April 16, 2018 7:26 pm

Catch Up on Astronomy 101 with Emily Rice, and Explore Climate Science Activism with David Grinspoon

This week on StarTalk All-Stars we’re looking at climate science – specifically how to navigate the border of being unbiased and being an engaged citizen.

Astrobiologist and host David Grinspoon, a.k.a. Dr. FunkySpoon, is back alongside comic co-host Chuck Nice, and returning guest Dr. Gavin Schmidt, climatologist and Director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

You’ll hear about Gavin’s life as a climatologist and his role in creating climate models. Discover more about his first interaction as a science communicator and how that evolved into the blog realclimate.org. Gavin also details how he deals with attitudes and ideas that are outlandish and non-fact based.

You’ll also hear discussion on scientists being activists, if activism can impact scientific research, and how to navigate the optimism and pessimism in an ever-changing, sometimes bleak, world.

If you missed last week’s episode of StarTalk All-Stars, don’t forget to check out Astronomy 101, with Emily Rice, where astrophysicist Emily Rice and co-host Harrison Greenbaum answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about anything and everything astronomy. Learn about black holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, exoplanets, and what the James Webb Space Telescope’s capabilities and mission will be once launched.

We also explore dark matter: the basic definition of what it is, the possibility that it’s bleeding into our universe from another dimension, whether it’s evenly distributed throughout the universe, and how long Emily thinks it will be until the mystery of dark matter is solved.

Why not give Astronomy 101, with Emily Rice a listen tonight, and then please join us tomorrow night for Climate Science – Advocacy & Activism, with David Grinspoon at 7pm EDT right here on our website, as well as on our All-Stars channels on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. And if you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen