 We hear a lot about zoonotic diseases. Can you just explain what those are? Basically in the field of medicine you have different types of diseases. It's important for us to know what a disease is, right? A disease is normally defined as any lack of function in an organ of the human body. So when something doesn't work on your body, that's a disease, right? So now that being a disease, there are these things called zoonotic diseases. Basically it's trying to explain what is causing that disease. In this case, diseases that you are talking about are diseases damages to the human body caused by organisms and normally they are transferred also through some kind of vector. So those are the famous zoonotic diseases, are damages to the human body caused by a pathogen. So what are the vectors that are troubling us so much? I mean I keep hearing a lot about bats. What's with bats? So right now you look at all of the diseases that have impacted humanity. There are about 300 of those guys, right? That are zoonotic and about a third of those are caused by vectors, right? A vector is a disease that is sitting there but it cannot get to you. Only when something takes that pathogen and put it into you, that's when they become a disease. So those vectors can take any different, a lot of different forms. They can be mosquitoes, they can be flies, they can be ticks, they can also be rodents, but they are also the bats. Through the study of these disease or these vectors, it has come to be found that bats are probably the most dangerous of all of them. So that has been an intriguing question, why are bats so bad? What happens, one of the speculations is that when they fly, their body gets overheated. As a result, the heating of their body works like a fever. So as a result, they filter a lot of pathogens that come their way, they can be filtered by this overheating or they're flying, right? So now the pathogens, it's just like a war there between the pathogens and the bats trying to survive, right? So they get hotter and then the viruses get even more resistant to heat. So what happens in that war between the pathogens and the bats, they start selecting for viruses that are potentially more lethal over time. So it turns out that every time that you get one of those viruses into us humans, we suffer a lot because the way that we deal with these pathogens is via the fever. But now you just get infected with a virus that can tolerate an incredible amount of heat. So the only weapon that we had to deal with these viruses doesn't work with these viruses that come from bats. And that's the reason why the bats are so concerning. It's sad because those bats also fulfill an important role on ecological processes, right? So if you don't get bad, you are going to get mosquitoes and then you get the diseases, DPA different vectors. So we need those bats. The problem that is happening with the bats is that we are destroying the habitats of those bats. And we're destroying it in many different ways such that now those bats that they're used to live on their places, hanging out on their tree, eating whatever they eat there, now they got to go and find the food and the shelter somewhere else, which is unfortunately where the humans live. So are we getting closer to bats or are bats getting closer to us? The two of them are happening. So let me explain to you a couple of things that we're doing. One is destroying habitats via deforestation and things like that. So we are taking land that belongs to the bats for us to have our crops, for us to have our food. So every time that you have ice cream, think about the fact that the ice cream has something there that was taken out of a palm that was planted on a place where the bat was used to have his tree. So indirectly through our consumption, we are destroying the habitats of these bats via deforestation. Again, we reduce where these bats can survive and just like you and I will find, they are fighting for survival as well. So they go and move around to find a place where they can live. And unfortunately, again, those places where people live. So that's one thing that we are doing. We're destroying the habitats where the bats live. And again, don't blame people in Indonesia. We need to blame ourselves because we are the ones using things that triggered that mechanism there. That's one. The other one is via climate change. So now with conditions like droughts and heat waves and wildfires, we are now forcing these animals to move as well. Think about drought. When there is drought, just like you and me, a bat needs water and food. And now with the drought, there is no food and there is no water. So now these bats got to travel broader distances for them to find that food and that water. And eventually again, they make it to places where people live. And that's how you get these spillovers. That's how they are called spillovers of pathogens from the wild into us just because the bats now, because of the drought, don't have the food. You can also go into heat waves, right? They so much heat. They got to go and find shelters somewhere else and unfortunately play buildings. Human buildings are pretty cool by comparison to live in a heat wave outdoors. So they go and find shelters where people live. And the wildfires is another one, right? When you get wildfires, you pretty much wipe out all of the habitats where the bats live