January 30, 2002: Science Writer - Eugene Linden

Art Bell welcomes science writer Eugene Linden to discuss the fragile relationship between climate stability and human civilization. Linden argues that all modern prosperity has grown within a remarkably stable climate period, and that rapid shifts could unravel everything. He explains how thermohaline circulation works, describing how warming could paradoxically trigger sudden cooling by disrupting the Gulf Stream, and cites ice core evidence showing temperatures once plummeted 20 degrees in just two years.

The conversation turns to what an unstable world would look like. Linden describes societies turning inward, religion growing more dominant, youth culture dying, and agriculture collapsing under shifting rain belts. He draws parallels to Indonesia's 1997 crisis, where drought and currency collapse combined to topple a government, and warns that billions living on a dollar a day would be the real victims of climate disruption.

The program opens with listener reactions to the previous night's Mel Waters broadcast and reports of bizarre weather across the country, including snow in the Nevada desert, freezing rain in Kansas, and 120-mile-per-hour winds tearing across northern Europe.