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[0:07] Iyvon Edebiri: Hello everyone. Welcome to The Parsnip Ship. I'm Iyvon Edebiri, and tonight we are having our reading at the Actors Fund in Brooklyn, New York, the Mark O'Donnell Theater at the Actors Fund in Brooklyn, New York. And we would like to thank them again for hosting us for another evening.

[0:33] Iyvon Edebiri: Tonight we are hearing The New Galileos by Amy Berryman with musical guest Gabi the Artist, directed by Becca Baumwoll. So before we get into our first song of the evening, I like to ask our playwrights, what would the world be missing if it didn't have this play?

[0:58] Amy Berryman: So I love to write about women, and what I think the world will miss without this play is a play with complex, imperfect, passionate, smart female characters, and lady scientists as heroes.

[1:19] Iyvon Edebiri: Yes, women in science. Take it away, Gabi the Artist.

[1:25] Gabi The Artist: How's everybody doing tonight? Woo! Woo! We are Gabi the Artist, I'm Gabi, and we got Frani Coach show something, Frannie, real quick. Woo! Yeah. And we got Philly Bada Boom on the drums. Let me hear something, Philly. Woo! All right, so the first song is called "Ghost," and I hope you guys enjoy this.

[2:01] ♪ Musical number: "Ghost" — performed by Gabi the Artist ♪

[5:27] Tara Giordano: Thank you guys! I'm Tara Giordano, and I'll be playing the roles of Sarah Delaney, Dr. Roberta Richardson, Audra Whitney, and Helen Matthews.

[6:21] Lynn Guerra: Hi, I'm Lynn Guerra. I'm playing the role of Elaine Tuck.

[6:26] Alia Gidry: Hi, I'm Alia Gidry, and I will be playing Nora Travers.

[6:30] Lauda Rivero: Hi, I'm Lauda Rivero, and I'll be playing the role of Beth.

[6:35] Stephanie Jurgens: Hi, I'm Stephanie Jurgens, and I will be reading stage directions.

[6:41] Tara Giordano: The New Galileos by Amy Berryman. Time and place, United States, near future. Characters. Nora Travers, mid-20s, marine biologist, aquarist. Elaine Tuck, 30s, 40s, renowned glaciologist. Dr. Beth Whitney, 30s, 40s, renowned author, and etipologist, which is a soil scientist. A fourth actor to play various roles. Sarah Delaney, Nora's girlfriend. Dr. Roberta Richardson, Elaine's mentor. Audra Whitney, Beth's daughter, only heard. And Helen Matthews, an interrogator.

[7:23] Tara Giordano: The set. A single cell, small, compact. Lights shift, indicating a change in space, but all scenes take place in the cell. Darkness. A door slams. A woman falls. Lights are low. For a moment we are suspended in time and space. Nora has been thrown onto the floor, is slowly getting her bearings, touching her face, she's bleeding. Elaine and Beth can be seen in low lighting. A fourth woman in shadows speaks.

[7:57] Unknown speaker: You don't see it coming. You don't see how things are changing until they've already changed. Leaves fall, it's autumn, and then they're gone. It's winter. Life keeps moving. We grocery shop, get married, scroll through our phones, clip our fingernails, and no one pays attention to the change. We're just a dot on a horizon, a blink in time. The trash we dump won't really affect us. We put it on the street, it goes somewhere. It goes somewhere and goes somewhere till it ends up on an island in the middle of the ocean. And then we're going to die someday, and we'll never see that island. You believe it exists, but you're never going to see it. You're not going to see it shrink and crack. The minuscule changes over time.

Sort of like a marriage. Sort of like growing up, sort of like dying. You don't see it happen. And then you don't know the person in bed next to you anymore. You didn't realize your daughter is now a woman. You didn't think you'd ever be this old. Well, here we are. We're at the place we didn't see coming.

[9:09] Tara Giordano: Lights get brighter, and we are in a small cell containing Nora, Beth, and Elaine. Nora is bleeding. She's freaking out, breathing hard. She hasn't noticed the other women.

[9:34] Nora Travers: She is banging on the door, desperate, confused.

[9:37] Elaine Tuck: Uh sorry. Um they are not going to come back.

[9:41] Nora Travers: What? It's no use yelling they won't come back.

[9:45] Elaine Tuck: Who are you? What? Who are you? What's your name? Hi. Who are you? Who are you?

[9:51] Nora Travers: What the hell is this? What?

[9:56] Elaine Tuck: Uh try to be calm.

[9:58] Nora Travers: I can't be calm. How can you expect me to be calm? Who are you?

[10:01] Beth Whitney: Beth, stop. Can you tell us who you are?

[10:05] Nora Travers: I'm Nora.

[10:07] Beth Whitney: Nora. Nora Travers?

[10:09] Nora Travers: Nora Travers. Do you know what that is?

[10:11] Elaine Tuck: No. No, but that doesn't mean.

[10:14] Beth Whitney: Well, who are you? What the hell am I doing here? Who is she if we don't know who she is?

[10:19] Elaine Tuck: She's not she's frightened out of her mind.

[10:27] Nora Travers: Who are you? Are you a scientist?

[10:31] Beth Whitney: Jesus, Elaine! Yes, a marine biologist.

[10:34] Elaine Tuck: There, see. What have you done?

[10:37] Nora Travers: Done? I've never heard of you.

[10:40] Beth Whitney: What did you get? What did you do to get here?

[10:42] Nora Travers: I don't even know what this is. I was on my way to a meeting. Uh the book I wrote, and then I was in the back of a van, I think. I don't know, and now I'm here. What is this place?

[10:56] Beth Whitney: Well, it's a holding cell, is what I would call it. Elaine, we don't know who this person is, so she's a scientist.

[11:04] Nora Travers: She said she's a scientist.

[11:06] Elaine Tuck: We don't know her name.

[11:07] Nora Travers: I told you my name.

[11:09] Beth Whitney: We've never heard of you. Are you a researcher?

[11:11] Nora Travers: No, not really. I'm from San Francisco. I'm an aquarist there.

[11:15] Beth Whitney: An aquarist?

[11:18] Nora Travers: But I just wrote a book. It's a bestseller. It's a children's book.

[11:23] Elaine Tuck: What book?

[11:24] Nora Travers: Creatures We Used to Know. The New Ocean. There's illustrations. It's about climate change.

[11:30] Beth Whitney: You were in the Atlantic.

[11:32] Elaine Tuck: She was in the Atlantic, Beth.

[11:34] Nora Travers: Yes. The Times wouldn't publish it, but—

[11:35] Beth Whitney: That's right. The Atlantic did. We even it went all viral.

[11:42] Elaine Tuck: I don't know. A children's book about climate change.

[11:46] Beth Whitney: Okay. But that's got to be it. She is one of us. Come on.

[11:49] Nora Travers: Oh dear. You've got to.

[11:51] Beth Whitney: I'm okay. Let me help.

[11:56] Nora Travers: Did they hit you?

[11:57] Beth Whitney: I don't know. I might have been hit in the head. I still don't understand. Who are you?

[12:05] Elaine Tuck: Are you are you? That's Elizabeth Whitney. She's a soil scientist. You may have heard of.

[12:11] Nora Travers: Elizabeth Whitney? The Elizabeth Whitney?

[12:15] Beth Whitney: Yes, that one. I read all your books. Why are you here? Who are you?

[12:20] Elaine Tuck: That's Elaine Tuck. I'm a glaciologist. Nobel Prize winner. I was part of a team that won, not just me.

[12:28] Beth Whitney: She won the Galileo Award.

[12:30] Nora Travers: Whoa, oh, that's the two million dollar award.

[12:34] Beth Whitney: A lot of good it does me now. So we're what are we doing here?

[12:40] Elaine Tuck: We think it's our research or or writing in your case.

[12:43] Beth Whitney: I didn't write anything illegal.

[12:46] Nora Travers: Legal.

[12:50] Elaine Tuck: All your books. That was before this administration.

[12:53] Beth Whitney: So does any of this seem legal?

[12:56] Nora Travers: So you're here for your books too, then.

[13:00] Beth Whitney: No. I mean, I don't know. Beth has been trying to alert the government about Alaska.

[13:07] Elaine Tuck: What about Alaska?

[13:08] Beth Whitney: Exactly. No one even knows what's happening there. Beth spent several of the last years in Barrow, Alaska looking at soil.

[13:15] Elaine Tuck: There's a new flu. A superbug.

[13:17] Beth Whitney: It's old. Bacterial. Permafrost is melting, and there are viruses and diseases in that ground. It's new to us, but ancient. It's taking out the tribe I lived with. People are dying. So Beth has been meeting with Congress and the Senate. Trying to.

[13:33] Elaine Tuck: And so all this coupled with the woman who was previously in here with us. We've deduced.

[13:39] Nora Travers: There was someone before me?

[13:40] Beth Whitney: Yes, a climatology professor at Harvard.

[13:44] Nora Travers: And now where is she?

[13:47] Beth Whitney: We don't know. They called her name, took her out. She hasn't been back.

[13:51] Elaine Tuck: They, who is they?

[13:55] Beth Whitney: We don't really know. Government? Or someone else?

[13:58] Nora Travers: We aren't sure. How many hours ago was that?

[14:04] Elaine Tuck: That the professor left.

[14:05] Beth Whitney: Oh, it was two days ago.

[14:07] Nora Travers: What? How long have you been here?

[14:10] Beth Whitney: *points to a spot on the ground.*

[14:12] Nora Travers: I'll look at the spot.

[14:14] Elaine Tuck: Five days.

[14:16] Nora Travers: Seven.

[14:17] Elaine Tuck: Seven days?

[14:19] Nora Travers: This is uh where we've been keeping time here.

[14:21] Elaine Tuck: Uh uh please be careful, do not touch it.

[14:24] Nora Travers: She kneels down and begins to move her finger through the dirt on the floor.

[14:28] Nora Travers: I'll start to make a row for you.

[14:30] Nora Travers: Uh Nora.

[14:32] Elaine Tuck: We we need to call a lawyer.

[14:34] Nora Travers: We should be able to talk to someone.

[14:40] Elaine Tuck: One.

[14:44] Elaine Tuck: A lawyer.

[14:45] Nora Travers: That's funny.

[14:46] Elaine Tuck: Uh uh law and order seem to be um suspended.

[14:51] Nora Travers: In our case, for the time being.

[14:54] Elaine Tuck: Have you tried getting out?

[14:57] Nora Travers: No, there is no getting out.

[14:59] Elaine Tuck: Uh Yolanda, the professor was here for two weeks.

[15:03] Nora Travers: We we just have to wait.

[15:05] Elaine Tuck: Wait for what?

[15:07] Nora Travers: Whatever is to come.

[15:09] Unknown speaker: Lights shift.

[15:11] Unknown speaker: And Sarah enters.

[15:12] Unknown speaker: This is Nora's girlfriend.

[15:14] Unknown speaker: She is dreamy, an artist.

[15:16] Unknown speaker: She hands Nora a computer, and though we are still in the cell, we are also in Nora and Sarah's apartment.

[15:25] Nora Travers: I hate waiting.

[15:25] Sarah: I know, so stop.

[15:28] Nora Travers: Waiting?

[15:30] Sarah: No.

[15:31] Unknown speaker: She closes Nora's computer with a click.

[15:33] Sarah: Watching, refreshing your email, waiting by the phone.

[15:37] Sarah: Let's go out.

[15:37] Sarah: Let's do something.

[15:39] Nora Travers: I just want to know.

[15:42] Nora Travers: Did I get it or not?

[15:43] Sarah: And you won't know until you know.

[15:45] Nora Travers: Fine and finalists are supposed to come out and so to know today by six.

[15:49] Nora Travers: It's it's nearly six.

[15:51] Sarah: Do you think that means something that I'm hearing so late in the day?

[15:54] Nora Travers: I I don't know.

[15:55] Nora Travers: I just don't want to spend another day in that goddamn aquarium.

[16:00] Sarah: Okay, well, even if you do get the grant, you will have to spend another day in the aquarium.

[16:04] Nora Travers: But I'll know I'm on my way out.

[16:06] Sarah: See, this is your problem.

[16:08] Sarah: You have a mindset of lack.

[16:10] Sarah: You need to shift your mindset to abundance.

[16:14] Sarah: Like every day when I walk into the coffee shop, I think to myself, this is not who I am.

[16:20] Sarah: Or I think I am above this.

[16:23] Nora Travers: Really?

[16:24] Sarah: Yes.

[16:25] Nora Travers: And you wonder why your boss isn't like you.

[16:28] Sarah: And I just repeat that all day as I give people their change, as I make cappuccinos.

[16:33] Sarah: I think I'm actually a brilliant undiscovered painter, and none of you realize it.

[16:38] Sarah: It's all in your brain.

[16:39] Sarah: It's all in your brain.

[16:41] Sarah: You just have to shift your thinking.

[16:43] Sarah: You have to like imagine yourself in Antarctica all day while you're, you know, cleaning tanks.

[16:49] Nora Travers: Yeah, and talking to children about the environment, but not being able to say the words climate change.

[16:55] Sarah: Well, maybe there's another way.

[16:57] Nora Travers: What do you mean?

[16:58] Sarah: To reach the kids.

[16:59] Sarah: I know you're so frustrated with the leadership at the aquarium and what's being taught in schools.

[17:04] Sarah: Or rather, not taught.

[17:05] Nora Travers: Yeah, so like maybe you should like write a book.

[17:05] Sarah: Write a book.

[17:09] Sarah: Like a children's book.

[17:11] Sarah: It could be about an otter, and you can follow its story as it sees all parts of the ocean that have changed.

[17:18] Sarah: You know, like maybe it's migrated millions of miles from somewhere and goes back to its home and sees how it's changed.

[17:25] Nora Travers: Otters don't migrate long distances.

[17:27] Sarah: Okay, well, some other animal that does.

[17:30] Nora Travers: Sarah, I do not want to write a fucking children's book.

[17:33] Nora Travers: I want people to take the research I've been doing for the aquarium with basically no money.

[17:33] Nora Travers: Seriously.

[17:33] Nora Travers: The research I've been doing is is actually effective.

[17:43] Nora Travers: And it's actually changing the way we treat octopuses and deal with sea star wasting.

[17:49] Nora Travers: And I want people to recognize my work and to give me a fucking grant so I can just get out of this hellhole.

[17:55] Sarah: And if you get the grant and go to Antarctica or the Great Barrier Reef or wherever, what's gonna happen to us?

[18:03] Nora Travers: You'll come with me.

[18:05] Sarah: To Antarctica, oh really, but we'll figure it out.

[18:10] Sarah: I mean, you can move.

[18:11] Sarah: You don't have a lot going on here.

[18:14] Nora Travers: Cool.

[18:16] Sarah: I didn't mean you don't have anything going on.

[18:18] Nora Travers: That's literally what you just said.

[18:21] Sarah: I didn't mean it though.

[18:22] Sarah: Uh, they're gonna do a gallery with my work in the coffee shop.

[18:25] Nora Travers: Wow, they've been saying that for months.

[18:27] Sarah: No, I just told you about it a few months ago, but it's a process.

[18:29] Sarah: There's a list of people who have to be hung first.

[18:32] Nora Travers: Okay.

[18:33] Sarah: And I don't want to leave California.

[18:36] Nora Travers: But what about Australia?

[18:39] Sarah: You always wanted to visit Sydney.

[18:40] Nora Travers: That's is it?

[18:41] Sarah: I don't want to move.

[18:43] Nora Travers: You seem decided.

[18:46] Sarah: Okay.

[18:48] Sarah: So what would that mean?

[18:50] Sarah: If I got a grant and I left for a while to do research.

[18:53] Nora Travers: Left for several years.

[18:55] Sarah: A while.

[18:57] Sarah: With long distance.

[18:58] Nora Travers: I mean, could we do that?

[18:59] Sarah: I don't want to do that.

[19:01] Nora Travers: Why haven't you brought this up before?

[19:03] Sarah: Please, you're the one who's been avoiding this conversation.

[19:07] Unknown speaker: Ding.

[19:08] Unknown speaker: Email.

[19:09] Nora Travers: Nora frantically checks it.

[19:10] Unknown speaker: It's bad news.

[19:13] Nora Travers: I'm so sorry.

[19:15] Nora Travers: I'm so sorry.

[19:16] Sarah: Come on.

[19:17] Nora Travers: You're relieved.

[19:18] Sarah: No, I am not.

[19:19] Nora Travers: I am really not.

[19:20] Nora Travers: I will fucking move to Australia.

[19:22] Nora Travers: I don't know what I'm talking about.

[19:24] Nora Travers: I I want this for you.

[19:25] Sarah: You know?

[19:26] Sarah: I want this for you so bad.

[19:28] Sarah: I want you to get to do your work.

[19:30] Nora Travers: There's no money.

[19:31] Nora Travers: This was my one shot.

[19:33] Nora Travers: This was like the only government funding within my reach this year.

[19:37] Nora Travers: Fuck.

[19:39] Sarah: Sarah sits with her, holds her.

[19:42] Sarah: Money will come, I believe.

[19:46] Sarah: You know, we really could do it.

[19:49] Sarah: We could write this book, and it could be a bestseller, and we'd make a million dollars, and then you could find you could fund your own research.

[19:58] Sarah: I still had a connection to that publicist from the book I illustrated like five years ago.

[20:02] Sarah: He's really good.

[20:06] Nora Travers: You really think we can make a million dollars?

[20:08] Sarah: I don't know, but it is worth a shot.

[20:12] Unknown speaker: Lights shift, and we are back in the cell.

[20:15] Unknown speaker: It's a few hours later.

[20:16] Unknown speaker: They're eating some rice.

