Should we mess with nature?
About this episode
The episode explores the controversial topic of de-extinction and the ethical implications of intervening in nature.
All season, we’ve been unpacking the controversial ways we’re messing with nature to save the planet. In this episode, we explore the wildest intervention to date: de-extinction. We take a tour of Colossal Labs, the $10 billion Dallas startup betting it can reverse-engineer extinction itself, to see how they plan to turn pigeons into dodos and Asian elephants into woolly mammoths. But whether it’s bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction or shooting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, just because we can mess with nature, does that mean we should? After the tour, host Amy Scott chats with Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert to find out.
More episodes of How We Survive
- Your geoengineering questions, answered!
- A Carbon Burial at Sea
- How conspiracy theories impact geoengineering efforts
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the How We Survive podcast page.