and the drought will move. So we have multiple examples of these transfers of pathogens via bats because we are destroying the habitats where the bats live. So it sounds like there are two main causes. One is the climate change because of the burning of fossil fuels, I assume, and then habitat destruction. Well, actually, I like to define the two of them as climate change. Because when you look at the forest station, the forest station is a source of climate change. For one, we are cutting down the forest and we are taking all of that carbon that is on those trees and now we are just releasing it into the air. So that's adding to the climate change. Now, the other problem for the forest station is that those trees are supposed to be taking carbon out of the atmosphere, right? So now the only biological process that nature has to remove CO2, we are destroying it. So that's another way how the forest station is also a source of climate change. I don't like to treat them independently because actually, they are the same thing. They are part of the same thing, which is these massive climatic changes that we are doing to our planet. So you're saying that climate change and deforestation are the same thing? No, I'm saying the part of the same thing. Deforestation is part of climate change. And again, what we need to understand is the role that forests and natural ecosystems play on our climate for us to appreciate then that these climatic changes that we are seeing are a consequence of us producing a lot of greenhouse gases, but us also destroying the ecosystems that are supposed to be taking that carbon. So we're pretty much destroying the only mechanism that God and nature gave us to deal with this problem. We're destroying it. Around the world, we cut on the order of 14 billion trees a year. So for you and me, every year somebody cuts two trees around the world. And you think that this is in Africa or those savages in the Amazon, that's kind of the thing that shocks me. When you go and study this, you realize that this forest station is happening right in front of our eyes, hitting Hawaii in Honolulu. We cut down 15,000 trees a year. Isn't that mind blowing? Like for me to live on a rich country like this, and we are cutting down 15,000 trees. And then we ask ourselves, how is it that these diseases are coming upon us? Just like seriously, man, it's just hard-breaking to see the degree of ignorance that we live in today. Do we know yet the role the climate change played in specifically in COVID-19? Yes, there are a lot of studies coming in. One is on the original moment, in the moment when the virus came out. That is something that is being investigated. And there is a lot of hints to suggest that it could potentially be a driver climate change. Again, if that is spillover, scientists are still investigating this. I don't know if you saw in the news, just like last month, was that a scientist managed to go to China to investigate, how is that this string came out from the wild into us? And I think that they are going to be discovering there one of the possibilities. One is that we encroached upon the habitats of these bats, or the other one was that these bats got close to us. So that's the only possible explanation that I can think of, or how that virus went from being on the wild to getting into us. So that's how climate change is going to be related to this now. The other studies that are coming out, which are fascinating in my view, is the role that climate change is having in the spreading of these virus now. So there are a couple of studies that just came out in the last month or so, pointing out how during precipitation, when it rains, normally what happens is people isolate themselves, right? Normally when there is no rain, people want to have bodies and all of these things. So there is a few cases here and there showing that precipitation is actually preventing the spreading of these viruses because people don't gather as much. In Pakistan, it was the opposite. In Pakistan, warming appears to be forcing people, it appears to be related to more cases of COVID outbreaks. So it's still intriguing that the relationships are there. So obviously what I think is happening is that these climatic changes are modifying human behavior and making people closer, gather more, or not gather at all. So climate change, there are studies already, but there are at least 304 that I can point out in the last month or so, pointing out how climate change is now modifying human behavior, again, having a potential impact on how these diseases are spread out. Well, I was thinking, is there anything going on in reverse? Is there any way in which COVID-19 is affecting climate change? Yes. Well, I don't know where you are planning to go with this thing, but one of the things that have been discovered, which is the most remarkable thing, is that when you look at the CO2 concentrations, they are there, or the planet, they are coming down. So just yesterday I was working, I was hiking with my family, and I was thinking how sad it is that our planet now is healing at a moment when we were kind of removed of the equation. You know, like that is the saddest thing to me, is that the only moments that nature has killed has been those moments when, when we are not part of the question, and remarkably, if you look back in the history of the CO2 record, there are