00:00:00.996 --> 00:00:03.984
(OTHERWORLDLY SOUNDS AND AMBIANCE)

00:01:21.672 --> 00:01:24.660
(BEEPING)

00:01:27.648 --> 00:01:30.636
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:49.560
- This is Houston.

00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:50.556
Say again, please.

00:01:53.542 --> 00:01:54.042
- OK.

00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:15.558
- Terraformation is simply the process
of altering an environment to make it

00:02:15.558 --> 00:02:16.058
Earth-like.

00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:25.563
It provides the opportunity
for a thought experiment.

00:02:29.690 --> 00:02:36.000
What can imagining the reshaping
of Mars teach us about ourselves?

00:02:45.813 --> 00:02:47.262
- OK, stand by.

00:02:55.970 --> 00:03:03.477
- It gives us a chance to think freshly
about our relationship to a world.

00:04:30.820 --> 00:04:35.740
- This place is kind of a Rorschach test in
that you see sort of what you want to see.

00:04:53.632 --> 00:04:57.111
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

00:06:32.478 --> 00:06:34.790
- I just have to find the correct keys.

00:06:41.750 --> 00:06:42.462
This way.

00:06:52.410 --> 00:07:01.910
So this is Schiaparelli's telescope
that he used for Mars observations.

00:07:04.650 --> 00:07:09.342
At the time, they were
moving the telescope by hand.

00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:17.820
You could pretend to be
Schiaparelli and observe,

00:07:17.820 --> 00:07:20.540
and you would discover
that Mars is very, very

00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:24.350
difficult to observe with this telescope.

00:07:24.350 --> 00:07:29.030
It's small, and it's
really difficult to see.

00:07:32.470 --> 00:07:33.393
- What do you see?

00:07:33.393 --> 00:07:34.684
- Nothing, because it's closed.

00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:42.290
Giovanni Virginio
Schiaparelli, he was introduced

00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:45.920
to the sky when he was very, very young.

00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:51.510
Mars was one of his favorite subjects, so
he was observing the surface of the planet

00:07:51.510 --> 00:07:58.450
and then drawing whatever he
could see any night in his books.

00:07:58.450 --> 00:08:01.100
Hour after hour and day
after day, he could also

00:08:01.100 --> 00:08:07.265
see how the shapes were
moving on the surface.

00:08:07.265 --> 00:08:12.630
And this was one of the
reasons that led him to think

00:08:12.630 --> 00:08:19.080
that canals were actually constructed to
bring water from the poles to the equator.

00:08:24.730 --> 00:08:27.740
There have been many studies
on optical illusions,

00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:29.520
and your mind tends to see shapes.

00:08:35.419 --> 00:08:42.260
Canals in English is a man-made structure,
and so this may be added to the idea that

00:08:42.260 --> 00:08:47.220
there was someone, you know, constructing
these things and people living on Mars --

00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:48.720
the little green men.

00:09:00.040 --> 00:09:06.920
I think that the fact that he
was so well known and respected

00:09:06.920 --> 00:09:12.615
was one of the reasons why what he was
observing was also observed by others.

00:09:15.470 --> 00:09:21.910
One of the most famous followers of
Schiaparelli was Percival Lowell in the US.

00:09:21.910 --> 00:09:25.442
He was observing Mars also, and
he was finding the same things

00:09:25.442 --> 00:09:26.650
that Schiaparelli was seeing.

00:10:20.762 --> 00:10:27.280
- I can't imagine the 20th-century interest
in Mars without the figure of Percival

00:10:27.280 --> 00:10:27.780
Lowell.

00:10:47.130 --> 00:10:52.740
He had the advantage of the wealth of
the Lowell family in Massachusetts --

00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:58.534
a bonanza of money that enabled him to build
his own private observatory in Flagstaff.

00:11:04.460 --> 00:11:10.810
He went to that observatory
in 1894 with the specific goal

00:11:10.810 --> 00:11:13.370
of figuring out the mystery of Mars.

00:11:57.450 --> 00:12:05.330
Mars is far enough away that the often
blurry, uncertain images left lots of room

00:12:05.330 --> 00:12:08.380
for interpreting what the
surface of that planet was like.

00:12:18.520 --> 00:12:21.330
From this first set of
observations, he developed

00:12:21.330 --> 00:12:26.956
a book which began to outline his
theory of a global system of canals.

00:12:34.350 --> 00:12:39.400
The whole subject of Mars
and water had been in play

00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:45.800
at least since the 18th century, when
18th-century astronomers concluded

00:12:45.800 --> 00:12:50.170
that there was no other planet in the solar
system that was more Earth-like than Mars.

00:12:59.423 --> 00:13:03.560
Lowell's canals gave a
new lease on that desire

00:13:03.560 --> 00:13:09.110
to see Mars as a watery, Earth-like world.

00:13:09.110 --> 00:13:11.584
People wouldn't let it go.

00:13:11.584 --> 00:13:14.572
(AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYING)

00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:00.575
In the 1960s, all of that
was suddenly shattered.

00:14:04.300 --> 00:14:11.100
The first remote-control pictures brought
back from Mars by Mariner 4 in 1964 --

00:14:11.100 --> 00:14:17.730
22 grainy, black-and-white pictures --
showed a planet that looked absolutely

00:14:17.730 --> 00:14:20.905
desolate, no evidence of water whatsoever.

00:14:30.150 --> 00:14:37.710
A decade later in the 1970s, the whole
issue of water on Mars came alive again.

