Racing Extinction with Leilani Münter

We’re waving two very different green flags this week when Neil Tyson interviews NASCAR driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter. Eugene Mirman co-hosts, with guests Dr. Marcia DeLonge and Don Anair of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk and I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I'm also the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. Co-host today Eugene Mirman.

• 0:27Eugene Mirman?

  Hello.

• 0:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene, love having you.

• 0:29Eugene Mirman?

  Great to be here.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. How's your brain so quick when you get a joke so quick? I never understood that. You have a joke ready-made and I just invented something to tell you and it fits it perfectly in a nanosecond.

• 0:41Eugene Mirman?

  It's the science of comedy.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. We'll do a whole show on that one day. Today we're featuring my interview with Leilani Minter. She's a professional race car driver and environmental activist. And we'll be juxtaposing those two seemingly incongruous concepts to find out if and when driving a race car might actually help to make the world go more green, if you can imagine that.

• 1:08Eugene Mirman?

  I can if it's a car that uses alternative energy.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:12Eugene Mirman?

  Or very efficient.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a little bit about Leilani. She's a little weird, okay? Maybe the weirdest race car driver ever.

• 1:21Eugene Mirman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or at least certainly the weirdest one I know of.

• 1:23Eugene Mirman?

  She part robot?

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, she's kind of a, she's a paradox rolled up into a single person, okay? So first of all, the list of female professional race car drivers is short, right? It's definitely a male-dominated sport. Guys love their cars. She was a biology major, a vegan. She refuses to accept sponsorships from any company or cause that is not environmentally responsible. And you've seen race cars, they're spattered with all manner of corporate sponsorship.

• 1:53Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oil companies, you know, it's just, there's no end of it. And so, and she also adopts one acre of rainforest for every race she runs. And she uses this platform, this racing platform to stimulate awareness, public awareness, certainly not only in the NASCAR and broader racing community, but in the general public. And she made a documentary recently called Racing Extinction. And it came out in December 2015. And so I know a little bit about science and its role in the environment, but I always want to bring someone who knows more. It's always fun.

• 2:33Eugene Mirman?

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, Eugene. So to help us pick apart some of this sort of science behind environmental issues, we bring in a scientific guest from all the way across the country, coming to us via Skype. Thanks for joining us, Don. And I pronounce your last name Don Anair, is that correct?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Thanks for being on StarTalk. And you are, what I have here, you're the research and deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. So you run a car wash. Was that a good joke? That was a good joke.

• 3:11Eugene Mirman?

  That was a very good joke. You know that it's a good joke when you pointed at a comedian and say, is that a good joke? That's the hallmark of it.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So who knew that your position even exists? So can you just tell us a little bit about it?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Sure. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a national nonprofit. We put rigorous science to work for a healthier planet and a safer world. What that means is we put scientific analysis first when we're thinking about smart government policies to address issues like climate change, oil use, increasing renewable energy, and those types of things. So in the Clean Vehicles Program, I work on issues around electric vehicles, making gasoline and diesel vehicles more efficient, expanding the use and development of low-carbon alternative fuels. And we are, in the Clean Vehicles Program at UCS, we developed a practical plan to cut oil use in half for the next 20 years.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  So we're working hard to implement that plan today.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So to cut oil use in half, since the primary use of oil... In the world is not heating oil. It's not for, not even for electricity, it's for transportation, isn't that correct?

• 4:20Eugene Mirman?

  It's not even for baking.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 4:22Eugene Mirman?

  Or even deep frying.

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fried chicken. So, so it's a transportation issue and that's why vehicles are so important. I'm, I'm, I'm surmising here, is that correct?

• 4:32Speaker 02

  That's right, about two thirds of our oil use in the US is in the transportation sector. And so that's from passenger cars, heavy duty trucks are the biggest users of oil in the US.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, my, uh, from my notes here, it says you're a member of Cornell's Formula Society of Automotive Engineers? Vehicle team, is that right? What, like, what is that? Is this Cornell, Cornell University?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  That is Cornell University.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cool.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  And, uh, a number of other universities have similar teams. And basically it's a collegiate competition, which requires a group of students to manufacture a race car from the ground up. Essentially, starting with nothing, um, building the frame, uh, installing engine, tuning it, operating it, building the fuel system.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's good about a competition is that you get to, to exploit the sum of creativity far greater than what just hiring a single team to solve that one problem. Cause you get to see how creative, uh, many, many different teams can be and then compete that creativity, really.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  That's right. And dozens of teams compete in this competition, uh, and it's an international competition. Uh, when I was doing this, um, in the late nineties, it was, uh, in, in Michigan. We raced around the parking lot in the Pontiac Dome in our open wheeled race cars. It was a lot of fun.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, uh, what was the award winning car that you designed? What, what, what, what did it run on and what was fundamentally different about it?

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, uh, the competition kind of covers a lot of different, uh, areas, but obviously having a fast car and one that handles well is, is key. And one of the key, uh...

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, if, if you, it's, if instead you had just racetracks that were straight.

• 6:10Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Handling wouldn't matter, right?

• 6:12Eugene Mirman?