a couple of studies pointing out how back in the 1500, the CO2 concentration dropped. So what did happen in the 1500 that the CO2 concentration dropped? And what happened was the invasion of the Americans, of the Americas by the Europeans. So the Indians for a long history, again, we think that this is a new thing. No, this thing of the destroying nature has been going on for a long time. They were cutting down their forests to maintain their populations of a million, two million people in South America. So you can imagine the area that was needed to produce that kind of food. So when the Spanish came, there was this outbreak of diseases, and the Indian population came down, and then nature recovered back. And that apparently is what is explaining this deep on the CO2 concentration back in the 1500. Again, going back to the, any time that we are out of the equation is when nature recovers. Is that what you're saying? No, well, yes, unfortunately, those are the two examples that are the most remarkable, but I'm hoping that at some point we get some reasoning into this thing, because this is just heartbreaking, man, to see all of these species, all of this nature being destroyed. You just need to heart a heart, man, to realize that this is just nonsense and that we need to put our minds together to fix this problem. And again, it's not asking too much of us what nature is asking from us. Just please be aware of your use of resources. Here in the United States, the average consumption is about 10 acres of land. So to sustain a human being in the United States, you need 10 acres, when in reality, you can only require about two acres to sustain a human being to the best of level. So that means that we are wasting 88 acres per person here. I see my neighbors, I see these things everywhere, you know, like people wasting food, you go to these restaurants and you get all of this food that you cannot eat. I was gaining weight getting in the United States, because in my country, in my culture, I gotta eat everything that is put in my plate. And next thing I know, I'm just gaining weight and I just realize it's because of this combination of my culture where we don't have food to eat. So you gotta eat everything that is given to you, moving into a culture where you are giving just too much to waste that food. So that combination wasn't working well for my human, for my home. Now I just gotta carry food around because I just feel terrible throwing food into the ground, knowing that another person, and even on my own case, back in time, and I just didn't have that food to eat, talk about water. Water is another one that breaks my heart. You know, you see kids playing around with water, you know, like back in the day, I would have seen that as a with good eyes, you know, it's children playing around, but nowadays, knowing the value of water, I just find it remarkable that people waste water that way, you know, why we don't find a different way to recreate ourselves. So again, there are several things in our culture that are leading to these disasters as we see them. And I had to do it for people that is starting this thing, it's right on plain sight. So there is no reason for us to be asking why this is happening because the answer is right there. We have been wasting resources like nobody's business. Yeah. How did we get here? You know, we're seeing COVID deniers just like we saw climate change deniers. What happened? Why is this happening? So there are several people that had studied this, why this is happening. And one, I cannot say that this is the only one reason, but there are interest groups, mostly oil companies that are financing misinformation campaigns. You know, and you had, again, Exxon and all of these people pain and no joking about it, you can go and Google these things and they are these companies financed by oil companies to discredit some of these scientific findings that are there. So when you feed that misinformation into the public, it creates confusion. And unfortunately, one of the biggest problem in my opinion of all of these, all of these problems that we are having right now with these riots and with climate change and all of these things is the lack of education, of the lack of good education among the general population in the sense that now we feel critical thinking. You know, how is it that a person that goes into the Capitol Hill any moment as they start taking those steps don't realize that something is wrong. I can just not walk into there ruin my whole life going to the history books as evil person. But in the critical mind wasn't that piece of that that thing wasn't in their brain to make that judgment. So that is kind of the other problem. So you had misinformation being fed into a population that is not being educated. This lack of education from funding from the government is what is ruining our country. The United States was used to be the pride of the world. Why? Well, because we were manufacturing things. Now we are just having people that got to work with McDonald's. China is investing billions of dollars into their universities. Why? Well, because they know that's where the future is. It's in human capital. But here in the United States, we forgot that the value of what makes us stronger is all human capital. And for some reason, we don't invest on it. I look at the kids that I teach, you know, I try to