Original subtitles

♪♪

[man grunting]

Look around, Birch. You've made it.

Mount Everest.

[grunting]

How foolish the fellows back home

in the urban hiking club will feel when you regale them

with this adventure.

Forget their tawdry walks through the city park.

[laughing, shouting]

[sighs] This... this is real nature.

No people, no cities.

Just pure, untrammeled wilderness.

[laughs]

Mother Nature doesn't get any more natural than this!

Actually, your idea of what counts as nature

is all wrong.

[screaming]Talk about a cold open.

Hi, I'm Adam Conover, and this is "Adam Ruins Everything."

♪♪

Closed Captions Provided by truTV

So, you said your name's Birch?

Is that a nickname or--

Pull me up! Pull me up!

Of course. Sorry.

[grunting]

Thank you. [sighing]

Now, if you will excuse me,

I will be continuing my Everest summit solo.

I came up here to get away from people.

Hate to break it to you, but Everest

is actually way too full of people.

And this avalanche of tourists

is turning this majestic mountain

into a depressing dump.

[scoffs] I'm no tourist.

I'm on a spiritual journey. Summitting Mount Everest

is the pinnacle of human achievement.

Sure, it was, the first time.

When mountaineers Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

summited Mount Everest in 1953,

it was a feat never before achieved by humankind.

Huzzah, we've done it!

And now, no one else ever has to do it again.

[Adam] But today, budget tour companies

help over 100,000 amateurs climb Everest every year.

Unh! [camera clicks]

Ha-ha, crushing Everest A-F. [imitates explosion]

What?! But he's not seeking enlightenment,

he's just a tourist! Yeah!

And to make matters worse, these tourists

are total slobs!

So many climbers abandon tents, equipment,

and other items on their climb,

every year the mountain accumulates

around 50 new tons of trash.

Ugh.

Dude, can we Postmates a maid up here?

Oh, that is shameful!

I will be taking all of my waste with me.

Yeah? Well, don't forget

about your human waste.

Everest tourists annually leave behind

around 26,000 pounds of pee and poop.

And since it takes longer for waste to disintegrate

at high altitudes, that means this majestic mountain

is now covered in our poop-sicles.

So much human waste has built up over the years

that local villages' major water sources

are now completely polluted,

and their yaks frequently get stuck

in ponds of human poop.

I can't imagine anything more disturbing.

Well, it gets worse.

Because Everest is also covered in dead bodies.

This once-pristine peak is steadily becoming

the world's tallest frozen cemetery.

[thunder crashing]

Hundreds of people have died on Everest.

For every ten successful summits,

there's one dead body.

And since the temperatures are so frigid,

they'll never decompose.

There are so many frozen corpses on Everest,

climbers actually use them to navigate.

Holy shit, is that a dead guy?

Tight-- that means we make a left.

But Everest isn't just dangerous for visitors.

The indigenous Sherpas are the ones

taking the real risks--

mapping out routes and securing guide ropes,

all while babysitting these amateur alpinists.

Ah, dude, can you take a photo of me?

[Adam] It's one of the deadliest jobs on the planet.

A third of people who die on Everest are Sherpas.

Oh, back up more...

so you can get that cloud that looks like a --.

Ahhh!

Oh! Whoa!

He's okay. My trash broke his fall.

This is appalling!

Not only are these narcissistic tourists

ruining this sacred mountain,

but they're getting people killed?

Why hasn't the government of Nepal

limited the amount of people who can climb?

They can't afford to.

Nepal is a very low-income nation,

and Everest tourism is a major industry.

Sorry, how many people are in your tour?

200.

My girl wants a destination wedding at the summit,

and then we're all gonna paraglide down.

Ha!

I am nothing like that guy!

I'm afraid you are.

I know it's your dream to climb this sacred mountain.

But the impact that you and others have

when you indulge in that dream

is turning Everest into a poop-covered trash coffin.

Oh, you're right.

I am no better than those monsters

who picnic in national parks.

People ruin everything! [echoing]

An avalanche!

See? No matter how bad people mess things up,

Mother Nature is still in charge!

