Town Hall Seattle Science Series

It’s no secret that human health and the health of Earth’s systems — in particular, the air, water, biodiversity, and climate — are inextricably linked. It’s also no secret that Earth’s systems are changing in ways that can feel daunting and unwieldy. But with all great change comes great opportunity, and the emerging field of Planetary Health offers glimmers of hope rooted in actions, strategies, and a deepened understanding of our interconnectedness. In Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves, editor and University of Washington professor Howard Frumkin brought together a comprehensive collection of topics to guide our understanding of how a changing environment affects our health. With contributions by dozens of authors, the book covers a wide range of health impacts that include food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, mental health, and more. But the goal of the book isn’t to deliver a message of doom; it also offers optimistic strategies to combat the ill effect

In July of 2018, Orca whale J35, also known as “Tahlequah,” gave birth to a calf off the coast of British Columbia. When the calf died shortly after birth, the world grieved alongside J35 as she carried the calf for 17 days across 1,000 miles before finally releasing it and rejoining her pod. Grief that transcends species is an extraordinary thing; it sparked a revival awareness of the critical need to preserve orcas, the chinook salmon they feed on, and their habitat — together, core elements of Pacific Northwest identity. In her book, Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home, environmental journalist Lynda Mapes discussed one of the most urban whales in the world and why our efforts to protect them matter now, more than ever. The Southern Resident whales are a community of orcas that live in the Pacific waters spanning from Southeastern Alaska to central California. They are the only killer whale population listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act; as of September 2021, only 73 Southern Resident Whales remain a

Bestselling author Neal Stephenson is known for delivering novels with poignant and incisive reflections on our present and future. He’s also no stranger to the Town Hall stage and has joined us in the past to discuss his novel Fall and collaborative work with Nicole Galland, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., among others. Stephenson returned to the Town Hall stage to discuss his newest thriller, Termination Shock. In his speculative vision of the not-too-distant future, sea levels are rising, heatwaves and global flooding endure, and deadly pandemics threaten humanity. When the rest of the world continues to respond with inaction, a billionaire hatches a plan that will quickly throw climate change into reverse — but action at such a grand scale is anything but simple. There are consequences of global proportion, and some of them might even be worse than climate change itself. Stephenson’s discussion invited audiences to consider questions that can extend far beyond fiction and resonate with us in the present da

When you think of therapy in a traditional sense, what comes to mind? Television shows, movies, and comics love to paint a stereotypical scene: a bespectacled therapist asks poignant questions and jots down notes on a legal pad; meanwhile, the patient reclines on a sofa and spills their thoughts and emotions into the void of the room. It might be easy to assume that therapy has always involved a person-to-person conversation, but in her new book The Distance Cure, scholar and author Hannah Zeavin invited us to consider definitions of psychotherapy that extend far beyond people talking in a room. In The Distance Cure, Zeavin described less conventional operations of therapy that include Freud’s treatments by mail, advice columns, radio shows, crisis hotlines, video, computers, and mobile phones. Across all formats, “therapists” vary widely in background and credentials; some may be professionally trained, while others are strangers or even chatbots. Is any method better than the other? Zeavin urged us to think

On average, a person takes around 20,000 breaths each day; yet most of us never notice the rhythmic rush of air flowing in and out, keeping our bodies oxygenated and alive. And as many asthma or respiratory distress sufferers will attest, you don’t want to notice. But things are happening all around us that threaten our blissful ignorance of breathing — wildfire smoke, indoor and outdoor pollution, and Viruses like COVID-19, to name a few — and they will continue to impact us unless we take action. In her new book, Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health, leading pulmonologist Dr. MeiLan K. Han broke down the wonders of breathing in an authoritative guide to how our lungs work and how to protect them. Dr. Han, a national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, shared some of the latest scientific thinking about the respiratory risks we currently face. As the threat of seasonal wildfire smoke grows, new diseases develop, and pollutants continue to be dispersed in the air, we still need to br