  Maybe if the race was just in Nebraska, this wouldn't be such a big deal.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  That's right. Um, so yeah, one of the the key pieces here around alternative fuels was we were running the vehicle on methanol, which is an alcohol-based fuel, and it was of interest in the eighties and nineties as an alternative to gasoline. And so there were additional points um for getting your vehicle to run on on methanol. So I worked on some of that. It was an interesting challenge. We, you know, I was designing some of the fuel system for the vehicle and trying to find fuel injectors, for example, that were compatible with methanol, which is corrosive and toxic.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they're not on the shelf. You have to create it from scratch.

• 6:53Eugene Mirman?

  Could it run, how could it run on whiskey? Like, how similar?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Uh, they didn't, they didn't let us try that.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, it's too bad.

• 7:01Eugene Mirman?

  Now that you're your own person, you could try it yourself.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And tell me, tell me about the impact of diesel fuel on the environment relative to other fuels. I don't think the public knows much about that, but in the, in, in your world, it's a very well-known fact. The diesel is sort of singularly more polluting than other fuels. Isn't that correct?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  That's, that's right. And it's less about the fuel and more about the, how it's used in the combustion of the engine. So emissions from diesel vehicles have typically had higher nitrogen oxide emissions, emissions of, um, which contribute to ozone or smog, which obviously has significant health impacts from respiratory disease, heart, heart and lung disease, um, exacerbating asthma attacks and, and those things. And diesel engines have a much higher rate of, uh, nitrogen oxide emissions as well as particulate matter, which is also a significant health risk. And so over the years, there's been a focus on trying to clean these up. And typically, this has been a problem more in the heavy-duty truck sector, where diesel engines are more prominent.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. And they do all the traveling. I mean, they're the ones that do thousands of miles.

• 8:09Eugene Mirman?

  That's how we get our bananas.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's exactly.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 8:12Eugene Mirman?

  Destroying the earth.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  In fact, interestingly, trucks themselves, they're responsible for about 25% of the fuel used by roads, and only about 7% of the vehicle. So they are a big contribution.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, again, we're, we're featuring my interview with, I, I, I would, I have to say her name 100 times just to make sure I get it right, Leilani Munter.

• 8:35Eugene Mirman?

  Leilani Munter.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she's, she's, she's a walking paradox. And I just wanted to find out what How can you race cars and at the same time be an advocate for the environment? And I just, let's just see, let's see where she takes us. Check it out.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're, okay, you're mad I'm environmentalist. I get that. But do you take this to heart? Do you live environmentally?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  I do. I have solar panels on my roof. I'm currently producing more solar power than I'm using for my house and my electric car. I have a vegetable garden. I'm vegan. I compost my food scraps and I've got a 550 gallon rainwater collection tank in my backyard.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you also race cars, which is the least green thing anybody can imagine doing.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sometimes solutions are not always through the path that have the, the rose garden, the flower bed. Sometimes the path is messy and then the result may even be stronger. Okay, so there are pathways that are not always what you think they should be, yet they could be accomplishing something greater than whatever it is you thought couldn't happen.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Like an environmentalist driving race cars?

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For example.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Because if I didn't drive that race car?

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The visibility of your cause would have.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  None of the race fans would listen to me. Could you imagine if I was just a biology graduate showing up at the NASCAR race trying to get them to go vegan and put solar panels on their roof and buy an electric car?

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you drive 150 miles at seven miles a gallon to a cause that ultimately will be, will pay dividends far beyond anything that could have happened otherwise.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  He gets it. He gets me. You understand me. Yeah, I'll get attacked for that. You know, the 35 gallons that I burned during the race because my gallons being burned are on TV. I can actually turn on Fox Sports and watch Leilani burning fossil fuels. Like, how can she be an environmentalist when she's like, I can see her burning fossil fuels on TV? But they're not considering like outside of that. I the last time I went to a gas station, September two thousand thirteen. Essentially, my car, I try and use it to raise awareness around environmental issues. The most recent car that I was running was actually, it was called the Energy Freedom Car. And we were trying to highlight the battle that's taking place between utilities and people

• 11:18Speaker 03

  like me who want to put solar up on their rooftops. So like the last car that I ran was actually a private donor who was a woman that just understood that the NASCAR crowd, you know, there's seventy five million NASCAR fans in the US. And she wanted them to understand.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be a fourth of the country.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got about a little more than three hundred million people, seventy five million fans.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  That's a lot.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's almost everybody. I mean, I mean, I don't know anything other than football that has that kind of sort of support to it.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  It's a really big sport.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And following.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  And it's typically not being, a lot of environmentalists are not reaching out to NASCAR fans.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let me ask you something. Does something happen, was it Congress or the courts that knocked down a plan by Obama to reduce carbon emissions? What was, could you catch us up on that?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Uh, sure. Just recently, the Supreme Court put on hold implementation of the Clean Power Plan, which is a plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants across the US.

• 12:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why did they do that? It's the courts. Why did they do that?

• 12:26Speaker 02

  The courts did that. Uh, there's been lawsuits against the, the plan. And there are some initial deadlines that are coming up pretty soon. And so they didn't throw out the plan, but they did put on hold some of the implementation dates so that there was time to address the legal issues that are being raised.