[20:18] Unknown speaker: Beth sits with her back to Nora and Elaine.

[20:25] Elaine Tuck: But Greek thought, Aristotelian thought was all about perfection.

[20:31] Elaine Tuck: The perfect sphere of the moon, the perfect smooth sphere of the sun.

[20:35] Elaine Tuck: But Galileo saw through his telescope that there were mountains on the moon.

[20:43] Elaine Tuck: And he could, in fact, measure them.

[20:45] Elaine Tuck: So they were no longer these perfect spheres in the sky.

[20:48] Elaine Tuck: It was more more gritty, more real, and that he was never phased by this.

[20:54] Elaine Tuck: He just accepted it.

[20:56] Elaine Tuck: It was what it was.

[20:58] Elaine Tuck: And that I think is the real difference between the school of thought at the time and the science that Galileo championed.

[21:07] Elaine Tuck: One was about perfection, and the other about what really was.

[21:17] Beth Whitney: Why are we talking about this again?

[21:20] Elaine Tuck: My speech I'm going to give for the uh the Galileo.

[21:24] Beth Whitney: Oh, the Galileo Award.

[21:26] Elaine Tuck: Right.

[21:26] Elaine Tuck: I feel like you've been talking for an hour.

[21:29] Beth Whitney: Well, that's why I did so much research on him when I found out I got it.

[21:32] Beth Whitney: I I have to give an acceptance speech.

[21:35] Beth Whitney: I didn't know much about him except for what I was taught in school.

[21:39] Beth Whitney: I am pretty fluent in Italian, and I can read some Latin, so I was able to read his letters in their original form, and oh oh, was he naughty?

[21:50] Beth Whitney: Oh he was such a little rebel, so so daring and cunning, just brilliant.

[21:58] Elaine Tuck: He was.

[21:59] Beth Whitney: I am going to talk about how what he faced is similar to what we are facing right now.

[22:05] Beth Whitney: We are fighting wealth and power and greed.

[22:09] Elaine Tuck: And yet it moves.

[22:11] Beth Whitney: Yes!

[22:13] Elaine Tuck: Yes, I love that story.

[22:15] Beth Whitney: He was made to recant, which m it must have been devastating.

[22:20] Beth Whitney: Declared all his research false, and then then he uttered, and yet it moves.

[22:27] Beth Whitney: He was like, doesn't matter what you say, motherfuckers!

[22:35] Elaine Tuck: No way he said that.

[22:37] Beth Whitney: No, he did.

[22:38] Elaine Tuck: No, he said that.

[22:40] Beth Whitney: It's legend or whatever, but if he'd said that, if he'd actually said that in a trial in front of the church, he would have been he'd been a he'd been dead, not spent his life comfy in his house.

[22:55] Elaine Tuck: Comfy!

[22:56] Beth Whitney: Well, he said well, he he was under house arrest.

[23:00] Beth Whitney: He he couldn't see his children again.

[23:02] Elaine Tuck: He wasn't exactly comfy.

[23:03] Beth Whitney: I'm just saying he was a politician.

[23:05] Beth Whitney: He knew the Pope.

[23:07] Beth Whitney: He knew how to play the game.

[23:08] Beth Whitney: He recanted.

[23:10] Beth Whitney: He didn't get burnt at the stake.

[23:12] Elaine Tuck: He didn't say that shit.

[23:14] Beth Whitney: I think that if there's any question at all as to whether or not he said it, he didn't.

[23:21] Elaine Tuck: Well, I think he did.

[23:23] Beth Whitney: Oh.

[23:24] Elaine Tuck: You just think he did.

[23:26] Beth Whitney: Yes, I think he did.

[23:27] Elaine Tuck: I can choose to believe that or not.

[23:29] Beth Whitney: And it it it's it's more hopeful to believe it.

[23:33] Elaine Tuck: Bring some hope into the room.

[23:35] Beth Whitney: They want us to be broken down, to be despondent.

[23:38] Elaine Tuck: You don't know what they want.

[23:40] Beth Whitney: We know.

[23:41] Elaine Tuck: I haven't seen my daughter in five days, so don't talk to me about being despondent.

[23:48] Beth Whitney: Daughter.

[23:51] Elaine Tuck: I didn't know you have a daughter.

[23:54] Beth Whitney: You haven't said anything about her.

[23:57] Elaine Tuck: We've just been in here for a oh god, that's awful.

[23:59] Beth Whitney: Oh, I had no idea.

[24:03] Elaine Tuck: Is she with family?

[24:07] Beth Whitney: But does she have a a community, uh a good school?

[24:10] Beth Whitney: I'm I'm sure at least her teachers will.

[24:12] Beth Whitney: I have no idea where she is or who has her or if they have her, or no, this is good.

[24:18] Elaine Tuck: People will certainly notice that you're missing.

[24:20] Beth Whitney: It's good?

[24:21] Elaine Tuck: Uh I'm not close with my family, and that they always think I'm off in some remote part of the world anyway, but you shut up, shut up.

[24:21] Beth Whitney: Shut up.

[24:31] Unknown speaker: Elaine becomes quiet.

[24:32] Unknown speaker: Backs away.

[24:34] Beth Whitney: I don't talk about her.

[24:35] Beth Whitney: I try never to speak about her.

[24:39] Beth Whitney: I don't want them to know.

[24:41] Elaine Tuck: Don't mention her.

[24:44] Beth Whitney: Okay.

[24:44] Elaine Tuck: I I won't.

[24:45] Beth Whitney: I've put her in danger.

[24:47] Beth Whitney: I can't think about it.

[24:49] Beth Whitney: Talk about it.

[24:51] Elaine Tuck: I'm sorry.

[24:53] Elaine Tuck: Sometimes I don't know what else to do except talk when I'm sorry.

[24:59] Unknown speaker: Lights shift, and Beth is alone with her daughter, Audra, who is only heard, not seen.

[25:04] Audra: Mommy.

[25:06] Audra: Mommy, don't throw things.

[25:08] Beth Whitney: Sorry, baby.

[25:09] Beth Whitney: Sorry.

[25:10] Beth Whitney: Mommy lost her temper.

[25:11] Audra: I know you were yelling.

[25:13] Beth Whitney: You always yell.

[25:14] Beth Whitney: I am sorry, baby.

[25:16] Beth Whitney: Just these stupid people.

[25:19] Audra: Stupid.

[25:20] Audra: Stupid.

[25:21] Beth Whitney: Okay, maybe just use that word at home, not at school, okay, baby.

[25:26] Audra: Fucking stupid.

[25:29] Beth Whitney: What?

[25:30] Audra: You are fucking stupid government sack of shit.

[25:33] Beth Whitney: Audra?

[25:34] Audra: You said it on the phone.

[25:35] Beth Whitney: You never repeat things mommy says on the phone, okay?

[25:38] Beth Whitney: Never say any of those words mommy said.

[25:41] Beth Whitney: Mommy just has to talk to some bad people, so she gets worked up sometimes.

[25:48] Audra: What's worked up?

[25:50] Beth Whitney: Mad.

[25:50] Audra: Yeah, you seem mad.

[25:52] Audra: What happened?

[25:53] Beth Whitney: I'm trying to help our friends in Barrow.

[25:55] Audra: Our sick friends?

[25:57] Beth Whitney: Yes, honey.

[25:58] Beth Whitney: With the flu?

[25:59] Audra: Exactly, and no one wants to help them.

[26:01] Beth Whitney: Why?

[26:02] Audra: It's complicated.

[26:03] Beth Whitney: What's complicated?

[26:05] Beth Whitney: Like heart.

[26:07] Audra: No, I know what complicated is.

[26:10] Beth Whitney: Oh.

[26:10] Beth Whitney: I was asking what is complicated.

[26:13] Audra: Oh, I see.

[26:14] Beth Whitney: Well, people either don't believe me or don't want to believe me.

[26:19] Audra: They think you're lying?

[26:21] Beth Whitney: Yes.

[26:22] Audra: I guess.

[26:23] Beth Whitney: That's stupid.

[26:24] Audra: It is stupid, yeah.

[26:26] Audra: I could tell them.

[26:28] Audra: I saw them.

[26:29] Audra: Hiti was sick.

[26:31] Beth Whitney: I know, Hittie, your friend.

[26:33] Audra: I could tell them.

[26:34] Beth Whitney: I don't know, baby.

[26:36] Beth Whitney: I I don't want you to get involved.

[26:38] Audra: I want to help Hiti.

[26:40] Beth Whitney: Thank you, sweetie, but I'm gonna say no.

[26:42] Audra: Well, you can't get them to help, so maybe I can't.

[26:45] Beth Whitney: Hey, I'm trying.

[26:47] Beth Whitney: I'm trying.

[26:51] Audra: No, honey.

[26:53] Beth Whitney: I'm not going to get you involved.

[26:54] Beth Whitney: No way, but thank you.

[26:56] Audra: I want to tell them about Hiti's dog.

[26:58] Beth Whitney: I miss it.

[27:00] Beth Whitney: I know you do.

[27:01] Audra: Can we get a dog?

[27:02] Beth Whitney: No.

[27:04] Audra: Can I write a letter to them?

[27:05] Beth Whitney: To Hittie?

[27:06] Audra: Sure.

[27:07] Audra: No, to Congressman.

[27:08] Beth Whitney: Oh no, honey.

[27:09] Beth Whitney: I don't want you to.

[27:10] Audra: I'll just write it.

[27:10] Audra: I won't send it.

[27:14] Beth Whitney: Okay.

[27:15] Beth Whitney: Of course.

[27:17] Unknown speaker: Audra spins her mom around.

[27:19] Audra: Dear Congressman, please help Hiti.

[27:23] Unknown speaker: They spin and laugh.

[27:25] Beth Whitney: Mommy loves you to the moon.

[27:27] Audra: And to the ground.

[27:28] Beth Whitney: And to the sky.

[27:29] Audra: And back again.

[27:31] Unknown speaker: Lights shift.

[27:32] Unknown speaker: Back in the cell.

[27:33] Beth Whitney: Beth is asleep.

[27:35] Nora Travers: Nora keeps shifting.

[27:38] Nora Travers: Can't sleep.

[27:39] Elaine Tuck: Is it time to sleep?

[27:41] Nora Travers: I think it's roughly at 2200 hours.

[27:45] Elaine Tuck: There are no windows.

[27:47] Nora Travers: I I time it by when I hear the guards change over.

[27:50] Nora Travers: That's how we've been keeping track.

[27:52] Nora Travers: It could be a bit off, but yes, I I I think uh day seven for me.

[27:57] Nora Travers: Twenty-two hundred hours, roughly.

[28:00] Nora Travers: I have to pee again.

[28:02] Elaine Tuck: Okay.

[28:03] Nora Travers: Fuck.

[28:04] Elaine Tuck: It's okay.

[28:05] Nora Travers: I don't want to wake her.

[28:07] Elaine Tuck: Do what you have to do.

[28:09] Nora Travers: Nora knocks three times on the door.

[28:11] Nora Travers: Bathroom.

[28:13] Unknown speaker: Bathroom?

[28:14] Unknown speaker: The door opens and she leaves.

[28:16] Unknown speaker: Beth stirs.

[28:18] Beth Whitney: Oh shit.

[28:20] Beth Whitney: I was actually out.

[28:21] Unknown speaker: Oh, she had to go.

[28:22] Elaine Tuck: Poor thing.

[28:23] Nora Travers: Where's the water?

[28:24] Elaine Tuck: *passes her a plastic cup of water.*

[28:28] Nora Travers: So what does this mean?

[28:29] Elaine Tuck: Her story.

[28:30] Nora Travers: Well, she says the Times won't publish anything about climate change now.

[28:34] Elaine Tuck: So is the Times pushing government crap?

[28:38] Nora Travers: That's what I'm thinking.

[28:39] Elaine Tuck: Should we tell her?

[28:40] Nora Travers: No.

[28:41] Elaine Tuck: What good would it do?

[28:43] Nora Travers: Just panic her for no reason.

[28:45] Elaine Tuck: I say, I always say knowledge is power.

[28:48] Nora Travers: They might not want the same thing from her.

[28:50] Elaine Tuck: She's just an Aquarist.

[28:52] Nora Travers: Oh come on.

[28:53] Elaine Tuck: What?

[28:53] Nora Travers: She is.

[28:54] Elaine Tuck: You and I have been at this for years.

[28:56] Nora Travers: Of course they want us to make a statement.

[28:59] Elaine Tuck: What good would her statement do?

[29:01] Nora Travers: Who would it influence?

[29:02] Elaine Tuck: She's clearly nobody.

[29:04] Nora Travers: She's a best-selling author.

[29:06] Elaine Tuck: A best-selling children's author.

[29:08] Nora Travers: For one week?

[29:09] Elaine Tuck: It doesn't make a lot of sense.

[29:14] Nora Travers: Are you gonna do it?

[29:17] Elaine Tuck: I'm going to try to buy time.

[29:19] Nora Travers: Come back here and give you more information.

[29:21] Elaine Tuck: We can go from there.

[29:23] Nora Travers: What if they don't let you come back?

[29:25] Elaine Tuck: Yolanda isn't back.

[29:27] Nora Travers: Well if they give you an option to get out, you should take it.

[29:31] Elaine Tuck: But get out.

[29:32] Nora Travers: Tell reporters what's going on.

[29:34] Nora Travers: *enters.*

[29:36] Elaine Tuck: They become silent.

[29:39] Nora Travers: Everything okay?

[29:41] Elaine Tuck: It was gross.

[29:44] Nora Travers: Did I miss anything?

[29:46] Elaine Tuck: Yes, uh Nora, we were discussing what we Galileo, we were discussing Galileo.

[29:51] Nora Travers: *reminding me that Galileo Recanton when made to, he said that the earth doesn't move.*

[29:58] Elaine Tuck: He did what he was told.

[30:00] Nora Travers: He made a sacrifice.

[30:02] Elaine Tuck: He saved himself.

[30:04] Nora Travers: And yet, he's not remembered for that.

[30:06] Elaine Tuck: It's his brilliance that we remember.

[30:09] Nora Travers: Right?

[30:10] Elaine Tuck: Uh yeah.

[30:11] Nora Travers: You don't have any family, right?

[30:13] Elaine Tuck: Well, I maybe that's why you can't quite understand.

[30:18] Nora Travers: He had a daughter.

[30:19] Elaine Tuck: Did you know that?

[30:20] Nora Travers: I have family.

[30:21] Elaine Tuck: You said you did it.

[30:23] Nora Travers: I may not have be close to my real but I chose my family.

[30:27] Elaine Tuck: I have family.

[30:29] *Lights shift.*

[30:30] *A bell rings.*

[30:32] Dr. Roberta Richards: Alberta enters.

[30:35] *It is after class, Elaine's sophomore year of undergrad.*

[30:38] Dr. Roberta Richards: Elaine Tuck?

[30:39] Elaine Tuck: Uh, can I see you after class for just a moment?

[30:42] Dr. Roberta Richards: Sure.

[30:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: This is your paper.

[30:45] Elaine Tuck: Uh, which is that?

[30:46] Dr. Roberta Richards: The effects of superstorms on East Coast Beaches.

[30:49] Elaine Tuck: Oh, yes, uh, that's mine.

[30:50] Dr. Roberta Richards: Uh is there a problem?

[30:52] Elaine Tuck: Did I mess up the margins?

[30:53] Dr. Roberta Richards: You did the margins correctly.

[30:55] Elaine Tuck: I didn't plagiarize it, if that's what this is about.

[30:58] Dr. Roberta Richards: I wasn't going to ask you if.

[31:00] Elaine Tuck: Do your other professors accuse you of plagiarism?

[31:04] Dr. Roberta Richards: Yes.

[31:05] Elaine Tuck: Some have been known to.

[31:06] Dr. Roberta Richards: Who?

[31:07] Elaine Tuck: Dr. Richter.

[31:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: He couldn't tell Goodratten if it hit him in the face.

[31:11] Elaine Tuck: I'm gonna talk to him.

[31:14] Dr. Roberta Richards: Okay, thanks.

[31:15] Dr. Roberta Richards: It's probably because when you write an academic paper, which is supposed to be like reading the phone book, it's beautiful.

[31:21] Elaine Tuck: It's icin, it's thrilling even.

[31:24] Dr. Roberta Richards: Oh.

[31:25] Dr. Roberta Richards: It is ten pages longer than the seven page paper I asked.

[31:28] Elaine Tuck: I just couldn't fit in all my research.

[31:30] Dr. Roberta Richards: There was way too much on algae.

[31:32] Elaine Tuck: I had to add in a few extra pages, and it just seems long.

[31:36] Dr. Roberta Richards: You asked for it to be double spaced.

[31:37] Elaine Tuck: Usually I do one point five.

[31:39] Dr. Roberta Richards: What are you doing next fall?

[31:41] Elaine Tuck: Uh what?

[31:43] Dr. Roberta Richards: Next fall.

[31:44] Elaine Tuck: Are you studying abroad or no?

[31:47] Dr. Roberta Richards: I mean I'll be here my junior year.

[31:50] Elaine Tuck: Would you like to come to Antarctica with me?

[31:52] Dr. Roberta Richards: What?

[31:53] Elaine Tuck: Let me back up.

[31:55] Dr. Roberta Richards: I've been keeping an eye on your work all semester.

[31:58] Dr. Roberta Richards: I've talked with your other professors, forget Richter.

[32:01] Dr. Roberta Richards: We all agree you have extraordinary talent for writing and especially research.

[32:06] Dr. Roberta Richards: You leave no stone unturned.

[32:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: And your hypotheses are outside the box, you take initiative, you're creative within this field, which can be so dry, as you know.

[32:16] Elaine Tuck: And what do you want to specialize in?