Prebiotics and probiotics. Fecal microbiota transplants. Optimizing a diet personalized to you. These microbiome-themed topics are all around us in the media, but microbiome research remains a fairly nascent field of study and wasn’t on many people’s radars even 10 years ago. UCSD Professor Dr. Jack Gilbert and Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) Assistant Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons came together to tackle this exciting area of research. What have we learned over the past few years? What has gone well, and what could we do better? The two discussed some exciting developments on the horizon and share when they think people might see microbiome-based technologies in their daily lives. Dr. Jack A. Gilbert is a Professor of Microbial Oceanography in the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics in UCSD School of Medicine. Dr. Gilbert is also cofounder of the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project,

Human beings are extraordinary meddlers. We’ve been shaping the world around us since the last ice age, and the longer we’re around, the better we become at resetting the course of evolution. From domesticating animals to CRISPR, a revolutionary new gene-editing tool that garnered a Nobel Prize in 2020, humans haven’t stopped tinkering and probably never will. There’s an understandable nervousness around human interference; what are we potentially destroying, or at least mucking up, when we tamper with nature? In her new book, Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined — and Redefined — Nature, Biologist Beth Shapiro argued that meddling is the essence of what humans do to survive and thrive. Hunting, hybridizing plants, domesticating animals, and conserving the living things around us are all forms of intervention, none of which are new to us. With that in mind, Shapiro made the case to free ourselves from fear of obtrusion and instead become better meddlers. In turn, we may find opport

We know we have to do something about climate change, and we know we need to move immediately. The mere thought of it tends to make people freeze in their tracks from sheer overwhelm. Thousands of ideas exist, but there’s no clear, collective plan. Try as some people might, jumping on a rocket to the next planet isn’t the answer. But what if we don’t need groundbreaking new inventions to move the needle on climate change? What if most of the innovations already exist? Could we build a better, cleaner future (and maybe even generate millions of new jobs while we’re at it)? Engineer and inventor Saul Griffith shared a detailed plan of action in his new book, Electrify: The Optimist’s Playbook for our Clean Energy Future. Take note of two important words in the book’s title, electrify and optimist. Griffith’s strategy circles around the transformation of our infrastructure to electrify everything, update our grid, and adapt homes to make it possible. And then there’s optimism: if we’re to build the future we

The year 2050 once felt like a far-off speck on a distant horizon. But with less than three decades left before we reach the halfway point of the 21st century, that faraway mote doesn’t feel quite so distant. Is it possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change by then? What efforts can we focus on to truly make an impact? In The Decarbonization Imperative, Professor Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff described the urgent situation we’re in and why the year 2050 is so significant. They clearly and methodically broke down 5 key sectors— Energy, Transportation, Industrial, Building, and Agricultural— to look at which technologies stand the best chance of decarbonizing each sector. They also considered areas where investments and policy actions are needed to quicken the pace of adopting new technologies. The good news? In some sectors, clean technology is emerging or already exists; we only need a plan to transition in time. Lenox and Duff reminded us that climate change isn’t just looming; it’s here. And wh

Escaping infectious disease and managing its spread has long been at the forefront of the human mind; it’s certainly taken front and center in the minds of today’s humans as the globe continues to wade through the COVID-19 pandemic. In an especially timely and fascinating look at the story of disease past and present, historian Kyle Harper explained the evolutionary past of humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool in Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. Disease, he argued, is accelerated by technological progress and entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism. And while triumph over disease helps our lives progress, it’s actually destabilizing the environment and fostering new diseases. Gulp. But all is not lost. Harper pointed out what we can learn by looking at history while simultaneously looking forward, examining patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality, paired with insights from cutting-edge genetic research. And, he reminded us, that human

