0:00 Ready?!
0:05 I'm scaling a glacier right now to show you 
a view that most people can never see of a  
0:11 place we weren't even sure existed until 200 years ago.
0:17 This... is ... Antarctica! And in 1985,
0:24 it became the center of a global crisis. "The 
ozone layer still is disappearing." "A mysterious  
0:30 massive hole." "The ozone is severely depleted." 
"Without immediate action, the sun we have always  
0:35 worshiped, our children will soon fear." Directly 
over Antarctica, high up in the stratosphere,  
0:41 was a massive hole. And if we hadn't done anything 
about it, today we'd be living in an alternate  
0:49 world. By now, a hole would be forming over the 
North Pole as well. By 2040, that hole would be  
0:55 over the entire planet. By 2065, skin cancer rates 
would be soaring. If you lived anywhere here, you'd  
1:02 get a sunburn outside in five minutes. But that's 
not the world we're living in. In fact, you've  
1:10 probably stopped hearing this story altogether. 
That wasn't by accident. It was a choice. In fact,  
1:16 two choices, both of which dramatically changed 
the course of human history for the better. So,  
1:22 let me show you how that happened and what's 
about to happen next. Because it turns out  
1:29 this little sliver at the bottom of the map is 
actually the center of our whole planet. And you  
1:35 need to see this right now because scientists 
say that we need to make the next big choice.
1:58 I remember hearing all about the ozone hole as a 
kid. The situation seemed really dire even at 7  
2:04 years old, but also really far away. "The problem 
is particularly bad in Antarctica." "A hole in the  
2:10 atmospheric ozone." "Over Antarctica." "Antarctica." "A huge gap over Antarctica." And then one day the  
2:15 news about it just stopped... and I stopped thinking 
about it. Until I got the opportunity to go to that  
2:22 far away place. We're getting on the plane. Got to 
admit I'm a little bit nervous. Turns out getting  
2:27 to Antarctica is a little sketchy. You can take a 
ship from the tip of South America, which is scary  
2:33 because then you have to cross the Drake Passage, 
which is historically known as the deadliest ocean  
2:39 passage in the world. Three oceans collide here. 
There are an estimated 800 shipwrecks somewhere at  
2:47 the bottom of this passage. Or the other option is 
to fly on a plane like this one. We flew from Cape  
2:54 Town traveling with the White Desert Foundation's 
Science Week, which supports scientific research  
2:58 in Antarctica. The thing about the plane 
is it's also not without its scary things  
3:05 because the runway that we're about to land on 
is made of ice. "Please fasten your seat belts."
3:23 "Welcome to Antarctica."
3:28 Fewer than 5,000 people are allowed on this 
entire continent right now. Almost all of  
3:34 them scientists. No one owns Antarctica. It's an 
entire continent run by an international treaty  
3:42 system for peace and science. But because it's so 
hard to get to, doing research here takes a huge  
3:49 effort. It's typically limited to the Antarctic 
summer. Right now, it's summer and the sun never  
3:55 sets. It's like 10:00 p.m. right now. 10 p.m. to 
me because all the time zones meet down here. So,  
4:02 there's no official time zone at all. 
Researchers typically choose the time  
4:07 zone of whoever gives them food, their supply 
base. And to make things even more complicated,  
4:12 well... it's so slippery and so windy that the 
wind is pushing me backwards. Look at this!
4:24 The wind is pushing me. The wind I'm 
not moving backward. It's just hard to  
4:30 do anything here. And it wasn't any easier 
40 years ago when researchers first noticed  
4:35 that ozone problem. We are gearing up 
for what should be about a 10hour hike.
4:46 Now I got to put on these massive spikes to walk 
across this ice. I can report it is very cold and  
4:56 very windy. I didn't quite realize what we were 
about to get ourselves into, but what we found at  
5:01 the end was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Up 
here in the stratosphere, all over the Earth,  
5:08 you'll find a bunch of molecules that shield 
us from radiation by absorbing harmful UV rays.  
5:14 It's like a natural sunscreen for the Earth. This 
is the ozone layer. Scientists in this research  
5:20 station have been watching it for decades. "One 
season, they just went, 'That's weird. is really  
5:26 low. Like what's going on here?'" So, a small team 
set out to Antarctica to find out. "Leading the  
5:33 team is Susan Solomon"... and I called up the 
researcher who led that trip. But back then,  
5:38 she was a 30-year-old scientist with a question. 