• 12:46Eugene Mirman?

  So was anything deemed unconstitutional or was just deemed too quick?

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I mean, is it a constitutional thing?

• 12:53Speaker 02

  No, at this point, there's no decision on the merits of the actual plan. It's just a, us basically a holding, they're not going forward with implementing it until they make a decision.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, it's not a political thing? I mean, because if, if Leilani was way even more effective than she is, could the court have even found itself in this situation to say no?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  I didn't quite get that.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, neither did I.

• 13:21Eugene Mirman?

  Well said. I almost answered it.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, okay, if Congress resists some movement, you can say, okay, they believe they're representing an electorate and they're carrying an opinion into law and policy. But the Supreme Court has the Constitution.

• 13:38Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is there something that could have happened before that for the Supreme Court to have said, yeah, this is a good idea. Let's pursue it and we're not going to block it.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Um, well, I, you know, I guess they haven't said they're gonna block the, the plan. I think obviously there's a lot of legal steps. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to all the details on this, but you know, I think that the main issue here is that, um, that despite some of the challenges, uh, at the federal level for these policies, there's obviously states who don't want to follow these rules and they're gonna, they're gonna file lawsuits. But on the flip side, there's dozens of states that are actually moving forward with clean energy now. Um, I think that's the important piece.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can shame some states into acting because they might be laggards compared with other regions of the country?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I mean, you know, the state leadership is really critical, uh, and has been in moving clean energy forward, uh, deploying renewable energy like solar and wind power. Um, and on the flip side, we've had some really significant successes in federal policy, moving towards more efficient vehicles and saving oil. It, it actually, oil is the largest fossil fuel climate, uh, source of emissions in the U.S., bigger than coal and natural gas. And so, uh, the, the fact that we're making some significant progress on this oil side of things is also good news. And those, those, uh, standards are going forward. Essentially what's in place now would roughly double the fuel economy of new vehicles by 2025 compared to 2010.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's something to look forward to. And I got here, I'm looking at sort of some data on NASCAR. Of course, it's the number one spectator sport in America. And the, if you, if you add up the real estate on the skin of a car, it's huge and the camera stays on them as they go around for the int- duration of the race. So it's, it's very high sort of, uh, marketing real estate value, if you want to even think about it that way. Says here it's a $43 billion a year industry. And here's Leilani, who's, that's her megaphone. That's her landscape. And I wanted to know by what rules she governs herself as she enters this contest. Let's check it out.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  I have some rules. I do not work with any companies that work with fossil fuels. So no oil, no coal, no natural gas. I don't work with any companies.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Work with you means get sponsored by?

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I will not, I will not.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you are putting gas in your car.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  I have, yeah, I have to do that.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At some point, like Sunoco is putting gas in your car.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  That's something I can't do anything about. But they are not a sponsor of mine. So they are, I have to run their fuel in order to be in the race because they're trying to even the field out. That's the goal of NASCAR, stock car racing, right? You're trying to make everybody running.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's just the driver.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  It's supposed to be, which it's, you know, obviously if you have more money and more sponsorship, you can afford to have, you know, engineers that are gonna find ways to make your car faster. And that's the goal. So it's, you know, it's still not completely even. But we all do have to run the same fuel.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what are your criteria to be sponsored? What is it? What's your rulebook? What is it?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  So I have a rulebook of people I won't work with.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's that?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  But it's a pretty big list of people I won't work with. I don't work with any fossil fuel companies, so no oil, no coal, no natural gas. No companies that test on animals. No companies that produce meat or dairy products or use leather or fur. So for the NASCAR marketing groups, when I'm talking to them and I give them this list, they're kind of like, well, you've just eliminated, you know, 95% of my clients.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know who's left. Legos? I mean, what's left?

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, so most of my cars.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you have blank areas on your cars that are waiting for somebody else to come up?

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Um, well, usually when I run the car, I get enough sponsorship that it's one primary sponsor. So like when I ran my Prairie Gold Solar car, it was their logo on the hood, on the quarter panels. Prairie Gold Solar. And we actually, and we charged all of my pit box. We used a portable solar device that was developed for the military, actually. And I powered my entire pit box and all of my, um, all of the equipment that my guys are using, the air guns. We didn't have a generator. We used solar. So normally the guys are using diesel generators and they're very loud. So the interesting thing that happened when we started using solar in our pit is that other race teams were coming over and were like,

• 17:58Speaker 03

  "Oh, it's so quiet in your pit. I can talk to my crew without screaming over the generator." So now I think there's actually some teams that are looking into getting solar, not based on like my reasons. I'm doing it because I don't want to use any fuel, right? But they're gonna do it because there's actually an advantage to having it be quieter in the pit. Better communication.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who would've thought?

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Right? See, there's all kinds of benefits to going green that doesn't necessarily have to do with saving the planet. Might have to do with winning a race instead.

• 18:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask you, Don, what would NASCAR be if cars were silent?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Actually, interestingly, there is a Formula E racing series now, all-electric Formula race cars.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  So it would be quiet.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 18:47Speaker 02

  But still-

• 18:47Eugene Mirman?