[32:20] Dr. Roberta Richards: Oh well, uh I'm having a really hard time narrowing it down, but I know that I want to be a researcher.

[32:27] Dr. Roberta Richards: Good.

[32:27] Elaine Tuck: I go through phases when I'm obsessed with coastal ecology, as you can probably guess.

[32:32] Dr. Roberta Richards: And sometimes I go down geology rabbit holes, but genetics fascinate me.

[32:37] Elaine Tuck: And then people say there's a lot of work in that field, so what about climate science?

[32:42] Dr. Roberta Richards: Coastal ecology that's very close to climate ecology, climatology.

[32:46] Elaine Tuck: Oh, well, yeah, your class is wonderful.

[32:51] Dr. Roberta Richards: I've been learning so much, but I'm not sure.

[32:55] Elaine Tuck: Why not?

[32:56] Dr. Roberta Richards: Oh, I just don't think that that's something I can devote my life to.

[33:02] Elaine Tuck: Why is that?

[33:03] Dr. Roberta Richards: It feels like a losing battle.

[33:09] Elaine Tuck: Sure, I can see how that's I'm not trying to be disrespectful.

[33:12] Dr. Roberta Richards: No, no, you aren't.

[33:14] Elaine Tuck: It's just if I'm calculating everything correctly.

[33:17] Dr. Roberta Richards: We are getting extremely close to two degrees Celsius.

[33:20] Elaine Tuck: And after we pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and as more countries are starting to pull out of it, it just seems I don't see a way out.

[33:29] Dr. Roberta Richards: A way forward.

[33:30] Elaine Tuck: It seems like anything I try to contribute will just fail.

[33:33] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'd just be a part of failure.

[33:37] Elaine Tuck: And if all of us felt as you do, and we all just gave up, what would happen then?

[33:42] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm not trying to suggest that your work isn't crucial and vital.

[33:45] Elaine Tuck: I'm glad someone is doing it.

[33:48] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm glad someone as brilliant as you is doing it.

[33:51] Elaine Tuck: But you think we'll fail, sure.

[33:53] Dr. Roberta Richards: There's no I'm sorry, but I just think that we are cruising at high speed off a cliff and we can't slow down or back up.

[34:00] Elaine Tuck: I just don't think that that's how I want to spend my time.

[34:06] Dr. Roberta Richards: I know.

[34:07] Elaine Tuck: I know you're right.

[34:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: Well, we are.

[34:10] Elaine Tuck: It is, but I can't live in that with that thinking.

[34:15] Dr. Roberta Richards: I look at it because it's fascinating.

[34:17] Elaine Tuck: It is fascinating to see something changing so rapidly and so close to you.

[34:22] Dr. Roberta Richards: The work is good, even if it seems impossible.

[34:25] Elaine Tuck: Well, I'm not saying it's not good.

[34:27] Dr. Roberta Richards: Well, you don't have to decide anything today, but I'd like for you to come on my sabbatical with me.

[34:33] Elaine Tuck: To Antarctica?

[34:35] Dr. Roberta Richards: Yes.

[34:35] Elaine Tuck: We're going to look at ice cores.

[34:39] Dr. Roberta Richards: Why?

[34:40] Elaine Tuck: Why?

[34:41] Dr. Roberta Richards: Do you know what a glacier is?

[34:43] Elaine Tuck: Oh, yes, it's a large moving body of ice that's been packed down for centuries.

[34:47] Dr. Roberta Richards: No, do you know what a glacier is?

[34:50] Elaine Tuck: What ice is.

[34:56] Dr. Roberta Richards: Glaciers are time-tellers.

[34:59] Dr. Roberta Richards: Clocks like tree rings.

[35:02] Dr. Roberta Richards: We can pull out a huge cylinder from the glacier and read the air that has been trapped in the ice for hundreds of thousands of years.

[35:11] Dr. Roberta Richards: Ice keeps everything.

[35:13] Dr. Roberta Richards: It has memories.

[35:15] Dr. Roberta Richards: It is both fragile and powerful.

[35:18] Dr. Roberta Richards: You live in that tension.

[35:20] Dr. Roberta Richards: You feel the ice moving far below you even as you stand on it.

[35:25] Dr. Roberta Richards: And when you're down there, you can feel it under your feet.

[35:28] Dr. Roberta Richards: Creaking, swaying, pushing against itself.

[35:32] Dr. Roberta Richards: There is movement.

[35:34] Dr. Roberta Richards: It's dynamic, it's shifting and it's melting.

[35:38] Dr. Roberta Richards: It's going towards that cliff you were talking about.

[35:41] Elaine Tuck: You've been before.

[35:43] Dr. Roberta Richards: It's where I spend every sabbatical.

[35:46] Dr. Roberta Richards: And before my position here, it's where I spent most of my time working on my doctorate.

[35:50] Dr. Roberta Richards: And I think I think I have a hunch that you'll like it.

[35:56] Elaine Tuck: Now you're right.

[35:57] Dr. Roberta Richards: You're right that what we're doing is nearly impossible, and it is at times deeply depressing, deeply frustrating, infuriating even.

[36:07] Elaine Tuck: But if it's all going to melt and our species is going to become extinct, I won't look back on my life and wonder if I could have done more.

[36:14] Dr. Roberta Richards: What good is the work you do in another field if you don't have a planet to do it on?

[36:19] Elaine Tuck: If your children don't have a planet to live on.

[36:21] Dr. Roberta Richards: Uh oh, I don't have children.

[36:23] Elaine Tuck: Well, you're young if you do have.

[36:25] Dr. Roberta Richards: No, I am not going to have children.

[36:28] Elaine Tuck: Understood.

[36:29] Dr. Roberta Richards: I never wanted children either.

[36:31] Elaine Tuck: I understand what you're saying.

[36:33] Dr. Roberta Richards: It's not that I haven't thought about it that way.

[36:35] Elaine Tuck: I want you to come learn about ice.

[36:38] Dr. Roberta Richards: Just come and see.

[36:39] Elaine Tuck: It's just a semester.

[36:40] Dr. Roberta Richards: It doesn't have to become your whole life.

[36:42] Elaine Tuck: Just see what you think.

[36:45] Dr. Roberta Richards: Antarctica.

[36:47] Elaine Tuck: Oh, but uh, so does it cost money?

[36:50] Dr. Roberta Richards: My family doesn't pay my tuition.

[36:53] Elaine Tuck: Oh no, I'll be paying you.

[36:59] Dr. Roberta Richards: Uh- I see.

[37:00] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'll send you an email with all the information, forms, all that.

[37:03] Dr. Roberta Richards: Well, you can think about it.

[37:05] Elaine Tuck: No, I'll go.

[37:05] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'll go.

[37:06] Elaine Tuck: Oh.

[37:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: But why wouldn't I go?

[37:09] Elaine Tuck: This seems like something I should do.

[37:11] Dr. Roberta Richards: I should go.

[37:12] Elaine Tuck: Wonderful.

[37:13] Dr. Roberta Richards: All this because of a paper on coastal erosion?

[37:16] Elaine Tuck: Not just the paper.

[37:18] Dr. Roberta Richards: Your mind.

[37:19] Elaine Tuck: Okay.

[37:21] Dr. Roberta Richards: Thank you, Dr. Richards.

[37:22] Elaine Tuck: Berta.

[37:24] Dr. Roberta Richards: Oh, I can't call you Berta.

[37:25] Elaine Tuck: Why not?

[37:26] Dr. Roberta Richards: I wasn't brought up that way.

[37:28] Elaine Tuck: Where are you from?

[37:29] Dr. Roberta Richards: Iowa.

[37:30] Elaine Tuck: Okay, Iowa.

[37:31] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm gonna call you Iowa until you call me Berta.

[37:34] Elaine Tuck: Understood.

[37:36] Dr. Roberta Richards: Yes, Dr. Richards.

[37:39] Dr. Roberta Richards: You pay your tuition, I presume.

[37:42] Elaine Tuck: Uh, me and a bit of academic scholarship.

[37:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: Yeah, good on you.

[37:46] Dr. Roberta Richards: Well, you're gonna spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to fund your research, so get used to it.

[37:52] *Lights shift back to the cell.*

[37:58] Beth Whitney: So you've been to Antarctica?

[38:00] Elaine Tuck: Uh yes, I spent almost a year total.

[38:03] Elaine Tuck: I went with my professor in undergrad on her sabbatical.

[38:07] Elaine Tuck: And after that I just kept going back any chance I got.

[38:10] Beth Whitney: Wow.

[38:11] Elaine Tuck: Was it incredible?

[38:13] Beth Whitney: Otherworldly.

[38:15] Elaine Tuck: So quiet.

[38:17] Beth Whitney: So quiet it was loud.

[38:19] Elaine Tuck: The quiet wouldn't let me go to sleep at night.

[38:22] Beth Whitney: No white noise, no nothing.

[38:24] Elaine Tuck: You can hear the ice under your feet.

[38:27] Beth Whitney: It's like all of nature is speaking to you.

[38:30] Elaine Tuck: That's all I want to do.

[38:32] Beth Whitney: What you do?

[38:33] Elaine Tuck: Be a researcher, but I can't get a grant to save my life.

[38:37] Beth Whitney: Oh, and a male colleague of mine from college just got the grant that I applied for, and I'm sorry, he's a shit researcher.

[38:45] Elaine Tuck: I was like, him?

[38:47] Beth Whitney: Seriously?

[38:49] Elaine Tuck: This is like the guy who's worked as I always double checked, and he was always off.

[38:54] Beth Whitney: It's always the men.

[38:55] Elaine Tuck: It's always the men!

[38:58] Beth Whitney: His proposal was strange too.

[39:01] Elaine Tuck: The title was something about geoengineering and ocean de-acidification, which I don't really know much about, but geoengineering.

[39:10] Beth Whitney: Really?

[39:11] Elaine Tuck: Yeah.

[39:12] Beth Whitney: He just told me the title.

[39:13] Elaine Tuck: I didn't read it or anything.

[39:15] Beth Whitney: And he got a w what grant was this?

[39:18] Elaine Tuck: It was an NSF grant.

[39:20] Beth Whitney: What?

[39:22] Elaine Tuck: A federal grant?

[39:24] Beth Whitney: Yeah.

[39:25] Elaine Tuck: Huh.

[39:26] Beth Whitney: That's a bit unheard of.

[39:29] Elaine Tuck: Why?

[39:30] Beth Whitney: Well, that's a bit of a dangerous road to take.

[39:33] Elaine Tuck: What is geoengineering?

[39:35] Nora Travers: *looks lost, embarrassed, tries to recover.*

[39:39] Beth Whitney: Oh, oh, sure.

[39:40] Nora Travers: Because geoengineering.

[39:42] Beth Whitney: Well, you know what it is, right?

[39:45] Nora Travers: Um, not really, no.

[39:48] Beth Whitney: I know it's like creating weather.

[39:50] Nora Travers: It's it my mentor always described it as a climate intervention.

[39:55] Beth Whitney: It's been, you know, murmured about for decades as a possible solution, a large-scale deliberate intervention into our climate system.

[40:04] Nora Travers: Geoengineer our way back to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

[40:09] Beth Whitney: How would we do that?

[40:10] Nora Travers: Well, it's fascinating, really.

[40:13] Beth Whitney: There's so many different ways to go about it.

[40:15] Nora Travers: SRM, of course, being the one that's talked about the most.

[40:19] Beth Whitney: SRM.

[40:20] Nora Travers: It's solar radiation management.

[40:22] Beth Whitney: The idea is based on the natural effect of a volcanic eruption when sulfur is dispersed into the air and there's a general cooling effect on the planet, right?

[40:32] Nora Travers: Well, the thought is that we can mimic this.

[40:35] Beth Whitney: Spray sulfur dioxide high into the stratosphere, which would then, of course, be converted into aerosol and reflect the sun's radiation back into space and cool the planet.

[40:47] Nora Travers: Huh.

[40:47] Beth Whitney: Well, why is it dangerous?

[40:50] Nora Travers: Oh well, it's always been talked about as a last resort, a last ditch attempt, you know, because the best way to cool the planet would be to reverse our greenhouse gas emissions, not just cut, but reverse, right?

[41:03] Beth Whitney: Right.

[41:04] Nora Travers: Right.

[41:04] Elaine Tuck: So this, um, we've never wanted to go there.

[41:11] Nora Travers: In my field, there's been a talk of building up sills around glaciers to keep them from melting.

[41:18] Beth Whitney: Projects of that sort could be useful.

[41:21] Nora Travers: I was on a panel a few years ago where we discussed the hypotheticals of geoengineering, and actually, I met Beth there very briefly.

[41:31] Beth Whitney: She's very anti-geoengineering, gave those men a piece of her mind.

[41:37] Nora Travers: But I do find all the ideas really quite fascinating.

[41:43] Beth Whitney: It's terrifying.

[41:44] Nora Travers: The more power we have as humans, the power we have as humans to destroy, but also to build and the risks involved.

[41:53] Beth Whitney: So what are the risks?

[41:54] Nora Travers: Many.

[41:55] Beth Whitney: Innumerable, endless.

[41:57] Nora Travers: One of them being mall communities, communities.

[42:01] Beth Whitney: No, look, she woke up.

[42:05] Nora Travers: Can't miss an opportunity or a ramp too.

[42:07] Beth Whitney: I didn't want to wake up.

[42:08] Nora Travers: Sorry, Beth.

[42:09] Beth Whitney: It's fine.

[42:10] Beth Whitney: I feel like I haven't really slept in.

[42:13] Beth Whitney: I don't know.

[42:16] Beth Whitney: Why are we talking about geoengineering bullshit?

[42:20] Nora Travers: Nora said a grant she wanted went to a colleague of hers whose proposal was on geoengineering and an a what what what was it?

[42:28] Beth Whitney: Ocean deacidification.

[42:29] Nora Travers: So a federal grant.

[42:33] Elaine Tuck: Oh wow. Could they be any stupider?

[42:39] Beth Whitney: Who?

[42:40] Elaine Tuck: I don't know. Whatever quacks they have on these grant panels.

[42:44] Nora Travers: Geoengineering. We can't engineer a way out of this without reducing carbon emissions.

[42:50] Elaine Tuck: We'd have no idea the kind of impact any large-scale manipulation would have on villages like Varrow.

[42:58] Nora Travers: Like small villages in Alaska. So yeah, we spray out a bunch of aerosols into the air, the planet cools.

[43:05] Elaine Tuck: What happens when we stop? How long are we going to keep that up? And then when it stops, who knows what could happen? Superstorms, floods, it would warm back up like that. It wouldn't harm the it would harm the smallest communities on the planet.

[43:23] Beth Whitney: And probably us too, but they're the ones who'd be sacrificed. Not that anyone cares.

[43:29] Nora Travers: Right.

[43:31] Elaine Tuck: They sit for a moment in somber silence.

[43:34] Elaine Tuck: (hesitates, then decides) We hear a voice.

[43:43] Unknown speaker: Elaine Tuck.

[43:46] Elaine Tuck: Everyone jumps. Fear and panic floods the room.

[43:54] Beth Whitney: Elaine, what where where are they?

[43:54] Elaine Tuck: Shut up.

[43:58] Elaine Tuck: (steals a glance at both the women, nodding to them, then goes through the open door)

[44:04] Beth Whitney: Wh where? Where is she going?

[44:06] Nora Travers: Hell if I know.

[44:09] Beth Whitney: You seem like you do know.

[44:11] Nora Travers: I really don't.

[44:12] Beth Whitney: What was she about to say?

[44:14] Nora Travers: I don't think it applies to you.

[44:16] Beth Whitney: What does that mean?

[44:17] Nora Travers: It means shut up. I'm going to fucking sleep.

[44:20] Beth Whitney: (turns over)

[44:22] Unknown speaker: Lights shift. We hear Audra's voice.

[44:25] Audra: Mommy.

[44:26] Unknown speaker: She tries to wake Beth.

[44:28] Audra: Mommy. Mommy.

[44:31] Unknown speaker: Hi. I have to tell you something.

[44:35] Audra: I have to confess.

[44:37] Unknown speaker: Okay.

[44:38] Audra: What? Are you alright?

[44:40] Unknown speaker: I sent it.

[44:42] Audra: What?

[44:43] Unknown speaker: At school, I got my teacher to help me, and I sent it.

[44:48] Beth Whitney: Sent what, honey?

[44:49] Audra: The letter to my congressman.

[44:52] Beth Whitney: The letter.

[44:53] Audra: The letter about About Hiti. About Barrow.

[44:57] Unknown speaker: Beth is now sitting fully upright, puts her head in her hands.

[45:01] Beth Whitney: Oh shit! Shit! I'm sorry.

[45:03] Audra: Sh what did the letter say? What did it Can you remember exactly what it said?

[45:09] Audra: I said I said Hiti was sick.

[45:12] Beth Whitney: Did you write your last name?

[45:13] Audra: Whitney, yes.

[45:17] Unknown speaker: Is something bad gonna happen?

[45:19] Beth Whitney: No, no, no. Nothing will happen. It's alright. I just didn't. Things are a little scary right now, and I didn't want you to get involved. I didn't want your name anywhere. Most people don't even know I have a daughter.

[45:32] Audra: Why not?

[45:33] Beth Whitney: Because I d just sometimes mommy does some dangerous work.

[45:39] Audra: I'm scared.

[45:40] Beth Whitney: Don't be scared.

[45:41] Audra: Can I go live with my dad if something bad happens?

[45:44] Beth Whitney: Audra?

[45:45] Audra: Can I?

[45:46] Beth Whitney: You don't have a dad. You know this. If something happens, you can stay with Grandman and Grandma and Grandpa.