00:14:37.710 --> 00:14:43.080
There was the water frozen
at the two poles of Mars,

00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:52.110
evidence of riverbeds from the distant
past, and the possibility of reservoirs

00:14:52.110 --> 00:14:54.910
underground that might one day be released.

00:15:04.970 --> 00:15:08.460
The great irony is the
fiction about Mars that's

00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:14.340
a cause for celebration, when
water is somehow suddenly released

00:15:14.340 --> 00:15:20.360
from beneath the surface and
buries land masses under a sea.

00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:22.175
For us, it's a looming catastrophe.

00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:35.554
- Houston...

00:15:35.554 --> 00:15:40.045
it looks like the, uh,
back thrusters are venting.

00:15:46.033 --> 00:15:49.027
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

00:17:41.860 --> 00:17:44.838
- New York used to be New Amsterdam.

00:17:47.770 --> 00:17:53.085
It clearly was a city by
its relation with the water.

00:18:00.820 --> 00:18:03.880
Geographically, it's a city.

00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:10.154
It's five boroughs, four of which
are islands or are on islands.

00:18:18.810 --> 00:18:21.425
Sea level rise will be the ultimate threat.

00:18:25.490 --> 00:18:36.040
New York City can make it through in a
highly modified form from what it is now,

00:18:36.040 --> 00:18:44.480
but there will be cities that will be wiped
off the map unless we learn how to live

00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:49.020
in cities underwater -- which
is true science fiction.

00:20:06.350 --> 00:20:14.910
- It's kind of funny living on a world
like Earth that is so rich in water,

00:20:14.910 --> 00:20:18.630
and to be searching on other worlds
where the smallest drop would

00:20:18.630 --> 00:20:20.560
be a source of enormous excitement.

00:20:27.060 --> 00:20:31.760
The key to understanding water
is, where will it be liquid?

00:20:35.810 --> 00:20:38.780
In the outer solar system the
temperatures are cold enough

00:20:38.780 --> 00:20:42.940
that water will condense to form ice, and
so these icy objects are rich in water.

00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:50.910
But on most worlds, there isn't liquid.

00:20:59.420 --> 00:21:04.270
Water is such a special compound
for life that, for me at least,

00:21:04.270 --> 00:21:08.567
it takes the perspective of another
world to realize just how lucky we are.

00:21:46.690 --> 00:21:55.060
- So if I were you, I would go up on top
of that ridge there that's sticking out

00:21:55.060 --> 00:21:56.940
and just look down.

00:21:56.940 --> 00:22:03.140
You'll get a good sense for the context
and the nature of the very flat,

00:22:03.140 --> 00:22:08.100
horizontal beds that are in the Morrison
Formation -- evidence of ancient,

00:22:08.100 --> 00:22:13.250
very slow-flowing or standing water...

00:22:13.250 --> 00:22:13.950
liquid water.

00:22:19.980 --> 00:22:21.599
Is it really like Mars, or is it not?

00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:23.140
And if it's not, how different is it?

00:22:25.400 --> 00:22:29.120
One of the features that's here that
is an interesting possible analog

00:22:29.120 --> 00:22:33.490
is evidence of life that
we think might be on Mars.

00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:36.930
And if there is life on Mars,
it's probably microbial,

00:22:36.930 --> 00:22:39.490
and it's either in rocks
or underneath rocks.

00:22:39.490 --> 00:22:45.020
This little ridge right here has a
whole bunch of little endoliths in it.

00:22:54.710 --> 00:22:58.070
So I'm looking to see if
I can find a rock here

00:22:58.070 --> 00:23:01.814
that has some microbes that
might be growing in it.

00:23:01.814 --> 00:23:03.230
Do you see that green right there?

00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:09.480
The very end of the tip of the rock.

00:23:09.480 --> 00:23:17.840
That green is photosynthetic microbes.

00:23:17.840 --> 00:23:21.030
If there's life on Mars, this
is probably what it looks like.

00:23:23.950 --> 00:23:30.550
Not little green men -- little green
microbes, probably not producing canals.

00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:43.720
This rock, when I pick it
up, doesn't look like there's

00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:45.970
anything of interesting consequence on it.

00:23:45.970 --> 00:23:51.635
But when I flip it over, I see that
there is green material on the bottom.

00:23:51.635 --> 00:23:53.760
There's a niche for microbes
to grow underneath it,

00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:55.870
and they've colonized the
underside of the rock.

00:24:18.310 --> 00:24:20.176
- They are really extremophiles.

00:24:20.176 --> 00:24:22.070
They like the extreme environments.

00:24:24.811 --> 00:24:30.035
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

00:24:55.280 --> 00:24:59.612
I would say that these organisms are
really the toughest ones on our planet.

00:25:12.220 --> 00:25:18.370
We placed it in this little
chamber simulating Mars --

00:25:18.370 --> 00:25:23.554
with the atmosphere and the water
conditions and all the radiation.

00:25:23.554 --> 00:25:25.910
Can they survive?

00:25:25.910 --> 00:25:29.067
Or are they even able to be
active under these conditions?

00:25:32.196 --> 00:25:35.930
Mars is like a cold desert.

00:25:35.930 --> 00:25:39.820
You can't breathe because
it is about 95% CO2.

00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:46.170
And we were very surprised
that some of these organisms

00:25:46.170 --> 00:25:48.770
are able to be active
under these conditions.

00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:03.415
If you want to terraform a planet,
you need the photosynthesis.

00:27:43.300 --> 00:27:49.290
- On Earth, I think we would be correct
to describe life as made out of carbon

00:27:49.290 --> 00:27:50.370
and living in water.

