Should we mess with nature? | Introducing How We Survive

Summary

Podcast Summary: Drilled × How We Survive – "Should we mess with nature?"

Date: July 14, 2026
Host: Amy Scott (Marketplace’s How We Survive), featured on Drilled
Guests: Ben Lamm (CEO, Colossal Biosciences), Elizabeth Kolbert (journalist and author, Under a White Sky), Colossal lab staff
Theme: The possibilities and ethical dilemmas of large-scale geoengineering and "de-extinction" – with a focus on whether we can, and should, intervene in nature using new genetic technologies.

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Episode Overview

This special episode of Drilled features an episode from How We Survive that explores the burgeoning field of "de-extinction" and other controversial climate solutions. Host Amy Scott tours the facilities of Colossal Biosciences—a $10 billion Dallas startup working to resurrect extinct species like the woolly mammoth and the dodo bird using gene editing. The episode interrogates both the seductive vision of undoing human-caused extinctions and the limits, risks, and moral questions such endeavors raise. Author and climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert weighs in with skepticism, warning that such technological interventions evoke nostalgia and hubris, and may distract from tougher work needed to actually preserve the natural world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Touring the Frontlines of De-Extinction

Location: Colossal Biosciences, Dallas
[04:03–12:14]

• Mice, Mammoths, and Media Appearances

  • Amy Scott is introduced to Chip and Dale, genetically engineered mice with thick, fuzzy, golden coats—an early proof-of-concept intended to recreate characteristics of the woolly mammoth.
  • Ben Lamm (CEO):
    “We identified core genes in the mammoth genome that relate to hair thickness, color density, how it grows and whatnot. And we applied all of those into the mouse equivalent of them. ...They behave like mice, right? Just cuter versions of mice.” [05:35]

• Scaling Up: Mammoth & Dodo Projects

  • Sarah Ord (Director of Species Restoration) and Michael Abrams (Mammoth Project Lead) outline the steps: extracting and sequencing ancient mammoth DNA from fossils, then modifying the genome of an Asian elephant (their closest living relative) to create a “modern day mammoth” (or an Asian elephant that resembles one). [08:34–10:11]
  • Anna Keet explains the lab’s plans to resurrect the dodo by editing the genome of a common pigeon. [10:11–10:46]

• Startup Culture & Ambitions

  • Ben Lamm frames de-extinction as both technological innovation and a moral imperative, emphasizing their pace of development, the promise for human/animal medicine, and the company’s $10B valuation and high-profile investor list (including Hollywood, sports, and the CIA). [11:12–11:47]
  • Colossal claims to “open source” its conservation technologies and has a $100M foundation to fund new conservation tools. [11:47]

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2. The Case for De-Extinction

[06:48–14:43]

• Mass Extinctions and Technological Solutions

  • Ben Lamm argues humanity is in a “sixth mass extinction,” making new tools essential. Gene editing and cloning could bolster struggling populations, repair genetic bottlenecks, and, as a "Plan B," allow cryopreserved DNA to rescue species later. [13:10, 13:42]
  • Quote: “I think fundamentally we can’t think of a lot of reasons why not to do this.” —Ben Lamm [13:42]

• Skepticism and De-Extinction as ‘Nostalgia’

  • Amy Scott pushes back, questioning: If mammoth habitat no longer exists, what’s the point? Is a genetically engineered Asian elephant with some mammoth traits really a mammoth? [14:09]
  • Elizabeth Kolbert responds:
    “De extinction, you know, that’s a form of nostalgia. We’re just going to bring these things back and everything’s going to be, you know, just the way it was. Well, that’s, you know, obviously not true.” [14:43, repeated at 24:05]

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3. Elizabeth Kolbert on Geoengineering, Ethics, and Limits

[17:08–27:09]

• Technical and Moral Challenges

  • Kolbert tempers expectations: gene editing faces huge practical obstacles (no complete genomes, unknown behavior, difficulty replicating complex species).
    “First of all, in order to bring back an extinct species, you have to have the complete genome. … Would [the animal] act like a mammoth? So all of these are really, really big questions that often get overlooked…” [17:46]