  They could artificially make a sound.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just, just-

• 18:50Eugene Mirman?

  With speakers and, yeah.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's like your, your smartphone artificially making the-

• 18:54Eugene Mirman?

  Tapping sound.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, the click of, of a shutter.

• 18:57Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, or the tapping of a keyboard.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in, in, in an electric car, the, uh, obviously they're not refueling, uh, they have to swap out the batteries, I guess. So that would be the task, such as swapping out wheels. You'd be swapping out the batteries.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, or they have two, they have two cars to do the race, so they switch, they switch vehicles. But, um, yeah, in this typical, uh, race, they've got, they go about an hour of driving, uh, with two, two different cars.

• 19:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, when StarTalk returns, we're gonna feature more of my interview with race car driver Leilani Munter on StarTalk.

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm with co-host Eugene Mirman and our guest, Don Anair. This, Don, you know stuff that most people don't know about vehicles, about energy, about energy conservation, about alternative sources of energy. And you are, you are working in a field that's going to have to change if we're going to bring civilization into...

• 20:04Eugene Mirman?

  Existence.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To exist.

• 20:05Eugene Mirman?

  Continued existence.

• 20:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Continued existence. And of course, we're featuring my interview with race car driver Leilani Munter. She, she drives professionally and she's an environmental activist. And we reviewed in the last segment just how big NASCAR is. Remind me what NASCAR stands for? The National, what, uh?

• 20:26Eugene Mirman?

  The, oh, just, do you know?

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:29Eugene Mirman?

  I was like, I see you can environmental it.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So National Stock Car?

• 20:34Eugene Mirman?

  Racing?

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Racing is probably in there.

• 20:37Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. I think it's, uh, moonshine, maybe in there. I've always known it as NASCAR.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that you say?

• 20:44Eugene Mirman?

  I've always just known it as NASCAR.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASCAR, yeah. I, I, I, I thought I was the first to determine this, but of course, clearly I wasn't, that race car is its own anagram?

• 20:53Eugene Mirman?

  Oh.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know that?

• 20:55Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you just...

• 20:56Eugene Mirman?

  I thought it was...

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, not an anagram, I mean, what do you call it when it's, you just say it backwards?

• 21:01Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, oh, oh, palindrome.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, excuse me.

• 21:03Eugene Mirman?

  I was like, what does race car stand for if it is a race car? Or that you could take the letters and spell Washington or something?

• 21:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, uh, so, so my, my crack team of researchers, uh, so the National, uh, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. There you go.

• 21:21Eugene Mirman?

  Great. Sounds fair.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now we're on the same page.

• 21:24Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, exactly. Now that us and everyone in it know what it is.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, so, yeah, race car spelled backwards spells race car.

• 21:31Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  FYI.

• 21:32Eugene Mirman?

  And why they're so popular.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, uh, in my interview with Leilani, we chatted briefly about a race that she was in that she didn't win, and that was better for her than having, had she won the race.

• 21:45Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know what that meant. Let's find out what she's talking about.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  One of the moments that I had with my car, one of my favorite race cars that I raced, was The Cove Car. So The Cove is a fantastic documentary that won the Academy Award in 2009. It's about the dolphin slaughter in Japan, and I became a passionate-

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was very warmly received at the Academy Awards.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Did you see it?

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Okay, so The Cove Car, I was driving this for the Dolphins. It was my first time that I ever did crowdfunding to get enough money to go run a car. So The Cove highlights the connection between the dolphin slaughter in Taiji and purchasing tickets to dolphin shows. So I wanted to get this in front of the NASCAR crowd, especially the NASCAR crowd at Daytona that's only an hour away from SeaWorld Orlando. So I had been to Taiji, I'd seen thousands of dolphins getting slaughtered, and I felt like, you know, I was on the track representing their fight. And so I said, I, you know, need you to help me get this car on TV so that people can find out about what's happening. And then my tire blew. And

• 22:51Speaker 03

  when my tire blew, you know, I was coming out of turn two, I spun around, I kept it off the wall, so I was able to, you know, not wreck the car, but my tire exploded, my left rear tire. And so the cameras cut to my car-

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you did this without hitting another car?

• 23:07Speaker 03

  I didn't hit anybody, and I kept it off the wall. But I mean, essentially, my race was ruined. But the commentator, the television commentator, when they flashed to my car and they were showing my tire that had exploded, what did he do but talk about the movie The Cove and what it was about and how it was about dolphin captivity? And so my wish kind of came true, that I was getting their issue in front of millions of people on TV, but it wasn't, I've learned that I have to be more specific about, I want you to get me on TV by helping me win the race.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  So yeah, you either want to win, or be running up front, or you want to wreck.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Dolphins didn't know. They didn't know.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  I wasn't specific.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the Dolphins got you on TV, but it wasn't by how you wanted.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I wouldn't, of course, if you're in a wreck, all the cameras are on you. That's a whole other occasion.

• 24:01Eugene Mirman?

  That's a great way to promote something. What if all the cars start just crashing? Nobody's winning, but they're all getting their issues out there.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Getting paid. They're getting their payday. Do you guys in your community, do you follow race car driving as a sport? Or you just analyze it to see how to make it different?

