Is Earth a game of chance where catastrophe decides the survivors? Dive in with this timely replay interview with extinction expert Dr. Peter Ward. A new study finds 41,000 Americans die due to wildfire smoke. That almost doubles by 2050, with economic losses greater than any other warming threat. Details coming up. The new Global Tipping Points Report 2025 is just breaking. We prepare with last year’s chat with Lead Author Dr. Tim Lenton, University of Exeter UK.
I’m Alex Smith. Deep past, near future, fill your mind with Radio Ecoshock.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
DR. PETER WARD
PAST EXTINCTIONS, PRESENT DIRECTIONS
Peter is a Professor at the University of Washington, and a paleontologist. He’s a specialist in the long history of Earth, it’s climate and periods of mass extinction.
In my opinion, Peter is also one of the more under-estimated minds in American science. His 11th book shook me. It’s called “Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future.” That books presents the best theory we have on the mechanism of great mass extinction including the dinosaurs. That book was in 2007 and it’s still good.
Two years later he surprised us again with the Medea Hypothesis (Princeton University Press) which we’ll touch on in this interview. His 2010 book “The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps.” stands near my desk, as a standard for the public. In 2015, he published “A New History of Life: The radical new discoveries about the origins and evolution of life on Earth” with Joe Kirschvink. It is radical science. We’ll find out why.
Download or listen to this 30 minute interview with Peter Ward in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
Find out more in the original February 24, 2016 show blog with this interview here.
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ALEX
SHOCKING DEADLY WILDFIRE SMOKE
Last August as wildfire smoke filled many a sky in the Northern Hemisphere, I came back from vacation to produce a new show “Hazards of Wildfire Smoke”. New science revealed what is in that smoke, from heavy metals to exotic chemicals – leading to brain damage and early death. It turns out wildfire smoke is up to three times more dangerous than common industrial smog. I listed out 9 reasons why you need to know – including severe carbon loading in the atmosphere from all those evaporating forests. Wildfire smoke is a double emergency for both health and climate change.
Here is what journalist LIz Kimbrough writes at Mongabay:
Wildfire smoke could kill 71,000 people per year in the US by 2050, study warns
“A new Nature study projects wildfire smoke will cause 71,000 excess deaths annually in the U.S. by 2050, representing $608 billion in damages that exceed all other estimated climate costs combined.
Researchers linked climate conditions to fire emissions, smoke concentrations and mortality using historical death records and satellite data, finding that approximately 41,000 annual deaths already occur from wildfire smoke.”
This new study, led by Chinese authors, looks at the United States – because that is where good data lay, before the current Administration. But bodies are bodies. Think of all the wildfires in Greece, Spain, and France this year. Wildfires are increasing across Russia. Australia has bushfire worry years, and bushfire horror years. Indonesia regularly burns. Everybody needs to learn from this U.S. example.
Here is a key fact: wildfire smoke is loaded with tiny particles, technically PM2.5 or less. That means less than 2.5 micrometers, A single strand of human hair is typically around 50 to 70 micrometers in diameter. This means PM2.5 particles are 20 to 28 times smaller than the average human hair . You can’t see them. Neither can the body’s in-built protections systems, like nose hairs and the blood barriers. These toxic particles, which can include heavy metals and noxious chemicals, go right into our fat cells, lungs and all the organs, even into our brains. Wildfire smoke can speed up or possibly trigger dementia. It’s that serious.
There are a lot of surprises in the new study, titled “Wildfire smoke exposure and mortality burden in the US under climate change”. For example, people in the Eastern United States are harmed even more than those living in the West, where more forest burn. Blame the wind.
The authors also find that even when humans stop adding more carbon than nature can recycle, like Net Zero, the numbers of wildfire smoke deaths and damages will continue to increase. There are delays in natural systems that take decades or centuries to re-balance or repair. The effects of wildfires increasing during global warming will go on for generations.
And check out my August 13, 2025 Radio Ecoshock show “Hazards of Wildfire Smoke”. It’s shocking too.
WILDFIRE SMOKE AND DEMENTIA
Dr. JOAN CASEY
Let’s take the case of wildfire smoke and dementia. One can lead to the other. In fact, Dr. Joan Casey found breathing wildfire smoke increases risk of dementia by 18%. Dr. Joan Casey is an Environmental Epidemiologist and Associate Professor at the University of Washington. In the show you hear key selections on brain health and fire smoke, from our interview first broadcast on December 11th, 2024.
What is so bad in wildfire smoke? It’s all in this new science paper: “Impacts of wildfire smoke aerosols on radiation, clouds, precipitation, climate, and air quality” led by Rahele Barjeste Vaezi and published in April 2025. They find:
“Wildfires release toxic gases, encompassing carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), methane (CH4), non-methane organic compounds (NMOC), lead (Pb), and ozone (O3) emitted directly from the fires (Jaffe et al., 2020; Durán et al., 2014; Reisen et al., 2015; Badarinath et al., 2007), as well as Peroxyacetyl Nitrate (PAN), secondary organic aerosols (SOA), and oxygenated NMOC [an organic carbon compound] – which are formed in the atmosphere as a result of chemical interactions with primary pollutants (Durán et al., 2014; Singh et al., 2012).”
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BEYOND TIPPING
DR. TIM LENTON
A new science report, currently under embargo, says “‘New reality’ as world reaches first climate tipping point”. I’ll cover the new “Global Tipping Points Report 2025” soon. Let’s get ready with this Fall 2024 review of tipping point science with Lead Author Tim Lenton in the UK.
Listen to or download this 22 minute interview with Tim Lenton (originally broadcast October 24, 2024) in CD Quality
Also in the news, the first major tipping point has been reached: global coral is dying. It’s slow, one major bleaching event at a time. Canadian media feels obligated to toss in the word “almost”: “World’s coral reefs in almost irreversible die-off, scientists say”, But the ocean is too hot for most coral still on Earth (there are some deep cold-water corals that may survive). That is in the new global tipping points report just coming out. I’m arranging a radio interview about that.
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WE ARE ON THE GUEST LIST…
Next week I’ll be back with more news from the real world, where sea currents, winds, and bacteria rule this tiny planet. We humans are just on the guest list – for now.
I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring about our world. Please help pay for the on-going costs of production and distribution (big downloads!) if you can. You keep me going.