Come on, let's run!

Actually, so-called natural disasters

are pretty much human-made.

Come on, I'll show ya.

[chuckles]

Ah, I wish you'd let me fall off that cliff.

[dramatic music]

Welcome back to the Weather History Channel,

also known as the only channel your dad ever watches.

Every time a natural disaster occurs,

the news reports on it as though it's an unstoppable

act of God.

Right, Mother Nature could destroy us

at any moment, and we are powerless to prevent it.

Wrong! Tonight, we revisit some of the most deadly

natural disasters in recent history,

and discover that these "acts of God"

are very much human creations.

For more on that, let's go to our disconcertingly cheery

chief meteorologist, Drip Dripley.

Well, howdy do, and how are you, Adam?

Hurricane Katrina was one monster of a mess.

1,800 people died

and 80% of the population of New Orleans was displaced.

But I'm gonna shock you here.

The surprising truth is, Hurricane Katrina

was not the storm of the century.

In fact, it may have been as weak as a Category 1

when it hit New Orleans.

Only a Category 1? Then why all the destruction?

Good question, Mr. Mountain Man.

The real culprit wasn't the storm itself,

it was our failure to prepare for it.

Half of New Orleans lies below sea level,

which means it relied on these levees

to control flooding.

But the levees were constructed

out of sand built atop porous soil,

which made them extremely vulnerable

to rapid erosion during Katrina.

Whoa, wipe out! [singing]

Drip! Inappropriate!

[laughing] Sorry, Adam.

Now, these levees had been desperately in need

of maintenance for decades.

According to an engineering investigator...

[dolphin chirping]

Whoa, I should not be allowed on television!

And this pattern of negligence

holds across every major natural disaster

in recent history.

For more, let's go to the Weather History Channel's

own Mr. Science, Hurricane Harvey.

That's my name, and what I'm here to talk about!

Hurricane Harvey is a textbook example

of how human choices artificially turned

a minor hurricane into a devastating flood!

Up until the 1960s,

Houston was naturally protected from major flooding

thanks to its coastal prairies,

which absorbed flood waters

before they could do any damage.

Ooh!

But as the city expanded, greedy developers

exploited legal loopholes to pave over those prairies.

And worse, they didn't even tell new residents

that they now lived in a flood zone.

So, when Harvey hit, the water had nowhere to go,

and 47,000 people were displaced.

And worst of all, my breakfast is ruined.

Back to you, Adam!

[chuckling] Harvey.

So that area only flooded

because of how humans modified the land?

It's unbelievable!

Okay, what about Maria, huh?

That storm was huge.

Good question! For more on that,

let's go to our time-traveling storm chaser,

Dan Champion, who's on the scene

at Hurricane Maria.

Thanks, Adam!

Every time there's a major storm,

the media sends dopes like me to stand outside

and get rained on for your amusement.

But the truth is,

it wasn't the wind and rain that was responsible

for the estimated thousands of lives lost

in Puerto Rico.

It was because after the storm...

...the island went 84 days without water

and 64 days without electricity.

The corporate corruption and government neglect

that led to those failures was the real killer.

Back to you, Adam. I'm going the [bleep] inside.

So, all those people died

and we could have prevented it?

Yes. But I'm afraid the problem

is much bigger than just a failure to prepare.

Our collective impact on the planet

has led to climate change on such a massive scale,

it's actually making disasters stronger.

And for more on that, we have Dr. Michael Mann,

distinguished professor of atmospheric science

at Penn State University.

Always a pleasure to appear on a parody

of the Weather Channel, Adam.

And you're right, we can say

with a great degree of confidence

that climate change is making hurricanes

and other weather disasters more extreme.

Now, Michael, how is that possible?

Explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old

who hates science and thinks climate change

is a hippie crack-pot conspiracy.

When you burn fossil fuels, you warm the atmosphere,

you warm the ocean.

A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture,

so these storms produce more rainfall.

For every additional degree of warmth,

wind speeds for the strongest storms

increase by about 10 miles per hour.

