How the CIA Secretly Spied On Climate Change
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- Cold War… warming planet?
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A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a top-secret, first-of-its-kind US spy satellite program was declassified, leading to the unexpected story of how former enemies became scientific allies, and technology invented for Cold War espionage was repurposed to study and combat the newest and greatest threat to human civilization: Climate Change.
Thank you to the following for help in researching this video:
Michael McElroy
D. James Baker
The Office of Vice President Al Gore
0:00 Peeking behind the Iron Curtain
1:52 Spies in space
2:53 A time machine… but for Earth
3:41 Early days of the Space Race
5:37 Code name: CORONA
8:37 No more Iron Curtain… now what?
10:48 Spies… but for the Earth
13:20 New data & unlikely allies
16:31 Teamwork makes the dream work
17:46 Support us on Patreon!
Note: The thumbnail for this episode includes a picture of Joe Hanson created with a text-to-image generative AI tool
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This episode of Be Smart is licensed exclusively to RUclips.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the CIA being an actual help to the world at large.
Even a broken clock doesn't start a coup twice a day.
Doesn't this give it away though? doesn't this enlighten you about the truth?
blind squirrels still find their nuts...
Don't. You'll lose brain cells
It seems counter to their mission statement, doesn't it...
The title sounded click-baity but OMG what a complete and fascinating story in its historical context! We are so impressed.
Anything that is PBS is going to be good. Same with Deutsche Wells which is the German equivalent of state media.
@@ryanreedgibson oh yes, we watch every episode. This one was especially great.
I wasn't aware that ALL the ice thickness data came from Russia. I thought the US Navy subs collected this too. Maybe that was just missed in this video. I think ice data came from both the US and Russia, but their subs operated in different places than our subs did so getting the ice data from both militaries would have given a much better picture of it.
The craziest thing I learned in this video is that Al Gore was elected in Tennessee! It's amazing what 30 years could do to a place. If he was running today he might not get one vote in Tenn
I groaned very loudly at that. Well done haha
I'm from Tennessee, and we didn't even vote for Gore when he ran for president. He lost TN against Bush, something like 70/30.
It took decades to re-mobilize the evangelicals and white supremacists after the collapse of the dixiecrat machine
The sad thing is that when I was in my 20's, 30's, 40's and even 50's I would not have been interested in this video. But now...I find it fascinating. I guess it's never to late to want to be smart.
Its awesome you finally found your way :D
Learning new languages and new topics keeps your mind sharp. I tell all my friends and I’m young. Just try to keep dementia and mental decline away as long as possible. Just find new interests and enjoy nature. Invite friends on walks. 🤙
What a fascinating look at the beginnings of climate change research. Well done!
Climate change is natural
@@girlsdrinkfeck proof ?
@@bismuth6558 history
@@girlsdrinkfeck Historically, the climate has not changed this drastically this quickly. And the increase in the speed of these environmental changes directly related to the industrial revolution.
@@Gildedmuse no
As cool as this is, Exxon already knew about the effects of anthropogenic global warming since 1982. And deliberately decided to hide it, because line go up good
Their research was also super sophisticated for the time.
I saw an article talking about the possibility of large scale fossil fuel usage causing climate change from back in 1912.
I can't remember where I did, but I think it was a section from the New York Times from the year 1912.
the moves of what is shown in this video dates back to the 60's, not beginning after 80's.
I thought BP scientists were privately investigating this in the 60s too
@@Dianasaurthemelonlord7777 No, it was an article from "popular mechanics" magazine.
carl sagan brought climate change to the US congress and coined the term in 1976...up to early 90's every prediction about climate change was temp was freezing and going to an ice age...
It's frustrating to think that they knew about the dramatic effects of climate change presenting themselves even back then, 30 years ago; and just decided to ignore it and screw us all now.
But don't forget, some people made money so it's a wash really. /s
It’s preserving the status quo, baby!! Their wants & needs above the needs of peasants 😠
They knew about it back in 1912, maybe earlier....so.....
@@tiffanymarie9750 Most people in the west didn't know until the 1970-1980.
Soo, how well will we handle the changes coming with AI now? Can humanity be appropriately responsible for its own tech development and use, even if it sometimes means letting go of some of that techs potential where it is not worth the price it also costs? Even as we have not fixed climate change yet?
Or might we be holding still about some downsides? Can we trust ourselves with this?
it's incredible how the CORONA spy satellite program evolved from gathering intelligence during the Cold War to studying climate change today. i really enjoyed this episode!