00:27:58.370 --> 00:28:05.540
Cyanobacteria -- green slime, to use the
general term -- they're primary producers,

00:28:05.540 --> 00:28:06.040
phototrophs.

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:16.331
They make food out of light
and carbon dioxide and water.

00:28:18.980 --> 00:28:22.310
So on another world, they could
be the basis of an ecosystem.

00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:51.810
If we wanted to make Mars
a world rich in biology,

00:28:55.570 --> 00:28:58.400
the first step is to warm it up.

00:29:02.109 --> 00:29:03.650
Well, we know how to warm up planets.

00:29:07.280 --> 00:29:10.660
And in fact, if we were to do exactly
on Mars what we're doing on Earth --

00:29:10.660 --> 00:29:13.700
putting in the atmosphere
greenhouse gases --

00:29:16.150 --> 00:29:20.740
if we did exactly that on Mars,
on time scales of about 100 years

00:29:20.740 --> 00:29:24.674
Mars would become a warm, wet
planet again, suitable for life.

00:29:27.530 --> 00:29:31.090
Now that would not mean that it
would be suitable for humans.

00:29:31.090 --> 00:29:34.300
It would be warm and wet like
it was in its early history,

00:29:34.300 --> 00:29:37.950
with a thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere.

00:29:37.950 --> 00:29:39.750
That could be in 100 years or so.

00:29:59.100 --> 00:30:05.135
It is possible to take the view that we
shouldn't introduce life to other worlds --

00:30:05.135 --> 00:30:08.757
that Mars is Mars, and we
should leave it that way.

00:30:13.050 --> 00:30:19.307
My view is if there's a source of
value in the natural world, life is it.

00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:28.080
And we humans have a very
special opportunity in the sense

00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:30.070
that we can help propagate life.

00:30:34.350 --> 00:30:38.730
And if Mars has life, then we
should encourage that life.

00:30:38.730 --> 00:30:42.730
If Mars doesn't have life, then we
should share with it life from Earth.

00:30:59.120 --> 00:31:01.680
- The other day in Newtown
Creek, I saw an osprey.

00:31:04.530 --> 00:31:09.330
We've been in there since 2002,
you know, a couple times a month.

00:31:09.330 --> 00:31:10.870
Never seen anything like that.

00:31:10.870 --> 00:31:17.040
Because an osprey is sort of like
a flying version of a leopard.

00:31:17.040 --> 00:31:19.125
It's a beautiful bird.

00:31:19.125 --> 00:31:21.855
And that's hopeful.

00:31:21.855 --> 00:31:22.808
That's hopeful.

00:31:34.760 --> 00:31:36.160
- You often see a lot of condoms.

00:31:39.830 --> 00:31:42.560
Condoms are like a tracer experiment.

00:31:42.560 --> 00:31:46.266
They show the direct link
between a toilet and a waterway.

00:31:46.266 --> 00:31:49.460
It's not like people come down
here to Lover's Leap -- you know,

00:31:49.460 --> 00:31:54.370
the romantic parking spot -- and have a
fun time and then throw their condoms over

00:31:54.370 --> 00:31:55.510
the bulkhead.

00:31:55.510 --> 00:31:59.130
These are condoms that
were flushed down a toilet.

00:31:59.130 --> 00:32:04.550
You know, this was once
a super-alive salt marsh.

00:32:07.080 --> 00:32:13.780
It was like, you know, a
maximum generator of life.

00:32:52.630 --> 00:32:56.300
- If you took a sample of
the Gowanus Canal, there's

00:32:56.300 --> 00:32:59.001
been microbes adapting and
evolving in that environment.

00:32:59.001 --> 00:33:02.177
There's quite a variety of
different kinds of microbes there.

00:33:04.859 --> 00:33:09.990
And we actually see evolution happening
where we think new species are being formed

00:33:09.990 --> 00:33:15.340
in toxic waste sites where they're adapting
to be able to actually eat some of those

00:33:15.340 --> 00:33:22.660
toxic wastes -- or to be resistant to them
-- so that what we think of as extreme,

00:33:22.660 --> 00:33:24.584
to other forms of life isn't extreme.

00:33:33.530 --> 00:33:38.631
- One of the puzzles about life
on Earth is how fast it started.

00:33:41.520 --> 00:33:43.500
When we look back at the
history of the Earth,

00:33:43.500 --> 00:33:47.432
when the Earth formed and became
suitable for life, life's there.

00:33:53.050 --> 00:33:55.190
That's really quite surprising.

00:33:55.190 --> 00:34:00.170
Either it starts really quick, or
it fell in when the Earth formed.

00:34:00.170 --> 00:34:01.336
It came from somewhere else.

00:34:04.530 --> 00:34:10.790
Most scientists like the idea that
it started here and started quick,

00:34:10.790 --> 00:34:13.929
but we haven't been able
to duplicate it in the lab.

00:34:13.929 --> 00:34:17.750
If it was so easy to start, why
can't we start it in our labs?

00:34:17.750 --> 00:34:22.150
So some people are thinking,
"Well, maybe it didn't start here."

00:34:35.600 --> 00:34:41.139
- It's very clear that exchange
between planets happens.

00:34:41.139 --> 00:34:43.595
One of the oldest rocks
on Earth is from Mars.

00:34:47.870 --> 00:34:50.980
So one can imagine ancient
rock on Mars that may

00:34:50.980 --> 00:34:56.340
have had some kind of microbes colonized
in it, blasted off the surface of Mars

00:34:56.340 --> 00:35:01.808
from an impact, start to orbit Earth,
fall on Earth, and seed Earth with life.