"A lot of people didn't believe it at first. How  
5:43 can this be happening? You know, what could 
possibly cause this?" What she was about to  
5:47 discover would forever change the lives of you, 
me, and everyone else on this planet. And the  
5:53 reason that she could figure it out was because 
of an incredible decision made decades prior that  
5:58 changed the course of history. But while I'm here 
in Antarctica today, a very real problem is snow  
6:05 blindness. Because of all the sun reflecting off 
the ice. Oh my god. Do not take your sunglasses  
6:11 off. Snow blindness is a real thing. It's like 
looking at the sun. So I had to buy these special  
6:15 sunglasses. And I'm buying them with this. This 
is my real Mercury card. Mercury is the tool that  
6:21 we've used since we launched HUGE* If True to manage our 
finances. I started my Mercury account before I  
6:26 launched this show. I feel cool. Do I look cool? 
Mercury really gets that what I want isn't just  
6:31 money storage. It's financial tools that help 
me actually achieve our big, ambitious, creative  
6:37 goals. It's why when we got the opportunity 
for this trip, we knew we could actually make  
6:42 it happen. This was by far the biggest trip we've 
ever done. This was a ton of planning and a ton  
6:47 of gear that we needed to buy. But with all of our 
finances in one place with Mercury, we could make  
6:53 a budget and stay within it. They helped us get 
the equipment that we needed to stay safe and get  
6:57 all of the incredible shots that we were dreaming 
of. It's all unbelievably intuitive and it's easy  
7:02 to sign up. Mercury's been great for me and I 
think it would be for any entrepreneur or small  
7:06 company. It's a financial technology company, not 
a bank. So, if you want to learn more about what  
7:10 they can do, check the link in the description or 
go to mercury.com. And now I'm ready to go! If you  
7:16 time traveled back to the 1950s, this incredible 
place of peace and science was almost a war zone.  
7:26 It's the middle of the Cold War. Antarctica is 
some of the last unclaimed territory on Earth. So,  
7:31 of course, countries are trying to grab it. If 
you look at a map during that time, it really  
7:37 looks like pie slices with overlapping claims and 
two superpowers saying that they could just claim  
7:43 it all. "Everybody was like, 'This is crazy.'" But 
then one day, a small group of scientists had a  
7:48 different idea. If you ever find yourself doubting 
that a small group of people can change the world...
7:53 It's April 5th, 1950. Some of the most famous 
geophysicists at the time gather together for a  
7:59 dinner party. And someone says something like, 
'You know, we really should study what's going  
8:03 on before they like destroy things in Antarctica.'
And they all agree. So they go to the governments  
8:09 of the biggest countries fighting there and they 
say basically, 'Hey, could you just pause on the  
8:14 claiming land thing like just for 18 months? You 
can get right back to it afterward. We promise.' 
8:20 I'm paraphrasing here a lot. But this proposal 
actually works. "And they decided to run a massive  
8:27 collaborative international program called the 
International Geophysical Year." Also known as  
8:31 the IGY. It was an 18-month global effort starting 
in July of 1957. All of a sudden, these Cold War  
8:39 rivals are suddenly setting up research stations 
all over the place, and they begin to uncover just  
8:44 how important Antarctica really is. You can see 
this if instead of looking at your typical map of  
8:50 the world, you flip it. Every year, ocean water 
freezes and melts around Antarctica. And that  
8:56 causes these huge changes worldwide because as 
water freezes, salt gets pushed out and sinks,  
9:03 driving all these global currents. The currents in 
California and India and Australia are all decided  
9:10 in Antarctica. That's why scientists call it the 
heartbeat of the planet because this is actually  
9:17 the center of the world. And the size of this 
continent is way bigger than you think. It's  
9:24 bigger than all of Europe, bigger than the United 
States, twice the size of Australia. It's huge.  
9:32 They also learned that the ice covering this huge 
continent was way thicker than we imagined. On  
9:38 average, this ice is over 2 km or 1.3 miles thick. 
"Antarctica has a scary amount of water tied up in  
9:49 its ice." Around 91% of the world's total fresh 
water is in the ice that I'm hiking across right  
9:57 now. That if it melted, it would raise global 
sea levels by nearly 60m... ALL of this would be  
10:06 underwater. Well, there goes my home. During the 
hike, there was an expression that the scientists  
10:11 kept saying, which was 'nothing in Antarctica 
stays in Antarctica.' And the more I learned  
10:16 about this place, the more I understood that. 
So, we're now about halfway to our destination,  
10:20 and the landscape is getting more and more alien. 
And this is when we come across a little buddy.
10:35 So they were figuring all of this out. And by 
1958, the IGY had been so successful that nobody  
10:42 really wanted to stop and go back to the fighting. 
So they didn't. Our grandparents' generation chose  
10:49 a different future. And in 1959, governments all 
around the world signed the Antarctic Treaty,  
10:56 turning this place into the world's only 
science continent. You can see the treaty  
11:02 happening in real time here. So, we just came 
from a UK camp. That's the Indian base right  
11:08 there called Matri. And then beyond it, 
you can see the Russian base called Nova.  