[45:52] Audra: How can I not have a dad?

[45:53] Beth Whitney: You just don't.

[45:55] Audra: I'm scared.

[45:58] Beth Whitney: Audra, everything is fine. Nothing bad is going to happen. You're going to have to You aren't going to have to leave me. It's okay that you wrote the letter. Everything is fine. Nothing bad is going to happen. Okay?

[46:13] Audra: Okay.

[46:14] Beth Whitney: Now let's go to sleep.

[46:17] Audra: Can I sleep with you?

[46:18] Beth Whitney: Of course, baby. Here.

[46:22] Unknown speaker: Lights shift to an interrogation room.

[46:26] Elaine Tuck: (sits across from Helen, an interrogator) She's in a suit. She is looking at paperwork.

[46:34] Helen: Elaine Elizabeth Tuck.

[46:37] Elaine Tuck: That's you, yes.

[46:40] Helen: Glaciologist, winner of the Galileo Award, Nobel winner, UNESCO Medal, uh Yale graduate PhD candidate, unmarried, no children.

[46:53] Elaine Tuck: Hmm.

[46:54] Helen: That all sound right?

[46:57] Elaine Tuck: I said, does that sound right?

[47:01] Helen: Yes.

[47:03] Helen: Can you explain a bit? Expand on the kind of work you do?

[47:09] Elaine Tuck: Why do you need to know this?

[47:11] Helen: I'm just asking you a few questions. There's a lot to get through.

[47:15] Elaine Tuck: You are just asking me a few questions?

[47:18] Helen: I've been held for seven days.

[47:21] Elaine Tuck: I understand. Would you like water?

[47:24] Elaine Tuck: No, I do not want water.

[47:26] Unknown speaker: Helen goes back to her paperwork.

[47:28] Helen: I'm interested in where your research went from your research to your more political participation. Where this demonstration you did came from and the interview In Time magazine?

[47:41] Elaine Tuck: Yes, I'm wondering when that started and what your intention behind that was.

[47:46] Helen: Well, if you've read the interview, I think you'll know my intention.

[47:49] Elaine Tuck: I'm asking you, I want to hear it from you.

[47:52] Helen: I know how reporters can twist one's words.

[47:55] Elaine Tuck: He didn't he didn't twist anything. Those are my words. All of it. Exactly what I said. I I wanted to educate the public on what's really happening, that it's not some hoax. It's really happening. I I've seen it with my own eyes.

[48:12] Elaine Tuck: I have seen it in the ice. It's all there in that interview. We lifted huge masses of ice from a glacier in Montana and shipped it across the country in the back of a refrigerated truck to DC, and we put it right there in front of the Capitol building for the Congresspeople to pass by it.

[48:33] Elaine Tuck: I had a permit. I just wanted to talk to people about ice. That's all. I just do my work and publish my work, and you can just hope that it's that it's going to do some good and influence some people.

[48:49] Elaine Tuck: I wasn't aware that it would garner me so much attention. It all happened so fast. I I didn't even know I was going to be on the cover.

[48:57] Helen: Well, that was quite a day.

[49:01] Elaine Tuck: The day you see your face on the cover of a magazine that so many people are going to see. I I didn't hate the picture either. Which is a miracle. My my hair always does this swoopy thing. It's it's where it sort of goes off in one direction, like it's magnetic and searching for its source.

[49:18] Helen: Ha ha ha ha.

[49:22] Elaine Tuck: Mostly though, I was proud of how articulate I was. I I get nervous and a bit stuttery, but but on paper, you can't really see that, can you? It's quite liberating. I have to say. I don't know what I why I'm talking about that.

[49:41] Helen: I I tend to talk a lot when I'm

[49:45] Elaine Tuck: What?

[49:46] Helen: Nothing.

[49:48] Elaine Tuck: Scared?

[49:49] Helen: No.

[49:50] Elaine Tuck: I talk a lot when I'm scared.

[49:52] Helen: I was going to say nervous, which is different.

[49:55] Elaine Tuck: How is it different?

[49:57] Helen: I I'm nervous that I'll say something wrong.

[50:00] Elaine Tuck: But I am not afraid of you.

[50:03] Helen: No?

[50:04] Elaine Tuck: No.

[50:05] Helen: Good. I'm here to help you.

[50:09] Helen: I'm here to make you an offer.

[50:12] Unknown speaker: Lights shift.

[50:13] Elaine Tuck: (knocking on a door) Dr. Richards?

[50:18] Elaine Tuck: Dr. Richards, I know you're in there. I just want to talk.

[50:33] Unknown speaker: In all my years, Iowa, I never thought I'd actually hear you call me Berta.

[50:37] Berta: Desperate times.

[50:39] Unknown speaker: They look at each other.

[50:42] Elaine Tuck: Where have you been?

[50:43] Berta: Where the hell have you been?

[50:45] Elaine Tuck: I was away.

[50:46] Berta: Doing what?

[50:47] Elaine Tuck: You you stopped responding to my calls.

[50:49] Berta: You never called about the Galileo Award.

[50:52] Elaine Tuck: Congratulations, I'm sorry, I've just been What's this?

[50:56] Elaine Tuck: (shakes a magazine in Berta's face)

[50:58] Berta: (just looks at her)

[51:00] Elaine Tuck: The new climate science? What is this bullshit, Berta?

[51:05] Berta: What is it?

[51:05] Elaine Tuck: It doesn't make any sense. You shouldn't be here.

[51:08] Berta: What does that mean?

[51:09] Elaine Tuck: You should go. I really can't say anything else.

[51:11] Berta: When I first saw it online, I thought this must be a different Dr. Roberta Richards. This can't be my Dr. Roberta Richards. There's no way. My Dr. Richards would never publish anything so anti-science. So backwards, so full of shit. It's not even well written. It's dry, it's clinical, it's i i it's everything you hate.

[51:38] Berta: Did someone make you do this?

[51:41] Elaine Tuck: Is someone are you okay?

[51:44] Berta: Get in your car and go.

[51:46] Elaine Tuck: And you should be careful. These awards, the papers, the recognition, it is dangerous for you.

[51:51] Berta: What's dangerous?

[51:52] Elaine Tuck: Who? Be careful. Leave the country now. Get far away.

[51:56] Berta: I'm not going anywhere.

[51:57] Elaine Tuck: Can can I come in? Can we talk?

[51:59] Berta: You can't come in. You can't.

[52:01] Elaine Tuck: No. I don't understand this. I don't understand it at all.

[52:03] Berta: I'm sorry, I can't say more.

[52:06] Elaine Tuck: Well, the can I can I just ask?

[52:10] Berta: Do you believe this?

[52:12] Elaine Tuck: Do you believe what you wrote? You you really think that carbon emissions caused by human activity are now on the decline?

[52:21] Berta: To repair any damage made to our planet, we need to move forward using technology and innovation.

[52:29] Berta: And any doomsday alarmist rhetoric is old science and old thought. We need to move forward into the new world where we can feel confident our planet is flourishing and thriving.

[52:43] Elaine Tuck: What does that even mean?

[52:46] Elaine Tuck: Do you believe this, Dr. Richards?

[52:50] Berta: Yes.

[52:52] Unknown speaker: Lights shift back to the interrogation room.

[52:57] Elaine Tuck: No, no, there is nothing that you can offer that will make me stop my work. This is all that I do. I do my research, I write about it, I publish it. That is what I do.

[53:08] Elaine Tuck: I don't even think of myself as particularly active politically. I I am just publishing my findings. That is my job. It's all I have done and what I will continue to do.

[53:18] Helen: It's not all you've done.

[53:20] Elaine Tuck: I made one statement. Yes, I did one political act that was just meant to educate, that's all.

[53:28] Helen: I mean, can I promise to not do anything like that again?

[53:33] Elaine Tuck: But continue to do my research.

[53:35] Helen: And publish your work?

[53:37] Elaine Tuck: No.

[53:39] Helen: Then no, I'm I'm sorry, but I I cannot comply with your request.

[53:44] Helen: I see. I am sorry.

[53:47] Helen: What about ten million?

[53:49] Elaine Tuck: I'm sorry.

[53:50] Helen: Ten million dollars, would that do?

[53:54] Elaine Tuck: What would that do?

[53:55] Helen: It would you aren't really going to give me ten million dollars.

[54:00] Helen: Yes, we will. Stop your work. Stop publishing. Stop working. Retire.

[54:09] Elaine Tuck: Ten million to not publish my work. You you aren't. That's it. I would I would just have to stop working.

[54:18] Helen: Yes. And we'd need you to make a statement.

[54:21] Helen: We'd monitor your whereabouts, but for the most part, you'd be free to do as you please. You could retire comfortably.

[54:28] Elaine Tuck: Make a statement?

[54:29] Helen: Yes. Something to do with a new climate science?

[54:36] Elaine Tuck: Something like that.

[54:37] Helen: So you agree?

[54:38] Elaine Tuck: No, I did not say I agree.

[54:41] Helen: I see. I would disappear, essentially.

[54:47] Elaine Tuck: I wouldn't call it that, no.

[54:51] Helen: Thirteen million?

[54:53] Elaine Tuck: What?

[54:55] Helen: An additional three million.

[54:58] Elaine Tuck: Thirteen million.

[55:04] Unknown speaker: So that's what you offered Dr. Richards is $13 million and she took it.

[55:11] Helen: I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[55:13] Unknown speaker: Yes, you are. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

[55:16] Helen: No, I don't.

[55:17] Unknown speaker: If I can figure out that this is what you're doing, buying off scientists, silencing us, making the whole field go quiet. If I can figure it out, you'd better know that others are going to figure it out too. This isn't going to work.

[55:33] Helen: I really don't know what you're talking about.

[55:35] Helen: I have nothing to do with whomever you're talking about.

[55:39] Helen: Although I assume if I was, it'd be pretty bad for them that they spoke with you about it.

[55:45] Elaine Tuck: No, no, she did not speak to me.

[55:48] Elaine Tuck: I said I figured it out.

[55:49] Helen: Okay.

[55:51] Elaine Tuck: So the money.

[55:54] Helen: She didn't talk to me.

[55:55] Elaine Tuck: She didn't.

[55:56] Helen: She didn't say anything.

[55:57] Elaine Tuck: Okay.

[55:59] Unknown speaker: Let's go back to the matter at hand.

[56:02] Helen: Will you accept this offer?

[56:06] Elaine Tuck: Do you feel that it isn't generous?

[56:08] Helen: No, it's it's obviously generous. I don't know where else you'd get money like this.

[56:13] Elaine Tuck: Of course, but it it's not about the money.

[56:16] Helen: What is it about?

[56:19] Elaine Tuck: The work. It's it's about what I do. This is what I do. I I want to help people.

[56:25] Helen: There's no other way to help people.

[56:27] Elaine Tuck: You don't understand. You don't do what I do.

[56:31] Elaine Tuck: You don't know how hard and how long I have worked to get where I am.

[56:35] Elaine Tuck: You have no idea how few and far between the opportunities I have are. You have no idea.

[56:41] Helen: Well, I actually do.

[56:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: I was going to be a researcher. My background is in chemistry, which you'd think there'd be research opportunities. Bombs and war and whatnot, but it got too frustrating. A year out of undergrad, I gave all that up and went into management and then politics. But what I'm trying to say is that I understand where you're coming from. I understand that it is a loss. But I need to move on, so I need a decision from you. I'm trying to imagine a life without my work. I can't take it. No, I can't do it. You won't take 13 million dollars. Really? Really? What is it with you people? Is your work so important? Do you think so highly of yourself that if you, a single individual, stop doing your work, that it's all going to fall apart?

No one will ever go look at a glacier again. Really? You know what it is? Everything you've done here, hold us hostage and try to force this offer, or whatever you want to call it on me. Everything you are for is everything I am against. So no. I won't accept your money, and I am not going to cave to the bullshit you are trying here. Whatever the hell this place is. No. No. That's your answer. Yes.

[58:30] Helen: Then unfortunately, I am no longer here to help you.

[58:30] Helen: Wait!

[58:37] Unknown speaker: Yes.

[58:40] Unknown speaker: Where are you going?

[58:42] Unknown speaker: Have you changed your mind?

[58:43] Helen: No, no, no. I'm just I w where are you?

[58:47] Unknown speaker: You haven't changed your mind.

[58:53] Unknown speaker: Helen looks at Elaine almost pityingly and then exits, leaving Elaine very alone in the fluorescent light.

[59:01] Elaine Tuck: She is very scared and is quiet for a long time.

[59:05] Blackout.

[59:07] Unknown speaker: Boots are heard.

[59:09] Unknown speaker: A scream.

[59:10] Unknown speaker: That is quickly silenced.

[59:13] Unknown speaker: Intermission.

[59:25] Gabi The Artist: I think with that last scene, um, the song will be very appropriate. So um, we're gonna need you guys, actually. So when we say, if I don't got you, just need you to say, I got myself. So if I don't got you, myself, if I don't got you, I got myself if I don't got you, I got myself, if I don't got you.

[59:31] Audience: Got myself.

[59:50] Gabi The Artist: Very good. All right.

[1:00:21] Gabi The Artist: Now I realize you're gonna come in back. And I can see I told me that now that you call now that you go I for you when I need someone to talk to you when I need someone to hold me down.

[1:01:01] Gabi The Artist: I guess it should be myself, and if I don't got you, I got myself.

[1:01:06] Gabi The Artist: I guess it should be myself, and if I don't got you, I got myself.

[1:01:30] Gabi The Artist: And even when I'm with you, you're not there king up on my broken pieces.

[1:01:42] Gabi The Artist: This is now I need it, some wanna talk to you when I need it, some wanna put me down.

[1:02:14] Gabi The Artist: I get to share bear myself, and if I don't got you, I got myself, I get to share me in myself, and if I don't got you, I got myself, look at me now, you're my own, nobody can stop me.

[1:02:32] Gabi The Artist: Look at me here, I don't belong, don't you see?

[1:02:38] Gabi The Artist: I don't need you as I get myself I don't need you I don't even see when I need someone to talk to you when I need it, some wanna hold me down.

[1:03:04] Gabi The Artist: I guess it's your fear myself, and if I don't got you.

[1:03:08] Gabi The Artist: I got myself.

[1:03:10] Gabi The Artist: I can't share me and myself and if I don't got you, I got myself.

[1:03:16] Gabi The Artist: I guess it's just me and myself, and if I don't got you, I've got myself.

[1:03:22] Gabi The Artist: I guess it's shell me and myself and if I don't got you.

[1:03:26] Gabi The Artist: I got myself.

[1:03:27] Gabi The Artist: Nice, nice, nice, nice.

[1:03:36] Unknown speaker: Lights up on the cell.

[1:03:40] Unknown speaker: What the hell do you think is happening?

[1:03:42] Unknown speaker: I told you I don't know.

[1:03:45] Unknown speaker: I don't believe you.

[1:03:46] Unknown speaker: Yeah, I know you don't. You're just sitting there, you're clearly thinking about something, and I wanna know.

[1:03:51] Unknown speaker: I think I have the right to know.

[1:04:00] Unknown speaker: You wanna know what I was thinking about?

[1:04:00] Unknown speaker: Yes.

[1:04:00] Unknown speaker: Honestly.

[1:04:00] Unknown speaker: I was thinking about Pop Tarts.

[1:04:07] Unknown speaker: Pop Tarts.

[1:04:16] Unknown speaker: Yes.

[1:04:18] Unknown speaker: Oh, now I'm hungry.

[1:04:20] Audra: Audra loves them.

[1:04:22] Unknown speaker: And I eat them too a lot. She gets mad at me when I have too many.

[1:04:26] Unknown speaker: Audra, is that your daughter?

[1:04:28] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[1:04:29] Unknown speaker: What else does she like?

[1:04:31] Unknown speaker: Audra?

[1:04:31] Unknown speaker: Yeah, or or what's she like?

[1:04:35] Unknown speaker: Or you know, we don't we don't we don't have to.

[1:04:38] Unknown speaker: She's getting tall.

[1:04:40] Unknown speaker: I think she's going to be taller than me.

[1:04:43] Unknown speaker: She likes music.

[1:04:44] Unknown speaker: The Jackson 5.

[1:04:45] Unknown speaker: That old song.

[1:04:46] Unknown speaker: Baby C.

[1:04:48] Unknown speaker: It's easy.

[1:04:48] Unknown speaker: That she plays it over and over, dances.

[1:04:53] Unknown speaker: I can't really stand that high little voice.

[1:04:57] Unknown speaker: You don't like Michael Jackson?

[1:04:59] Unknown speaker: I don't like the little high voice in the Jackson 5s.

[1:05:03] Unknown speaker: That's it.

[1:05:08] Unknown speaker: Oh, I loved that old thriller video.

[1:05:10] Unknown speaker: Oh yeah, that's good.

[1:05:12] Sarah: Sarah likes MJ.

[1:05:14] Unknown speaker: Sarah, that's uh my girlfriend, yeah.

[1:05:18] Unknown speaker: Uh, how long have you been together?

[1:05:21] Unknown speaker: About three years now.

[1:05:26] Unknown speaker: Does are you uh does Audra have Oh no I'm no not married or anything?

[1:05:34] Unknown speaker: Must be tough.

[1:05:35] Unknown speaker: Better than the alternative being married to him.

[1:05:38] Unknown speaker: Oh.

[1:05:39] Unknown speaker: Way better.

[1:05:41] Unknown speaker: I see.

[1:05:43] Unknown speaker: So what does that mean?

[1:05:45] Unknown speaker: I'm not about to tell you my life story, okay?

[1:05:47] Unknown speaker: Yeah, no, no, sure.

[1:05:48] Unknown speaker: I was just I was just curious.