00:35:06.532 --> 00:35:07.490
We may be the Martians.

00:35:41.344 --> 00:35:46.120
- All the food that we've got is either
dehydrated or canned or otherwise shelf

00:35:46.120 --> 00:35:49.290
stable, something that
will last at least a year.

00:35:49.290 --> 00:35:52.620
I don't know anybody that
doesn't like matzo ball soup,

00:35:52.620 --> 00:35:54.830
and this is freeze-dried
ground beef granules.

00:36:00.608 --> 00:36:07.710
What they taste like -- once the
moisture of your hydrates it --

00:36:07.710 --> 00:36:13.050
it tastes like ground meat that's just
been fried in a pan and then drained.

00:36:13.050 --> 00:36:14.995
I'll open this up, and you can have a look.

00:36:14.995 --> 00:36:21.270
It's packaged under nitrogen. This
is mackerel belly in teriyaki sauce.

00:36:21.270 --> 00:36:23.460
This is real nice inside some sushi.

00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:26.060
These are fried tofu wrappers.

00:36:26.060 --> 00:36:27.011
Bell peppers.

00:36:27.011 --> 00:36:29.760
They're very, very sweet, which
is why they're a little bit shiny.

00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:31.051
The sugars come to the surface.

00:36:33.470 --> 00:36:35.190
These were samples.

00:36:35.190 --> 00:36:39.790
These are dehydrated
cooked beans, and sometimes

00:36:39.790 --> 00:36:42.280
dried beans were a hard
sell with crews on Mars.

00:37:13.550 --> 00:37:18.140
- So you have to go to the GPS set location.

00:37:47.970 --> 00:37:52.540
- Certainly the absence of
plant life is a big plus

00:37:52.540 --> 00:37:59.430
if you want to simulate being on Mars,
because there aren't any plants on Mars.

00:37:59.430 --> 00:38:07.050
The good news is we have potting soil, we
have seedling mix, we have vermiculite.

00:38:07.050 --> 00:38:11.840
If we had some seeds, we could go to
town and plant some great stuff here.

00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:13.110
Wow, look at that.

00:38:13.110 --> 00:38:14.865
Oh, what a mess.

00:38:14.865 --> 00:38:19.200
It's been completely destroyed by the heat.

00:38:19.200 --> 00:38:21.010
- It looks like Jupiter.

00:38:21.010 --> 00:38:22.698
- Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:29.170
Oh my, this doesn't look good.

00:38:29.170 --> 00:38:34.750
What I see here is a seed packet
that's been torn apart by mice.

00:38:34.750 --> 00:38:38.040
Oh, oh, my heart's broken
because I think what

00:38:38.040 --> 00:38:42.030
happened is that they left
that box of seeds out here.

00:38:42.030 --> 00:38:46.750
And they've been eaten up.

00:38:50.620 --> 00:38:52.930
Wow.

00:38:52.930 --> 00:38:55.378
That's really disappointing.

00:39:09.050 --> 00:39:12.950
There's lots of evidence that human
beings love to be around plants.

00:39:12.950 --> 00:39:17.720
Even people who aren't avid
gardeners in real life,

00:39:17.720 --> 00:39:22.590
when they get into an isolated, confined
environment, they love their plants.

00:39:34.815 --> 00:39:37.749
- We humans need contact with nature.

00:39:37.749 --> 00:39:42.320
It becomes exacerbated when
you're so far away, like on Mars,

00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:45.729
and you're also in a very
small, confined spaced.

00:39:45.729 --> 00:39:48.990
You know, a space station -- you're up
there six months, you can deal with it.

00:39:48.990 --> 00:39:53.709
But what they found is that those astronauts
tend to go and spend time in the modules

00:39:53.709 --> 00:39:56.000
where they're growing plants,
or where there's animals,

00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:57.666
or where there's other natural elements.

00:40:10.624 --> 00:40:13.064
This is the tanker lifestyle
-- former gardener,

00:40:13.064 --> 00:40:15.784
I used to have a huge
garden out on Beard Street.

00:40:15.784 --> 00:40:18.825
And I was very excited to actually
discover that my carrot was sprouting,

00:40:18.825 --> 00:40:20.570
so I've saved it.

00:40:20.570 --> 00:40:23.101
This is what I've been reduced to.

00:40:23.101 --> 00:40:24.216
It's cute, actually.

00:40:24.216 --> 00:40:25.049
I used to do bonsai.

00:40:25.049 --> 00:40:26.410
It's kind of like carrot bonsai.

00:40:26.410 --> 00:40:28.031
That's what I have for a garden.

00:40:34.905 --> 00:40:36.870
- Does Chiclet keep you company?

00:40:36.870 --> 00:40:41.016
- Yes, Chiclet is a spooner
-- only in the winter.

00:40:41.016 --> 00:40:43.724
In the summer, she's not interested
in sleeping under the covers,

00:40:43.724 --> 00:40:48.206
but in the winter she's
an under-the-covers kitty.

00:41:09.527 --> 00:41:12.110
- I used to always say, I'm gonna
be the first person on Mars.

00:41:12.110 --> 00:41:13.670
And now I'm like, no.

00:41:13.670 --> 00:41:19.452
I want to be the first space gardener
on Mars, or the first farmer on Mars.

00:41:19.452 --> 00:41:21.780
They probably all need
a little drink anyway.

00:41:25.764 --> 00:41:27.258
Gardening on Mars.

00:41:30.076 --> 00:41:31.242
- Columbia, this is Houston.