Whether we can see it or not, the impacts of Monsanto— the agrochemical giant best known for creating the herbicide Roundup and the genetically engineered seeds that resist it— are everywhere. Monsanto has shaped and reshaped the farms that provide food to people worldwide; and while we might not be able to see the breadth of the company’s impacts, we’re most certainly eating them. In Seed Money, Bartow J. Elmore investigated how the future of food remains tethered to Monsanto, despite a toxic and troubling past that extends far beyond Roundup. Through extensive fieldwork, previously-unseen records, and countless interviews with farmers, lawyers, chemists, and past employees, he traced Monsanto’s rise and eventual domination of an agricultural empire. While it’s easy to imagine a cadre of evil corporate villains at the helm, plotting the demise of the world, Elmore found something more subtle. His research revealed a cautionary tale of what happens when a series of seemingly small decisions have a cascading e

When it comes to human reproduction, particularly from a Western perspective, there’s no shortage of physical things involved. Pregnancy tests. Maternity clothing. Pacifiers. Baby carriers. Reproduction and parenting involve a plethora of objects, each designed with a purpose in mind and each contributing to the reproductive experience, for better or for worse. Historians and authors Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick explored the stuff of reproduction in their new book, Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births. Their highly visual, design-driven book explores over 80 objects that have shaped the world of people and babies during the past century, revealing designs that range from iconic to just plain strange. Together, Fisher and Winick considered how design impacted everything from the clothing that pregnant people wear to how the home pregnancy test was once a “threat” to male gynecologists—and beyond. Michelle Millar Fisher, a curator and architecture and design historian, is Rona

We’ve pondered the puzzles of the human body for millennia, questioning the function of both the visible parts and the parts hidden away behind layers of skin, muscle, and bones. When it comes to the human body— and the bodies of many other living creatures— the heart is an organ that’s long been central to our understanding of life. How did humans get from mummifying the heart separately from the body in order to weigh the soul inside it, as ancient Egyptians once did, to the modern ability to save and extend lives by transplanting a heart from one human into another? In Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, zoologist Bill Schutt explored the mind-boggling history of the heart in both human and non-human life forms. He covered everything from clear-blooded Antarctic icefish to the origin of the stethoscope, weaving in fascinating myths, hypotheses gone wrong, and scientific breakthroughs along the way. You’ll never consider that rhythmic thumping in your chest the same way again. Bill Schutt is a vertebrate

All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup. All our differences are found in the remaining .1 percent. Our DNA makes us different in our personalities and in our health, and both matter when it comes to educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, clinical psychology professor Paige Harden aimed to reclaim genetic science from the legacy of eugenics and dismantle dangerous ideas about racial superiority. She argued that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Genetically associated inequalities, Harden brought forth, can be viewed through a lens of “luck egalitarianism.” This philosophical perspective on fair versus unfair inequality is already manifest in current research and policy. She proposed that genetic research can be used to advance equity goals. Regardless of the .1 percent, we can all be equal. Paige Harden, Ph.D. is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, wher

Plastic is everywhere, and it lasts forever. But humans have a hard time grasping “forever”— the scope is far greater than our comprehension. That’s precisely the problem that Allison Cobb explored in her new book, Plastic: An Autobiography. Cobb aimed to give shape to behemoths like climate change, nuclear technologies, and racism, using plastic waste as the thread that connects them all. She insisted that the current design of manufacturing and retail, which relies on a cycle of consuming and discarding, obstructs our view of the humans who actually create objects. It’s a design that’s intentional; because if consumers truly knew how things were made and who was making them, could we continue living the way that we do on this planet? Allison Cobb is the author of four books: Plastic: an Autobiography, Green-Wood, After We All Died, and Born2. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National P