[1:05:55] Unknown speaker: I'm just bored, honestly.

[1:05:58] Unknown speaker: I'm kind of bored.

[1:05:59] Unknown speaker: Want me to remind you of the scary situation we're in?

[1:06:02] Unknown speaker: Scared the shit out of you, so you aren't bored.

[1:06:05] Unknown speaker: No, yeah, sorry.

[1:06:07] Unknown speaker: I'm fucking bored too.

[1:06:12] Unknown speaker: Oh laughing feels good.

[1:06:17] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[1:06:18] Unknown speaker: Oh.

[1:06:19] Unknown speaker: I miss Elaine.

[1:06:22] Unknown speaker: You know what? Me too.

[1:06:27] Unknown speaker: Her stupid voice on and on and she made it less boring.

[1:06:32] Unknown speaker: I know.

[1:06:33] Unknown speaker: I'm boring.

[1:06:33] Unknown speaker: No, no, no, no. I didn't mean that.

[1:06:35] Unknown speaker: Well, you're boring too.

[1:06:42] Unknown speaker: It's been a whole day, right?

[1:06:44] Unknown speaker: Twor hours.

[1:06:48] Unknown speaker: This this is insane.

[1:06:50] Unknown speaker: I mean, people are gonna know we're missing.

[1:06:52] Unknown speaker: People will be looking for us.

[1:06:54] Unknown speaker: People are gonna find out.

[1:06:57] Unknown speaker: You sure you can't tell me anything?

[1:07:00] Unknown speaker: Look, Elaine said that she knew something, and you won't tell me.

[1:07:06] Unknown speaker: Elaine told me a story. Her mentor went missing for months.

[1:07:10] Unknown speaker: Elaine had reached out to her and didn't hear back.

[1:07:13] Unknown speaker: Finally did, saying she'd gone away on a research trip, which makes sense.

[1:07:18] Unknown speaker: But then she had no communication whatsoever.

[1:07:21] Unknown speaker: No one could tell Elaine anything about where she was, what the research trip was about.

[1:07:26] Unknown speaker: Then she saw a piece she published, reversing her position on climate change.

[1:07:32] Unknown speaker: Her name is Roberto Richards.

[1:07:34] Unknown speaker: She's a prestigious researcher, a very outspoken, politically active.

[1:07:39] Unknown speaker: Dr. Richards published this paper.

[1:07:42] Unknown speaker: It makes no sense.

[1:07:44] Unknown speaker: Unless something like this happened to her.

[1:07:47] Unknown speaker: We think that's what they're doing.

[1:07:51] Unknown speaker: We think that's what they're going to make us do.

[1:07:54] Unknown speaker: Reverse our position.

[1:07:56] Unknown speaker: You would do that.

[1:08:01] Unknown speaker: I don't know.

[1:08:03] Unknown speaker: You, Elizabeth Whitney, would reverse her position on climate change.

[1:08:11] Unknown speaker: I'm sorry, but that's crazy.

[1:08:13] Unknown speaker: If I agreed, if I did, maybe I could flee the country, rally the troops somewhere else to fight this.

[1:08:19] Unknown speaker: You think that they'll let us leave the country after this?

[1:08:22] Unknown speaker: You're the one who said none of this seemed legal, that nothing seems to be operating under rule of law.

[1:08:27] Unknown speaker: I just mean Elaine got out, the professor before her got out.

[1:08:32] Unknown speaker: We don't know what happened to either of them.

[1:08:34] Unknown speaker: What else could have happened?

[1:08:36] Unknown speaker: I don't know.

[1:08:41] Unknown speaker: Can we like jump the guard when we go to the bathroom?

[1:08:46] Unknown speaker: No.

[1:08:46] Unknown speaker: Oh come on, come on. We can do this together.

[1:08:48] Unknown speaker: Let's think about this.

[1:08:49] Unknown speaker: Elaine didn't tell you about her grand scheme to get out?

[1:08:52] Unknown speaker: After they took Yolanda, the professor before you.

[1:08:57] Unknown speaker: We hatched this stupid plan.

[1:08:59] Unknown speaker: Elaine was going to try to talk to the guard, you know, how she can talk, and I snuck out behind him, running looking for an exit.

[1:09:07] Unknown speaker: She was essentially sacrificing herself.

[1:09:12] Unknown speaker: There are three more guards down the hall.

[1:09:15] Unknown speaker: There are more rooms.

[1:09:16] Unknown speaker: I didn't see an exit.

[1:09:18] Unknown speaker: This isn't a movie.

[1:09:19] Unknown speaker: We aren't going to get out.

[1:09:21] Unknown speaker: So then what happened when it didn't work?

[1:09:24] Unknown speaker: Um hopefully I don't have a concussion.

[1:09:32] Unknown speaker: I've had concussions before.

[1:09:34] Unknown speaker: I don't think it's as bad as that.

[1:09:37] Unknown speaker: No slurred speech.

[1:09:38] Unknown speaker: I feel fatigue, but of course, that's probably from just being here.

[1:09:44] Unknown speaker: So they hit you.

[1:09:45] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[1:09:46] Unknown speaker: With their hands or Jesus.

[1:09:48] Unknown speaker: I'm sorry.

[1:09:49] Unknown speaker: I just want to know what what they you know.

[1:09:52] Unknown speaker: They hit me on the head with a baton.

[1:09:56] Unknown speaker: I blacked out, and next thing I knew I was back in here.

[1:09:59] Unknown speaker: But I had bruises in my legs, too.

[1:10:02] Unknown speaker: Okay.

[1:10:03] Unknown speaker: Elaine, what's hid in the stomach.

[1:10:05] Unknown speaker: Well, I was out.

[1:10:07] Unknown speaker: But she's pretty tough.

[1:10:11] Unknown speaker: She never complained.

[1:10:12] Unknown speaker: She just told me about all the bones she'd broken while on research trips, naming each and every one.

[1:10:18] Unknown speaker: Jesus, it went on forever.

[1:10:24] Unknown speaker: Anyway, it isn't worth it.

[1:10:27] Unknown speaker: It won't work.

[1:10:28] Unknown speaker: We just have to wait.

[1:10:29] Unknown speaker: I don't want to wait.

[1:10:31] Unknown speaker: I don't want you to get me beat up again.

[1:10:33] Unknown speaker: Just stay put.

[1:10:34] Unknown speaker: You haven't even done anything.

[1:10:36] Unknown speaker: They don't have anything on you.

[1:10:39] Unknown speaker: Except publish this book, I guess.

[1:10:41] Unknown speaker: It's hardly on the same level.

[1:10:43] Unknown speaker: On the same level as your work?

[1:10:44] Unknown speaker: Me and Elaine, and yeah.

[1:10:46] Unknown speaker: That's that's shitty of you to say.

[1:10:49] Unknown speaker: What?

[1:10:50] Unknown speaker: You should be relieved.

[1:10:51] Unknown speaker: If you'd done more, you'd be worse off.

[1:10:54] Unknown speaker: If there were any grant money available, any research money at all, I would have already been doing groundbreaking work.

[1:11:00] Unknown speaker: I've done a lot of work just within the confines of my aquarium.

[1:11:04] Unknown speaker: Oh, really?

[1:11:06] Unknown speaker: Like sea star wasting.

[1:11:08] Unknown speaker: Do you know what that is?

[1:11:10] Unknown speaker: Why would I know anything about marine biology?

[1:11:14] Unknown speaker: Sea stars are dying.

[1:11:16] Unknown speaker: They're turning white and losing control of their water vascular systems and deflating.

[1:11:21] Unknown speaker: Their arms literally rip off and walk away from their bodies, and no one knows why.

[1:11:26] Unknown speaker: We lost 95% off of the Northern California coast just last year.

[1:11:32] Unknown speaker: And sea stars are intertidal, are a keystone species.

[1:11:36] Unknown speaker: So the entire ecosystem can be hugely impacted by their loss.

[1:11:41] Unknown speaker: And I figured that the answer is probably in their blood, but no one has ever looked at sea stars' blood because no one cares about invertebrates, so no one knows what to look for.

[1:11:50] Unknown speaker: So I begged and I begged just for a little little money from the research center of the aquarium so I could run blood samples on healthy ones so that we had something to compare them to, you know?

[1:12:00] Unknown speaker: And so now, whenever animal wastes on our watch, we can compare the blood and learn from it for next time.

[1:12:08] Unknown speaker: I did that.

[1:12:10] Unknown speaker: I made that happen.

[1:12:13] Unknown speaker: Okay, well, it sounds sort of lame now that I'm saying it out loud.

[1:12:16] Unknown speaker: It's not lame.

[1:12:17] Unknown speaker: I mean, compared to what you know.

[1:12:20] Unknown speaker: I was making the most of what I had.

[1:12:23] Unknown speaker: It was small, but I was trying.

[1:12:26] Unknown speaker: I was trying so fucking hard.

[1:12:30] Unknown speaker: You're doing great.

[1:12:32] Unknown speaker: I was too hard before.

[1:12:35] Unknown speaker: I didn't mean to say you aren't doing great.

[1:12:38] Unknown speaker: I don't know what's happening to me.

[1:12:40] Unknown speaker: If I'd met you at a conference or somewhere in the real world, and you told me that story, I would have said, Do you know anything about soil and hired you on the spot?

[1:12:40] Unknown speaker: Seriously.

[1:12:40] Unknown speaker: I would have said I'm a fast learner.

[1:12:58] Unknown speaker: You're doing good.

[1:13:01] Unknown speaker: Thanks.

[1:13:03] Unknown speaker: We hear a voice.

[1:13:08] Elizabeth Whitney: Both jump.

[1:13:14] Beth Whitney: Be good.

[1:13:15] Unknown speaker: I'll find you.

[1:13:18] Unknown speaker: Can I?

[1:13:19] Unknown speaker: They reach for a fast embrace at the same time.

[1:13:22] Unknown speaker: Bang on the door.

[1:13:25] Unknown speaker: Bye.

[1:13:26] Unknown speaker: See you soon.

[1:13:30] Unknown speaker: In the interrogation room.

[1:13:33] Dr. Roberta Richards: Alright.

[1:13:33] Dr. Roberta Richards: Elizabeth Whitney.

[1:13:35] Dr. Roberta Richards: Doctor.

[1:13:35] Dr. Roberta Richards: Yes.

[1:13:36] Dr. Roberta Richards: Dr. Whitney.

[1:13:37] Dr. Roberta Richards: Alright.

[1:13:38] Dr. Roberta Richards: I want to start off getting the list of names of who you've spoken to.

[1:13:43] Dr. Roberta Richards: About what?

[1:13:45] Dr. Roberta Richards: Your work.

[1:13:46] Dr. Roberta Richards: About the superbug.

[1:13:47] Elizabeth Whitney: Yes, exactly.

[1:13:49] Elizabeth Whitney: I have been in the office of every member of Congress, and I've met with the Board of Environmental Issues in the state, which was no help at all.

[1:13:57] Elizabeth Whitney: I believe you have all those names, so I'm not sure why I'd need to list them.

[1:14:02] Dr. Roberta Richards: And I see here you tried to have a meeting with the vice president?

[1:14:05] Elizabeth Whitney: I did.

[1:14:06] Elizabeth Whitney: It was not successful.

[1:14:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: Right.

[1:14:09] Dr. Roberta Richards: Good.

[1:14:10] Dr. Roberta Richards: So someone you spoke to tried to send reporters and medical help to Barrow, Alaska.

[1:14:17] Elizabeth Whitney: What?

[1:14:19] Elizabeth Whitney: Who?

[1:14:20] Dr. Roberta Richards: Your alarmist rhetoric is creating panic that is unnecessary.

[1:14:24] Elizabeth Whitney: You should be panicked.

[1:14:25] Elizabeth Whitney: It's real.

[1:14:26] Elizabeth Whitney: It's happening.

[1:14:27] Elizabeth Whitney: It's only affecting a small area of the world.

[1:14:29] Elizabeth Whitney: It'll die down.

[1:14:30] Elizabeth Whitney: There's no need to die down.

[1:14:32] Elizabeth Whitney: What are you fucking talking about?

[1:14:35] Elizabeth Whitney: It's a remote area.

[1:14:36] Elizabeth Whitney: That small tribe are the only humans within a hundred miles of the area.

[1:14:41] Dr. Roberta Richards: So you let them die.

[1:14:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: That's your idea of containing the disease?

[1:14:47] Elizabeth Whitney: I didn't say that.

[1:14:50] Dr. Roberta Richards: So what's your plan?

[1:14:52] Dr. Roberta Richards: Also, there are 35 different species of mosquitoes in Alaska.

[1:14:56] Dr. Roberta Richards: We don't know much about it yet, but I am almost certain it will travel.

[1:15:00] Elizabeth Whitney: Believe me when I say that it is being contained.

[1:15:03] Dr. Roberta Richards: Oh, believe the person who has taken me hostage.

[1:15:06] Dr. Roberta Richards: Let me get back to my point.

[1:15:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: I know the only thing you care about is your precious oil drilling.

[1:15:11] Dr. Roberta Richards: Drilling oil, money.

[1:15:13] Dr. Roberta Richards: That's all you people care about.

[1:15:15] Elizabeth Whitney: Alarmist rhetoric.

[1:15:17] Elizabeth Whitney: Inciting chaos.

[1:15:18] Elizabeth Whitney: This is what you're doing.

[1:15:20] Elizabeth Whitney: This is what needs to stop.

[1:15:24] Dr. Roberta Richards: You know what? Go ahead.

[1:15:25] Dr. Roberta Richards: Go ahead and drill away.

[1:15:28] Dr. Roberta Richards: Release carbon into the atmosphere, release methane.

[1:15:31] Dr. Roberta Richards: Let the more permafrost melt, kill an environment that is trying to heal itself but can't.

[1:15:38] Dr. Roberta Richards: Let your people die.

[1:15:39] Dr. Roberta Richards: Go ahead.

[1:15:40] Dr. Roberta Richards: Listen, quiet.

[1:15:42] Dr. Roberta Richards: Here is our proposal.

[1:15:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: We will send you away for six months on a research trip with a team of your own.

[1:15:49] Dr. Roberta Richards: You'll come back from this research trip and publish a paper.

[1:15:52] Dr. Roberta Richards: Your findings have been wrong.

[1:15:55] Dr. Roberta Richards: Carbon emissions are on the decline.

[1:15:58] Dr. Roberta Richards: Human activity is not causing climate change.

[1:16:01] Dr. Roberta Richards: You just have to publish these findings and stop your work.

[1:16:11] Elizabeth Whitney: So many things wrong with this.

[1:16:22] Elizabeth Whitney: And you really think people won't find out?

[1:16:25] Elizabeth Whitney: It's suspicion that I've published it.

[1:16:27] Dr. Roberta Richards: That's up to you to be as convincing as possible.

[1:16:31] Dr. Roberta Richards: And if I don't happen to Elaine.

[1:16:43] Elizabeth Whitney: Who?

[1:16:44] Dr. Roberta Richards: Elaine.

[1:16:45] Dr. Roberta Richards: Elaine Tuck.

[1:16:47] Dr. Roberta Richards: Why do you think I would tell you what happened to her?

[1:16:49] Dr. Roberta Richards: Is this the same offer you made her?

[1:16:51] Dr. Roberta Richards: The same offer you made Roberta Richards?

[1:16:51] Elizabeth Whitney: Roberta Richards.

[1:16:59] Dr. Roberta Richards: You think it's good for Roberta Richards that you just mentioned her name to me.

[1:17:04] Dr. Roberta Richards: Do you think if Elaine were alive, it would be good for her that you just mentioned Roberta Richards to me?

[1:17:11] Dr. Roberta Richards: You might want to think before you speak.

[1:17:18] Elizabeth Whitney: So she isn't alive.

[1:17:20] Dr. Roberta Richards: She might be.

[1:17:22] Dr. Roberta Richards: She might have taken our offer and no longer be here.

[1:17:25] Dr. Roberta Richards: Or she may have refused our offer and so was shot behind the compound.

[1:17:31] Dr. Roberta Richards: Her family may think she died falling into a crevice near the Arctic Circle.

[1:17:37] Elizabeth Whitney: So that's what you'll do if I say no?

[1:17:40] Dr. Roberta Richards: Shoot me?

[1:17:41] Dr. Roberta Richards: Remind me, how many lawmakers did Audra speak to?

[1:17:48] Elizabeth Whitney: What?

[1:17:49] Elizabeth Whitney: About her friend?

[1:17:50] Elizabeth Whitney: Her Inuit friend?

[1:17:53] Dr. Roberta Richards: No, no, no.

[1:17:54] Dr. Roberta Richards: She didn't speak to anyone.

[1:17:56] Elizabeth Whitney: Oh.

[1:17:56] Elizabeth Whitney: Her accounts are in this report.

[1:17:59] Dr. Roberta Richards: That's I wrote any report you're reading.

[1:18:02] Elizabeth Whitney: She didn't write anything.

[1:18:03] Elizabeth Whitney: She's seven, for God's sake.

[1:18:06] Elizabeth Whitney: She doesn't know anything.

[1:18:07] Dr. Roberta Richards: She knows all about your work.

[1:18:08] Dr. Roberta Richards: There's a letter here.

[1:18:10] Dr. Roberta Richards: Dear Congressman.

[1:18:11] Elizabeth Whitney: She was just trying to do something good to save her friends.

[1:18:15] Elizabeth Whitney: She knows I'm trying to save life, so who is Vincent Collins to you?

[1:18:22] Dr. Roberta Richards: Vincent Collins, that's Is he the father of your daughter?

[1:18:29] Elizabeth Whitney: Why are you asking me this?

[1:18:30] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm just confirming who Audra's legal guardian would be if not you.