00:41:31.242 --> 00:41:32.238
Go ahead, over.

00:41:37.716 --> 00:41:41.202
- Roger, no marks on the LEM that time.

00:41:41.202 --> 00:41:44.688
I did see a suspiciously
small, white object...

00:42:07.630 --> 00:42:12.690
- Most of the '90s, my work was involved in
writing a long novel about the terraforming

00:42:12.690 --> 00:42:18.190
of Mars -- which is to say the turning of
Mars into an Earth-like and human-inhabited

00:42:18.190 --> 00:42:24.270
space by heating it up,
turning its ice into water,

00:42:24.270 --> 00:42:27.860
getting some shallow lakes
and seas on the surface,

00:42:27.860 --> 00:42:32.308
and so making Mars into a watery
space rather than an icy space.

00:42:34.860 --> 00:42:38.510
Paradoxically, writing science fiction
has made me more appreciative of just

00:42:38.510 --> 00:42:39.760
being a local gardener.

00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:42.410
It makes me just appreciate
being outdoors more.

00:42:42.410 --> 00:42:46.050
I've tried to spend as much of
my life outdoors as I can --

00:42:46.050 --> 00:42:50.420
including moving my writing life out
there, but also all of my spare time --

00:42:50.420 --> 00:42:53.872
because staying indoors when you don't
have to is like staying in a spaceship when

00:42:53.872 --> 00:42:55.080
you've actually got a planet.

00:43:00.490 --> 00:43:03.170
I spent a week at the South Pole.

00:43:03.170 --> 00:43:06.370
It was by far the least interesting
of my weeks in Antarctica

00:43:06.370 --> 00:43:08.380
because I was really stuck indoors.

00:43:08.380 --> 00:43:13.332
And it's like being stuck in a Motel 6 or
something, a high-tech Motel 6 for a week.

00:43:13.332 --> 00:43:15.790
And after that, you're thinking,
I need to get out of here.

00:43:15.790 --> 00:43:18.583
Well going to Mars would be like
that, like a lifetime sentence.

00:43:22.740 --> 00:43:27.430
You're condemning yourself to a
prison, and you're locked in in order

00:43:27.430 --> 00:43:28.200
to keep you alive.

00:43:37.150 --> 00:43:40.850
The way that we are become accustomed to
spending the vast majority of our time

00:43:40.850 --> 00:43:44.190
indoors is a mistake, I think.

00:43:44.190 --> 00:43:46.490
We're not biologically made for that.

00:43:53.630 --> 00:43:57.680
All my science fiction about people
off in space and in the solar system

00:43:57.680 --> 00:44:02.180
has made me more aware of how unusual
Earth is and how lucky we are to be on it,

00:44:02.180 --> 00:44:03.840
and how much I am a creature of Earth.

00:45:28.487 --> 00:45:31.570
- It kind of bothers me when people
say, "Well, there's nature over there,

00:45:31.570 --> 00:45:34.244
and we're over here."

00:45:36.534 --> 00:45:37.960
You know, we're all part...

00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:40.120
we're just so imbued with nature.

00:45:40.120 --> 00:45:44.200
When I was a ranger over here, I
was giving a little class to kids.

00:45:44.200 --> 00:45:47.470
And I said to the kids, are
there any animals in here?

00:45:47.470 --> 00:45:51.710
I said, if you think you're
an animal, raise your hand.

00:45:51.710 --> 00:45:55.180
So a couple of kids raised their
hand, and I raised my hand.

00:45:55.180 --> 00:45:58.760
A bus driver was standing
like this over here.

00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:01.130
So I said, yeah, we're
part of the animal world.

00:46:01.130 --> 00:46:04.940
We're mammals, you know.

00:46:04.940 --> 00:46:08.932
And afterward, after the class, the
bus driver says, "That wasn't right.

00:46:08.932 --> 00:46:09.640
That ain't right.

00:46:09.640 --> 00:46:11.546
We ain't animals," he said.

00:46:11.546 --> 00:46:13.130
I said, what are we, minerals?

00:46:17.250 --> 00:46:20.650
I grew up around the edge of the bay.

00:46:20.650 --> 00:46:21.920
I played around the bay.

00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:25.190
I had tree forts, underground forts.

00:46:25.190 --> 00:46:28.250
We realized the marshes were
eroding, so we had a little pilot

00:46:28.250 --> 00:46:31.784
project on a two-acre site and planted it.

00:46:31.784 --> 00:46:32.700
And it seemed to work.

00:46:32.700 --> 00:46:34.116
The marshes started growing again.

00:46:39.920 --> 00:46:43.900
We're losing probably a little
more than we're gaining each year,

00:46:43.900 --> 00:46:46.340
but we hope to save as much as we can.

00:47:01.515 --> 00:47:04.973
You know, all these coastal communities
are going to be flooded on a regular basis.

00:47:22.570 --> 00:47:24.390
Everything here, it's all landfill.

00:47:24.390 --> 00:47:25.529
This whole island is fill.

00:47:25.529 --> 00:47:26.945
The whole edge of the bay is fill.

00:47:26.945 --> 00:47:31.188
It's been bulkheaded,
channelized, dredged, landfills.

00:47:35.050 --> 00:47:37.790
To me, it makes common sense to work with...

00:47:37.790 --> 00:47:43.000
learn about nature, learn how you can
work with it instead of constantly

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:45.195
trying to defeat it, to dominate it.

00:47:45.195 --> 00:47:49.300
You know, you can't dominate nature.