• Human Guilt and Extreme Conservation

  • Example: Devil’s Hole pupfish, for which the US built an elaborate artificial habitat instead of preventing the crisis by protecting the fish’s natural ecosystem in the first place. [19:01–19:53]
    Kolbert: “But we see this time and time again that we let something happen and we bring a creature or a plant very close to the edge of extinction, and then suddenly people get really interested in it…” [19:53]

• Geoengineering: Cautionary Tale

  • Kolbert sees carbon removal as marginal and solar geoengineering (like stratospheric aerosol injection) as a “last resort” move fraught with unknowable global consequences and political peril.
    “Geoengineering, solar geoengineering, which would have a cooling effect… when you reach that point, you have really, really reached a dangerous point.” [21:04]

  • The trend to soften language (from ‘geoengineering’ to ‘solar radiation management’ to ‘sunlight reflection’) signals wishful thinking and dangerous minimization.
    Kolbert: “It does sound lovely. ...That’s always a bad sign, I guess, when we keep changing the names of something to make it seem less threatening.” [22:32]

• No Techno-Utopias or Easy Nostalgia

  • Kolbert warns against both “techno-utopian” solutions and the fantasy of a return to a pristine past:
    “Both these views—that there’s some techno utopia out there, that we’re going to technologize our way to some happy conclusion… [and that] we can restore things to their ‘natural’ state—unfortunately, we are in this so deep that there’s really no turning back. And that’s a very, very ugly realization.” [24:05]

• On Our Duty and the Dangers of Hubris

  • Lamenting our lack of humility about nature’s complexity, Kolbert quotes (paraphrasing) John Muir to caution that all interventions have unpredictable cascading effects:
    “When we try to pick up one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” [25:31–27:09]

  • Final note of warning: “The way we are operating even more vigorously… right now at this particular moment, is with a lack of humility that I think is going to prove to be our very dangerous… undoing.” [27:09]

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Notable Quotes

• Ben Lamm:

  • “We are in the 6th Mass extinct… I think it’s unethical not to do what we’re doing.” [06:48–07:27]
  • “I don’t think human caused climate events are going to slow down… I’d rather have a de extinction toolkit and not need it, than need it and not have it.” [13:42]

• Elizabeth Kolbert:

  • “De-extinction… is a form of nostalgia. We’re just going to bring these things back and everything’s going to be, you know, just the way it was. Well, that’s obviously not true.” [14:43, 24:05]
  • “We should be preventing species from getting to the brink…” [19:53]
  • “Geoengineering… when you reach that point, you have really, really reached a dangerous point.” [21:04]
  • “Both these views… are probably illusions.” [24:05]
  • “The way we are operating… is with a lack of humility that I think is going to prove to be… our undoing.” [27:09]

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Key Timestamps

• 04:03 – Mice engineered with mammoth genes
• 08:34 – Lab tour, Colossal’s projects on mammoth/dodo resurrection
• 11:12 – Ben Lamm on startup vision and ‘ethical’ mission
• 13:10 – Cryopreservation and “de-extinction toolkit”
• 14:43 – Kolbert’s de-extinction as nostalgia critique
• 17:46 – Kolbert: technical/practical limits to de-extinction
• 19:01 – Devil’s Hole pupfish example: elaborate fixes vs prevention
• 21:04–23:48 – Geoengineering, language spin, politics, and perils
• 24:05 – No return to the past; dangers of both nostalgia and techno-utopia
• 25:31–27:09 – Hubris, humility, and the risk of “our undoing”

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Memorable Moments

• Amy Scott marvels at fuzzy mice with mammoth genes: “Celebrity mice.” [04:44]
• The casual but chilling mention of a $10B valuation and CIA funding for de-extinction start-up Colossal. [11:22]
• Kolbert’s summary of the larger lesson: “We should be preventing species from getting to the brink…” [19:53]
• The closing parallel between bold human solutions and the risk of future unintended consequences.

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Tone & Takeaway

The episode's tone alternates between wonder (at science’s possibilities) and deep caution (about unpredictable consequences). The narrative questions the wisdom of “messing with nature” even when equipped with dazzling technologies. It contrasts the seductive allure of fixing past errors with de-extinction and geoengineering, versus the harder, slower work of real conservation—ultimately leaving listeners to reconsider not just what’s possible, but what’s wise.