push those kids hard, man, you have so much potential from where I come from. If I did have half of the opportunities that you had, you would be a billionaire. And I look at those kids, how is it that they don't capitalize on these opportunities that they had here? But unfortunately, they have so much debt. These kids are forced to go and work in McDonald's, work overnight. I had kids taking an exam saying to me, I'm sorry, I couldn't work last night because I needed to work as a bartender. How is it that the capital that we have, we have it so abandoned? So anyway, it's a call of attention to be honest with you. And again, we are failing to see the origin of many of these problems that we see that are happening right now. And I think that it comes down again to poor education. And I don't blame it on the kids, I blame it on the government failing to finance these things. Again, if you have critical thinking, the problems will solve themselves, you know, but we don't have critical thinking. Yeah. You know, when people look into the future, like where are we headed, a lot of them talk about adaptation, get used to it, adapt to it. You're not a big fan of that. No, I'm not a big fan of adaptation. You know, like the analogy that I give to adaptation is like imagine that I'm friends with Mike Tyson, okay? And Mike Tyson is super friendly guy, a good friend of mine. I'm just saying that, right? Now imagine that every now and then he just punched me in the face, you know, like, oh dude, like just being funny, you know? So, okay, that's my problem. And my friend, I love hanging out with him, but every now and then he just threw me a punch. And I don't like that. Now, my adaptation is I put a helmet. I put a helmet. So now everything that I hang out with my friend, Mike Tyson, I wear a helmet. Wear a helmet so that every time that he punch me, I don't feel the pain. Is that really the solution? Well, that's my adaptation, knowing that I have to live with that pain forever. And I'm going to be dealing with this thing. No, I don't accept adaptation. Accepting adaptation is accepting that we fail. Future generations are going to be looking back at us and I'm going to say, those guys adapted and look at what they left to us. So we are in the middle of a battle right now that we can win. Adapting to it is saying we just gave up. So that's what we are telling future generations. We just gave up, dudes. Adapt yourselves to it. And again, unfortunately, the problem right now is that we are in this critical transition. Maybe two or three generations in this critical moment of time where we are at the break of turning this planet into one of the mass extinctions that had ever happened on our planet. We are right there. There are these massive changes in the history of our planet that have caused mass extinctions over 75% of the species when it's seen at these moments. And through five million years of evolution that we had a record of, only five of them had happened. Right now humanity is the number six. So it started in the last two, three generations ago and it's going to end up maybe in the next two generations. So we are, this generation right now is the one that can turn things around. If we don't do it, we can claim we adapted to it, but thousands of species will suffer. Human suffering will be like you cannot imagine. I mean, I don't believe me. You can think that I'm exaggerating these things. Right now you had a billion people going hungry. Another billion people don't have water. So why? Yeah. There you go. So how do we fight this? How do we fight this battle? So my mind has been changing about how to fix this. For the longest of times I thought that it was about as a scientist producing the information that was required to fix this. That was my naive thinking since I was a child coming from Colombia realizing that if I study for something, I can figure out the problem. So studying this through the longest of times already almost 25 years, starting this issue of biodiversity laws and climatic changes, I come to realize that the solution to that problem is not going to come from the scientists. The solution to that problem is going to come from the politicians and to be honest with you, I narrow it down. I went through every explanation that you can think of. We started it. We had papers on that. I was talking about population, family planning, the issue of so many children. I just started that stuff and I was big into that kind of stuff. But nowadays my mind is changing to the fact that one silver bullet to fix all of these problems is education. As soon as you fix education, you improve wages to people. So rather than me going and working in McDonald's for $25,000 and getting money from the government, I'm going to be making $100,000. I'm going to be giving money to the government. I'm going to become more concerned, more aware, having better critical thinking. It's just like the bill in my view that will fix all of these problems. When you get good education, nothing of these things that we are seeing right now with the COVID or with the riots in the United States will not happen if we do have better education right now or lack of critical thinking is allowing this misinformation to take control over what we do. You see that at all levels, unfortunately. Yeah. I think at one point. No, go ahead. No, that I was saying that I love planting