[1:18:35] Elizabeth Whitney: What?

[1:18:36] Elizabeth Whitney: Are you fucking kidding me?

[1:18:37] Elizabeth Whitney: Are you fucking kidding me?

[1:18:40] Elizabeth Whitney: She should be with my parents.

[1:18:41] Elizabeth Whitney: She's not w if if she's not with me, she's then with my parents.

[1:18:47] Dr. Roberta Richards: I have the police reports here.

[1:18:49] Dr. Roberta Richards: Eight years ago, domestic disturbance reported by a neighbor.

[1:18:53] Dr. Roberta Richards: Screaming.

[1:18:55] Dr. Roberta Richards: Says here, bloody chin and a broken hand.

[1:18:58] Elizabeth Whitney: He slammed my hand in a door.

[1:19:00] Dr. Roberta Richards: Six years ago, a report from yourself.

[1:19:03] Dr. Roberta Richards: Similar, but I don't see anything like a restraining order.

[1:19:08] Elizabeth Whitney: I tried.

[1:19:11] Elizabeth Whitney: I tried, and the judge dismissed the case.

[1:19:14] Elizabeth Whitney: Vince is a lawyer.

[1:19:15] Elizabeth Whitney: He's a he's very successful, convincing.

[1:19:19] Elizabeth Whitney: He has more money than me.

[1:19:21] Elizabeth Whitney: I couldn't.

[1:19:22] Elizabeth Whitney: I didn't.

[1:19:24] Elizabeth Whitney: But she's not supposed to know him.

[1:19:26] Elizabeth Whitney: She can't know him.

[1:19:28] Elizabeth Whitney: He will hurt her.

[1:19:29] Dr. Roberta Richards: I understand that.

[1:19:30] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm just saying from everything I see here, he would still be her legal guardian.

[1:19:35] Dr. Roberta Richards: A judge would likely award him custody.

[1:19:37] Elizabeth Whitney: A judge?

[1:19:38] Elizabeth Whitney: A judge?

[1:19:40] Elizabeth Whitney: You are talking to me about law and justice.

[1:19:45] Dr. Roberta Richards: You make me sick.

[1:19:47] Dr. Roberta Richards: I'm just explaining what will happen if you aren't around for her.

[1:19:51] Elizabeth Whitney: My parents could fight that.

[1:19:52] Elizabeth Whitney: You like you said, the police reports.

[1:19:55] Dr. Roberta Richards: And you think they'd win?

[1:19:56] Dr. Roberta Richards: Well, you can risk that.

[1:19:59] Dr. Roberta Richards: You've got a choice.

[1:20:01] Dr. Roberta Richards: You can take our offer, get out, she's back with you.

[1:20:04] Dr. Roberta Richards: She'll be with you for six months, of course, if you'd like.

[1:20:41] Elizabeth Whitney: It's not just about my dreams.

[1:20:43] Elizabeth Whitney: It's what I do.

[1:20:44] Elizabeth Whitney: It's about people's lives.

[1:20:46] Elizabeth Whitney: American lives.

[1:20:48] Dr. Roberta Richards: That's what you care about, right?

[1:20:49] Dr. Roberta Richards: American lives?

[1:20:51] Elizabeth Whitney: You should care about them.

[1:20:52] Elizabeth Whitney: There are so many other things you can study.

[1:20:54] Dr. Roberta Richards: We can help you find new work.

[1:20:55] Elizabeth Whitney: I don't.

[1:20:56] Elizabeth Whitney: I study soil.

[1:20:58] Dr. Roberta Richards: Perhaps we can use your work in the USDA.

[1:21:00] Dr. Roberta Richards: Things are melting.

[1:21:01] Dr. Roberta Richards: People are dying right now.

[1:21:04] Dr. Roberta Richards: I think we are being very generous with you.

[1:21:06] Dr. Roberta Richards: I can't believe this is even a difficult decision for you.

[1:21:09] Dr. Roberta Richards: You can boil the decision down to your daughter or your work.

[1:21:16] Dr. Roberta Richards: Are you the kind of mother that will not in this moment say her daughter?

[1:21:32] Elizabeth Whitney: I don't want her to be anywhere near him.

[1:21:35] Elizabeth Whitney: I don't want him to touch her.

[1:21:37] Elizabeth Whitney: Can't you?

[1:21:39] Elizabeth Whitney: Can't you do whatever you want with me?

[1:21:42] Elizabeth Whitney: Can't you threaten me with my life?

[1:21:44] Elizabeth Whitney: Can't you leave her out of this, leave her alone?

[1:21:48] Dr. Roberta Richards: Your daughter or your work.

[1:21:58] Elizabeth Whitney: My daughter.

[1:22:02] Elizabeth Whitney: My daughter.

[1:22:04] Elizabeth Whitney: My daughter.

[1:22:08] Unknown speaker: Back in the cell.

[1:22:10] Unknown speaker: Nora is alone.

[1:22:12] Unknown speaker: She's weaker.

[1:22:13] Unknown speaker: Tired.

[1:22:15] Unknown speaker: She sits and breathes.

[1:22:16] Unknown speaker: She lays down.

[1:22:18] Unknown speaker: She thinks.

[1:22:20] Unknown speaker: She touches her hair.

[1:22:22] Unknown speaker: She thinks.

[1:22:24] Unknown speaker: She thinks about touching herself.

[1:22:27] Unknown speaker: She stops.

[1:22:28] Unknown speaker: She turns over.

[1:22:29] Unknown speaker: She turns back over.

[1:22:32] Unknown speaker: She thinks she hears something.

[1:22:33] Unknown speaker: It freaks her out.

[1:22:35] Unknown speaker: She is scared.

[1:22:37] Unknown speaker: She calms down.

[1:22:39] Unknown speaker: All this goes on for an uncomfortably long time.

[1:22:42] Unknown speaker: She sits up and goes to the spot on the ground where Elaine kept time.

[1:22:47] Unknown speaker: She traces her finger along the ground.

[1:22:52] Unknown speaker: Ene two.

[1:22:55] Unknown speaker: Three, four, five, six, seven.

[1:23:00] Unknown speaker: B.

[1:23:02] Unknown speaker: One, two.

[1:23:04] Unknown speaker: Three, four, five, six, seven.

[1:23:07] Unknown speaker: In.

[1:23:09] Unknown speaker: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[1:23:16] Unknown speaker: And yet it moves.

[1:23:19] Unknown speaker: And yet it moves.

[1:23:21] Unknown speaker: And yet it moves.

[1:23:25] Unknown speaker: He said it.

[1:23:29] Unknown speaker: I think he said it.

[1:23:31] Unknown speaker: You think he said it?

[1:23:33] Unknown speaker: Yeah, I really do.

[1:23:36] Unknown speaker: Beth didn't think so.

[1:23:37] Unknown speaker: She's smart.

[1:23:39] Unknown speaker: He okay.

[1:23:42] Unknown speaker: I don't know.

[1:23:44] Unknown speaker: You're okay.

[1:23:46] Unknown speaker: Not everything has to be okay.

[1:23:48] Unknown speaker: I know.

[1:23:50] Unknown speaker: Some things are not okay.

[1:23:52] Unknown speaker: I know that.

[1:23:53] Unknown speaker: It's not okay.

[1:23:55] Unknown speaker: It's not okay, this.

[1:23:59] Unknown speaker: I know.

[1:24:00] Unknown speaker: It's not.

[1:24:03] Unknown speaker: I miss you.

[1:24:08] Unknown speaker: Beth hasn't come back.

[1:24:11] Unknown speaker: Nobody's come.

[1:24:13] Unknown speaker: I thought someone would come.

[1:24:17] Unknown speaker: Why do they even want me?

[1:24:18] Unknown speaker: I'm nobody.

[1:24:20] Unknown speaker: You aren't a nobody.

[1:24:22] Unknown speaker: You're my lobster.

[1:24:23] Sarah: Lobsters don't mate for life.

[1:24:29] Unknown speaker: Yes, they do.

[1:24:33] Unknown speaker: Right.

[1:24:35] Unknown speaker: No.

[1:24:36] Unknown speaker: I don't really know why that idea has so permeated all modern thought.

[1:24:41] Unknown speaker: But lobsters only mate once in their life.

[1:24:44] Unknown speaker: They mate and then they never see each other again after about a week.

[1:24:48] Unknown speaker: And that's the only time in their lives that they do it.

[1:24:53] Unknown speaker: Ever.

[1:24:54] Unknown speaker: So no, I do not want to be your lobster.

[1:24:59] Unknown speaker: I'm sorry.

[1:25:02] Unknown speaker: Penguins, though.

[1:25:04] Unknown speaker: Penguins mate for life.

[1:25:06] Unknown speaker: But they they spend most of the year apart.

[1:25:10] Unknown speaker: Only about thirty days out of the year together.

[1:25:14] Unknown speaker: So that doesn't sound great either.

[1:25:18] Unknown speaker: I might die in here.

[1:25:21] Unknown speaker: I might die.

[1:25:23] Unknown speaker: I might die.

[1:25:27] Unknown speaker: Don't be so dramatic.

[1:25:31] Unknown speaker: Maybe Beth is dead.

[1:25:34] Unknown speaker: Dead.

[1:25:35] Unknown speaker: Use your imagination.

[1:25:36] Unknown speaker: If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

[1:25:43] Unknown speaker: Ugh, okay, I'll help.

[1:25:45] Unknown speaker: We're on the beach near the Great Barrier Reef.

[1:25:49] Unknown speaker: You're wearing a wetsuit as usual.

[1:25:51] Unknown speaker: You're about to go out for a dive.

[1:25:53] Unknown speaker: You're gonna see all the sea stars and blowfish and algae.

[1:25:58] Unknown speaker: No.

[1:25:59] Unknown speaker: I just want our bed with you.

[1:26:03] Unknown speaker: I just want to be home.

[1:26:05] Unknown speaker: I just want to go to the aquarium and clean the stupid tanks, and I want to see the otters, and I want to feed the octopuses, and I want to drive home and listen to you talk about the cafe.

[1:26:19] Unknown speaker: Fuck.

[1:26:20] Unknown speaker: Fuck.

[1:26:21] Unknown speaker: Why did why?

[1:26:24] Unknown speaker: I mean, this isn't worth it.

[1:26:27] Unknown speaker: If I lose everything, what's the point?

[1:26:32] Unknown speaker: Imagination.

[1:26:34] Unknown speaker: Remember when we met?

[1:26:40] Unknown speaker: Top, top, top, top, top.

[1:26:43] Unknown speaker: We're suddenly in the aquarium where Nora works.

[1:26:46] Unknown speaker: Sarah is very real.

[1:26:50] Unknown speaker: Sorry.

[1:26:51] Unknown speaker: Sorry.

[1:26:52] Unknown speaker: Um.

[1:26:55] Sarah: Uh, you're not supposed to touch the glass.

[1:26:58] Unknown speaker: Oh my god, I'm so sorry.

[1:27:00] Unknown speaker: And being one of those people, aren't I?

[1:27:02] Unknown speaker: Oh my god.

[1:27:02] Unknown speaker: I apologize.

[1:27:03] Unknown speaker: Oh, you it's fine, just Oh, I didn't even know I was doing it.

[1:27:07] Unknown speaker: Oh my god.

[1:27:08] Unknown speaker: Like, I was just looking at it and my hand was on the glass.

[1:27:10] Unknown speaker: Like, really I was mesmerized.

[1:27:13] Unknown speaker: I'm I'm so sorry.

[1:27:17] Unknown speaker: Her.

[1:27:18] Unknown speaker: What?

[1:27:19] Unknown speaker: Her.

[1:27:20] Unknown speaker: You were looking at her.

[1:27:21] Unknown speaker: That's Esmeralda.

[1:27:23] Unknown speaker: Esmeralda?

[1:27:26] Unknown speaker: That is a name.

[1:27:28] Unknown speaker: She's my favorite.

[1:27:30] Unknown speaker: Do you work with her?

[1:27:32] Sarah: I'm a senior biologist here.

[1:27:36] Sarah: I oversee this wing, so yeah, I'm always in her exhibit.

[1:27:41] Unknown speaker: Wow.

[1:27:43] Unknown speaker: Senior biologist, that sounds important.

[1:27:46] Sarah: Sure.

[1:27:47] Sarah: I mean, here, yes.

[1:27:49] Sarah: I'm important.

[1:27:51] Sarah: A lot of animals depend on me.

[1:27:55] Unknown speaker: You say here, like it's what?

[1:27:58] Unknown speaker: Sounds like there's a butt in there.

[1:28:01] Sarah: Like, I like it, but You're very perceptive.

[1:28:06] Sarah: You're easy to read.

[1:28:07] Unknown speaker: They look at each other.

[1:28:12] Unknown speaker: Sorry, I don't know why I said that.

[1:28:14] Sarah: No, uh, you're right.

[1:28:16] Sarah: I'm sorry.

[1:28:18] Unknown speaker: No, don't apologize.

[1:28:19] Sarah: I'm Sarah.

[1:28:21] Unknown speaker: I'm Nora.

[1:28:24] Nora Travers: Are you here with I'm by myself?

[1:28:26] Nora Travers: Um, I was supposed to take my niece, but she got a cold, so we cancel, but I don't know.

[1:28:31] Nora Travers: I just wanted to come.

[1:28:33] Nora Travers: I just came anyway.

[1:28:34] Nora Travers: I wanted to see some beautiful things.

[1:28:36] Nora Travers: I'm an artist.

[1:28:38] Sarah: Oh.

[1:28:39] Nora Travers: I paint.

[1:28:41] Nora Travers: Um, I have a station at the farmer's market twice a week.

[1:28:44] Nora Travers: I haven't sold anything in months, months.

[1:28:46] Nora Travers: Not one thing.

[1:28:48] Nora Travers: I keep getting rejected.

[1:28:49] Nora Travers: I think I'm losing whatever I thought I had.

[1:28:53] Nora Travers: An eye for something.

[1:28:55] Nora Travers: Anyway, I just I wanted to see some beautiful things.

[1:29:01] Sarah: Oh, she's beautiful.

[1:29:04] Sarah: Esmeralda.

[1:29:07] Nora Travers: Not everyone can see how beautiful they are.

[1:29:10] Sarah: Octopuses.

[1:29:11] Nora Travers: It's not octopi.

[1:29:14] Sarah: No.

[1:29:16] Sarah: Octopuses.

[1:29:20] Unknown speaker: They are silent as they watch Esmeralda.

[1:29:24] Unknown speaker: They each have different personalities.

[1:29:27] Sarah: Esmeralda doesn't really trust anyone.

[1:29:30] Sarah: It took a long time for her to warm up to me.

[1:29:32] Sarah: I had to figure out the perfect approach.

[1:29:35] Sarah: I had to let her come to me and instead of me go to her.

[1:29:40] Sarah: Instead of offering her food, I just sort of stand at the edge of her tank and my hands open.

[1:29:46] Sarah: And I let her see me, take her time, and she'll slowly come up to the edge and look at me for a while and then swim away.

[1:29:55] Sarah: And then she'll swim back and she'll finally reach up and touch the food for a while.

[1:30:01] Sarah: And then she'll take it and act like the whole trust issue thing never happened.

[1:30:05] Sarah: She'll be all like offering her head to me.

[1:30:07] Sarah: Oh, that's you know, that's the big middle part.

[1:30:10] Sarah: And uh she'll hold on to my arm and like taste me, acting like we're all, you know, best friends.

[1:30:17] Sarah: But she's my favorite.

[1:30:20] Nora Travers: I guess I like complicated women.

[1:30:24] Sarah: Me too.

[1:30:28] Nora Travers: I wanna meet her.

[1:30:30] Sarah: Yeah.

[1:30:31] Sarah: Yes.

[1:30:32] Sarah: Okay.

[1:30:33] Sarah: Uh I can I can maybe arrange that.

[1:30:35] Sarah: Uh but I have a condition.

[1:30:38] Nora Travers: Yeah.

[1:30:39] Nora Travers: Can I buy a painting from you?

[1:30:41] Sarah: Uh you haven't even seen one.

[1:30:44] Nora Travers: Yeah, well.

[1:30:45] Nora Travers: I know I like it.

[1:30:47] Nora Travers: Love it.

[1:30:49] Unknown speaker: Something changes in Nora.

[1:30:51] Unknown speaker: Lights change too.

[1:30:53] Unknown speaker: We start to find ourselves back in the cell, and Nora is alone, but Sarah is still there.

[1:30:59] Unknown speaker: They hold each other's gaze.

[1:31:03] Nora Travers: That was the best day of my life.

[1:31:05] Nora Travers: It will always be my favorite day.

[1:31:12] Unknown speaker: He said it, I think.

[1:31:15] Unknown speaker: You think?

[1:31:16] Unknown speaker: He knew what he saw.

[1:31:18] Unknown speaker: He saw it with his own eyes.

[1:31:20] Unknown speaker: He didn't want to die.

[1:31:21] Unknown speaker: And he didn't die.

[1:31:23] Unknown speaker: He recanted.

[1:31:24] Unknown speaker: But no one could put those ideas away.

[1:31:26] Unknown speaker: No one.

[1:31:27] Unknown speaker: Not the church, not the Pope.

[1:31:28] Unknown speaker: No one could make it disappear once he said it.

[1:31:31] Unknown speaker: No one could make it go away.

[1:31:32] Unknown speaker: No matter what he might have recanted or said or didn't say, he opened a door.

[1:31:38] Unknown speaker: Maybe all you need to do is open a door.

[1:31:41] Unknown speaker: The door has already been opened.

[1:31:43] Unknown speaker: They are trying to shut it.

[1:31:44] Unknown speaker: I mean, I I'm here, and they are trying to shut it.