To becoming a virus in 2019.
it’s incredible how the CORONA spy satellite program evolved from gathering intelligence to bioweapon
Hey Joe, I've been meaning to write this for a few weeks now. I went to my wife's nieces graduation at U.T. about 3 weeks ago. We drove down from Fort Worth where our home is and stayed for the weekend. And all the way there I said "I wonder who will be the guest speaker". So you can imagine my surprise and delight when you walked out on stage lol! I poked my wife and said "oh crap look who it is!". You gave a great speech and I especially enjoyed your take on A.I. as it mirrored my thoughts on the subject as well as Adam Conovers who I'm also a big fan of lol. Anyways, I meant to leave this comment sooner but here we are 3 weeks later. I've been watching your channel for years now so it was a wonderful surprise. Plus my father graduated from U.T. in the 60s so it was a special experience for me all around. Keep doing what you do!
Even after all that unintentional and intentional effort put into understanding the changing earth's climate and acquiring the visual evidence supporting it, the fact that news media still allow a climate change denier to have a 'healthy debate' with a climate scientist on various news panels just in the name of free speech and expressions blows my mind.
free speech is cool and all but some abuse the privilege.
@@themenacingpenguin.7152yup, especially those who don't believe in it, sadly. Like dogs of totalitarian states 😔
People like you just don't get it. You either have free speech or you don't, there is no middle-ground. And if you don't have free speech, then you have no idea what's true or not, because there is no debate. The only people that make an issue out of free speech are those that pine for authoritarianism. Literal slave-class mindset.
The definition of science implies we don’t “know” anything homie. Also there’s no such thing as “abusing” free speech.
And what is your alternative? Censorship, exclusion, oppression? You wish to silence the denier and banish him into the shadows? Where he will harbor resentment and crystalize his ideas even further? No, I don't agree. Ideas, both good and bad, must always be allowed to be discussed together in an open forum, very much so to bring exposure to good ideas - for they may improve our lives - as well to bad ideas - for in doing so we may enlighten and educate the "disbelievers"; not to mention it puts both sides on an equal level, showing respect and humanizing both parties - only then can you educate someone and change their mind.
Very well done! This has got to be one of the best videos on this channel.
Except for the Russian and Fossil Fuels trolls, these comments echo my own: fascinating bit of history that helps highlight how swords CAN be made into plowshares and help both military and civilian programs.
100% the absolute best video you guys have made.
Science = incredibly important
Climate change fake news
@@girlsdrinkfeck get a clue
@@girlsdrinkfeck
Oh look another halfwit stuck in the borg of misinformation .
That was a fantastic documentary. I studied 'history of technology' and 'environmental sciences' a while back, so both of my favourite topics in one video! Thanks 💚
excellent work! thank you so much for your passion and commitment!
best regards from São Paulo, Brazil!
Very interesting. I had never heard of this. Thanks for the discovery.
Thanks for making this video Joe, we’re missing a lot of spirit of working together today, and that’s what we need to save ourselves and the planet. Thanks for putting this message of cooperation out there :)
Man, imagine if Al Gore had won the presidency, we'd be so much further along in climate policy. T_T That man has been working so hard for so long on making the research happen and getting the word out to the public and to policy makers. Thank you so very very much, Mr. Gore.
The worst part is that Gore actually WON, but the Republicans snatched it (yes, there is actual proof, just search for it)
man bear pig is real. believe that.
Image my reality where he did win, yet he didn't win due to the other candidates family in Florida
He probably did win, but the horrible Florida ballots and the hanging chads stole the presidency from him.
The US GAGE program maintains a very accurate array of position sensors across the western mountains in the Americas. There is a lot of noise in these measurements. Some smart person figured out that a tremendous amount of environmental information was correlated with the noise. They can tell snow depths, moisture in the overhead air and many other values from this noise. This repurposing of information can really be a gold mine.
That thumbnail is neat
Now humanity can study even more of what will probably seriously harm it, but what it ignore like nothing else. Great!
A cold war and a warming planet, nicely done.
Excellent contribution to knowing that humans really can get along in certain situations.
Who got along with who?
@@kallashnykov Russians and Americans
@@roncarguy72 the USSR collapsed because the US funded anticomunist lies globally and operations inside the USSR, because the US will never accept being friendly with anyone else. That's not really getting along.
11:28 - No, they never "could resolve better than a license plate". The aperture of the latest generation Keyhole satellites' telescopes is about 2.5m (Hubble uses essentially one of those) - the limit is fairing size on the launchers used. The best one can do with that, even with perfect "seeing" (atmospheric condition) is tell whether there _is_ a license plate, in the form of a very blurry splotch (or, on digital images, one or two pixels.) To read a license plate, you need something similar to JWST (or good old reconnaissance aircraft, probably uncrewed.)