trees. That is one of the things that I want to make my peace. I had obviously had a huge footprint on my planet and I believe in God. I'm always thinking that I'm going to die. I'm going to be standing at the doors of heaven and God is going to ask me, what do you did with your life that you think you're safe to come in? And I can tell God, you know what? I published 80 papers, 12 of those papers were in the New York Times and Washington Post. And people laugh at that thing, right? Because we think of those things like big things, right? In the nature of science, those important journals, we had like several of those papers. And how in the biggest scheme of things, those things are totally insignificant. Think about Jeff Bezos, he's going there and say, oh, yeah, I made $1 billion, $100 billion. People will laugh at that thing because on the biggest scheme of things, that means nothing. So I made it my goal that I'm going to, I want to plant a million trees before I die. And I want to get into the doors of heaven and say, you know what, God, I did the best I could as a scientist, but as a human being, I planted a million trees. And I think that has been so hard to do that I believe that's my key to get into heaven. And I keep saying to people that come and plant trees with me that if they come and help me, I write a better good letter of reference for them to God when they are the ones sitting there. So are you going to plant them in Hawaii? How are you going to get to a million, professor? Oh, all what we needed to do was put our minds. I am a very ambitious person, don't get me wrong. I am very ambitious. All what I had done is take my greed into things that are human driven into things that are nature driven. So I'm putting all of that ambition towards making things that could potentially turn things around for nature. So what we decided to do, we created a project here called the carbon neutrality challenge. It's actually an idea of my daughter. The concept is that we had a carbon footprint that you can picture like a scale, right? On that, the planet is perfectly balanced. On this scale, you put your carbon footprint, the scale is now going to be unbalanced. So the question is, what can we put on the side of the scale to make things balanced again? And the solution to that is to plant trees. So here in Hawaii, we have to make the calculations that if every person in Hawaii plants 10 trees a year, that will balance their carbon footprint for the one year. So that's what we have been working on. So we started planting 100 trees at a time to find out how difficult that is. We moved to 1,000 trees and we planted 1,000 trees in two hours and then from 1,000, we moved to 10,000 trees and we planted 10,000 trees in two hours. We got 2,000 people. 2,000 people came and we just walked into a field that was completely destroyed and we turned it into a beautiful place that now looks like a forest. We already did this. Oh yeah, I'm not going to be talking. We talk and we do. Yeah, so we already did this. Now we are going to try to go to the 100,000 mark. For the 100,000 mark, fortunately with the COVID, everything got paralyzed. But moving from 10,000 to 100,000, we got to develop several things and unfortunately, we need to put our human imagination to fix some of these problems that will prevent us to scale up. We are there. I'm putting a lot of resources in my lab to ensure that we break those challenges to ensure that every person in Hawaii comes and plant 10 trees. Look, people think about when I started to work on this, I realized my ambition is so big that now I don't even think about a million. I'm thinking now about a trillion trees. Planting a trillion trees is a piece of cake. I realize once you get to it, you realize, my God, this is actually so easy to do. All what we need to do is this. You need to have a campaign, a global campaign when you tell everybody, please find out what local trees are there. And what we need you is to plant one tree. Just plant one tree and you manage to convince every human being that will be 7 billion trees that you will plant in one day. Let's imagine that you get a 60% of them that don't care. Well, I will still get a billion trees. And if I manage to do it every year, I'm going to be planting a billion trees a year. There is this idea that my daughter, my daughter is the one that just keeps changing my mind about many of these things being so doable. And there is this thing called the ice bucket challenge. People throwing ice water on their head. Almost a billion people play that challenge. And that's how she came up with the idea of the carbon neutrality challenge, asking people, can you take the challenge of becoming carbon neutral for one year? We managed to succeed on that at a global scale. Think about the consequences of that, where every human being plants 10 trees. That's 70 billion trees that we will be planting. Wow, man. So yeah, well, I'm very depressed about what we do with the science and how the future looks like right now. At the same time, I'm very excited because there are a lot of good possibilities for us to turn this around. And obviously being a part of myself, we can just not afford to lose this fight, man. I really appreciate your time, Professor. This has been quite good. Thank you My pleasure. Well, this is really good. Thank you again. I really appreciate your time.