[1:31:47] Unknown speaker: They're going to shut it.

[1:31:49] Unknown speaker: We hear a faraway voice say Nora Travers, and the cell is turning into the interrogation room.

[1:31:56] Unknown speaker: In this transition, we land with Helen across from Nora.

[1:32:00] Unknown speaker: Nora is a mess.

[1:32:02] Unknown speaker: Sweaty, upset, exhausted, hungry.

[1:32:05] Unknown speaker: She's in worse shape than anyone before her.

[1:32:10] Helen: Welcome.

[1:32:13] Helen: Nora Travers of San Francisco.

[1:32:18] Helen: That's you, yes.

[1:32:21] Nora Travers: I'm not gonna do it.

[1:32:22] Helen: Do what?

[1:32:23] Nora Travers: Reverse my position on climate change.

[1:32:26] Helen: What?

[1:32:27] Nora Travers: I'm not going to make any statement or sign any paper.

[1:32:30] Nora Travers: I'm not gonna do it, so.

[1:32:32] Helen: Really?

[1:32:33] Helen: Alright.

[1:32:34] Helen: And why is that?

[1:32:36] Nora Travers: Why is what?

[1:32:37] Helen: Why wouldn't you want to do it?

[1:32:39] Helen: If it were, say, going to get you out of here.

[1:32:43] Nora Travers: Because it's not the truth.

[1:32:45] Nora Travers: You're trying to manipulate scientists into spouting bullshit just so a bunch of oligarchs can make even more money and hurt our planet even more than it's already hurting, and I I'm not going to do that.

[1:32:56] Nora Travers: It's not going to happen.

[1:32:58] Helen: Really?

[1:33:00] Helen: Well, lucky for you, that's not why you're here.

[1:33:04] Nora Travers: What?

[1:33:05] Helen: You aren't here to reverse your position, really.

[1:33:09] Nora Travers: I'm okay.

[1:33:12] Nora Travers: Why am I here?

[1:33:14] Helen: Well, you wrote a piece of propaganda, your children's book, which is why we initially wanted to bring you in.

[1:33:21] Helen: Question you about why you're trying to overthrow the government.

[1:33:25] Nora Travers: What?

[1:33:26] Helen: But the more we started looking into your work and what you've done, there doesn't seem to be much.

[1:33:31] Helen: Not much at all.

[1:33:33] Helen: An Aquarist.

[1:33:34] Helen: I have all your grant proposals here, and the more I read, the more interested I became.

[1:33:40] Helen: You're a very smart writer.

[1:33:42] Nora Travers: You have my grant proposals.

[1:33:44] Helen: Here, one requesting funding to research how iron deficiency is killing plankton in the ocean, and another on funding to look at deep sea coral off the coast of California.

[1:33:58] Helen: The other appealing thing is that you're suddenly this viral sensation because of the book.

[1:34:02] Nora Travers: Yeah.

[1:34:03] Nora Travers: Five million followers.

[1:34:05] Nora Travers: That's quite something.

[1:34:07] Helen: I'm Helen Matthews.

[1:34:11] Helen: I'm going to be announced soon as the head of the Environmental Issues Agency.

[1:34:16] Helen: A new government program that's going to be dealing dealing with climate issues in a new way.

[1:34:20] Nora Travers: What used to be the EPA?

[1:34:22] Helen: It's a new program.

[1:34:23] Helen: We're about to begin.

[1:34:25] Helen: Really already have begun a new initiative that's a solution to reducing carbon emissions.

[1:34:31] Helen: One that's been very controversial for some time, but we're finding it's going to be the best way to tackle these issues without hurting our economy.

[1:34:38] Helen: In fact, we think the technology will help boost our economy.

[1:34:41] Helen: That is a new initiative on geoengineering, beginning with the ocean.

[1:34:47] Helen: I assume you are familiar familiar with the concept of geoengineering.

[1:34:52] Nora Travers: Yes.

[1:34:55] Nora Travers: Using technology to impact the climate, take carbon out of the air and deacidify the oceans, for example.

[1:35:01] Nora Travers: You're not really going to do that.

[1:35:03] Helen: Yes.

[1:35:04] Helen: We can help the planet without having to reduce any of our resources, without affecting the economy.

[1:35:10] Helen: Actually, it will help boost the economy.

[1:35:13] Nora Travers: What hasn't this been sort of taboo for decades?

[1:35:17] Helen: And what technological advancement has not been to use your word taboo at first because people were afraid.

[1:35:24] Helen: Well, uh robotics, social media, the telephone, even the act of putting pen to paper terrified people.

[1:35:30] Helen: Plato said writing is a step backward for truth, no?

[1:35:34] Nora Travers: You're one to talk about taking a step backward for truth.

[1:35:37] Helen: Let's talk about this.

[1:35:38] Helen: The industrial revolution.

[1:35:39] Nora Travers: Could we have reversed it?

[1:35:41] Helen: Oh, I'm asking.

[1:35:43] Helen: Uh, I don't know.

[1:35:44] Nora Travers: No.

[1:35:45] Helen: Right.

[1:35:46] Helen: We couldn't have.

[1:35:47] Helen: We were never going to.

[1:35:48] Helen: We have to push forward.

[1:35:50] Helen: And all the alarmist language that comes from climate conservation groups and their supporters in the past several decades isn't going to stop us from moving forward.

[1:35:58] Helen: We are going to keep moving forward.

[1:36:00] Nora Travers: It's too late.

[1:36:02] Helen: Look, I was a scientist.

[1:36:05] Helen: I'd still consider myself one.

[1:36:07] Helen: I used to feel just like you do.

[1:36:10] Helen: But when you start to accept that there's no going back, that we've screwed it all up, we have to find a solution.

[1:36:17] Nora Travers: I am trying to find a solution.

[1:36:19] Nora Travers: That's what I'm trying to do.

[1:36:21] Helen: And the only solution I see is the one where we can build upon what we already have.

[1:36:27] Nora Travers: I guess I don't see it that way.

[1:36:30] Nora Travers: I don't think that's right.

[1:36:32] Nora Travers: I mean, I think we could regulate carbon emissions.

[1:36:35] Nora Travers: Lawmakers, you, you could change things.

[1:36:38] Helen: But lawmakers will not.

[1:36:40] Helen: It's not going to happen.

[1:36:41] Nora Travers: So what can we do?

[1:36:44] Helen: This is a way to keep going without giving up.

[1:36:48] Helen: Why wouldn't you support the deacidifying of the ocean, for instance, someone so passionate about marine life?

[1:36:54] Nora Travers: Be because you have no idea the effect it will have on the planet.

[1:36:59] Nora Travers: Sure, it could deacidify parts of the oceans, but that could then cause a drought in, I don't know, South Africa or or Argentina or Indonesia or We're already doing small experiments to avoid situations like that.

[1:37:12] Helen: This is not the answer.

[1:37:14] Nora Travers: This isn't the answer if we aren't also going to regulate carbon emissions.

[1:37:19] Nora Travers: This isn't going to get rid of our impact.

[1:37:21] Helen: We can't just geoengineer away human impact.

[1:37:25] Helen: Our scientists on our committee think otherwise.

[1:37:28] Nora Travers: Maybe because you keep them locked in a cell for seven days.

[1:37:32] Helen: We're interested in offering you a position on the committee.

[1:37:36] Nora Travers: You're offering me.

[1:37:37] Helen: You'll be given all the research money you need.

[1:37:40] Helen: You'll be working with other bright minds.

[1:37:42] Helen: You'll also be the face of the committee.

[1:37:45] Helen: And you can help us connect with the millions who are misinformed about what we are doing.

[1:37:50] Helen: We are helping the environment.

[1:37:52] Nora Travers: You've had me locked in a cell for seven days only to offer me a job?

[1:37:57] Helen: It's you're admitting that climate change is real and is happening, and yet you've had some scientists held here and made them make a statement.

[1:38:10] Helen: Geoengineering has already begun.

[1:38:12] Helen: We need to get rid of the old thought and make way for new thought.

[1:38:15] Helen: Those statements you're talking about are part of the initiative as well.

[1:38:18] Nora Travers: Forced statements.

[1:38:20] Helen: In any case, we'd like you to come on board.

[1:38:23] Nora Travers: Absolutely not.

[1:38:26] Helen: But we'd like you to.

[1:38:29] Helen: I mean, this is your only option.

[1:38:35] Nora Travers: So if I don't take it, then what?

[1:38:38] Unknown speaker: Helen just looks at her.

[1:38:41] Nora Travers: There are people who care about me.

[1:38:43] Nora Travers: People who will know that I'm missing.

[1:38:45] Helen: They don't know you're missing.

[1:38:46] Nora Travers: What?

[1:38:47] Helen: We've covered every base.

[1:38:49] Helen: Sarah thinks you're on a special climate science panel, that you were a last minute edition.

[1:38:55] Helen: Oh, she's very excited for you, not worried.

[1:38:57] Nora Travers: You've been talking to Sarah?

[1:38:59] Helen: Oh, you've been.

[1:39:00] Helen: We're simulating your text to her.

[1:39:02] Helen: We have your phone.

[1:39:03] Nora Travers: You can't keep me here forever.

[1:39:05] Helen: We could.

[1:39:06] Helen: People disappear all the time to start over, start a new life.

[1:39:11] Helen: It wouldn't be inconceivable for you to leave, Sarah, would it?

[1:39:16] Snow begins to fall lightly.

[1:39:19] Helen: I need to move on shortly.

[1:39:20] Unknown speaker: What is your decision?

[1:39:22] Unknown speaker: Lights and sound shift.

[1:39:25] Helen: Helen becomes Sarah.

[1:39:27] Nora Travers: Nora and Sarah are in New York.

[1:39:30] Sarah: It's snowing.

[1:39:31] Sarah: Sarah's phone is bright on her face.

[1:39:33] Sarah: Five million followers.

[1:39:35] Sarah: Oh my god, look at this.

[1:39:36] Sarah: Everyone is talking about it!

[1:39:39] Nora Travers: How?

[1:39:39] Sarah: How did this happen?

[1:39:41] Sarah: Well, my publicist's second cousin or something works for the New York Times, and they wouldn't print a review of it because of the taboo of printing about climate change right now.

[1:39:48] Sarah: So my publicist sold those emails with the Times to the Atlantic, which published them, and then the internet did what the internet does.

[1:39:58] Unknown speaker: They are both looking at Sarah's phone.

[1:40:01] Unknown speaker: It lights up and lights up.

[1:40:03] Nora Travers: This is scary.

[1:40:04] Sarah: Don't be scared.

[1:40:05] Sarah: This is what you wanted, right?

[1:40:07] Nora Travers: You wanted a bigger platform.

[1:40:08] Sarah: This is no, no, no, this is bad.

[1:40:10] Sarah: The fucking New York Times wouldn't do a review of it.

[1:40:13] Sarah: Climate change books are being banned.

[1:40:15] Sarah: This is we could get in trouble.

[1:40:17] Nora Travers: Well, who the fuck cares?

[1:40:18] Nora Travers: We have our first amendment rights.

[1:40:20] Nora Travers: They can't do anything about it.

[1:40:21] Sarah: Didn't your publicist say that Amazon was going to pull it?

[1:40:24] Nora Travers: They might have to.

[1:40:25] Nora Travers: I guess they're getting a lot of calls from crazy people, but Barnes and Noble still has it.

[1:40:28] Nora Travers: And in a lot of circles, all this pushback is just helping sell more copies.

[1:40:33] Nora Travers: It's a political statement.

[1:40:35] Sarah: Look, people are buying it and taking pictures with it.

[1:40:38] Sarah: Look at all these.

[1:40:39] Sarah: Just click on the hashtag.

[1:40:41] Sarah: Look.

[1:40:41] Unknown speaker: They scroll.

[1:40:43] Nora Travers: I think we should get out of New York.

[1:40:45] Sarah: I think we should go home.

[1:40:46] Nora Travers: No, we are not.

[1:40:47] Nora Travers: No.

[1:40:47] Nora Travers: We are gonna be on TV tomorrow.

[1:40:50] Nora Travers: And I have a meeting with Disney.

[1:40:51] Sarah: I I don't care.

[1:40:52] Sarah: I just I have a bad feeling.

[1:40:54] Sarah: We need to get out of here.

[1:40:55] Nora Travers: You're afraid of your own success.

[1:40:57] Nora Travers: Just chill, accept it, be happy.

[1:41:01] Sarah: I'm afraid of these crazy death threats.

[1:41:04] Sarah: They're saying that we're trying to poison children's minds.

[1:41:07] Sarah: They keep calling it propaganda.

[1:41:09] Sarah: Like the press secretary of our country called it propaganda.

[1:41:13] Nora Travers: How are you not worried?

[1:41:15] Sarah: Maybe because I'm with you.

[1:41:17] Sarah: Nora who gets in fights with her advisors about saying the words climate change.

[1:41:22] Sarah: Nora, who lectured me about coral turning white, who made me get a scuba certification so I could go diving with you and see for myself.

[1:41:32] Sarah: The person who refused to stop using the words climate change in her grant proposals, even though there's all this evidence that it hurts your chances.

[1:41:40] Nora Travers: Yeah, well, I didn't want to give in to that bullshit.

[1:41:42] Sarah: Yeah, exactly.

[1:41:42] Sarah: You don't want to give in to it.

[1:41:44] Sarah: And now you've had this huge success, and it's scaring you.

[1:41:48] Sarah: You want to give in.

[1:41:50] Sarah: You want to give up.

[1:41:51] Nora Travers: But you know what these people are all about?

[1:41:53] Nora Travers: Money.

[1:41:56] Nora Travers: They're about themselves and about the United States instead of this planet, this this beautiful planet that we continue to tear down, right?

[1:42:05] Sarah: So go ahead and think that you're scared of the administration, but I think you're just scared of what comes next.

[1:42:14] Nora Travers: I hear you.

[1:42:16] Nora Travers: But I still want to leave tomorrow.

[1:42:18] Sarah: Do you hear me that I have a meeting with Disney?

[1:42:21] Sarah: This is all I've ever wanted.

[1:42:23] Nora Travers: Well, I'm going to change my flight.

[1:42:25] Nora Travers: I guess this isn't exactly what I had in mind.

[1:42:27] Sarah: No, you aren't actually going to leave without me.

[1:42:30] Nora Travers: I don't know.

[1:42:31] Nora Travers: Okay?

[1:42:32] Nora Travers: This is freaking me out.

[1:42:33] Sarah: You're not gonna die.

[1:42:34] Sarah: No one is going to kill us.

[1:42:36] Sarah: I have a bad feeling.

[1:42:37] Sarah: The Nora Travers I know is not willing to compromise.

[1:42:40] Sarah: She fights.

[1:42:41] Sarah: She will not, she's not willing to back down.

[1:42:43] Sarah: You're the one who's always saying we can only change the world a little bit at a time.

[1:42:48] Sarah: And if everyone changes just a little bit, a small bit of their life, to help better the planet, it can all change.

[1:42:55] Sarah: It can all shift, right?

[1:42:57] Nora Travers: We have to stick with this.

[1:42:59] Nora Travers: Don't leave.

[1:43:01] Nora Travers: Don't leave.

[1:43:04] Nora Travers: If you leave, it feels like this is over.

[1:43:08] Sarah: What is this?

[1:43:11] Nora Travers: Us.

[1:43:13] Sarah: Look, I'm scared.

[1:43:16] Sarah: And I'm terrified for you.

[1:43:18] Sarah: I want to leave because I love you.

[1:43:20] Sarah: I mean, I care about you.

[1:43:23] Nora Travers: This fight has ended back in the interrogation room.

[1:43:26] Unknown speaker: The lights have shifted.

[1:43:28] Unknown speaker: Maybe it is still snowing.

[1:43:30] Unknown speaker: Maybe they are back at the interrogation table.

[1:43:33] Unknown speaker: Maybe the lights are entirely different.

[1:43:35] Unknown speaker: Sarah is a little bit Helen.

[1:43:38] Unknown speaker: What else do you care about?

[1:43:40] Sarah: What?

[1:43:41] Nora Travers: Well, what do you really care about?

[1:43:44] Sarah: The ocean?

[1:43:45] Nora Travers: What?

[1:43:46] Sarah: Yes.

[1:43:46] Sarah: Not enough, I guess.

[1:43:48] Nora Travers: Is this how it will be with me?

[1:43:51] Nora Travers: You care just enough to get to the very edge, and when it gets scary, you run?

[1:43:56] Sarah: This isn't fair.

[1:43:57] Sarah: This is a serious situation.

[1:43:59] Nora Travers: Well, I'm not gonna leave, and I'm not going to go to my meeting.

[1:44:02] Nora Travers: I'm gonna take every interview.

[1:44:05] Nora Travers: I'm going to go to my meeting.

[1:44:07] Nora Travers: I'm going to take every interview.

[1:44:09] Sarah: And what do you want me to say?

[1:44:11] Sarah: Nora got scared, and Nora didn't really believe what she said.

[1:44:15] Sarah: Nora didn't think what we are doing is important enough.

[1:44:18] Sarah: I don't know if it's worth the risks.

[1:44:20] Nora Travers: I don't The risk of what?

[1:44:22] Sarah: I don't know.

[1:44:23] Sarah: Being hurt?

[1:44:25] Sarah: Jail?

[1:44:26] Sarah: Death?

[1:44:27] Nora Travers: You really think we'll die?

[1:44:29] Sarah: I don't know, but you're being so So what?

[1:44:31] Nora Travers: So black and white.

[1:44:32] Nora Travers: It's either this or that.

[1:44:33] Sarah: Stay or go.

[1:44:34] Nora Travers: Sometimes.