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I think to some extent, the race car industry has actually led to innovations in automobile technology, which are helping to improve efficiency and safety of these vehicles. So to some extent, we're following that.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, that's been true from the beginning, as I understand it. There are advances in NASCAR, like, like the Tiptronic gear changes, the, I mean, the paddles. As I understood, those started with NASCAR. Fuel injection. Weren't anti-lock brakes NASCAR initially or not?

• 24:51Speaker 02

  A lot of, a lot of the innovation actually comes from the Formula Racing series rather than NASCAR. As we learned from the name of NASCAR, it's stock car racing, so they're stock vehicles.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Although already vehicles that are there. Okay, gotcha, of course.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  So they've been a little bit not cutting edge as some of the other racing series.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the idea that racing cars itself, which so many people would say, oh, that's a Cro-Magnon sport. Basically, it has contributed. The trickle-down engineering from it has indeed influenced.

• 25:22Eugene Mirman?

  It's the only time trickle-down works. And it's through race cars.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, okay, if it's not NASCAR, it's the open-wheel cars. But nonetheless, I'm heartened to learn that there is this transfer of technology.

• 25:37Eugene Mirman?

  The NASA of cars.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 25:39Eugene Mirman?

  That's what they'd like to be known as.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I always thought NASA should have a race car. And then they could just strap solid rocket boosters on the side.

• 25:44Eugene Mirman?

  It would probably win.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Win every race, of course. So I asked Leilani, what car, I had to ask, I had to ask, what car does she drive? When she's not driving a race car? Okay? And turns out she drives a Tesla.

• 25:59Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, that's what I would have guessed.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's, let's, let's, let's check it out.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  I actually drive a Tesla Model S.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tesla Model S.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  So it's a hundred percent electric.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a hundred thousand dollars, yes, okay.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  They're not cheap, but there is a cheaper version coming out next year.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ninety thousand dollars, yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  No, the Model 3 is supposed to be in the thirty-five thousand dollar range.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  And that should be unveiled in the spring sometime.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you plug in your car?

• 26:24Speaker 03

  I plug in my car, yeah. I've done over thirty-one thousand miles completely free of gasoline. And when I'm at my house, I'm actually charging, you know, off of the solar. So technically, I'm running off of free solar electrons. And then when I drive long-distance road trips, I'm using the Tesla Superchargers. So some of those are solar-powered.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which are dotted across the country.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're all over the place. I've driven five-thousand-mile road trips from, actually from here in New York. I drove all the way to San Francisco, and I kind of zigzagged, so it was a five-thousand-mile road trip.

• 26:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because that would be, that's then twice as far. Because it's about twenty-five hundred miles.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the efficiency of an electric car is much higher than an internal combustion engine. So in an internal combustion engine, only about seventeen to twenty-one percent of the fuel, of the energy that's contained in the fuel, actually makes it to the wheels to push the car forward. It's very inefficient.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know where the rest of the energy goes? It goes into heat. Very inefficient. So most of the inefficiencies of engines of any kind, machines of any kind, gets dumped as heat. And so you have hot exhaust coming out, the engine gets hot, everything gets hot. You have to put your heaters on if it's in the winter, it all goes there.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  And you've got greenhouse gases coming out the back.

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the little thing called greenhouse gases out the back, okay.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  So the electric car, even if I'm plugging into the grid, I am still far more efficient. Even if I'm plugging in in West Virginia, where the majority of the grid is coming from coal, I'm still going to be reducing my greenhouse gas emissions because of the fact that an electric car is much more efficient, and also because of the fact that you use electricity to refine oil. So wheel to wheel. It's more efficient to drive an electric car, even if it's coming from fossil fuels. Now, the other thing you have to keep in mind is the electric grid is getting cleaner and cleaner as time goes on. We're starting to put up wind farms. Currently in the U.S., every two and a half minutes, a solar array is going up on a home or a business.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  So, the grid is getting cleaner and therefore, people who have electric cars, even if they're plugging into the grid and don't have solar panels, their cars are getting cleaner and cleaner, something that will never happen with a gas car.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask you, Don, what is, what is, is there any downside to everybody having an electric car?

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Not that I can think of. You know, I think Leilani really nailed this in terms of the benefits of electric vehicles. You know, we've been looking at this question very closely around the emissions of electric cars and everybody's asking the question and a lot of people are saying, hey, what, you know, if I'm powering these things by, on the electricity grid and there's coal on the grid, are they still good?

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're better.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  The answer, the answer is yes. I mean, she's right. Pretty much across the country, no matter where you live, plugging in an electric car is going to be better than the average new gasoline vehicle.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, the last I looked at a Tesla, the mass of a Tesla Model S is primarily in its batteries.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and it holds the, you know, the five passengers. It's not clear how that would scale to an 18-wheeler truck, where most of a truck's mass is going to have to be the cargo that it wants to carry, not batteries that it's going to-

• 29:38Eugene Mirman?

  Pineapples. It's all pineapples and microwaves.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, isn't there a, a point where electric transportation stops working because it doesn't scale?

