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Geysers: Nature's Innuendo · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot com bloom and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: and uh, this is stuff you should know. Yeah, just
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Speaker 1: a couple of regular guys are sitting around. Check. That
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Speaker 1: was good. I know. I genuinely didn't think you were
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Speaker 1: going to say Geyser's really a little This was a
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Speaker 1: pretty cool article. I thought I knew a lot about Geyser's,
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Speaker 1: but I did not know exactly what was going on there. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I was wrong on a couple of key points.
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Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, which I will not point out. Oh
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Speaker 1: come on, well, I thought they'd split out lemonade first
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Speaker 1: of all. Uh, and I thought that was a little
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Speaker 1: guy on there doing it. Oh got lepers Yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: what everybody thinks. I was wrong on both of those points.
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Speaker 1: Do we have a guyser myth sound effect? I don't
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Speaker 1: think so. Um does this count as weather? Now? This
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Speaker 1: is earth science, biogeochemical processes. Okay, I just know you're
1:18
Speaker 1: trying to be beef up our weather. H this is
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Speaker 1: not weather. It's not weather, although it does begin with weather. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean when something precipitates, that's weather, and precipitation precipitates
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Speaker 1: the explosion of a geyser. That's right. Uh, Chuck, I
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Speaker 1: have no guyser introduction. Man, you can't blame me. Though,
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Speaker 1: Like I looked, and there is really not a lot
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Speaker 1: going on on guysers. I thought you might tell the
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Speaker 1: story about the people in nineteen three years that's going
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Speaker 1: to but I didn't want to just usurp it. Okay,
1:48
Speaker 1: but let's do that though, since you brought it up,
1:50
Speaker 1: because I mean I thought about that, I was like,
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Speaker 1: whoa hang back, Josh hanging back? Well, apparently guysers can
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Speaker 1: kill you. Um. And you know when you see something
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Speaker 1: like old Faith will go off. That's why you're three
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Speaker 1: ft away watching it. Yeah, you know you're not gonna
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Speaker 1: be on top of the thing. But apparently nineteen three
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Speaker 1: in New Zealand, which is allowsy with geyser's um, some
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Speaker 1: tourists visiting there got caught in a jet at Uh
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Speaker 1: why man, why Mangu Valley nice? And uh? It killed
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Speaker 1: all four people and carried them more than a mile away. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that is sad, and after after we explain how geysers work,
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Speaker 1: I think that will well we should mention that again
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Speaker 1: because once I understood how guysers worked and I read that,
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Speaker 1: I was like, those people met a terrible, terrible demise,
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Speaker 1: like they that was terrible way to go. Yeah, I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's tantamount to getting thrown into a volcano or caught
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Speaker 1: in dropping into the cracks of an earthquake, and they're
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Speaker 1: all kind of related, as it turns out, or being
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Speaker 1: bludgeoned to death, which is not related. No, but it's
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Speaker 1: pretty bad way to go to geothermal properties. So um chuck. Geysers,
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Speaker 1: as I learned from reading this article on how stuff
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Speaker 1: works dot com um our beloved site um, are actually
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Speaker 1: kind of fragile and there's not that many this this articles,
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Speaker 1: there's a thousand guysers roughly in in the world, and
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Speaker 1: um I read elsewhere that there's only about fifty guyser
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Speaker 1: fields on the planet and about two thirds of those
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Speaker 1: have five or fewer guysers, which makes yellow Stone a
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Speaker 1: pretty substantial repository of geyser and guys are related activity.
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Speaker 1: Because when you're talking guys are you you don't ever
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Speaker 1: just talk guys, or you're also talking um fumer roles.
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Speaker 1: You're talking hot springs, mud pots, steam vents, and all
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Speaker 1: of them are based around the same thing, which is
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Speaker 1: there's some sort of geo thermal activity that's relatively close
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Speaker 1: to the Earth's surface, right, um. And there's three components
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Speaker 1: to a geyser um and they are water supply, plumbing system,
4:03
Speaker 1: and heat source. Yeah. And I'm gonna argue with forth
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Speaker 1: later on later though, I have to wait. I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: call it. We'll just go ahead and say what it is,
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Speaker 1: which is a remoteness, all right, and then we'll we'll
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Speaker 1: circle back because detached from its family, it comes very remote.
