Wild at Heart

This is an I Heart Podcast, Guaranteed Human. Welcome to Erin Mankees, Captain of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's. In October of 1912, the survivors of the British Antarctic Expedition set out to find their lost comrades who had been missing for months after a journey to the South Pole. Winter was over, and the terrain was crossable once more. They didn't have to search for long, they found the remains of their compatriots camp only 11 miles from their own base camp. There were logs detailing how they had become stuck in a blizzard and eventually all perished. But there were also samples taken from glaciers never before visited by humans. Know these samples didn't contain alien life forms, but they did contain the remnants of ancient terrestrial life, and that life had a story to tell. The story of a breakup, not between two people though, but between two continents. 200 million years ago in the early Jurassic period, there was a supercontinent in the Southern Hemisphere that scientists refer to as "Gundwana." If you stood in the exact center of it, you would be treated to quite a view, too. Dense jungles dotted the valleys and mountains, smoking volcanoes, simmered quietly on the horizon. Massive dinosaurs of all kinds were abundant, making the land, sea, and air their home. Today though, we call this central part of Gundwana "Antarctica." And then it was a distinct area, but it was land locked amongst its fellow future continents like Australia, Africa, and South America. Of all of these though, it was perhaps closest to South America, its true geological soulmate. But continents, just like people, change over time. Deep tectonic forces beneath each future continent would soon drive them apart. As the plates in the Earth's crust began to shift, Africa departed first in the Christaceous period, traveling quickly east to join strange, distant continents there. Tens of millions of more years passed by, and soon Australia decided that it would rather go things alone. In the Eocene period, it left Antarctica behind. And there you had it, Antarctica and South America were now alone, connected by a tiny land bridge, almost as if they were holding hands across a large gap. But even this small remaining connection was not meant to last. All of these tectonic changes led to consistent volcanic activity across the Earth. It filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, turning the world into a tropical paradise. But it also melted what few ice caps there were. The sea rose hundreds of feet above what it used to be. What had once been a vibrant, well-trafficked passage between Antarctica and South America was soon enveloped by deep, dark ocean water. And Antarctica was now well and truly alone. It was almost as if it knew, dark ocean currents began swirling around the lonely island, dropping its temperature rapidly. As the Eocene period continued on at a few more million years passed by, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere returned to normal. Antarctica was abruptly frozen, killing most plants and animal life on its surface, and leaving it alone as a frigid tombstone marking the end of hundreds of millions of years of history. 30 million years went by, and Antarctica stayed the same, while its former friends and soulmate developed new climates and gave birth to new life, including human beings. By the 20th century of this modern era, humanity began mounting dangerous expeditions to Antarctica to discover its secrets. The British discoveries in 1912 were only the beginning. Over the past 20 years, internationally funded drilling expeditions in Antarctica have revealed much of its history to us. Cross sections of sediment have taught us all about the many varied organisms that used to call Antarctica home. They've also shown us how, for millions of years, Antarctica and South America shared a connection that allowed organisms from both to cross pollinate. But these discoveries also carried with them a dire warning. You see, the Eocene period was a time of intense global warming. All of that CO2 that was released led to an atmospheric CO2 content of a thousand parts per million, which was enough to melt the ice and flood huge swaths of the earth and wipe out many lifeforms. It shows us that CO2 in the atmosphere does definitively have an impact on the climate. In fact, the only period since the Eocene where something even close to that dramatic of a change in the atmosphere's CO2 levels occurred is the last 250 years, or the industrial age. The beans have managed to raise the CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million to 390 parts per million, and that's not slowing down quickly enough. But of course, what are human beans if not infinitely flexible creatures? We have the power to change, be incentive to do so, and an understanding of the past that tells us what will happen if we don't. We might not be able to bring those two ancient soulmates back together, but we can certainly profess our devotion to our own significant other, our future. David's family moved too much for his comfort. He enjoyed the suburbs they grew up in, the white picket fences and comfortable homes, but his parents would never truly settle down. His father worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, so they would have to move wherever the government dictated. As he grew up, David began to see the world as an ever-changing place, as his family relocated from Missouri to Washington States onto North Carolina and Idaho. He got to see all of Middle America in the 1940s and 50s through the wide-eyed lens of childhood. And even life in so many different suburbs provided brief bursts of excitement. Once, during their time in Boise, Idaho, David watched a friend settle up a bottle rocket on his back porch. The friend stood before David putting match heads into the small rocket with hopes of giving it lift. Towering above the two of them was David's friend's mother, who was pregnant at the time. The rocket went off, but it was too powerful. A small explosion propelled the rocket past the friend, and he fell screaming to the porch. The rocket had struck his ankle and left the kid bleeding in the grass, his foot nearly severed. In the haze of smoke and blood, young David was entranced. His friend would recover from that injury thanks to a visit to the emergency room. David meanwhile was left with an obsession with playing with fire. He and his other friends devised many different ways to create small explosions that would entertain them on evenings and weekends. Eventually, they advanced from bottle rockets to pipe bombs, building devices of increasing power and danger. They did not intend to hurt anyone or destroy anything, but they explored this past time with a sense of awe and excitement. And naturally, they would have to test their inventions, right? But how do you do this without another horrible injury or getting the cops called on you? Well, eventually, they settled on a location, the South Lake Junior High Swimming Pool. The water there would be able to muffle the blast, but still give them the spectacle of watching their explosive work its action. So one Saturday morning, David and his friends snuck into the unused pool. They threw the pipe bomb into the water, and they waited. They expected only a geyser of water, but what happened felt more like an undersea mine. The pool erupted from the force of the pipe bomb, and the very ground beneath them shook from the impact, houses from blocks around were shaken by the bomb, and in spite of their best efforts, the police were called. Nobody was injured this time, thankfully, but David was arrested all the same. Stories of the event would reappear in newspapers across Idaho, and even as far as Salt Lake City. David would be let off with a stern warning and encouraged to pursue less destructive hobbies. At this point, you can imagine the life of the kid taking two different directions. He might follow his destructive tendencies, to a life of crime or danger or maybe engineering. Or on the other hand, he might forsake pipe bombs altogether. Unfortunately, it seemed like the latter path is what David wound up taking. Perhaps because of the notoriety brought to him by his experiment with pipe bombs, he turned to his more artistic pursuits, reading and drawing comics in his free time. The ultimate destiny of this kid was not a prison cell, but Hollywood. He moved to Los Angeles and wound up becoming one of the most acclaimed avant-garde artists of all time, known for legendary classics like Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks. David was David Lynch. Thank you.