Now, that translates to a nearly 25% increase

in the destructiveness of these storms.

The warming also slows down the jet stream,

so these storms stay parked in the same spot for longer,

giving you even more rainfall and worse flooding.

Not only that, climate change has caused

unprecedented wildfires in North America

in recent years.

Global warming gives you more heat waves,

it dries out forests, so you get larger,

more destructive wildfires.

The truth is, Birch, human activity is making

extreme weather events more destructive.

And if we continue to burn fossil fuels

and put carbon pollution into the atmosphere,

we are gonna see worse and worse droughts,

heat waves, superstorms, floods, and wildfires.

That's unbelievable.

Believe it.

As mighty as nature is, our impact on the planet

is even greater.

See, this is why we need to be protecting

and preserving our planet,

not choking it to death with our noxious emissions!

God, I cannot wait to get back

to pure, wild, untrammeled nature!

[grunts]

What Birch hasn't fully absorbed yet

is that no spot on Earth is free from human impact.

We all affect nature.

Every breath you take, every move you make...

I'll be watching you.

Now, this is why I love climatologists.

You folks are hilarious.

[birds chirping]

[sighing] Finally...

pure, pristine, unadulterated nature.

[Adam, in British accent] Observe the homo sapien.

He believes he is a humble, respectful visitor in nature.

But little does he know, his very presence on this planet

irreparably changes it.Hey, who is talking?!

In anger, he tears at the undergrowth,

revealing our trusty narrator.

Like all humans, he wreaks havoc on nature

wherever he goes.

Okay, David Atten-Boring, that is not true.

I preserve nature.

I donate to the National Parks Foundation,

I am on the board--

The human chatters in protest,

not realizing that even national parks

are human-made constructions.What?

In fact, the man who conceived of the very idea, John Muir,

himself irreparably altered an entire ecosystem

in American's greatest park, Yosemite.

Ah, there he is now,

entering Yosemite for the very first time.

My goodness!

We must preserve this pristine and untrammeled wilderness.

But the truth is, it wasn't untrammeled at all.

Are you gonna do that voice for the whole time?

[in normal voice] Nah, that was enough.

The Ahwahnechee People had made their home

in the area we now know as Yosemite

for at least 3,500 years.

But Muir didn't consider them natural in the least.

These people are most ugly, some altogether hideous.

They have no right place in the landscape.

Get them out of here!

[rifle cocking]

Wait, the father of America's national parks

believed in ethnic cleansing?

Pretty much, yeah.

But what Muir didn't realize

was the supposedly pristine nature he found

was in fact created by the Ahwahnechee,

because for millennia, they had cultivated the land

by selectively pruning plants, sowing seeds,

and setting controlled fires.

What?

But forest fires are bad, right?

To the contrary.

Forest fires are actually necessary

to maintain the health of a forest.

And by conducting controlled burns,

the Ahwahnechee cleared undergrowth

and made space for new plants to grow,

increasing biodiversity.

Only we can start forest fires.

[gun cocking]

After they were kicked out, the undergrowth returned,

and without regular controlled fires,

the forest became twice as dense,

and as more vegetation had to compete for water, drier.

So now, instead of many small controlled burns,

Yosemite is more prone to rare-but-extreme wildfires.

Muir didn't preserve Yosemite's landscape

he completely altered it.

What?! I thought that conversation

was all about preserving nature in its natural state--

to have as little impact as possible.

Sorry. Try as we might,

our species is incapable of having no impact

on the natural world.

Everywhere we go is affected by our presence.

Simply going on a hike in the woods

changes the ecosystem you visit.

One study found that hiking trails

create a corridor of impact,

wherein wildlife reacts to human presence

up to 100 meters on either side of the trail.

And just by traveling from place to place,

we introduce non-native species

into new environments all the time,

even if it's just the tiny bacteria

and fungi on your shoes.

[Birch] But people have to travel.

How am I supposed to protect nature

if I can't even get to it?

[Adam] The truth is, there quite literally

isn't a spot on Earth

that hasn't been impacted by humanity's existence.

