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There are a few basic facts about climate change that we can be near-certain about: the global temperature is rising, this change is being driven by humans, and it represents a serious threat to a great many living things on the planet – humans included. But due to countless complexities and uncertainties, the trajectory of the global temperature in our deep past and, more pressingly, our near future is riddled with known unknowns. In Degrees of Uncertainty, the US video essayist Neil Halloran takes a data-centric deep dive into the climate crisis, emphasising the vital importance of rejecting fatalism when it comes to solving the problem. In doing so, he also charts the evolution of science itself since the age of enlightenment, and makes a case for science demanding scrutiny from an informed public, especially journalists. You can explore an interactive version of this video at Halloran’s website.
Via Kottke
Video by Neil Halloran
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History of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes