they were going underground, as the u.k. arguably escalates the new so-called cold war with 16 and a half 1000000000 pounds plan to fund, among other things, a space command in a country where one in 3 children live in poverty coming up on the show. what will the expansion into space mean for war and capitalism going underground speaks to the western world's most famous astrophysicist neil de grasse, tyson about the past and future of humanity. when it comes to conflict, coronavirus and conspiracies. all the more coming up in today's going underground in the week of u.k. chancellor, eastern expending review, which seeks to balance the books as u.k. prime minister boris johnson touts the largest military investment since the cold war allegedly, an attempt to woo incoming u.s. president elect. joe biden, the 16000000000 pounds of funding will go towards among other things, and you are

a, if space command. so why are the countries hit hardest by coronavirus instead focusing on preparing for conflict among the stars? joining me now to talk over 1000 in the new cold war space race is the western world's most famous astrophysicist neil de grasse tyson. neil, thanks so much for coming on. what a privilege it is before i get to any of that, i have to say, given that millions of people have watched your t.v. programs. if there are people out there who come from disproportionately socio economically vulnerable groups. how on earth can their interest in this does translate to becoming like you, not only a communicator, but a research or an innovator when it comes to science? that's an important question and a lot depends on what kind of, what is this system that surrounds you? so for example, there are many countries where if you spot someone who is otherwise poor, but it's like reading math books and physics books and they're right in the street doing that. there are many countries where some will say, hey, we need to provide an opportunity for that person because 2 things are going on 1st,

it would be good for the person, but deep down, you know, it's better for the system if everybody rises to that their potential not only the potential that they can achieve, but the potential of their ambitions and without a system to connect those with ambitions to where they land, you've got nothing and brilliant people end up staying suppressed in your society. and basically at the end of the day, your society goes nowhere. ok meant, why is your country doing so badly when it comes to corona virus? and i can give the obvious answers, but i think what we're really after are deeper insights into people's conduct. and in the united states, we like thinking of ourselves as free rights, free to the point where i should have the right to put my own life at risk. all right, so their whole states here where there is no law requiring that if you ride

a motorcycle that you must wear a helmet that people can ride without helmets. that is their sense of freedom. so here's the difference. the difference is if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet and are in an accident, your chances of dying go up, but you don't really put someone else's chance of dying on the table. and so freedom stops where you infringe on other people's free other people's freedoms. and so, so we have a mixture of people who do take warnings for medical professional, seriously, and those who just want to america to be the land of the free, and that conflict pumped by political alignments and all this, that spoutings that has gone on on the political platforms has made for a very unfortunate situation, but it's also true that code rates are going up all around the world in the 2nd wave that happened in 1918 as well. there was a 2nd wave, in fact, more people died in the 2nd wave in the 1918 pandemic,

then died in the 1st wave. so we need to take cues from history here and be very serious about the advice from medical professionals. and to be clear, then obviously that was, that was returning from the trenches of world war one to be clear if there are any and vaccines out there, any bill that are refusing to abide by government restrictions, you would recommend that everyone with as mosques and follow as their governments restrictions on their freedom, if it's evidence based on, you know, i mean this, i mean, you don't have to listen to me to give advice. every medical professional is giving that advice. so for me to give that advice, i'm simply stelling you, i listen to medical professionals. ok, you know, we live in an era where everyone, where, where each person's ignorance is declared to be greater than another person's expertise . and that's a dangerous combination, especially when it leads to actions that put health at risk. and that is

a just that you alluded to political power. you can presumably understand the connection between inequality, distrust, of power and the cherry picking of science in a way that harms them yet. so, but i think of it differently. i think that there was a day, not many decades ago, where the political leader was also a primary conduit between you and things you should do for the greater good of your family and for the country. ok. and because they had the platform, the politicians are not the experts in medicine. the medical people are and medical people do have platform. scientists do have platform. people who have have have insights into the plight, not only of your health, but of the world with regard to climate change. you don't have to wait for your politician to tell you what to do about that yet. they control policy, you. yes,

policy matters. and that policy should be influenced by the objective li, established truths by the methods and tools of science. and when they are not, you're putting since you're putting civilization at risk, i'm going to get on to the existential threat of climate change in a moment. but you know that the opioid crisis in your country killed thousands of people more than thousands. i think under the obama administration. surely that's, that unknown would trigger some people to be suspicious of medical professionals as you put it. so there are sort of bad players out there. yes. and so yes, you need to see when there are better players, watch the flow of information as it comes out. look what medical professionals are telling you who do not otherwise have a financial interest in the outcome. that's a big issue here because you want to know who's controlling the strings of the word spoken by whoever it is. that's. that's in your sandbox. big pharma.

possibly, but of course big pharma is also keeping us alive. right. so it's too easy to say all big pharma is bad. oh, by the way, give me that aspirin. i need a headache. give me my, my. so yes, we need to be sensitive to that. no doubt about it, but what i'm saying is that politicians, because they spend all the time arguing with each other and claiming that they're right when others would know they're wrong, i guess i'd tend not to lean towards what politicians tell me. you joke about the systems of government from the earliest times in the 1st series of cosmos, i think you're doing in a 2nd serious do you think that the greatest system of government we've ever had democracy is unusually predisposed to having politicians responding to constituencies that the damage enough to refuse vaccines to believe in refusing to billions of evidence has loraine question that's a brilliant, really good question because we,

we who live in democracies like to say that democracy is the best thing ever. and yet occasionally we are reminded how fragile they are. great democracies are the ones that are susceptible to civil wars, to us 1st 2nd, yes it, everybody has a vote. then you could have collective ignorance, voting people into office who share a collective, who share that ignorance and then try to institute laws and legislation. that's a product of that. it of that ignorance, that's bad so that the solution for to nurture a democracy is to have an educated electorate and educated electorate. so i, as a scientist, you will never see me hit in politicians on the head because that implies you can just swap one out, put another one in and then all will be fine. if they are duly elected, i turn and face the people who voted for them, and i say, do you realize you just voted in a way that's not in your self interest?

this is what i as an educator, this is my duty and should be the duty of all educators in all systems of teaching . so it's what, by the way, i don't mind political fights. political fights are fine when you're talking about policy and legislation, but you should never have a political fight about whether some scientific research that is a bit objective. we shown to be true in german peer reviewed journals. to have a debate about whether that's true in a scientific, in a, in a political circle. that is, has a recipe for disaster. well, you know, the economic hit taken by countries because of coronavirus, the biggest funding out of this crisis continues to be in terms of increases weaponry. do you think that education is needs the extra spending after this coronavirus pandemic? well, i think that education always needs spending now weaponry. there's

always been money in the, in the, in the coffers for weapons. i mean,, if you look at the u.k. especially how many years the u.k. has been at war, it's a fundamental part of an annual budget in sovereign nations is to protect itself and some that are more aggressive to sort of take themselves around the world. what i'm saying here is that the wisdom of a budget allocating body is not oh, we're spending money on weapons, but we should be spending or we shouldn't. it's what is the proper balance of all of these items in the budget? ok, and this is the problem with, with regard to poverty and homelessness. if you look at the balance of that budget, and never should it be put to a binary decision, are we going to defend our country, or are we going to know is a balance of monies that can do it all? and if it's done wisely, you will do it all. not only the that,

it's hardly ever just weapons. there's research that could lead to weapons. all right, this is with the space force is, there's this, people want to protect your assets in space. that if there's a bad player, ok, what i'm saying is i just, i wrote a book a good 2 years ago. that tracks the history of scientific research, especially my field astrophysics with the history of warfare. and it's a 2 way street. and we don't want to admit that you and i might feel this is, is liberal anti-war and historically, and currently i'm just saying that our understanding of the universe and our understanding of so many things on the frontier of science do overlap with military meat. so i'm not sure what children watching this in yemen, being bombed by us with a dream by the saudi. have forces think they can,