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Speaker 1: So a water supply, let's start there, because if you
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Speaker 1: ain't got water, you ain't got no geyser. Yeah. And
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Speaker 1: I saw in this article that um rivers can often
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Speaker 1: um form the water supply. I didn't. I didn't see
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Speaker 1: that elsewhere. For the most part, from what I from
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Speaker 1: what I can gather is that the water supply is
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Speaker 1: um precipitation, rain and snow melt percolating through the Earth's
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Speaker 1: crust over five thousand or so years, and then it
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Speaker 1: trickles down to the point where it comes in contact with,
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Speaker 1: like we said, relatively shallow geo thermal activity, usually very
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Speaker 1: very volcano volcano or volcanic activity, or very very old
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Speaker 1: like on in the throes of death volcanic activity. Yeah. Um,
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Speaker 1: And it can be anything from magma to um cool magma.
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Speaker 1: But it's very hot rock and it's close enough to
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Speaker 1: the surface that this water doesn't evaporate, it starts to
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Speaker 1: trickle back up. Yeah. And when do you stay close?
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Speaker 1: Three miles down it seems like a long way down,
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Speaker 1: but if you're talking the planet Earth, it's nothing. That's
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Speaker 1: pretty close. If you're talking magma, it's pretty close. We're
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Speaker 1: talking tectonic plates, it's pretty close. It's closer than you
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Speaker 1: want it to be. Pal, it's a go ahead, okay.
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Speaker 1: Number two the plumbing system, right, very important. Um. The
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Speaker 1: plumbing system is a series of fissures that run miles
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Speaker 1: beneath the surface. And one important aspect of these fissures
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Speaker 1: is they're basically sealed shut with silica from rhyolite. It's
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Speaker 1: volcanic rock. Um. And like these minerals have sealed this
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Speaker 1: rock shut, right, So like really important part of it,
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Speaker 1: that water that's percolating down. When it heats up and
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Speaker 1: starts to travel back up, it takes that silica that
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Speaker 1: riolite with it and then it just kind of acts
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Speaker 1: as a ceiling along these pipes. Over five hundred thousand years,
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Speaker 1: however long it takes for it to go back up,
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Speaker 1: it's it's ceiling and it's making it water tight. Well yeah,
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Speaker 1: and I imagine I didn't read this, but I imagine
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Speaker 1: that this kind of activity happens elsewhere on the planet,
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Speaker 1: but it's not sealed up, so it just disperses, right, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Because one of the key ingredients of a geyser is pressure,
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Speaker 1: high pressure, that's right. And to get that pressure in
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Speaker 1: these pipes, you have to have rylelite coated sealed pipes.
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Speaker 1: That's right. Okay, So there's the plumbing system and it
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Speaker 1: can the plumbing system barries. All guysers are different. Sometimes
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Speaker 1: it's just like a huge, long vertical chaft. Sometimes it
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Speaker 1: binds and turns and winds around. Okay, So this is
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Speaker 1: this is something that actually differentiates guys are from a
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Speaker 1: hot spring. So a hot spring is just like a
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Speaker 1: one like a long vertical shaft coming from hot water
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Speaker 1: um up to the top. But there's no obstruction. What
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Speaker 1: makes the guys or a geyser is the fact that
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Speaker 1: there's an obstruction in the plumbing right where the hot
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Speaker 1: spring water can just move freely up and down. There's
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Speaker 1: there's just free exchange and you soak around in it
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Speaker 1: like a big lazy wall rush, but there's no pressure
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Speaker 1: with the guys are there's some sort of obstruction where
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Speaker 1: either say, the water on its way back up and
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Speaker 1: there's this wide pool that bottlenecks at the top. So
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Speaker 1: now you have pressure. There's a bunch of different pipes
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Speaker 1: feeding into one pipe and they all connect to the
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Speaker 1: same place another bottleneck or this this pipe of water
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Speaker 1: is so wide and so deep that the pressure from
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Speaker 1: the water above the water at the bottom is so
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Speaker 1: tremendous that for all intensive purposes it creates a bottleneck
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Speaker 1: just strictly out of pressure without an actual obstruction. Yeah,
7:56
Speaker 1: just the weight of the water itself is so great.