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Transcript

[Amy Scott]

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[Ben Lamb]

Refreshers contain caffeine

[Amy Scott]

Amy here to tell you about a show you might like. 5 to 4 it's a podcast about how much the Supreme Cord sucks. I actually really love this podcast. I love a good court podcast in general and this is one of my favorites. It's hosted by three disgruntled lawyers. Every week they dissect the Supreme Court's worst decisions about the most important issues like police abuse, the second Amendment, and voting rights. Sadly, they have plenty to choose from as the court marches further and further to the right, it claims to be a completely apolitical institution. That is just not true and five to four shows you why, revealing all the ways in which the Supreme Court contorts the law, makes stupid legal errors, and hacks away at our democracy one decision at a time. The podcast is also just really funny. It's very entertaining. Now more than ever, Supreme Court decisions are shaping America in big and small ways. In fact, the Court has sided with the Trump administration 80% of the time in emergency rulings. So so if you want to understand this strange, secretive, hugely important branch of government, check out 5 to 4 wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin. Hey everyone, we have a special episode for you today from How We Survive, an award winning podcast from Marketplace about the messy business of climate solutions. Hosted by Amy Scott, this season explores large scale geoengineering interventions which some people think are the last hope in the fight against climate change. In this episode, Amy explores one of the wildest climate interventions to date De Extinction, she takes a tour of Colossal Labs, a $10 billion Dallas startup, betting it can reverse engineer extinction, with plans to turn pigeons into dodos and Asian elephants into woolly mammoths. But just because we can mess with nature, does that mean we should? I really love this episode. It stuck with me for days after listening, and I think you'll find it interesting too. And of course, you can find more how we survive on your favorite podcast app. Enjoy.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Oh, my God, they're so cute. Do they have names?

[Ben Lamb]

Chippendale.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Inside a small glass cage, two mice are running around. They've got a little wooden house to play in, a water bottle. It's pretty much your normal mouse habitat. But even though they're acting like typical mice, they don't look like them. They're fuzzy, kind of poofed up. They've got shaggy golden hair that's dense and soft. Is this their first trip to the podcast studio?

[Ben Lamb]

This is not their first podcast studio experience. I think they've been here at least once before.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Celebrity mice.

[Ben Lamb]

Yeah.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

They're so jaded. The reason Chip and Dale are VIPs is because they're a testament to the potential of a new, complicated science. De Extinction. In Dallas, Texas, Texas, a company called Colossal Biosciences is on a mission to bring animals back from the dead. Their biggest target, the woolly mammoth, which went extinct around 4000 years ago. Colossal claims that using tiny bits of mammoth DNA preserved over thousands of years, they can use gene editing to bring the giant creature back. But they have to start small. Ben Lamb, the CEO of Colossal, explains how Chip and Dale got their luxurious fur.

[Ben Lamb]

We identified core genes in the mammoth genome that relate to hair thickness, color density, how it grows and whatnot. And we applied all of those into the mouse equivalent of them. And so what we notice about them is obviously their coat thickness, obviously their coat color. Behaviorally, we didn't adjust anything so they behave like mice, right? Just cuter versions of mice.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

And what they learn from creating cuter mice could help bring back the mammoth. Ben comes from the startup world. He'd founded or co founded a bunch of other tech companies before starting Colossal in 2021. Today, he's wearing a shirt that looks like a concert tee, but instead of a band, it has a picture of a dire wolf. The first creature that Colossal claims to have successfully de extincted.

[Ben Lamb]

It actually says, Original tour date, 8500 BC. Encore performance, 2025.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

And it's not just about bringing animals back. Ben says that with Colossal's tech, they'll be able to prevent all the losses yet to come.

[Ben Lamb]

Whether people, you know, wake up and think about it every day in their lives. We are in the 6th Mass extinct.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

I'm Amy Scott. Welcome to How We Survive, a podcast from Marketplace about the messy business of climate solutions. This is episode five in which we're asking, just because we can mess with nature, should we? For centuries, we have unintentionally and in many ways irrevocably damaged the natural world. So far this season, we've spoken to a lot of people who think it's our duty to try and fix it, including Ben Lamb.