11:13 Today there are about 70 research stations all 
around Antarctica supporting scientists doing  
11:18 all kinds of groundbreaking research. And during 
the IGY this particular base started collecting  
11:25 constant data on ozone directly above Antarctica. 
And by 1985 they had 30 years of data to look back  
11:33 on and could conclusively say there was a hole and 
we really needed to fix it. "Within a few years,  
11:39 it was clear that ozone depletion was happening 
in the northern hemisphere, too. Now, it's getting  
11:44 closer to home, and it's happening over places 
like Washington DC and Boston and Paris. You know,  
11:50 it's not just an Antarctic problem." Dr. Solomon 
and her team ultimately concluded that the problem  
11:55 was a chemical found in everyday products that 
were rising into the atmosphere, breaking apart,  
12:01 and binding with ozone, and it would get worse 
if we didn't stop using them. So, our parents'  
12:07 generation came together and chose a different 
future. Do you remember where you were when the  
12:13 Montreal Protocol was signed? Do you like what was 
it? What was the experience like for you? "Well,  
12:18 I was actually in Antarctica making measurements, 
so I was probably the last one to know. It was  
12:23 an interesting feeling of being under the ozone 
hole, knowing that, you know, half a world away,  
12:30 an incredible change had just occurred that really 
had a lot of potential to change things in the  
12:36 future. And indeed, it did." By 2009, every single 
country in the world signed the Montreal Protocol,  
12:44 effectively banning those chemicals. But the 
victory here wasn't just a ban. It was also  
12:49 technological innovation to find replacements. 
"We found substitutes in every application,  
12:55 whether it was foam blowing or spray cans or 
refrigerators, etc., etc. down the line." And now,  
13:01 yeah, it's working. "We're actually seeing the 
ozone layer recover!" And we know that it's  
13:06 recovering because of science still happening in 
Antarctica. Satellites measure ozone levels from  
13:13 the sky, and scientists here still monitor 
ozone from the ground. The Indian base. I  
13:18 know that they're doing ozone monitoring. So, 
they're watching how the ozone hole is healing  
13:22 itself from that base right there. We are all 
very lucky for the work that you did. "No, no,  
13:27 it's me that's lucky." But the science here hasn't 
stopped. It's always changing. And after 5 hours  
13:33 of hiking across the ice, we're about to find 
something incredible...this is the Blue Rivers.
13:46 This is unbelievably beautiful, first of all, 
and only exists in the Antarctic summers. So,  
13:53 liquid water like this does exist 
on the surface on Antarctica,  
13:57 but it's from the melt water from the 
glaciers. And it's likely in liquid  
14:01 form for the first time in hundreds or even 
thousands of years. And I'm about to drink it.
14:12 Man, that's good. That's really genuinely 
delicious. Don't worry, and don't try this  
14:17 at home. The scientists with us told us that this 
water was safe to drink, there aren't any ancient  
14:22 bacteria in what we were drinking. But while 
these seasonal rivers of glacial melt are normal,  
14:27 something not normal is happening to the ice 
around the coasts. Further out around Antarctica,  
14:32 the ocean water is in the part of its cycle 
where it's melting, helping power the oceans.  
14:38 But during the winters now, less ice is 
reliably freezing around Antarctica. In 2023,  
14:43 it crashed to the lowest level ever recorded, 
and it hasn't bounced back, which is starting  
14:49 to disrupt those global currents that we all 
rely on. And this is just one small piece of  
14:54 how important this continent is. Breakdowns 
in Antarctica will disrupt weather patterns,  
14:58 meaning more intense storms, declines 
in global sea life and food supplies,  
15:03 destruction to ecosystems. This is what we are now 
facing. This is our version of that moment right  
15:10 before the Antarctic Treaty or the Montreal 
Protocol. But if you're thinking right now,  
15:15 the Antarctic Treaty couldn't possibly have 
been signed today. You might be right. But  
15:20 I've been thinking about something that Steven, 
the scientist here, has been saying, which is 'the  
15:25 current future is not the future future.' Meaning 
the path that we're on right now doesn't have to  
15:30 be the path that we're on tomorrow. And we're 
really at a tipping point. Our grandparents'  
15:34 generation came together and instead of turning 
Antarctica into a war zone, they signed the  
15:39 Antarctic Treaty. And our parents' generation came 
together and instead of allowing the ozone hole to  
15:44 get bigger, they signed the Montreal Protocol. Are 
we really going to be the generation that doesn't  
15:49 work together to solve the next problem? Bleep that 
like bleep that can't possibly be the generation that  
15:56 we're going to be. As someone in that generation, not if we have anything to say about it. People  
16:01 have worked together to solve hard problems 
before, and we're going to do it again.
16:12 I left Antarctica feeling so inspired by 
what people can do when they work together.  
16:16 If you want to see more optimistic science and 
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