[1:44:35] Nora Travers: Sometimes you have to make compromises.

[1:44:38] Sarah: In a relationship?

[1:44:39] Nora Travers: In life.

[1:44:39] Nora Travers: In everything.

[1:44:41] Sarah: I'm sorry.

[1:44:43] Nora Travers: I'm sorry.

[1:44:45] Sarah: I don't want to leave you.

[1:44:47] Sarah: I'm not going to leave you.

[1:44:50] Sarah: I love you more than I ever imagined loving somebody.

[1:44:54] Unknown speaker: They hold hands across the table.

[1:44:57] Nora Travers: I love you too.

[1:44:59] Sarah: But is it worth it?

[1:45:04] Sarah: Is it worth all of this?

[1:45:07] Sarah: I mean, what's it really gonna do?

[1:45:09] Sarah: What is all this effort really going to do?

[1:45:12] Sarah: I don't think we can really change the world.

[1:45:14] Sarah: I mean, what can I really do?

[1:45:16] Sarah: What can we really do?

[1:45:18] Nora Travers: I don't know if we can really change anything.

[1:45:20] Sarah: I don't know.

[1:45:21] Sarah: But what else are we gonna do?

[1:45:23] Nora Travers: Let them win.

[1:45:24] Nora Travers: You always say this isn't something anybody can escape from.

[1:45:28] Nora Travers: Not us, not them, not our children, not our grandchildren.

[1:45:31] Sarah: Come on, I know you.

[1:45:34] Sarah: I know you.

[1:45:35] Sarah: Don't you want to be able to say that you stood and fought?

[1:45:40] Unknown speaker: Sarah Helen smiles.

[1:45:42] Unknown speaker: The lights grow brighter and brighter.

[1:45:45] Unknown speaker: Elaine and Beth surround Nora and Sarah Helen.

[1:45:49] Unknown speaker: Nora looks like she might speak.

[1:45:53] Unknown speaker: Blackout.

[1:45:54] Unknown speaker: End of play.

[1:46:10] Gabi The Artist: Alright, for this um, this next song, it's called It's It's Called Alright.

[1:46:15] Gabi The Artist: So we're gonna need you guys one more time.

[1:46:18] Gabi The Artist: So, um, this is for anybody going through any struggles.

[1:46:21] Gabi The Artist: And actually, with the end of this, I think it would be really appropriate.

[1:46:26] Gabi The Artist: So I'm gonna say, it's gonna be.

[1:46:28] Gabi The Artist: And I think we say alright.

[1:46:30] Gabi The Artist: So you got it?

[1:46:31] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright.

[1:46:48] Gabi The Artist: Alright, so we get it started.

[1:47:13] Gabi The Artist: There's no backing down in this one.

[1:47:17] Gabi The Artist: So pull it all together.

[1:47:19] Gabi The Artist: Bad times won't last forever.

[1:47:21] Gabi The Artist: Gotta make it through this weather.

[1:47:23] Gabi The Artist: It's a song, but it's alright.

[1:47:27] Gabi The Artist: It's okay.

[1:47:28] Gabi The Artist: Gonna make it through anyway.

[1:47:32] Gabi The Artist: You're gonna get out of this herd that you eat.

[1:47:36] Gabi The Artist: You're gonna move off from these places you've been, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright.

[1:48:18] Gabi The Artist: So hold that head up high, never be afraid to try.

[1:48:22] Gabi The Artist: Because to win you have to start, but it's alright, it's okay.

[1:48:29] Gabi The Artist: Gonna make it through anyway.

[1:48:33] Gabi The Artist: You're gonna get out of this herd that you eat.

[1:48:37] Gabi The Artist: You're gonna move on from these places you've been, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be all right, it's gonna be up, it's gonna be over, it's gonna be off, it's gonna be all right, it's gonna be upright, it's gonna be alright.

[1:48:57] Gabi The Artist: Don't you love it bad athing?

[1:49:01] Gabi The Artist: Just let it go and keep moving.

[1:49:05] Gabi The Artist: It gets hard in this, I know, but can I let it stop the show?

[1:49:13] Gabi The Artist: Don't you worry bad thing?

[1:49:16] Gabi The Artist: Just let it go and keep moving it, gets hard and this I know, but can I let it stop?

[1:49:27] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna break, it's gonna break, it's gonna break, it's gonna be, it's gonna break, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna bring, it's gonna break, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna break, it's gonna bring, it's gonna break, it's gonna break, don't you want it bad and thing?

[1:50:02] Gabi The Artist: Just really go and keep moving, it gets hard and miss.

[1:50:09] Gabi The Artist: I know, but can I let it stop the show?

[1:50:14] Gabi The Artist: Don't you love it bad at thing?

[1:50:17] Gabi The Artist: Just let it go and keep moving it.

[1:50:22] Gabi The Artist: Gets hard and thinks I know, but can I let it stop?

[1:50:28] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be awful.

[1:50:30] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be awful.

[1:50:32] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be awful.

[1:50:34] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be alright.

[1:50:38] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be It's gonna be alright.

[1:50:41] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna walk set.

[1:50:43] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be It's gonna be.

[1:50:47] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be.

[1:50:49] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be It's gonna be.

[1:50:49] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be.

[1:50:55] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be.

[1:50:57] Gabi The Artist: It's gonna be alright.

[1:51:02] Gabi The Artist: Thanks so much.

[1:51:15] Unknown speaker: I'm never letting go of this thing.

[1:51:18] Unknown speaker: That was amazing.

[1:51:19] Unknown speaker: They're like a dollar at Tiger Copenhagen.

[1:51:22] Unknown speaker: Store is so weird and wonderful.

[1:51:26] Unknown speaker: Um, for people listening, we gave the audiences fingers of octopus.

[1:51:34] Unknown speaker: I've been saying octopuses yesterday with my team.

[1:51:37] Unknown speaker: I was like, that doesn't sound right.

[1:51:40] Unknown speaker: Or no, you tell you're the playwright, you tell me.

[1:51:46] Unknown speaker: Um, how do you feel?

[1:51:49] Amy Berryman: Good, that was awesome.

[1:51:51] Amy Berryman: Yes.

[1:51:52] Amy Berryman: Great acting happening.

[1:51:54] Amy Berryman: Yes, amazing cast.

[1:51:56] Amy Berryman: Amazing.

[1:51:57] Amy Berryman: That's cool.

[1:51:58] Amy Berryman: Yeah, this came together so quickly for you.

[1:52:00] Amy Berryman: Very quickly, yeah.

[1:52:02] Amy Berryman: Just like in like ten days.

[1:52:03] Amy Berryman: Yeah, it's like we're doing this thing.

[1:52:05] Amy Berryman: Yeah.

[1:52:06] Amy Berryman: Come join our shit.

[1:52:07] Amy Berryman: Yeah, which was so exciting.

[1:52:09] Amy Berryman: Um whirlwind.

[1:52:12] Amy Berryman: We aim to please.

[1:52:14] Amy Berryman: Um so this is the interview portion of our segment.

[1:52:18] Amy Berryman: Um and so I like to first start off by asking like what was your inspiration for writing this story?

[1:52:26] Amy Berryman: Yeah.

[1:52:27] Amy Berryman: So this play was um birthed in uh Amyos' shots, which is a monthly evening of new works uh that's been happening for years, and it was a dystopian themed shots where like writers, directors, and actors are paired together.

[1:52:41] Amy Berryman: You're given a set of um conditions to write under, and the play has to be under seven minutes.

[1:52:46] Amy Berryman: Um so this was like a dystopian themed shots.

[1:52:49] Amy Berryman: And I had three amazing women, and my cousin's a marine biologist, and I ended up writing this play about scientists trapped in a cell and like one by one throughout the seven minute scene, they like each get taken out.

[1:53:00] Amy Berryman: So and then uh from there, um I was it was chosen for Amyos' first drafts program, which is a year-long development program, uh, with where I worked with three other playwrights.

[1:53:12] Amy Berryman: We each developed our seven minute piece into a full length.

[1:53:16] Amy Berryman: And um, so that was like it was in January or February, um, that the reading of the first draft of this play took place.

[1:53:25] Amy Berryman: Um, but I mean, like what inspired me to continue working on it um was I like to write about things I don't know about.

[1:53:34] Amy Berryman: Uh I like to write things that I have to do a lot of research and learn about, and definitely was the case for this play. And like, you know, I mean, the government is really messed up right now, and uh the EPA is, you know, in its shattering and shambles exactly. Um, so these are things I really wanted to explore, and I wanted to do it with all women, and uh yeah.

[1:53:58] Unknown speaker: So um so for your the research for this play, what exactly did you get into? Like what surprised you from your research?

[1:54:09] Amy Berryman: Oh, I didn't know anything about geoengineering. I'm still I feel like a novice at and I hope that like no one in the government reads this play and decides that they should just you know use geoengineering to argue this play. We better not will fix climate change. I mean, scientists who study this stuff are sort of afraid that like if he learns about geoengineering could like tweet like, hey, this'll just fix things, it'll just and but the thing about it is you have no idea the implications, you've no idea like what could happen. It's just so so risky. Um so uh uh there's a lot of research about that, and then about um you know, marine biology, about ice, lots of documentaries about Antarctica. Um yeah, I think it could still, you know, go even further. Like there's so much I mean, I would love to just insert a PhD and all these things into my head, and it's impossible, but yeah.

[1:55:07] Unknown speaker: Um so you've developed some really um interesting um characters, female characters, and so yeah, their backgrounds are interesting. I feel like we really get a sense of who they are and what's at stake. So um, and you we notice that all of the characters that are held in this room are all female, and then the ones mentioned before who have gone through this sort of you know, coercion or reprogramming or whatever are all female. So was that a very conscious choice for you? And like what are you trying to signal about I guess women in science and like you know, really developing these characters, which are you know amazing characters.

[1:55:53] Amy Berryman: Thanks. Uh yeah, I sort of think in like the larger like scale world, this is also happening to male scientists, and we are just looking at this, you know, prison that's holding these women. Um really I just picked it because I wanted women to play the characters and I wanted to like there's not a hu uh I don't know if I'm trying to say anything more, except that I just was interested in exploring um women in science, and then also like their lives outside of it, and this character of Helen who is you know, sort of on the other side but believes that she's doing the right thing. Um yeah, it mostly was just I was like, I don't want like people asking, are there gonna in the development of it? Are there gonna be any men in the play? And I was just like, no, there's and and I tried to figure out a way, it was hard to be like, should I put a guard in who's a dude? But like I just didn't want any men in the play.

[1:56:45] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[1:56:46] Amy Berryman: I mean, and then men are not mentioned that often in the play as well, which is also super interesting. Um, yes, it does. Thanks. Uh but when the men are mentioned, it's kind of like, oh, of course, men, right? We get the rude professor who thinks that um Elaine has plagiarized, um, but she's really instead really brilliant, and then we hear about this terrible ex-husband um of Beth. And so um, I just found that super interesting that it really did feel like the world was so female and still so very dynamic.

[1:57:27] Amy Berryman: Yeah, except like Galileo is sort of like revered or talked about, which um I like as an element of the play that um that you know we're exploring this scientist that yeah, no one I I mean it's interesting, I'm like, I don't know, why why is that? Um that there's not really a mention of current men in the play that is positive. Um you know, take from that what you uh will. It's fine. The men will deal. It's okay. They got everything else anyway.

[1:58:01] Amy Berryman: Um I'm not bitter, guys. Um it's fine. Um and so the place um the play takes place um now? Is it 2018 in this world? Like um, I'd sort of like to think of it as like a Mike Pence presidency, um, or like whatever the next step is if it goes in the more dystopian way. Um so I don't really think I'm I mean, I can't myself can't help but think about like this administration, those words and people have told me, you know, like I can't help but think about Trump.

[1:58:31] Unknown speaker: And I'm like, well, yeah.

[1:58:32] Amy Berryman: Um, but I sort of see it as like slightly further in the future. Right. If I were to open up the world, it would be like a l like just more catastrophic, more small disasters happening, more smog, more pollution. Um, yeah.

[1:58:49] Unknown speaker: Um, so question that I usually ask playwrights. Um, if you had 60 seconds, is this so topical for with your play? If you had 60 seconds and Donald Trump was here. What would you say to him?

[1:59:04] Amy Berryman: Yeah, I mean, I've been like thinking about this question. Um, and it's sort of like I went through all the stages of grief, like thinking about this question. Um where like I I just don't want to talk to him. I'm like in denial about it, and then I'm like bargaining that like do I have to? Like what can I do? I can just stay across the other side of the room, like I'm a woman, I don't want to get anywhere near this guy.

[1:59:25] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[1:59:25] Amy Berryman: Um want him to grab you. Right. And then you're just sort of like, I'm like, what what good would it do? Like there's uh a million uh more things that I could do with my time that would be better than spend six seconds talking to Donald Trump. And then I like think about my play and how I'm sort of trying to say, like, yeah, but if we all think that like nothing can change, then what are we doing? And I still am like, but he's still like so no, like he's not gonna listen to me.

[1:59:54] Amy Berryman: Um but so if this were like just a thought experiment, I feel like I would just say like you're so short-sighted, like you can't see past the end of your nose and you can't see the pain and that you're putting people through. And uh that like you know letting uh pollution regulations like destroying all these regulations that the EPA has had intact, like you just you can't see very far, man.

[2:00:25] Unknown speaker: Um I don't know.

[2:00:26] Amy Berryman: Anyway, that's sort of all the things I've been thinking about with that question. And I still don't know. I still am sort of like, I d I just want to do something else. I just don't want to talk to him. Netflix, literally anything would be fun.

[2:00:39] Unknown speaker: Literally anything.

[2:00:40] Amy Berryman: Uh so yeah, that's that's maybe I don't know if that was 60 seconds, but anyway.

[2:00:45] Unknown speaker: Well, we know that you'd rather watch Netflix than talk to him.

[2:00:48] Amy Berryman: So that's really good. What would you watch on Netflix?

[2:00:51] Unknown speaker: Um, The West Wing.

[2:00:54] Amy Berryman: In fact, in fact.

[2:00:56] Unknown speaker: Good choice, good choice.

[2:00:58] Unknown speaker: Um, and our last question is, what did you have for breakfast this morning?

[2:01:04] Amy Berryman: This morning I had a sandwich from a bodega that had egg, cheese, and tomato. And um, it was great. And coffee. It was simple VRC. It's just to die for. Never take for granted a New York sandwich, guys. A bodega sandwich.

[2:01:22] Unknown speaker: That's right.

[2:01:23] Amy Berryman: Not a New York sandwich. There's a difference.

[2:01:26] Unknown speaker: Sure.

[2:01:27] Amy Berryman: Um.

[2:01:30] Unknown speaker: All right.

[2:01:31] Unknown speaker: Thank you.

[2:01:32] Amy Berryman: Thank you so much.

[2:01:36] Unknown speaker: We have so many fans in the audience.

[2:01:38] Unknown speaker: So many fans.

[2:01:41] Unknown speaker: Thank you, everyone, for listening to The Parsnip Ship. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at The Parsnip Ship NY. You can find updates on our upcoming readings and all of our writers, directors, musicians, and plays on there. Our latest episode, What We Look Like by Bruce Jones and Jonathan Mello, is available on all of our listening platforms.

[2:02:05] Unknown speaker: Please subscribe to The Parsnip Ship on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. All of our previous readings and interviews are available on there as well. We'd really like to take the time to thank again the Actors Fund for hosting us again tonight.

[2:02:22] Unknown speaker: Woo.

[2:02:25] Unknown speaker: I'd like to thank our cast tonight. Tara Giordano, Aliyah Gidry, Lynn Guerra, Laura Riveros, and Stephanie Jurgens.

[2:02:40] Unknown speaker: Directed by Becca Baumwoll.

[2:02:46] Unknown speaker: Written by Amy Berryman.

[2:02:52] Unknown speaker: We'd like to thank our musicians, Gabi The Artist.

[2:02:59] Unknown speaker: Gabby the artist.

[2:03:00] Unknown speaker: Sorry. That was written wrong. Sorry. Gabby the artist.

[2:03:10] Unknown speaker: And thank you to Fernando Castillo, our sound engineer. And he's actually also in Gabi The Artist. So he was doing double duty today. We're really excited to have him as a musical guest, finally.

[2:03:24] Unknown speaker: Fernando.

[2:03:27] Unknown speaker: I'd like to thank my wonderful TPS team, Jesse Manning, our producer, Katie Donnelly, our producing director, Rai Zelong, our artistic associate, Blaise Tysher, our other artistic associate, Todd Kirkland, managing director, and produced by Business Lunch Productions.

[2:03:46] Unknown speaker: Our next reading will be Kevin Lamb by Matthew Lee Ehrlbach, directed by Michelle Bossey, on Wednesday, June 13th at 7:30 p.m. at Dumpling House Studios in Bushwick. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and sign up for our eblast for more information about location and tickets.

[2:04:21] Unknown speaker: So put that in your head and come on over.

[2:04:24] Unknown speaker: And hear some more great plays.

[2:04:27] Unknown speaker: And before we officially end one last song by Gabi The Artist.

[2:04:38] Unknown speaker: You guys might know this one. It's a no-doubt song.

[2:04:41] Unknown speaker: And it's so only appropriate. It was a whole female cast here, female director, female um playwright. So it's only right to do this song, just a girl.

[2:05:34] ♪ Musical number: "Don't Let Me Out of Your Sight" — performed by Gabi The Artist ♪

[2:07:22] Gabi The Artist: If you can't remember, you can visit GabbyTheArtist.com. We have music on Spotify, Google Play, Amazon Music, iTunes, all that jazz.

[2:07:31] Unknown speaker: Thank you guys so much for having us.