Episode notes
The planet is heating up, every plan to stop it has fallen short, and growing group of scientists has started to ask a stranger question: what if we grabbed the thermostat ourselves? Ben Bradford investigates geoengineering — the science of deliberately manipulating Earth’s climate — from space mirrors and ocean fertilizers to fleets of planes mimicking a volcano. Some of it sounds like cartoon villainy. Some of it might actually work. And that raises the thornier question: if humans can cool the planet on purpose, who decides whether we should? Guests: Kate Ricke, climate change scientist…
Are We Doomed?
by NPR Network · English · Tech & Science
Is the world ending, or does it just feel like it? " Are We Doomed?" investigates the greatest risks facing society, the planet, and our species. What’s real? What’s hype? And how do we actually make it out alive? Nukes. Asteroids. Autocracy. Rogue AI. Climate-driven pandemics. Angry hippopotam
More from Are We Doomed?
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21 Jul 2026 · 38 min
We Are Losing the Moon
The moon is drifting away. What does it mean? What do we do? With help from a poet, a space security expert, and the former chief scientist of NASA, Ben Bradford explores what the moon has done for Earth (tides, myths, months, werewolves), and asks the obvious mature follow-up: Should we blow it up? From lunar creation stories and moon-stealing dragons to Cold War plans to nuke the moon, humanity has always had strange ideas about our nearest neighbor. But the real problem may not be losing the moon. It may be what nations do now that everyone wants to go back. Guests: Jim Green, former NASA…
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14 Jul 2026 · 37 min
Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At
You probably knew an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was so much worse than that. Asteroids and other space rocks have been the most destructive forces ever to hit Earth, yielding mass extinctions (and the moon). And yet! Of all the possible dooms this show has explored so far, asteroids may be the one humanity is closest to beating. Ben Bradford explores why — and traces how — including the astronomers who first grasped the threat, the questionable Hollywood solutions of Deep Impact and Armageddon, and a zany but very real plan to seek out dangerous space rocks, and punch them.…
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7 Jul 2026 · 34 min
Our Vision of the Post-Apocalypse Is Wrong
What would it take to survive after "the end of the world?" A whole culture of prepping often focuses on a familiar fantasy: grab the gear, flee the city, defend the bunker, survive alone. Anthropologist and survival instructor Chris Begley thinks that’s probably the wrong movie. Ben walks through what history and math show people actually do when civilizations break down — and what they need, from dodging poisonous acorns to forming new communities. Also: luxury bunkers, survival sporks, and the unfortunate role of politics in a world of ruin. Guest: Chris Begley, author of The Emergency…
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23 Jun 2026 · 36 min
The True AI Threat is People
Imagine a friendly assistant that can help you build a bioweapon. Or a chatbot in the nuclear weapons chain, cheerfully hallucinating an attack. AI national security expert Hamza Chaudhry worries this is the biggest threat right now — not “killer robot,” but humans being humans. Because whether AI becomes dangerously smart or confidently dumb, people will find face-palming ways to abuse it. From deranged cultists and rogue states, to stockbrokers and the most evil version of Ben’s little cousin, handing everyone a powerful technology with few guardrails could end badly. Or, is there a path…
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16 Jun 2026 · 32 min
Is the World Ending or Are We Just Online?
Are we living through the end times or the best moment in human history? Novelist and internet veteran Jason Pargin argues you have spent your life inside a “literal reverse apocalypse” — and if you don’t see it, he knows who to blame. Ben Bradford talks with Pargin about doom-scrolling, child mortality, processed donuts, murderous Toyota drivers, and how humanity’s greatest problems may be side effects of its greatest successes. So how do we tell if the world is really ending — or if the internet has trapped us inside a giant doom machine? Guest: Jason Pargin, author of I’m Starting to…
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9 Jun 2026 · 37 min
Are We Going the Way of the Roman Empire?
Historically, societies fall. Civilizations collapse. But is that what’s happening now in the United States? With the help of historians, a former CIA-funded researcher on political instability, and one grumbling dad, Ben Bradford looks at the warning signs that can precede collapse — from polarization and political division to outside shocks and cascading crises. How much of that is visible in America right now? What would collapse actually look like in modern life? And if the alarms are blinking, is there still time to turn back? Guests: Ian Morris, historian, archaeologist, Stanford…
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6 Oct 2026 · 32 minNew
Can Other Planets Tell Us Our Fate?
The universe should be crawling with life. With hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies, at least someone must have gotten a few billion years’ head start on us. So where is everybody? This is the Fermi Paradox. And the simplest solution may be that intelligent life is common, but civilizations always destroy themselves before they get very far. And so will we. But that’s not the only answer… With the help of some ants, and a planet named Steve, Ben Bradford takes on the mystery of an apparently empty universe. Guests: Seth Baum, executive director of…
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29 Sep 2026 · 35 min
Can Science Defeat Aging?
Why are babies born young? How come a squirrel lives longer than a rat, but not as long as a naked mole rat (or Ben’s cousin’s tortoise)? Scientific breakthroughs over the past few decades suggest the ultimate doom awaiting us all — aging, and eventually death — isn’t simply an inevitable slide. Aging is a process inside the body, with mechanisms researchers are beginning to understand … and interfere with. Now billions of dollars are pouring into secretive longevity labs, and the first attempts to rejuvenate aging cells inside human beings are underway. So: are we getting closer to a real…
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22 Sep 2026 · 40 min
Bug Fight Club
You’re a critter in the forest, peacefully munching on a tree — until it’s chopped down, turned into a pallet, and you’re shipped across the ocean. What do you do? Sometimes, the answer is escape, find defenseless trees in your new home, and eat them to extinction. The emerald ash borer, spotted lanternfly, “murder hornet,” and other invasive insects have all threatened destruction across North America in the past few decades alone. Ben Bradford investigates why invasive bugs keep getting worse — and how, exactly, you’re supposed to stop millions of tiny creatures once they’ve decided they…
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15 Sep 2026 · 35 min
Who Keeps Winding the Doomsday Clock?
“Uh oh,” said several Manhattan Project scientists after they helped build a bomb and then it got used. They jumped to stop it from ever being used again. Solution: a newsletter. Through a somewhat convoluted chain of events that spawned the most famous symbol of humanity’s dance with extinction: the Doomsday Clock. Alex Bell, the CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the Clock, tells its strange origin story and describes why the hands now sit closer than ever toward midnight — as well as what “midnight” actually means. Guest: Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the…
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