Hi Lauren! I must say, I LOVE how you set up and posed this question. Further, the question itself is extremely arresting. The closest answer I can come up with is that much of modern society has just expected us to advance scientifically, and so we don't take much pride in whatever advancements we achieve. For the United States, I think after we "won" the space race, the appreciation for new scientific discoveries decreased, as nothing seemingly would ever be as culturally significant or transcending. Even more recently, with the viral picture of a black hole, the awe surrounding that image was only temporary. In an age where so many people, especially children, are surrounded by the products of scientific advancement, said advancements have become expected, and so the appreciation of them is virtually non-existent. Again, I honestly REALLY like this question, and I'm sure there are more well-developed answers or solutions out there. I hope that mine suffices :)

Hi Daniel! Earthquake prediction is actually what I'm doing my final project on, so while I'm not an expert, I hope this answer could help. The time frame for a major earthquake to occur actually isn't one of the major uncertainties; if anything, that rough estimate is about the closest seismologists can get to earthquake prediction at the moment! The issue more so is when within that time frame will the earthquake occur, and unfortunately, the passing of time doesn't change much. There have been plenty of times where a major earthquake occurred outside that predicted time frame, leading to a kind of "any day now" mentality where people were just waiting for it to finally happen. For your second question, the consensus seems to be that we don't know! Earthquakes, especially major ones, take a long time to build up, and the slow movements that cause earthquakes occur to deep within the Earth for us to directly observe. Additionally, the infrequency of earthquakes makes it difficult to properly study them the same way we do climate and weather, but machine learning seemingly is helping make this process much more feasible. Hope some of that helped :)

I think the most interesting aspect of our discussion would be the general differences between risk and uncertainty, as discussed in the essay. As someone who isn't quantitatively inclined (despite the valiant efforts of this course), the essay did an excellent job in highlighting the distinction between these two concepts in a way that can be followed by those who struggle with mathematics. I think what will also be interesting is discussing how these concepts relate to decision making. If you have a low risk but high uncertainty situation, your choice of actions can go in a divvy of directions. While prediction to decision seems to be the most straightforward way of seeing things, I think risk and uncertainty play into our decision making in a way that is more stressful than predictions.

I love this!!! Like, in a way where I barely have a coherent response to this! I was the same kid growing up, and (perhaps) unfortunately for me, my push away from fiction resulted in a diminished interest in STEM. It was seeing imaginative sci-fi and even fantasy realities that made me interested in how evolution works, why humans think the way we do, what might self managed A.I. look like. I think something that's not often understood is that many of these fictional realities are based on the potential realities modern science has allowed us to foresee. More importantly, as Tarter brings up when discussing the impact of "Contact", many of these stories inspire children and young adults to pursue STEM fields. Similarly to our next assignment about building a game, these stories can help explain or display STEM related concepts in a way that can be more engaging for some than simply reading in a textbook. I think what you said here is great Sravya, and I hope something in my response made relative sense to what you explicated so wonderfully :)

Hi Jordan! I actually thought something very similar. Gilbert kinda just writes off Professor Goodman's concerns as them being far removed from the freshmen and her only getting this idea from interacting with so few freshmen. But as someone within the generation she's speaking of, I resonate with her concerns! Similarly to you, my immediate guess was that our generation growing up around technology that provided so much knowledge has caused us to be more concerned about the unknown aspects of the future than any other generation prior. I think it's a real phenomenon that I'm disappointed Professor Gilbert didn't say more on.

Hi Pedro! I don't wanna say I had the same question, but I had the same question! In so many of the videos, these experts bring up how what they're doing is being shown to politicians and big corporations. However, very few of them go into detail on if and how these efforts have been successful. I think had more of them given examples of the positive and seeable changes that have come out of their efforts, these interviews and the future of Climate Change could perhaps be looked at more brightly.

Hi Grace! I think your questions floated on a similar wavelength to some of mine! I was really interested in the matrix Henderson made during the video, and similarly wished she'd elaborated on the tool and how it was successful a bit more. I didn't remember much about the techno-fanaticism from the interview, so I think going into further detail on it in the ways you described would've helped make the concept more memorable. Your last question was similar to one I had for ALL the interviews, that being who should climate scientists be trying to appeal to between corporations, politicians, and the average citizen. Overall, I really liked all the questions you came up with :+)