The Sahara desert, once upon a time, wasn’t a desert at all. It was green. It was a pleasant place, fed by rivers and lakes. It was home to crocodiles, hippos, turtles, and fish of all stripes. Prehistoric hunters and gatherers came to the lush land, as well, to partake of its rich bounty. It’s now the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to the United States. Temperatures can reach upward of 130 degrees and sand dunes can climb to nearly 600 feet in height. All this begs the question: What happened? Martin Williams, in When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, helped answer this question, and asks many more. A time-traveler, of a sort, Williams went back millions of years to showcase the rich history of earth’s greatest desert. Why did its climate change? Did it really have forests roamed through by dinosaurs? How has all this impacted human populations? Will the desert ever return to that verdant Eden? And what will climate change do to the desert? He also brought to the fore

The web of life is sometimes freezing. Take, for instance, what’s happening in the Alaska Arctic. In one of the largest remaining wilderness ecosystems on the planet, the frigid place is home to the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, and is also a hotspot to study the effects of climate change. What becomes of the caribou if climate change continues unabated? Further, what becomes of those that live, and depend, on the caribou, like the indigenous Iñupiat people, if the caribou disappear? The interconnectedness of us all is hanging by a thread. Seth Kantner was born and raised in northern Alaska and has worked as a trapper, wilderness guide, wildlife photographer, gardening teacher, and adjunct professor. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, Orion, and Smithsonian. Kantner is the author of the award-winning novel Ordinary Wolves, memoir Shopping for Porcupine, and collection of essays Swallowed by the Great Land: And Other Dispatches from Alaska’s Frontier. He has been a commercial fisherman in

What’s a little lizard to do when another ferocious hurricane comes tearing through its homelands? Grow larger toe pads to grip more tightly. Where are the long-spined urchins going? South, to find cooler homes. How come the aggressive butterflyfish isn’t fighting anymore? The coral they loved is no longer worth fighting for. Thor Hanson, who last appeared at Town Hall to talk about bees, is back with a story, ultimately, of hope. Climate change is a disaster and is wreaking havoc the world over. However, the natural world is doing what it can to cope with the new problems and trying to come up with solutions of its own. Plants and animals are responding to climate change in a variety of ways: adjusting, evolving, or dying out. Hanson has visited grizzly bears in Alaska, Walden Pond (that’s grown 4 degrees warmer since Thoreau’s time), and brown pelicans looming over the sea. Fraught with peril, it is. But there’s also hope: if a little lizard can adapt, humans can too. Thor Hanson is an author and biologist.

Methuselah lived to 969 years old, according to the Bible. In our recent age, Jeanne Calmet holds the title of the oldest person who ever lived. She lived to be 122 years and 164 days old. There’s a woman in Japan, Kane Tanaka, who is currently 118. Jiroemon Kimuri, also from Japan, is the oldest man of all time, living to 116 years and 54 days. How did they do it? How do some people avoid the deterioration and weakness that plagues many of their peers decades early? Is it luck, or something else? Is it possible to grow older without getting sicker? Could a 90-year-old not look a day over 50? In Age Later, Dr. Nir Barzilai, a pioneer in aging research, looked both at the four age-related diseases that take most of us (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s) and at SuperAgers (people who have maintained active lives well into their 90s who’ve never experienced any of those diseases). What can we learn from these subjects, who have not only reached a ripe old age but have further ripened the older th

Want to have a tooth pulled? There’s a risk in doing so. Need to have an X-ray because you broke your femur? There’s a risk in doing that, too. Chemotherapy? Having your appendix removed? Getting the COVID-19 vaccine? There’s risk in all of it. From risk, however, can come innovation and solutions. In You Bet Your Life, Dr. Paul Offit gave a long-ranging peek into how medical treatments come to be. It’s made, in part, through risk. From the first blood transfusions 400 years ago to the hunt for the COVID-19 vaccine, risk has been essential. It’s fraught with danger though with many relationships at play. Between intellectual breakthroughs, political realities, and human foibles, the path is a rocky one, but, from it, we can reach new plateaus of medical understanding and healthier lives. Dr. Paul Offit is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Author of nine books, he is also professor of vaccinology and pe