[Ben Lamb]

Look, I think it's unethical not to do what we're doing.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Colossal's vision of the future is kind of seductive. If we figure out how to bring animals back from the dead, nothing ever has to die. Maybe all of the fossil fuels we've burned and trees we've cut down could be cleared from our collective karma. But not everyone shares Ben's vision of a tech enabled utopia.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Unfortunately, we are in this so deep that there's really no turning back. And that's a very, very ugly realization.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

That's Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist and author of Under a White Sky, a book about the many ways, big and small, that humans have intervened in nature and the unintended consequences. In this episode, we'll talk to Elizabeth about whether after the mess we've made of the planet planet, we have a responsibility to put it back the way it was. But first, we'll take a tour of Colossal, the startup looking to the past to try to preserve the future.

[Sarah Ord]

Welcome to Colossal Labs. We are going to be starting with the Woolly Mammoth project, which is our flagship species. So the woolly mammoth was the first species.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Sarah Ord, director of Species Restoration, is giving us a private tour of Colossal's shiny new headquarters in Dallas, complete with state of the art labs, a life size animatronic direwolf, and of course, the podcast studio for all of Chip and Dale's media appearances. We make our way down a long hallway with walls covered in diagrams of ancient creatures. Doors to labs branch off the hall, each one with scientists working on a different piece of the de extinction puzzle. Michael Abrams leads the mammoth project.

[Michael Abrams]

Our first step is to sequence the woolly mammoth genome. And we've got multiple samples. You can see here, this is a woolly mammoth molar. It's about the size of a brick. And we take a little piece of that and we sequence it using preserved

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

woolly mammoth samples, like a tooth or a Bone fragment. They scrape off a little piece that contains ancient DNA. Then they sequence it, figuring out as much as they can about which specific mammoth genes code for important physical traits like curved tusks and dense woolly fur. Eventually, they plan to try and edit a few genes in an Asian elephant, the mammoth's closest living relative, to produce those physical traits, creating a modern day mammoth, or at least an Asian elephant that looks a lot like one.

[Anna Keet]

It's also a lot of fun just to try and figure out the genetic underpinnings of the phenotypes in these animals, because the dodo had some.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Down the hall, Anna Keet is working on avian genome engineering with a goal of bringing back the dodo by modifying its relative, the common street pigeon.

[Anna Keet]

We've identified a lot of the edits that we think are going to be most important for producing a dodo. How do you get this much larger bird, this weird beak, the certain type of feathers, those kinds of things? That's a really fun project too.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

What do you think Darwin would think?

[Anna Keet]

Oh, boy, I don't know.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

I think he'd be excited.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

After we leave the labs, I have a lot of questions for Colossal's CEO Ben Lamb. So why do this? I mean, other than it being kind of cool to bring back the woolly mammoth, why do this one?

[Ben Lamb]

We think that doing this creates a lot of value, right? Because we are in a private company, so we're building a lot of technologies and we're iterating faster than anyone else in medicine or synthetic biology.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Technologies, he says, could help develop vaccines and other advances in human and animal health care. The company has been valued at over $10 billion and is backed by some buzzy investors. Peter Jackson from the Lord of the Movies, Tom Brady, Paris Hilton, and in Q Tel, the investing arm of the CIA.

[Ben Lamb]

Secondly, we open source all of the technologies for conservation, whether people, you know, wake up and think about it every day in their lives. We are in the sixth mass extinction, so we need new tools to help combat that crisis. And then we separately launched our Colossal foundation, which has $100 million of additional capital that we use to fund fund other researchers to develop new tools for conservation. So second is impact.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Though it's the subject of some debate, many scientists agree with Ben that we're currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, one brought on by humans. Climate change, deforestation, and overfishing, agriculture, hunting, all of these activities have resulted in an extinction rate some estimate is 100 to 1,000 times greater than normal. And once a species is endangered, it can be hard to bring it back from the brink. The smaller an animal's population gets, the more vulnerable it is to the consequences of inbreeding. Gene editing could be a real game changer. Introducing more genetic variety to struggling populations could make them stronger, more resistant to defects or disease. And if those efforts fail, Colossal is trying to build the ultimate plan B.

[Ben Lamb]

I think that the same technologies that we're using, including creating new ways of cryopreservation and cloning for endangered species, are going to be absolutely required at the extinction rates that we currently have.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Cloning and cryopreservation, it's some very science fictiony stuff. Far from Dallas, they're also working with Dubai's Museum of the future to create a bio vault for endangered species. Place to store genetic material so that no animal ever has to go the way of the dodo.