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Well, so, I mean, so that's a good point. Overall, there's no silver bullet to this challenge of transportation and electric vehicles have a role to play. But I'd also say, it's not just battery electric vehicles that, that have opportunities. Um, you may have heard of fuel cell vehicles. They were something NASA used uh early on in the space program and actually um though there are some passenger vehicles on the market now in California, they're fueled by hydrogen. They uh turned hydrogen into electricity to power an electric vehicle and

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, in my office at the Hayden Planetarium, I have a liter bottle of water and on it, it says exhaust. And the BMW gave it to me because they drove a car from Washington to New York using a fuel cell and the

• 30:32Eugene Mirman?

  Exhaust is water.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exhaust is essentially water. You're recovering the energy from the hydrogen and oxygen when they recombine to become water. Because it's it's highly exothermic, if you will. Yeah, so I interrupted, sorry.

• 30:43Eugene Mirman?

  They gave you the bottle of water, not the car.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not the car.

• 30:46Eugene Mirman?

  That's what you you need to flip that.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I gotta work. I'm still working on it, yeah.

• 30:49Eugene Mirman?

  Can you get me a discount on a Tesla, Don?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm sorry, I I can't do that, but uh

• 30:55Eugene Mirman?

  Ah!

• 30:55Speaker 02

  But I'd be getting one too.

• 30:56Eugene Mirman?

  All right, I'll look into it for both of us then.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Tem, uh, so now, how about the batteries? There's a lot of talk about uh caustic chemicals, uh rare earth elements in the batteries that might be bad for the environment when you want to dispose them. So it, how does that enter the equation of how green a vehicle is?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so uh we look specifically at what the global warming emissions are from creating the batteries and, you know, like you said, a lot of the mass of the Tesla vehicle is the batteries itself. So it actually does increase the manufacturing emissions of the vehicle compared to a gasoline vehicle. Um, but over the life of that Tesla, you're plugging into the grid instead of pumping uh oil out of the ground and you are, you actually make up for those emissions pretty quickly and then save uh on the emissions. In terms of the battery toxicity, I think that is a, that is an issue um that can be addressed through proper disposal and recycling of the batteries. And so that's an area that continue, uh, you know, we're in the early stages of these vehicles in the market. Um, so we need to move forward with making sure that those batteries after they're used

• 32:00Speaker 02

  in the vehicles are actually eighty percent, uh, seventy or eighty percent still, um, left in those batteries and they can be used in a second use, uh, for energy storage on the electricity grid, for example. And then after that, they could be recycled as well.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so I don't have much experience in a Tesla because I like looking at them and thinking about them. But, uh, one time I was getting an award in California and, uh, by the planetary society and they picked me up at LAX in a Tesla. I mean, the, the, the, the car service. They go, say, hey, I'm in a Tesla and that's kind of cool. And it was silent as, as, as they all are. And then I realized I don't see any Teslas in Manhattan. There are no Tesla car services in Manhattan. And then I'm sitting there with the driver and we figured out why. Because the backseat of any car that's picking me up as a car service is bigger than the backseat of a Tesla Model S. And if all I want is to get to where I'm going in comfort, uh, why squeeze into anything just because it's

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  electric? I want the comfort. And so Tesla doesn't have currency in New York City the way it does on the East Coast, on, on the West Coast. And so, uh, do you foresee sort of regional, uh, it's the region to region, this is gonna, we're gonna have to resolve this.

• 33:12Eugene Mirman?

  You need a luxury Tesla.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lux-

• 33:14Eugene Mirman?

  With luxurious backseats. Drinking their, their fine exhaust.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:21Eugene Mirman?

  Their purified exhaust.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  I would just say, you know, it's an exciting time in the transportation sector. There's, uh, over 20 electric vehicle models out there. So there's going to be more options coming.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So what you're saying is we're so, we're in such infancy. I shouldn't try to make any conclusions about anything at all that still can benefit from the creativity of engineers.

• 33:39Eugene Mirman?

  Soon we'll-

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Looks like you to guide them to where they need to go.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's just the beginning.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent.

• 33:45Eugene Mirman?

  We'll, we'll soon have roomy electric cars.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Roomy electric cars. Thank you. So, so, so Don and Eric, thanks for being on Star Talk and I, I, it's good to know you do that. Can we find you again?

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. We, we will find you again. We, I'm, I'm gonna, where are you? There you go. We will find you again. Thanks for being on the Star Talk.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back to Star Talk, more of my interview with race car driver, Ilani Minter.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm with co-host Eugene Mirman and we've been featuring my interview with Leilani Mutter, professional race car driver and environmental activist. One of the oddest combinations of things I've ever known in my life. We've talked about, does it even make sense for a race car driver to double as an environmentalist? What does that even mean? We talked about the pros and cons of electric cars, the importance of renewable energies, and now if we can dig a little deeper into some of those issues that Leilani brought up, we've got someone to help me out here. This woman is a professional in a topic I didn't even know there was a word for it. So we have on video call Dr. Marcia Delonge. Hello?

• 35:07Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I have on my notes here, you are agroecologist. Forgive me for having no frickin' idea what that is.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  That's okay.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're also with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is that right?