that you do? actually you were actually on the defense innovation board of the pentagon, as i understand it, what is that rules? and you have 3 year term in the role of this is to explore ways that a modern defense system is, isn't sort of trapped in old ways of doing things just because you've always done them that way. these are things that the corporate world, especially the i.t. sector, have done brilliantly in recent decades. and so the military is reaching into these places that are think and think of that sort of capital as an asset. so that the pentagon has many boards. i don't think i've lost count. this is one of the newest boards trying to think about what could best serve those needs is not stop you that more from the western world's most famous astrophysicist after this break.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy. let it be an arms race in spearing dramatic development. the only really i'm going to resist . i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical. time to sit down and talk feel welcome you. normal guy called a member of the real world will know well. you know, what if in your ocean cruise, it was a march toward was to be with the one that you would need to be put on the still

lead you to surround us one in something you don't know that is your fear of the local, which is based on what you own or one with your leanings lead to start to look at your bullshit to look at you look to see which you that you don't like. welcome back. i'm still here with the world's most famous astrophysicist neil de grasse tyson. now i know you talk to the boss whether externalities, when it comes to accounting. does that come up at the pentagon, boyd, because presumably weaponry defense. this has

a knock on effect on climate change and exist central threat that we face today. but i can tell you this, that there are 2 sectors that are not in denial of climate change. one of them is the insurance industry. and the other one is the military. because climate change creates problems, 1st, financial problems because you start flooding, coastal flooding, coastlines, where most of the greatest cities in the world are on rivers or on coastlines, london included, you start raising the sea levels, you lose all of those cities, but that's not even what's going to happen 1st, which can happen 1st, you're going to lose entire countries in the south pacific, where the average elevation is just half a meter above sea level a meter above sea level. when you start displacing communities, you have a refugee problem. the big climate refugees which destabilized the world,

the military is paying very close attention to that, but bombing them with a hammer was investigated weapons is nothing to do with that. that's the research that backs up the existence of climate change, not bombs and weapons. well, you know, if you ask me, what does the military think about climate change? and i'm saying they take it very seriously with regard to weapons that are used by one side against another. that's an entire other geo political conversation. by the way, i think there should be no war anywhere in the world. i can tell you flat out. i can't imagine a future world where no one is bombing anybody. nobody's invading anybody. and we all get along peacefully. ok, and i don't necessarily know entirely what that rule require. i think a lot about american military build up in presence don't mess to clean around the world. i think about that one time i was visiting greece and i visited there their war museum and park out front was one of the airplanes they used in one of their

20th century battles. i think it was with turkey and was one of our airplanes. it was like an american girl, and i was 5, felt my heart just dropped. and i'm in another country looking at their word museum . and it's our weaponry that was they wielded in that cause. and i felt sick, briefly sick. and then i walked in and i saw, oh my gosh, the united states didn't invent war. oh, my good, the greeks been fighting wars for thousands of years. and i said, oh my gosh, this is not an american problem. it's a human problem. it's a problem. it's a humans can't get along. so united states is a johnny come lately compared to all the wars that have been fought. it all across europe multiple times. the u.k. and france just lead the list and how many years? 2 countries have conflicted, have been in conflict. so i'm, so yes, this is a,

it's a global problem. you know, one way to make everybody peaceful is to have everybody be exactly from the same tribe. ok, but that's not how the world is. and the challenge is how do we all get along? i try to remind people i did in my twitter stream, twitter, that at least i attempted to remind people that as much as we divide each other by color, that's you know, skin color, religion, sexual preference. all of these ways that we divide people. the coronavirus doesn't care because all of us only cares that you're human. i would have thought that when the coronavirus landed, that we would have all banded together and say we're all human and that is a common enemy. like, like ammi an invasion or right we've, we've all seen in the movies. we've got to be together on that one. and that did