[Ben Lamb]

I don't think that human caused climate events are going to slow down. And so I do think it's important that we have mitigation strategies against that. Which includes de extinction tools. Right, Because I'd rather have a de extinction toolkit than not need it. The needed de extinction toolkit and not have it. I think fundamentally we can't think of a lot of reasons why not to do this.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Okay, I admit it, it would be pretty cool to see a woolly mammoth. But as we've seen over and over again, when we mess with nature, the effects can be unpredictable. The habitat mammoths once roamed, a vast grassland known as the mammoth steppe, no longer exists. Where would they live and how would their presence affect other life? And even if Colossal succeeds, what makes this new creature a mammoth and not just a mammothy elephant? What are they bringing back really?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

De extinction, you know, that's a form of nostalgia. We're just going to bring these things back and everything's going to be, you know, just the way it was. Well, that's, you know, obviously not true.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

That's after the break.

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[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

After reporting on all of these controversial interventions this season, I was eager to talk with Elizabeth Kolbert. She's a climate journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Her book Under a White sky goes deep on some of the topics we've covered this season, including humans outlandish efforts to rescue other species after driving them to the brink. So I had to know what she made of all these attempts to save the planet and our natural environment by further messing with it, starting with Colossal's plan to bring back the woolly mammoth.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Yeah, you know, those efforts always get a tremendous amount of attention. They're really interesting, they're fascinating, they're definitely thought provoking. But we are very still very far. I don't want to say we will never be able to do it, but we're still very far. First of all, in order to bring back an extinct species, you have to have the complete genome. In the case of the mammoth, we have good genomes, but I'm not sure anyone would say we really have the exact genome and you have to make many, many, many changes between their closest relatives, which in this case are Asian elephants, in order to actually bring back a mammoth. And then you have the question that we don't really, we don't have any mammoths. So whatever we brought back would be it might have a mammoth genome, but would it act like a mammoth? So all of these are really, really big questions that often get overlooked in the sort of hype around bringing back extinct species.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Even though so many species have been lost, some to human activity, some not. Elizabeth writes that we as humans don't want to be the asteroid that kills off more. One example, the Devil's Hole pupfish.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Well, the pupfish story is a wonderful story. It's a tiny little fish about an inch long, beautiful little blue fish that lives in, in one place and one place only, this geothermally heated pool in the middle of the Mojave Desert. And you know, that fish was one of the first animals listed under the Endangered Species act. And so that fish is protected.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

In her book, Elizabeth tells this wild story of how to save this little pupfish that only lives in one water filled cavern called Devil's hole. In the US government built a $4.5 million replica of the fish's habitat to breed a backup colony and stabilize the population. It's a prime example of how humans will do pretty much anything but change our ways.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

But we see this time and time again that we let something happen and we bring a creature or a plant very close to the edge of extinction, and then suddenly people get really interested in it. But I think that the lesson, the profound lesson, which we don't seem very keen on learning is, you know, we should be preventing species from getting to the brink because once they do get to the brink, you have all sorts of pretty obvious difficulties in bringing them back. You just have a very tiny population and something that you've done has made it very difficult for them to survive. And in the case of the Devil's Hole pupfish, it was pumping groundwater out of that area that really started to mess with their one little tiny habitat.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Yeah. You also write about geoengineering from carbon removal to stratospheric aerosol injection. Where did you land on whether you think these approaches are going to be necessary to preserve anything like the climate that we have grown used to?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

I think given the amounts of CO2 that we're pumping into the atmosphere, carbon removal is only going to be possible and useful at the margins. It's not solving anything. Now, geoengineering, solar geoengineering, which would have a cooling effect, but which would also have a lot of other effects, that is, you know, when you reach that point, you have really, really reached a dangerous point. Are we going to get to a point where some country or some group of countries decides this is unbearable, we really have to do something. And the only thing we can do on a short time scale that's a very, you know, worrisome thing about solar geoengineering. It's really your only tool that can work on, you know, sort of a year to year basis. I think it's not at all out of the question that we will reach that point.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