• 35:20Speaker 04

  That's right, yeah.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're also an activist. Alright, so- She's just concerned. Or she's just deeply concerned.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  I am a deeply concerned scientist.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what is it, what is an agroecologist?

• 35:32Speaker 04

  Well, let's break it down, right? So you have in there clearly ecologist. So ecology, I think more people know about. Ecology is the study of the interactions among organisms. So that's plants, animals, humans, and their environments, right? And so then we add agro, agroecologist. What is agro is referring to agriculture. So we're talking about ecologists who are studying specifically the kinds of systems that include farming and ranching.

• 35:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, okay, that then you are, that's an important place to be, because we via our agriculture are completely transforming this planet.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  That's right. We are, we're doing a lot of, we're having a lot of impacts on our planet these days through our agriculture.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, other than Leilani's activism, because you're gonna watch this with us, and her races and this sort of thing, she released a documentary on the Discovery Channel, directed by Louis C. Hoyos, I think I pronounced that right, and he also did The Cove. And in that film, Louis points out how much energy and fuel and CO2 emissions are involved in agriculture, in farm animals, and all the rest of this. So, so let's check out what she says about this. Hold on.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  So it's called Racing Extinction and it's about the six mass extinction of species. So there's been five major mass extinctions on the planet.

• 36:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Racing extinction, I see what you did there. Racing extinction, okay. I'm clever, I figured that out. Okay.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  I didn't come up with that name, by the way. That was Oceanic Preservation Society.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's good. And it, okay, so racing extinction, so where's it gonna take us?

• 37:08Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so the film touches on a pretty big issue. I'd say one of the biggest issues in the world, which is that we're driving species to extinction at a rate that's like a thousand times greater than the natural background rate. So we're losing species faster than we can even record there here. They actually estimate we could lose up to half the species on the planet by the end of the century. And so our film-

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the end of the 21st century.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Yes. So our film is highlighting first the endangered species trade, which is second only to the drug market, and it's exchanging-

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In terms of its lucrative-

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Lucrative.

• 37:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lucrative.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  In terms of how much money is being exchanged. So we do a lot of undercover work. You'll see undercover cameras and us going into drug markets.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would anyone want an endangered species? What are they getting out of it?

• 38:02Speaker 03

  So in some cases, it's an issue of like wanting a trophy, right? Like Cecil the lion, good example that got a lot of-

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one bow and arrowed by the dentist, I guess.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  The dentist, yeah. Our favorite dentist in Minnesota. It's also, there's also a lot of myths around like treatments for cancer or that it's going to, there's some sort of medicinal quality, which there's no scientific proof, and I know you're a data and a proof guy. It's just kind of old wives-

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also things for aphrodisiacs?

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just anything that can somehow enhance or improve your physiology.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Right, so we expose a lot of these sort of black markets and but we also address, you know, the indirect hand of man. So us driving our cars around and burning fossil fuels, eating meat, for example. So more greenhouse gas emissions actually go into the atmosphere from raising animals for food than the entire transportation sector. So we address these issues of people that are not necessarily going out and trying to buy rhino horn, but their personal choices every day and the things that we're all just doing to live and how that is affecting the planet.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, this is bumming me out. So Marcia, I get it that we're just messing everything up, okay? We read about this every day. Do you have a solution? Because I'm not going to stop eating.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Of course, you can't stop eating. Well, let's just think for a minute about about what we're working with today. Today, we have a system that strongly incentivizes a particular kind of one-size-fits-all industrial farming. And I think we all know that one-size-fits-all means doesn't fit anything quite right, right? So this is the system that is damaging our soil quality, is creating dead zones in our waterways, our favorite lakes and oceans, polluting the air, promoting lots of troublesome weeds, and of course, contributing to climate change. So in addition to climate change, there's all these other problems, but this is this is huge. When you dig in a little bit, what you see is that below the surface

• 40:12Speaker 04

  of what looks like a very, you know, monotonous landscape in the US, soils, weather, climate, and other conditions that are underneath that actually vary quite a bit. And so we're not really considering that in the way that we farm and ranch today. We also have different plants and animals that give and take different things from our farms and ranches. And right now, we're putting the same plants and the same animals in the same spot year after year.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we're blunt instruments on the environment, that's what you're saying?

• 40:41Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're blunt instruments on the environment.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  We are, exactly. We are blunt instruments on the environment, but it doesn't have to be that way, right? So if we, if we think a little bit more carefully about um how, how we might be strategic, how we might design our, our landscape so that uh we are um integrating our crops and livestock in a smarter way, so that we are uh thinking about what kinds of plants can give back to the places where different ones took a different year.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you're talking about a more intelligent way of using nature, rather than trying to get people to change their own behavior by making everyone vegan, for example.

• 41:18Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, that, that sounds, just eat a little, maybe just a little chicken, we can have a little chicken.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  Did you hear how big the problem though was? Because I think we need to be approaching it from all angles, right?

• 41:29Eugene Mirman?

