co discovers of a new physics phenomena called Nuclear Magnetic resonance ok. Got the nobel prize for that. Well, the clever medical technician said, oh my gosh, thats phenomenon. I can make a cavity, put your body in it, and i can distinguish different adams in your body in ways that x. Rays cannot and thus was developed. The Magnetic Resonance imaging are arguably the most potent tool in the arsenal of the medical doctor to diagnose the condition of your human body. And thats based on a principle of physics discovered by an astrophysicist who had no interest in medicine to begin with. Well, you know rafa a series of cause must the series after the famous one michael saying, and when dad to millions of people are going to ask you and that started with the persepolis in the end they were on, which i think the jump was supposed to be bombing a week ago getting the room is to tell me about the new series of cosmos. One thing that is a rip recurring theme in cosmos. And its that, its not just, were not just out there saying youre all going to die. If we know its, theres always some thread of hope that is offered how to use the awesome powers of the methods and tools of science to solve the problems, some of which science created, but most of which were created by the denials or the absence of foresight. Or, or total selfishness of people in power. And many of the stories come from, from the research in mind of andrew b. And whos this eclipse sauce of all 3, cosmos it 2014 and this year 2020, shes the that the principal writer of record. There are other writers that come in and out over the over those years, but shes been on it all 3 she, shes highly scientifically literate and deeply enlightened in a way where she can see how science can be not just something you learn, but something you take to heart and stumping that you embrace take ownership of and decide. Yes, im now empowered to make a better world based on what i just learned. That is the d. N. A. Of cosmos. And im privileged to be host of it by the way. It has the same distribution as in 2014. So its 187 countries 47 translations that a friend of mine got one where apparently im speaking brilliant spanish and it is ideal. You learn spanish, really. Whoops. So theyve been 47. 00 translations and its whole cosmos possible worlds, which is an exploration, not just of yes, exoplanets that are out there. Those are fun to think about. But, but theres, theres what kind of world obv do we have the power to create for ourselves . What kind of world are we not to . What are the risks but not, but what are the risks by taking this path instead of that path into our future . Are we to shepherds of the, of, of the planet that we need to be so that our descendants will be proud of us, rather than embarrassed by what we have done to this world. So its optimistic and do you know anything pandemic . So and you microbial resistance when all finished yet as a species . Yeah. Id hope not. A virus is not going to render us extinct. But you would hope that pandemics force us to that we pass through some kind of portal and we look around and say were now on the other side of a gate. And that was a tough gate to pass through. That do we have the right Research Going into Antiviral Research programs . Do we have the cancers for, for the pestilence, for all these things that the, that pen to make is forcing us to rethink to we have the wisdom to actually rethink things so that we come out the other side, a better world, not one that still fighting over whos going to wear a mask . Neil de grasse tyson. Thank you. Pleasure. And thats it for the show. You know, week with one of the greatest football stars, diego maradona, a champion of the poor and dispossessed from buenos aires to nappanee fighter from a vendor in caracas to jerusalem. And damascus died at the age of 60 will be back on monday, 21 years to the day pentagon defense that systems today, accused of facilitating war crimes in yemen was formed until then subscribe to watch out on you to join the underground on twitter, facebook, instagram, backscatter survival guide, post a single malt. To start this piece. You dont get a good repatriations. Forget the rest of 7 years. Philip, is that kaiser report violent protests continue in the french capital over a controversial bill, not restrict public media from filming a police officer. As we go live to the country for reaction in moments, tells the world it will defend itself against provocation from israel. The u. S. , after one of its top Nuclear Scientists described it as an act of terrorism. Know