not happen to my great disappointment in our species. anyone watching because musson, the thing, most people would believe, you'd be disappointed, they didn't know united humanity given how small you make the earth sound in the, in the universe. and, you know, i don't know whether you're aware and i want to just be clear. it's not how small i make it sound, it's how small it is. got nothing to do. it's just just let's be clear about that. and science fact. well, we know we don't have any time for climate change denial, but i don't know whether you're aware of that new michael moore film, which we did to ambiguity as to how renewable renewable energy is given the amount of fossil fuel emissions it costs to make solar panels and hydro, and i know as you say in your work, it's all solar really and what would you make of that? yeah, it's an important point. there are a lot of hidden, by the way, there are hidden elements in all of this, right? so you know, what is the actual cost of oil or you know,

with the tax monies paid for the whole foundation of an entire automotive industry that then use gets petrol. and so that you look at the total cost, it's usually bigger than just the simple sum of a quarterly report accountings. so yes, if you drive an electric car, the cost to obtain their rare earth elements that go into the batteries in the electronics and all of this, that it's not an ass clean as we want to think it is. but it's cleaner than the alternatives, and it would make something clear. all right? if you have an internal combustion engine car, you have to put petrol in it to run it, right? if you have a battery driven car and you poll august into the wall, you don't really think or care yourself what's generating that electricity. ok,

so what that means is yes, it might be produced by coal, but you could swap out coal and put in nuclear. and if you don't like nuclear could swap out nuclear and put it in as wind or destructive solar or hydro, or tidal power. all of that pumps in through your wall socket. my point is that if you go electric, then you don't have to completely swap out your car when they swap out the source of fuel for it source of power for it. whereas once your car is made, that has to use gasoline based on one petroleum, you're stuck. and you're but you built into the geopolitics of access to oil and the united states, where we're, we're riding on it led by iran musk some years ago. but now other companies are following suit, and that's an important these are important 1st steps. of course, now, famous for all these a space launches that we've been catching on on you tube. i mean, again,

going down to accountancy, how'd cheap is space exploration relative to this kind of spending that governments spend every year? so you know that the 2 levels in there, let's just think about nasa for the moment. so when nasa had the shuttle running and we were maintaining our section but built, we built the space station and maintaining our portion of it. so the shuttle, the space station, the hubble telescope, the 10 nasa centers all of the space probes that are visiting the planets we want to pluto, add all of that up. add all of that up. it was 4 tenths of one percent of the federal tax budget. but if so, how i leave visible, you get people saying, why are we spending money up there when we should be spending money here? well, we are spending money here. 99.6 percent of all money is getting spent here. so

. so again, returning to my earlier point about a wise governance knows what and how to balance things so that you get it all done in the service of all the needs of a nation. so yes, space exploration is expensive compared to the cost of your dinner, but it's not expensive compared to cost of waging war. then there's the, this is more than of an answer than you're bargaining for. then there's the vision that, that brings the next generation. oh, my gosh, we're going to mars i want to be part of that. i want to be an engineer. i want to be a biologist to think about the search for life and all of a sudden you stoke, and the stam fields, science, technology, engineering and math with the ambition of students in the pipeline. and you know, and i know, and everybody who knows knows that innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economies. so if you care about the economy,

then that kind of investment in suppliers, people to be creative in all the ways that stoke well of what you're saying, clearly not lost on the communist party of china. you've. you talked about the fact they have the biggest telescope right now on the chinese, you think? yeah, it is a telescope where the alien communication would likely be through 8 radio waves. so if aliens send signals to earth, the chinese will be the 1st to hear. but we don't know these, i know what it's like trying to argue for more money with a government fits bass pro graeme's, let alone important as your physics research. but do they sometimes say, you know what, why don't you get your own house in order and solve some of these basic problems like when the protons decay, new chilean is also laid out as a sun generate reversing magnetic field feel what he is. so what that i have asked here, rather than spend money going up there,