00:47:49.300 --> 00:47:53.820
If this planet blew up tomorrow,
would the universe care?

00:47:53.820 --> 00:47:56.106
There's probably a million
Earths out there somewhere.

00:48:12.640 --> 00:48:17.260
- It seems to be one of the
human traits that we want

00:48:17.260 --> 00:48:22.360
to control things, for better or worse.

00:48:22.360 --> 00:48:28.740
So let's get our engineers to build
something that will protect us.

00:48:28.740 --> 00:48:35.640
Let's build some hard structures,
like barriers or sea walls and levees

00:48:35.640 --> 00:48:38.825
and dikes and dams and the rest of it.

00:48:57.140 --> 00:49:02.740
- During the era when the interest in
Lowell's theories of the canal of Mars

00:49:02.740 --> 00:49:06.670
was at its height, you
found many journalists

00:49:06.670 --> 00:49:14.810
wanting to compare Mars with the canalled
cities of Holland or with Venice.

00:49:19.370 --> 00:49:25.160
This was the era of the building of
the Erie Canal, plans for the Panama

00:49:25.160 --> 00:49:28.216
Canal, the opening of the Suez Canal.

00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:33.310
These were technological marvels.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:43.350
- This notion of terraforming
is a science fiction idea,

00:49:43.350 --> 00:49:47.688
and yet it's based on what
we've done to the Earth --

00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:55.350
infrastructure building and canal building
and harbor building and manipulation

00:49:55.350 --> 00:49:58.130
of the sea coasts everywhere,

00:50:06.720 --> 00:50:12.702
humanity taking a planet and gardening it
or shaping it to serve their own purposes.

00:50:16.080 --> 00:50:20.900
We are really the major force of
change on the surface of the planet,

00:50:20.900 --> 00:50:22.170
human beings are.

00:50:22.170 --> 00:50:26.630
And we're not in control,
but we are a major disturber.

00:50:26.630 --> 00:50:31.259
As we gain more and more power, we have
more and more power to mess things up

00:50:31.259 --> 00:50:32.425
or to make them sustainable.

00:52:28.264 --> 00:52:31.258
(EMERGENCY SIRENS)

00:53:27.800 --> 00:53:33.110
- When I was working on my Mars novels and
thinking about terraforming a whole planet,

00:53:35.750 --> 00:53:42.260
I was always thinking of it as metaphorical
for what we're doing here on Earth.

00:53:42.260 --> 00:53:46.527
When I say that I'm an environmentalist
and also that I'm a science fiction writer,

00:53:46.527 --> 00:53:49.360
it's a common reaction to say,
"Well, you must be schizophrenic," --

00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:51.790
that these are completely
opposite interests,

00:53:51.790 --> 00:53:55.840
that space and environmentalism
are somehow opposed to each other,

00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:58.260
and that being interested in
space is a kind of escapism.

00:54:03.420 --> 00:54:04.998
The two are matched interests.

00:54:09.120 --> 00:54:10.580
We live on a planet.

00:54:10.580 --> 00:54:15.506
Our interest in protecting it as an
environment is a planetary project.

00:54:28.840 --> 00:54:31.452
I don't think Mars is the
solution to our problems.

00:54:34.350 --> 00:54:39.130
It's not an escape hatch, and
we can't move there en masse.

00:54:39.130 --> 00:54:40.910
It wouldn't make a better Earth.

00:54:45.790 --> 00:54:49.727
I think we will terraform Mars, but it's
really like a thousand-year project.

00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:55.328
It requires a healthy Earth.

00:55:03.470 --> 00:55:08.340
Even if we inhabit the solar system,
which is within human capacities,

00:55:08.340 --> 00:55:12.170
all the other planets are
going to be minor side stories.

00:55:12.170 --> 00:55:17.370
So we do have to get Earth right, and that
responsibility and obligation will never

00:55:17.370 --> 00:55:19.081
go away.

00:55:19.081 --> 00:55:22.063
(AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYING)

00:56:50.171 --> 00:56:52.420
- Coming from another country,
from another continent,

00:56:52.420 --> 00:56:55.550
I never connected New York City and water.

00:56:55.550 --> 00:56:58.666
It was just never there for me.

00:57:04.710 --> 00:57:07.592
When Henry Hudson first came
here, before him it was paradise.

00:57:11.110 --> 00:57:16.432
When he met the Native Americans, the
Lenapes, they exchanged oysters with him.

00:57:19.230 --> 00:57:25.580
Oysters have been the dominant habitat
type in this area for the last 7,000 years,

00:57:25.580 --> 00:57:27.970
excluding the last, like, 200, 300 years.

00:57:45.860 --> 00:57:51.274
Dead, 13 millimeters, alive, 45 millimeters.

00:58:00.700 --> 00:58:04.830
The idea now is we're slowly
starting to rethink the harbor.

00:58:17.720 --> 00:58:21.830
Oysteries are well known for their
shoreline stabilization capabilities,

00:58:21.830 --> 00:58:24.100
but they can only do so much.

00:58:24.100 --> 00:58:29.790
They aren't going to be the be-and-end-all
solution to sea-level rise and climate

00:58:29.790 --> 00:58:32.090
change.

00:58:32.090 --> 00:58:34.810
Nature isn't that cut and dry, I suppose.

00:58:46.490 --> 00:58:50.650
- When the Dutch settled here, oysters
grew in an abundancy on the Gowanus Canal.

00:58:55.037 --> 00:58:57.370
I've read a journal from the
time, and it said that they

00:58:57.370 --> 00:59:00.070
grow to be as large as a dinner plate.