Come on, Mr. Baker! No need to impress friends and foes alike any more.
I wonder what else he exaggerated in this video.
@@WeighedWilson The rest is more or less correct, as far as I can tell.
@@bazoo513 he did say "let's say; they can resolve better than a license plate, what they wanted to release was something like 1m resolutions." I gather he speaks figuratively about comparative quality of CIA's image vs what they release publicly, not literally. Since 1m resolutions is nowhere near "fuzzy" quality. IIRC the boundary for (commercial) High-res vs med-res is ~2m.
@@bepamungkas Makes sense.
Thank you very much for putting this together for us.
Absolutely fascinating history. Not at all what I was expecting when clicked on the title. Thank you for all the hard work!
I love the Wilhelm Scream in there... Wonderfully done as always.
Wow! What an icing on cake to watch this video after reading "Diplomacy" by Henri Kissinger.
Btw your script is top notch
wonderful work in making this video!
😮 one of the best videos on this channel and a great story telling. Thank you so much for the hard work to bring us these videos!
At least they didn't try to drone strike Climate Change, I guess.
I mean, most of it didn’t happen during the Obama administration :v
Hurricanes and supercells, on the other hand...yup. Real and current plans for that.
Operation Starfish Prime
@@residentgrey Ah yes, the Dump way
@@IntiNikelaos buddy, don't you think the drones with cameras and these were doing the same thing?
Thanks for the video as an Environmental engineering student it was really helpful
i think you guys should try and get in touch with al gore himself... he must have some banger stories about the corona program, and also it'd be nice to get some updates on climate change action.
This video is amazing! Magnificent work! Thank you very much!
An absolutely incredible story. Some of your best work.
Interesting, I wonder if such attempts were made to declassify oceanographic data collected by the navies of the leading powers like the US, Russia, UK and France. I would think it would contain a treasure trove of temperature and salinity data collected over decades. It would really provide crucial evidence of a warming planet (if it shows that ocean temperatures have been rising). The ocean is a much better indicator of climate change.
I suspect the data collected by Russain submarines regarding ice thickness/size was from the Russain Navy.
This video is informative! It's my first time hearing about CORONA, not being a virus (pun intended). Thank you for this!
Yes, you (and the UN agency) are correct. While the definition you mentioned highlights one aspect of climate change, it is not the complete picture. Climate change refers to a broad range of changes occurring in the Earth's climate system. It encompasses alterations in temperature, weather patterns, precipitation, atmospheric conditions, and other factors that influence the climate on a global or regional scale.
In addition to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, climate change also involves:
Sea-level rise: As global temperatures increase, glaciers and ice caps melt, leading to the rise of sea levels. This phenomenon poses significant risks to coastal regions and low-lying areas.
Ocean acidification: Increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are absorbed by the oceans, resulting in acidification. This can harm marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, shellfish, and other organisms that rely on carbonate ions to build their shells and skeletons.
Extreme weather events: Climate change can lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires. These events have severe consequences for human lives, ecosystems, and infrastructure.
Biodiversity loss: Changes in climate patterns can disrupt ecosystems and threaten biodiversity. Many species may struggle to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, potentially leading to extinctions and imbalances in ecosystems.
Impacts on human societies: Climate change has wide-ranging social and economic implications. It can affect agriculture, water resources, human health, food security, and economic stability, particularly in vulnerable regions.
While the burning of fossil fuels is a significant contributor to climate change, other human activities such as deforestation, industrial processes, and agricultural practices also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the problem.
Therefore, it is important to recognize that climate change encompasses a broader scope of impacts beyond just shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.
Did not know this. Wild! Thanks for sharing, Joe!
I was arrested for protesting against fossil fuels (a la Greta Thunberg) in 2011. Since then, environmental protections have been destroyed. Animal species are disappearing exponentially. Agriculture is dying in places where crops once thrived. And the Powers That Be just keep causing endless destruction of the Earth's finite resources. I cry for the planet and for humanity.
Thank you Joe & Patrons!
I like so much this new style of your videos!
What a great episode!
Thank you Joe, I appreciate all the wisdom you provide thru this show.
Fascinating to learn.
What a great video! This channel is a credit to RUclips! THANK YOU!
This video was incredible, well done!
I love this video! Thank you for it!
Be Smart, you are so awesome! Thanks for this🤗
Awesome, awesome, awesome video. Thanks so much.
OMG thank you for this video, this was very mindblowing!
7:35 - Hey, all those launches in Corona program _did_ hone the fine art of not exploding the rocket on the launchpad. So, it _did_ contribute to space program in general.
Awesome video!