let alone the space was. all i can say is no, there's no one panacea that solves all problems in any given moment. but there are pockets of research where you have ambitious people who are creative and smart and they want to learn how the sun generates its energy and how, you know how to get to pluto and in so doing, they invent stuff. my physics professor from college was one of the co discovers of a new physics phenomena called nuclear magnetic resonance ok. got the nobel prize for that. well, the clever medical technician said, oh my gosh, that's phenomenon. i can make a cavity, put your body in it, and i can distinguish different atoms in your body in ways that x. rays cannot and thus was developed. that magnetic resonance imaging are arguably the most potent tool in the arsenal of the medical doctor to diagnose the condition of your human body. and that's based on a principle of physics discovered by an astrophysicist who had no interest in medicine to begin with. well, you know, i refer to a series of cause moss,

the series after the famous one by col sagan, went dad to millions of people are going to ask you and that started with the persepolis in the, in the run, which i think the jump was supposed to be bombing a week ago, getting the room is, tell me about the new series of calls about one thing that is a recurring theme in cosmos. and it's that, it's not just, we're not just out there saying you're all going to die. if we don't, it's, there's always some thread of hope that is offered how to use the awesome powers of the methods and tools of science to solve the problems. some of which science created most of which were created by the denials or the absence of foresight or, or total selfishness of people in power. and many of the stories come from, from the research in mind of andrew in whose deceit sauce of all 3 cosmos, as carl sagan, 2014 and this year 2020,

she's the that the principal writer of record. there are other writers that come in and out over the over those years, but she's been ill at all 3, she, she's highly scientifically literate, and deeply enlightened in a way where she can see how science can be not just something you learn, but something you take to heart and stumping that you embrace take ownership of and decide. yes, i'm now empowered to make a better world based on what i just learned. that is the d.n.a. of cosmos. and i'm privileged to be host of it by the way. it has the same distribution as in 2014. so it's 187 countries 47 translations that a friend of mine got one where apparently i'm speaking brilliant spanish and it is ideal. you learn spanish, really, whoops. so they've been $47.00 translations and it's called cosmos possible worlds, which is an exploration, not just of yes, exoplanets that are out there. those are fun to think about. but, but there's,

there's what kind of world obv do we have the power to create for ourselves? what kind of world are we not to? what are the risks, but i'm not, but what are the risks by taking this path instead of that path into our future? are we to shepherds of the, of, of the planet that we need to be so that our descendants will be proud of us, rather than embarrassed by what we have done to this world. so it's optimistic and do you know, and think, pandemic. so and the microbial resistance will finish yet as a species. yeah, i hope not. a virus is not going to render a 60, but you would hope that pandemics force us to that we pass through some kind of portal. and we look around and say, we're now on the other side of a gate, and that was a tough gate to pass through that. do we have the right research going into

anti-viral research programs? do we have the cancers for, for the pestilence, for all these things that the, that pen demick is forcing us to rethink? do we have the wisdom to actually rethink things so that we come out the other side, a better world? not one that still fighting over who's going to wear a mask. you know, the rest eyes and thank you. pleasure. and that's it for the show. you know, week when one of the greatest ranji imperialist football stars, diego maradona, a champion of the poor and dispossessed from when it started to not only fighter from a vendor in caracas to jerusalem. and damascus, died to the edge of 60, will be back on monday. 21 years to the day pentagon defense pov that systems today, accused of facilitating war crimes in yemen, was formed until then subscribe to our channel on you to join the on the ground on twitter, facebook, instagram, and join

me every thursday on the alex simon, sure. and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics, sport, i'm showbusiness. i'll see you then. the headlines this hour iran tell us the united nations that it reserves the right to defend itself after its top nuclear scientists to scale with what's wrong call was an act of state terrorism to come with the world possible because jap rough is that an engine backs is gaining traction and could help prolong the pandemic a public showing many europeans have that dance, some doctors, and i'm taking to social media to change minds. i hope the last moments of your life don't look like this.