00:59:00.070 --> 00:59:03.235
Personally, I think that's probably
because dinner plates have grown

00:59:03.235 --> 00:59:04.860
to be much bigger than they used to be.

00:59:04.860 --> 00:59:07.310
They must have been
smaller portions back then.

00:59:07.310 --> 00:59:09.101
But still, that's a pretty big oyster.

00:59:28.280 --> 00:59:34.780
The one thing that I have advocated for
that not a lot of people have embraced is,

00:59:34.780 --> 00:59:39.680
let's keep a section of the waterway
extremely contaminated so that we can

00:59:39.680 --> 00:59:42.550
remind future generations
just how bad it once was --

00:59:42.550 --> 00:59:44.980
and remind us never to go there again.

00:59:57.640 --> 01:00:00.270
- Almost all of them survived,
I don't know how they did.

01:00:00.270 --> 01:00:03.353
I know that they had one little area,
they were hanging out in the garage,

01:00:03.353 --> 01:00:08.366
but they must have climbed up on
top of roofs and things to survive.

01:00:08.366 --> 01:00:10.246
There are a lot of stray
cats in the channel.

01:00:13.140 --> 01:00:15.236
So I'm going to pick up the speed here.

01:00:25.200 --> 01:00:29.120
If we had substantial coverage
of marshes in the bay,

01:00:29.120 --> 01:00:33.100
it would have been less
damaging to the mainland.

01:00:33.100 --> 01:00:36.690
Unfortunately, most of the bay
has been filled at the edges.

01:00:36.690 --> 01:00:40.380
All the marsh edges, for the
most part, have been filled in.

01:00:40.380 --> 01:00:43.680
The biggest marshes are in
the central part of the bay.

01:00:43.680 --> 01:00:49.170
They can swallow up excess
water like a giant sponge,

01:00:49.170 --> 01:00:52.140
so they are a great buffer to the mainland.

01:00:52.140 --> 01:00:55.800
In places like Katrina, where
they filled in so much marsh --

01:00:55.800 --> 01:00:58.930
I think it was equal to the acreage
of Rhode Island, if you can imagine,

01:00:58.930 --> 01:01:01.100
that much marsh was filled in.

01:01:01.100 --> 01:01:03.662
That's why when that storm
hit, it went right in.

01:01:03.662 --> 01:01:06.990
If they'd had all that marsh there, it
would have been a lot less damaging.

01:01:11.010 --> 01:01:15.070
I'll stay as long as I'm working.

01:01:15.070 --> 01:01:18.310
But after that, I'm not sure what I'll do.

01:01:35.070 --> 01:01:38.710
The water was right about up
to here, inside and outside.

01:01:38.710 --> 01:01:40.870
It was higher outside.

01:01:48.765 --> 01:01:51.380
There's 185 houses here.

01:01:51.380 --> 01:01:56.430
So far, 170 have made application
with the state to be bought out.

01:01:56.430 --> 01:02:00.120
There will be no semblance whatsoever
of the house ever being there.

01:02:00.120 --> 01:02:04.000
They take the foundation out, they take
all the plumbing out, the sewer lines out.

01:02:04.000 --> 01:02:06.517
Everything comes out, and then
it just goes back to nature.

01:02:06.517 --> 01:02:08.600
The whole thing will just
go right back to nature.

01:02:08.600 --> 01:02:09.750
And it makes perfect sense.

01:02:09.750 --> 01:02:10.530
It really does.

01:02:10.530 --> 01:02:13.540
It's really one of the few
times in life I've ever

01:02:13.540 --> 01:02:16.410
seen anything that really should
happen is actually going to happen.

01:02:22.290 --> 01:02:23.930
- They could give me a million dollars.

01:02:23.930 --> 01:02:24.920
I ain't going.

01:02:24.920 --> 01:02:26.630
I will not do it.

01:02:26.630 --> 01:02:29.370
You know, that's the way I feel about it.

01:02:29.370 --> 01:02:34.130
It's just going to go to
weeds, just muskrats, raccoons.

01:02:34.130 --> 01:02:35.880
Already, the geese are taking over.

01:02:35.880 --> 01:02:37.480
I don't know if you've seen them yet.

01:02:40.740 --> 01:02:43.580
They're all over the place, I guess
at certain times of day maybe,

01:02:43.580 --> 01:02:45.230
but they just walk in the street now.

01:02:45.230 --> 01:02:49.590
And, you know, I don't know
what's going to happen.

01:02:49.590 --> 01:02:53.247
As they knock these houses down -- and I
assume they're going to knock them down...

01:02:55.970 --> 01:02:59.290
but are they actually just
going to leave it like this?

01:03:02.070 --> 01:03:03.750
I have no idea what's going to happen.

01:03:03.750 --> 01:03:05.375
I can't imagine what's going to happen.

01:03:46.110 --> 01:03:52.330
- JRR Tolkien used to always say that
the greatest enemy to the imagination is

01:03:52.330 --> 01:03:57.200
familiarity -- and that the more familiar
we are with our world and its problems,

01:03:57.200 --> 01:03:58.100
the less we see.

01:04:01.210 --> 01:04:06.630
But if you can step back and have
a different vantage point, then

01:04:06.630 --> 01:04:10.000
suddenly you begin to see things
as if they were new again.

01:04:16.880 --> 01:04:24.594
I think we often need to ask ourselves, as
Earth dwellers, "How terraformed are we?"

01:04:24.594 --> 01:04:29.154
That is, how well adjusted
are we to our natural world?

01:04:29.154 --> 01:04:31.682
How well do we fit in?