The title of Elizabeth's book, Under a White sky refers to a possible side effect of stratospheric aerosol injection. Some scientists have predicted a whitening of the sky during the day. I think you noted that solar geoengineering, stratospheric aerosol injection, there are gentler terms, more soothing terms.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

And lately solar radiation management.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Yeah, yeah, lately I think they're trying to go with sunlight reflection.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

It sounds lovely. It does sound lovely. And I think that's always a bad sign, I guess, when we keep changing the names of something to make it seem less threatening. I mean, this couldn't be bigger really. It's very appealing obviously to think there's some get out of jail for free card. We've saved ourselves from disaster before and we'll do it again at the last minute. From a practical standpoint, when you just think about all the geopolitics involved here, that doesn't seem very likely. Should we be having these conversations? Should we be out there doing field research? Those are really serious questions. Some scientists I have a lot of respect for would say yes, you know, we're screwed if we don't. 20 years from now you might need this tool and if you don't have it, you know that's going to be bad, bad, worse than having it. And some scientists I also have a lot of respect for would say that's absurd. You know, this is the most dangerous thing you could possibly do. We shouldn't even be talking about it because talking about it suggests that there is this magical cure and there is no magical cure. So let's just go about the hard work of reducing carbon emissions.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

So I love this line in your book. The choice is not between what is and what was, but between what is and what will be, which often enough is nothing. Can you talk about that distinction and why it's important as we think about engineering nature?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Well, I think, you know, there's a lot of nostalgia in the environmental world, like we're going to bring things back to the way they were and we're not bringing things back. Even if we, you know, maintain a habitat for some creature or another, which would certainly be a good idea, it's going to be affected by warming, everything's going to be on the move. And that's another reason I would also bring us back to the subject of de extinction. You know, that's a form of nostalgia. We're just going to bring these things back and everything's going to be, you know, just the way it was. Well, that's, you know, obviously not true. And so I was trying to argue that both these views, that there's some techno utopia out there, that we're going to technologize our way to some happy conclusion after mucking around with the entire planet, that's probably an illusion. And it's also probably an illusion, unfortunately, that simply by stopping doing certain things or that we can restore things to their quote, unquote natural state, unfortunately, we are in this so deep that there's really no turning back. And that's a very, very ugly realization.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

I'm curious if you feel, if you feel you can share this, that we have a duty as a species to try to counteract some of the harm that we've caused.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Well, that's sort of the ultimate question. Yes, certainly we have a duty to try to counteract it. I think the question at the heart of Under a White sky is how do we do that? And are we really capable of doing that in a way that won't do more harm than good? You know, one of the lessons that we keep learning, or not learning, depending on how you want to look at it, is how complicated these natural systems are. And we stick our hands in them. And we want one thing. We want, you know, to grow one crop. We want to propagate one, you know, cows or sheep or whatever, and not worry about the rest of it. You know, there's a very famous quote from John Muir I'm not getting exactly right. But when we try to pick up one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. And the natural world is a product of evolution, which is a random process. Over, you know, billions of years, we have gotten the planet that we have and that we love or should love. And to think that, you know, even with all the tools that we have at hand, that we're somehow going to be able to, you know, improve on it or do exactly what we want to it and not have that come back and bite us is a kind of hubris. And the way we've been operating and the way we are operating even more vigorously, you know, right now at this particular moment, is with a lack of humility that I think is going to prove to be our very dangerous. Let's put it. I'll just leave it there.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Were you going to say our undoing.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

I was heading there. Yeah, I was heading.

[Amy Scott (Host/Narrator)]

Me too. Thanks for listening. And as always, if you like what you hear, please rate, review and share us with a friend. All season we've been asking what you want to know about geoengineering and other climate interventions. Next week we answer your questions. I'm your host, Amy Scott. Rachel Kahn produced this episode with production support from Haley Hirschman. Our senior producer, Caitlin Esch is deputy managing editor. She also edited this episode. Special thanks this week to Toluwani, Osi Bamawo, Daisy Palacios and Marisa Cabrera. Scoring sound design and mixing by Charlton Thorpe. Our theme music is by Wonderleaf. Bridget Bodnar is director of podcasts, Kelly Silvera is news director, Joanne Griffith is chief content officer, and Neil Scarborough is the vice president and general manager of Marketplace.

[Amy Scott]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.