  So only a little basil and a little chicken.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, I mean, that, that, that, that piece of basil, that piece of chicken, of course, there's a lot of different ways that you can grow and produce those, that they could be from your garden, or they could be flown across the world, it could be a, a chicken produced in a factory farm, or it could be a chicken that's produced by a, a farmer who's really a true steward of the land, who's, who's using it as an instrument for a healthy farm, so.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, you're both, you're both smart about this, but she's doing it, and obviously in a very different way. Uh, Kate, I, I guess there's room for all of these tactics, I guess, i- is, is that right? I mean, I, the answer to that, I guess, has to be yes, but what I'm asking you is, what, in the, at, in the end, should more people do what Leilani is doing? Or do we need more people like you, who are in, you know, in behind the scenes in the trenches, trying to make this work?

• 42:20Speaker 04

  We need everybody on board, you know, we need, we need to have all of us, when we have the option to develop relationship with our local farmers, to buy food from places that we really know how it's created, um, a- and then, you know, when we can't do that, when we can't have that local access, we really need to think about um where our food is coming from, what are food companies, uh, how are, what, how are they promoting uh farming practices in a bigger sense? And also, we need to think about uh the leaders that we have in this country and, and, and everywhere, really. Thinking about wanting to have leaders who are thinking about these issues who are making decisions that shift the economic and policy setting that we have that can really help farmers to produce

• 43:03Speaker 04

  healthier foods that can help people have access to those foods, you know, on a day to day basis.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But but a cow is gonna produce methane out of both ends of its digestive tract, no matter what it does. So and methane is of course a greenhouse gas.

• 43:18Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So at some point, it can't just be, let's be a little smarter. You're really gonna have to change people's behavior, aren't you?

• 43:25Eugene Mirman?

  Or grow cows underwater.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  I haven't I haven't read any scientific papers on growing cows underwater.

• 43:33Eugene Mirman?

  Well, maybe you should write one.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  That'd be a very interesting, very interesting opportunity.

• 43:38Eugene Mirman?

  Cows with snorkels. You just saved the world.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but it might be some rep, I mean, not to, we're poking fun at his idea, but maybe a revolution idea such as that, or even just simply growing beef in a laboratory, synthesizing proteins, right?

• 43:57Eugene Mirman?

  That that's not the way you turn your head when you're excited about an idea.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, we, like, like I said earlier, you know, this is a really, this is a really serious problem. There's no silver bullets here. We need to be approaching the problem with every angle that we can think of. But, you know, as an agroecologist, of course, I'm thinking about how the whole system works together. You know, how we get the most benefits out of not just our farms and ranches, but the the communities that are around them, supporting farmers, supporting the the parks and the forests that we all love. How can we get, how can we design landscapes that really work together to give us the food, the fiber and the fuel that we need? And also protect our natural resources.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how do you then affect policy? Do you publish papers, research papers? And then do a do a do a white paper based on that? Or you you're part of your, we agreed at the beginning, you're a concerned scientist?

• 44:48Speaker 04

  We did agree.

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what how, what are you doing when you are most potent in affecting change in our in our lives and in our culture?

• 44:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I think that there's two pieces to that. And one is, of course, continuing to do research, to develop new ideas, to make sure that we're finding the best ways of moving forward in all of these areas. But another is really just to be staying tuned to all of the great research coming out from scientists who are all across our nation's universities and institutions and raising the profile of their research, right? Because we really, we've seen that these practices are working. We know that they work. We know that people don't know that much about them. And part of this is because we're not hearing about it, and part of it is because we need more of it. So that's just another thing that we're doing, is we're trying to increase the amount of

• 45:42Speaker 04

  funding that's going into this kind of agricultural research, because we know that when we invest in research in agriculture, it pays off. And we want it to pay off in these really sustainable forms of agriculture that we are desperately in need of right now.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need a scientifically literate public, so they even know how to listen to you.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  And we need to be better at communicating to the public in a way that they can really hear our message. So that, some of that is the responsibility of scientists as well, to improve our communication skills, to get out there with our message and...

• 46:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all your fault, yeah.

• 46:14Eugene Mirman?

  You're a scientist too, Neil.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Marcia, thanks for being on StarTalk and teaching me that you even exist as a profession and as a person in that profession. And we'll surely want to come back to you for future StarTalk topics, because now that we know you exist, we're going to be calling you like your mother. You know, could you come over?

• 46:41Speaker 04

  I love it, I love it. Please keep making the phone calls, it's a real pleasure, thank you.

• 46:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, excellent. I want to thank Eugene, thanks for doing another StarTalk here. Great. And Leilani Munter, for being the first ever race car driver I've ever interviewed. And it turns out, she's vegan, green.

• 47:03Eugene Mirman?

  Get her message out. It makes so much sense. When people get mad at Al Gore for traveling in an airplane, it seems foolish.

• 47:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now I'm like ruined for life. How am I gonna go to any other

• 47:13Eugene Mirman?

  NASCAR events?

• 47:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Race car driver.

• 47:15Eugene Mirman?

  Now that you know you could do it green.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me just say, I think she's right. I think she's right. We gotta tackle this on many frontiers. And I think at the center of it all is science and human behavior. And that's kind of what StarTalk is always about. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.