01:04:42.619 --> 01:04:52.710
- Now I think you're entering a new
phase in the relationship to the water.

01:04:52.710 --> 01:05:02.290
And if you think how New York City looked
in 1800, in 1900, and in the year 2000,

01:05:02.290 --> 01:05:05.520
and now extrapolate out to 2100...

01:05:05.520 --> 01:05:07.980
Wow.

01:05:07.980 --> 01:05:13.684
It's clear that it will not look like
anything that we are seeing right now.

01:05:18.931 --> 01:05:24.475
- We're now 2 minutes, 53 seconds from
re-acquiring the spacecraft -- 21 minutes,

01:05:24.475 --> 01:05:28.648
23 seconds from the beginning
of the powered descent.

01:05:28.648 --> 01:05:31.133
It's grown quite quiet
here in mission control.

01:06:28.845 --> 01:06:31.827
(OTHERWORDLY SOUNDS AND AMBIANCE)

01:07:04.670 --> 01:07:10.840
- He was in many ways a very difficult
person, a very unusual person,

01:07:10.840 --> 01:07:13.572
not himself trained as an astronomer.

01:07:13.572 --> 01:07:18.880
- Bald eagle here -- this is a
bald eagle on the river, I think.

01:07:18.880 --> 01:07:22.100
That is a bald eagle.

01:07:22.100 --> 01:07:27.500
- He had to conclude that the society
on Mars had to be a socialist society,

01:07:27.500 --> 01:07:29.315
otherwise they could not work together.

01:07:30.820 --> 01:07:34.107
- ...and they're all decommissioned.

01:07:34.107 --> 01:07:37.440
I don't know whether it's true or not,
but someone -- in terms of "bluespace" --

01:07:37.440 --> 01:07:40.650
someone told me that when this pier
was built that they just flushed right

01:07:40.650 --> 01:07:41.733
into the sea, the toilets.

01:07:47.210 --> 01:07:50.440
- ...and so it's nice to think about it.

01:07:50.440 --> 01:07:55.640
What will be different, and what are
we making of this new opportunity

01:07:55.640 --> 01:07:58.284
of having a little bit more water around?

01:07:58.284 --> 01:07:59.450
- It is kind of interesting.

01:07:59.450 --> 01:08:05.130
When I first started reading papers about
climate change, the danger on the horizon

01:08:05.130 --> 01:08:07.700
was in fact the ice age coming back.

01:08:07.700 --> 01:08:14.490
Think of half a mile of ice over what
is now Chicago, that kind of ice age.

01:08:14.490 --> 01:08:17.279
Now that's not good news
if you live in Chicago.

01:08:17.279 --> 01:08:18.330
Or maybe it is.

01:08:18.330 --> 01:08:20.890
- Being from North Dakota, I
have seen how rapidly humans

01:08:20.890 --> 01:08:25.710
are able to transform landscapes from
one of agrarian or natural ecologies

01:08:25.710 --> 01:08:28.390
to total industrialized landscapes.

01:08:28.390 --> 01:08:31.439
- And where these organisms
are covering a rock,

01:08:31.439 --> 01:08:35.294
it's really like an oasis in a cold desert.

01:08:40.761 --> 01:08:43.194
(SINGING IN ITALIAN)

01:08:43.194 --> 01:08:44.655
- I am a raccoon.

01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:50.760
- Even in the high
Himalayas or the high Andes,

01:08:50.760 --> 01:08:55.340
there's atmospheric deposition
of nutrients and pollutants

01:08:55.340 --> 01:09:00.860
from all over the world being deposited
in the snow and the waterways.

01:09:00.860 --> 01:09:06.060
So even there, you can detect
the effects of human activity.

01:09:06.060 --> 01:09:10.109
- Sometimes, dried beans are a
hard sell with crews on Mars.

01:09:10.109 --> 01:09:13.646
People are afraid that if they
eat beans, they'll get gassy.

01:09:13.646 --> 01:09:14.970
It happens to some people.

01:09:14.970 --> 01:09:16.640
It doesn't happen to everybody.

01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:18.680
Personally, I'm a big fan of dried beans.

01:09:18.680 --> 01:09:22.870
- The first test is you have to become
Alpha species of your planet, which

01:09:22.870 --> 01:09:24.029
we've done successfully.

01:09:24.029 --> 01:09:26.670
The second is you have to
not obliterate your planet

01:09:26.670 --> 01:09:28.910
through environmental degradation.

01:09:28.910 --> 01:09:33.090
- This notion of terraforming
is a science fiction idea,

01:09:33.090 --> 01:09:35.908
and yet it's based on what
we've done to the Earth.

01:09:37.580 --> 01:09:40.455
- That's Korean Airlines up there.

01:09:40.455 --> 01:09:42.662
We identify the planes as
well as the birds here.

01:09:51.140 --> 01:09:53.500
- If we want, we could
go tonight to England.

01:09:53.500 --> 01:09:58.328
It just would take a bunch of
paddling, time, and a lot of courage.

01:10:00.820 --> 01:10:03.360
- This guy's staying.

01:10:03.360 --> 01:10:04.310
And he'll tell you.

01:10:04.310 --> 01:10:06.230
Oh, boy, he'll tell you.

01:10:06.230 --> 01:10:10.510
- I am not stressed about
what's gonna happen next year.

01:10:10.510 --> 01:10:11.260
Not one bit.

01:10:11.260 --> 01:10:12.010
So...

01:10:12.010 --> 01:10:15.060
(CONTEMPLATIVE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)