PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Peter, finally, we've been waiting for it - a solution to climate change. A piece in Bloomberg News this week proposes what as an effective way to stop the warming of the planet?
PETER GROSZ: Is it something - it's not something super dark about, like, climate change...
SAGAL: Well, in fact, it will make it super dark.
GROSZ: Oh. Destroy the sun.
SAGAL: (Laughter) Well, that would do it - not quite that extreme. It'll be nice to sit in the shade everywhere.
GROSZ: Block the rays from the sun with a giant - one of those, like, SunSetter awnings that comes out from the side of your house.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Exactly. All of a sudden...
GROSZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...The Earth puts on that big tinfoil thing with sunglasses on it...
GROSZ: Yeah.
HELEN HONG: (Laughter).
SAGAL: ...Just like a windshield. That's right.
GROSZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: The suggestion is to block out the sun.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
GROSZ: Like Mr. Burns said in "The Simpsons" when he says...
SAGAL: Exactly right. The idea, however, didn't come from "The Simpsons." It came from the time Michael Bloomberg stood behind someone who was 5 foot, 6 inches tall at a Neil Diamond concert and couldn't see anything.
(LAUGHTER)
HONG: Who - so it's like a giant, like, awning slash - who is going to be holding this thing? Like, where is this thing going to be...
SAGAL: Well, let me explain.
HONG: What is this thing going to be attached to?
SAGAL: Let me explain. What we would do, according to this article, is simulate a massive global volcano by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which would then spread around the Earth - because if movies have taught us anything, it's that the skies darken right before good things happen.
HONG: (Laughter).
ALONZO BODDEN: My real question is, if it's a giant global volcano, isn't that scheduled for, like, two weeks from now?
SAGAL: Exactly.
BODDEN: Aren't we just...
SAGAL: Just wait.
BODDEN: Isn't that the next plague that's going to hit us? The giant volcano goes off.
GROSZ: No. You know what's going to happen next is aliens are going to come, and we're going to be, like, this is just the worst time. This is not - this - just...
BODDEN: We haven't groomed in months.
GROSZ: Give us, like, a year.
HONG: (Laughter).
SAGAL: You know, what's going to happen is...
GROSZ: Everybody looks terrible.
SAGAL: ...The aliens are going to come and say, take us to your leader, and we're going to go, no.
GROSZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: Just no.
GROSZ: We actually don't have a leader right now.
SAGAL: Yeah.
GROSZ: Well, it's more of a loose collective, that there's no, like...
SAGAL: (Laughter).
GROSZ: ...Centralized leader. So I really - I could show you to Phyllis (ph). Phyllis is great.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "HERE COMES THE SUN")
SAGAL: Coming up, our panelists chow down in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