Awesome video! Ngl tho every time I see a picture of Lucy (I think her name was lucy), the dog they sent into space, I can't help but tear up. I hate what space scientists did to animals in the early days
I think the dog was called Laika.
Simply amazing. I had no idea.
thank you i have tryed to tell people this but noone would believe me, even pilots didn'think they could do that. geezzz thank you for the vindication.
Keep up the good work.
W0W !!!
Thanks for this information
Whoa this is incredible! I had no idea about any of these programs
Hi Joe, Bob her. That was fascinating and gives me a little hope that we can actually work together when we need to. Thank you for this.
I have to wonder, if more people got to see images like these and hear stories like this, wouldn't they find it fascinating? I like to think so, because the story is hopeful and the images are compelling, revealing, and also gorgeous. Thanks for an inspiring video!
My favorite satellites are the spectrometer equipped ones that can identify large concentrations of things. If government technology is better than civilian technology, we can definitely extrapolate there's some really neat stuff out there.
Damn good episode
good info
I’m a simple guy. I see Joe, I like his video. ❤
It’s because he calls us “smart people” at the beginning. I know it’s not true, but the effort and flattery is worth a like.
I hope you get better soon man.
Wow, such a great story!
Those claims about Corona being a scientific satellite, reminds me of China's "weather" balloons
Nice thumbnail
It still makes no sense to me when people make this "democracy vs communism" comparison. It's like comparing oranges to dollars. They're both things, but that's where the comparison ends.
Democracy is a political system. Communism is an economic system. The US is a capitalist democracy. The Soviet Union was a communist dictatorship.
Singapore is a capitalist dictatorship, and a communist democracy has never been realised. Most European countries are a mix between capitalist and socialist democracies.
Anyway, the things people always despise about communism come down to oppression. Oppression is the opposite of what communism should be. But oppression is the result of a dictatorship.
I don't want to necessarily advocate for a switch to communism because that economic system has some significant flaws. But there are definitely a lot of good things about it as well. We can take the good things and implement them without taking the bad parts. But this first requires to get rid of the stigma associated with the term "communism". And that in turn starts with properly using the word by only using it when it refers to the economic system
11:28
Whoa, that is Budapest. :)
Cool stuff.
Awesome video! Seems you credited Gore with a letter you displayed from Boren.
very good video
Now explain how we outsource our manufacturing to China, which has few bothersome pollution laws, resulting in far more CO2 emitted.
because it's cheaper
What's that got to do with this video?
Imagine if Gore had become president and how the world would be today
Solid, this is one of the best video of this channel, salut comrade
Would really like sources on this, certainly nakes sense
Came here via the shorts, was not disappointed. Have a sub comment and like
Fascinating!
I get the feeling that somebody's been reading more than the first page after searching for "corona".
"How Big Oil Conquered the World" and "Why Big Oil Conquered the World" are really good docs. Give them a try.
This is so freaking cool
So many people complain about politicians that are terrible people and why don't we have any really good smart caring politicians. Well, we did have one and he was vice president for a while. Very smart very caring and very honest and he is one of the most hated politicians in American history and it is really very very sad how Al Gore was treated.
What an absolute banger.
Another great video, but I got what’s probably a weird unrelated question, how did you stylize your face in the thumbnail to look like that? Totally feels like it’s from a poster out of the 60s.
Likely ai but possibly a filter
4:52 I heard you, Wilhelm Scream~
9:50 the elusive 4th McElroy brother
This is so cool
Heh, I have seen some of the cameras from that original program, some of them flew on the SR71, too.
Bravo!
Now just imagine what all the classified stuff is hiding
Al Gore. I wonder how history would be different if he hadn’t had the presidency stolen from him
It'd be the same or much worse.
Dont think much different, remember he doesn't make the laws that pass, the president only makes suggestions and enforces them
Would 9/11 still have happened?
@@WeighedWilson considering that the Clintons and Bushs are connected and Al Gore is connected to the Clintons I would think yes.
Wow I didn't know youtube was named after a spy plane!
Off topic. That image in the background, with someone holding up what looks like a light saber. Would it be possible to get a link to it for a clear view please? I'm very curious about it. 🤔
It's Carl Sagan riding a velociraptor while holding a light saber. It was a limited edition art piece, and it's mine 😈
@@besmart Thank you very much. A little bit of googling (is that a word?) did the rest.😊
this should be a movie or a small tv series.
Great video once again
Joe - The thumbnail for this video: AN AI PICTURE OF YOU?? Oh yeah: BRILLIANT video but they all are!
Least insane CIA program
It was in these photos that Al Gore first saw ManBearPig in Siberia.
Regarding those images by Google earth, what month were the photos taken? All the same month? Or different times of the year?