The Atlantic Ocean is so crowded

with fishing boats, shipping lines,

undersea cables and chemical runoff,

that right whales now effectively live

in a noisy and polluted underwater city.

To feed our massive appetite,

humanity now breeds so much livestock

that our animal food supply

outweighs all other terrestrial mammals

by 14 times.

We've even changed the air itself.

5,000 years ago the dawn of rice farming

released so much methane into the atmosphere

it actually thwarted a second Ice Age.

And thanks to increased forest clearing,

factory emissions, electricity generation,

and transportation, every breath we take

now contains 41% more carbon dioxide

than it did in 1750.

The hard truth is, human activity

is altering the Earth's fundamental systems

on such a massive scale, scientists believe

we've actually entered a new geological age--

the Anthropocene.

[woman] Otherwise known as the Age of Humans.

[Adam] Birch, this is Emma Marris,

a science writer who's written extensively

about the Anthropocene.

But pure nature must exist somewhere, right?

I've seen it in nature documentaries.

Actually, those documentaries are part of the problem.

They're usually filmed as if they're in

a vast wilderness filled with animals.

But often, they're filmed right by the road,

and they just cut it out of the shot.

[horn honking]

What? No!

The truth is, the majority of the Earth

is neither totally humanized or totally wild.

It's somewhere in between.

We've altered three-quarters of the land on Earth.

We have dammed rivers, we have acidified the oceans,

we have pumped the atmosphere full of carbon dioxide,

and we have moved plants and animals around

on a massive scale.

And our effects on the planet threaten life on Earth.

Our impact is immense and deeply scary.

Entire ecosystems are on the verge of being wiped out.

And because we transformed their homes

and turned up the temperature,

and introduced new predators,

many species are on the verge of extinction.

A meteor triggered the mass extinction

that wiped out the dinosaurs.

And unless we make drastic changes in how we live,

we could be the next meteor.

And although the planet will survive,

our impact will be felt

in the geological record for eternity.

So, there's no pristine, untouched nature to preserve.

I'm afraid not.

Well, how do I go on living in a world like that?

Don't lose heart, Birch.

There's still so much we can do to protect

the nature right in our own back--

No, Adam! Just leave me here to die.

There's nothing left to talk about.

Man, he is taking this hard.

Pfft. Nature bros.

[whistling theme]

Just leave me here to die, Adam.

What's the point of living

if there's no more nature to protect?

No matter how I try and minimize my impact,

it's too late!

Forest beasts and insects come!

Feast upon my pitiful human flesh!

Return me to the earth so that I may harm you no more.

Yikes. Birch, you are taking this

too hard, man.

Yeah, I think I see the problem.

Birch, if you try to define nature

as a place that's totally untouched by humanity,

yeah, you're not gonna find that on this planet.

But I think you just have the wrong definition.

Instead, you could define nature

as anywhere where live thrives,

anywhere where there's multiple species interacting.

And when you do that, something kind of amazing happens.

This becomes just as much a part of nature

as Yosemite is.

Even a city park like this one

is full of diverse plants, insects, and other species,

including humans!

We're a part of nature too.

And yes, that means we can't help but impact it.

But we're unique among all these species

in that we can understand and change

the impact we're having.

And that gives us the power and the responsibility

to nourish and protect the natural world.

The trends we talked about today are troubling.

But we can slow and even reverse them

if we act now to fight climate change,

and to protect not just the nature out there,

but also the nature here in our own backyards.

And that way, you and everyone

can have a life filled with nature every day.

And now, if you'll excuse me,

I'm gonna do a little urban bird watching.

[bird calling]

[gasps] A bufflehead?

This time of year? Amazing.

Wow.

You know, I never thought of it that way.

I don't have to go out into the wilderness

to commune with nature.

It's all around me! [laughs]

Hello, anas platyrhynchos!

[duck quacking]

And hello to you, muhlenbergia rigens.

And a heartfelt hello to you...

homo sapiens.

Birch, you're back.

I thought you said city hikes were beneath you

and you needed to climb Mount Everest to "escape."

[clears throat] My fellow outdoors people!

Please, forgive me.

I now see the error of my ways.

This urban park is worthy of as much respect

as the highest peaks.

Will you accept me back into your fold?

Uh... sure.

We're leaving now, though.

Oh! [laughs]

Oh, Adam, I can't thank you enough.

I now feel more in touch with nature

than I ever did before.

Would you like to join our hike?

I would love to! I even brought a snack.

My patented trail bologna.

Um... never mind.

Okay, haha, more for me!

Mm! Sweet and slimy!

[chuckles] Mm!

[whistling theme]

Okay, so we're here at Griffith Park,

which is the big park in LA.

And we've been shooting here all day.

You keep pointing out all these animals all around us.

Well, we keep getting practically interrupted

by, like, herds of deer,

and red-tail hawks come swooping out of the sky,

and there's acorn woodpeckers flitting amongst us.

We're shooting a scene where it's supposed

to be ecological devastation,

and we're getting, like, mobbed by wildlife.

So, that's your point, right?

That, like, there's so much nature all around us

that we don't-- we don't even acknowledge.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of my points,

one of my many points, but I think-- Sure.

You have-- your one of many points.

But I do, I think that, you know,

we've been sort of trained in part by nature documentaries

to see nature as something that's far away

and out there... Right.

...and it's something that only rich people

can afford to access.

And often, that means that we just don't have

our nature eyes on when we're just walking

around the city, but there's tons here.

And your philosophy is, make more nature

everywhere we can. Yes.

And the nice thing about not fixating

on this sort of super-pristine untouched nature,

is that you can't make more of that stuff.

Mm. You can't make more of untouched nature.

Right. But you can make more nature.

You can take a place that's denuded of species,

and you can bring that biodiversity level up.

I read a study recently that since 1970,

like, 60% of wildlife has declined

in areas that we thought were, hey, wild,

and the animals just hanging out there.

How do we remain optimistic when that's happening?

Well, we need to take those declines really seriously.

But I think that it's important to realize

that those are declines in the numbers of each species,

not in the numbers of species, right? Okay.

So 60% of species aren't extinct.

It's just many species are on these downward trends.

Got it. So, the bad news is,

the numbers of animals are going down

'cause we are squeezing them out.

Mm-hmm.But the good news is,

is that there's still time to turn the ship around.

There is still time to reform our ways

and to change our ways so that these species can come back.

How do we do that? What-- what are things that people can do?

Well, there's a bunch of really important

structural things that we need to do, right?

So, we can all be super-good,

and we can all have our bag

that we take to the grocery store.

[laughing] The canvas bag, yeah, yeah.

The canvas bags. But what we really need to do

is we really need to have, like, big, big changes

in how-- in what kind of fuels we're using,

the kind of energy mix that we're using.

Yeah. How we're permitting development.

Those new roads that you think are inevitable,

like, we can decide not to build those new roads.

Or build them differently or put them in different places, or...

Yeah, right.

You know, there are big systemic things to do.

So, I actually think that the most important thing

that we can do as individuals

is get a little bit politically involved.

Mm.Actually, that's more important

than the whole shopping bag thing.

I mean, we've all been sort of trained

that the way we can be good people

is being good consumers

and buying the right kind of green stuff.

But I think that it's actually better

to occasionally just feed your kids a frozen pizza,

and then go to the city council meeting

and make sure that the zoning laws...Right, right.

...in your town are conducive to biodiversity.

It is really dire.

Situation is bad. There's a lot of work to do.

But the message that I hope that we can bring across

is that it isn't too late, right?

Because if it's too late, then people stop trying to make a change.

Right.The goals that are important to me are stopping extinctions,

increasing biodiversity, making sure that everybody

and their brother has access to nature.

Right. Those are goals

that are achievable, right?

And they don't involve trying to go back in time.

It's a changing world, it's not gonna go back

to some pristine, pure state.

And there never was some magical day

that everything was right with the world.

Yeah. We just gotta keep figuring out

how can we make a better world looking forward.Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it.Yeah, thank you for having me.

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