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Speaker 1: So we have a water supply and a plumbing um
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Speaker 1: system that is sealed with rhyolite which makes it water
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Speaker 1: tight and pressurized, and then some sort of means for
8:09
Speaker 1: pressure to build. Yeah, and uh, I guess we can
8:12
Speaker 1: go ahead and liking it to a pressure cooker. Now,
8:14
Speaker 1: so you understand what we're talking about. If you've ever
8:16
Speaker 1: cooked with a pressure cooker at home, or if you've
8:19
Speaker 1: ever eaten it Chick fil A and eating their delicious
8:21
Speaker 1: pressure fried chicken, is that how they do it? Oh? Yeah,
8:25
Speaker 1: pressure fried? So that's whether so juicy. Um, So water
8:30
Speaker 1: is standard water is just gonna boil it like a
8:32
Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius French water. Um. If you're if you're
8:39
Speaker 1: cooking with a pressure cooker, which means you know, the
8:41
Speaker 1: litt a sealed shut it lets out some steam or
8:43
Speaker 1: else it would explode obviously, Um, it will actually take
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Speaker 1: a lot more energy to boil and bubble up, which
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Speaker 1: means more heat. And so you can actually cooking a
8:54
Speaker 1: pressure cooker at like twenty five degrees right, because it's
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Speaker 1: just substantial for under a pressure. It takes a lot
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Speaker 1: more for what it was boiling water. But it's like
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Speaker 1: air bubbles forming and rising to the top. When the
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Speaker 1: pressure is too great, it can't boil. So the boiling
9:09
Speaker 1: point rises, right, Well, it boils, but it won't it
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Speaker 1: can't evaporate. Well, no, it can't. It can't form the
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Speaker 1: bubbles that carry to the top. So it can't actually boil.
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Speaker 1: So it's just sitting there in this high pressure environment
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Speaker 1: at high higher than boiling point temperatures and the same
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Speaker 1: things going on in the guyser. Right, You've got the obstruction,
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Speaker 1: you've got this heated water, and you have a tremendous
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Speaker 1: amount of pressure because again we're talking about miles deep
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Speaker 1: um and there's that's quite a bit of pressure at
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Speaker 1: the bottom the water at the bottom. It's getting hotter
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Speaker 1: and hotter and hotter. Yeah, like, um, I mean, I
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Speaker 1: guess it depends. But for guys are to form and start,
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Speaker 1: they think the oldest one is between five thousand and
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Speaker 1: forty years old. So yeah, so it takes a little
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Speaker 1: while because you know, the plumbing has to has to
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Speaker 1: steal up in every thing. But as that pressure builds
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Speaker 1: and then that heat um increases, you can reach temperatures
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Speaker 1: of like four or five degrees fahrenheit of this water
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Speaker 1: and it's still not boiling, right, that's right, And then
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Speaker 1: eventually it does boil. It overcomes that pressure threshold. Well,
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Speaker 1: it finds its way through to to the escape route,
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Speaker 1: which is the top of the surface, and it'll just
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Speaker 1: and that's not the eruption and it'll just squired a
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Speaker 1: little bit of water out and think, wow, that was
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Speaker 1: a big relief, and such a big relief that the
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Speaker 1: steam all of a sudden expands to times the volume
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Speaker 1: of the water. It's like if you're ever boiling, you
10:43
Speaker 1: ever steam vegetables in your house, the best way to
10:46
Speaker 1: steam vegetables is you don't just set it on a
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Speaker 1: massive boil and cover it up. You get it to
10:50
Speaker 1: that massive boil and then you turn that heat down low,
10:53
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that pressure drop creates like
10:56
Speaker 1: massive amounts of steam, right. And the reason why is
10:59
Speaker 1: because when you increase pressure, you increase the temperature that's
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Speaker 1: the boiling point of water. If suddenly you have that
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Speaker 1: temperature still but the pressure decreases, that that water and
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Speaker 1: this guys are just flash vaporizes. And because there's a
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Speaker 1: lot more volume to an equal amount of water and steam,
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Speaker 1: that steam, like you said, expands to what times the
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Speaker 1: volume And there's your guys are pal Yeah, it's that's
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all the steam in the water
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Speaker 1: just gets shot out. Depending on what kind of guys
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Speaker 1: are it is, it's going to take different formations and
11:33
Speaker 1: be different heights and last different amounts of time. But um,
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Speaker 1: it'll keep going until it either runs out of water
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Speaker 1: or it cools down enough for it just start all
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Speaker 1: over again. Yeah, and then it just starts all over again,
11:45
Speaker 1: which is how you get something like Old Faithful. Right,
11:48
Speaker 1: that's right. Once it once it releases that um that
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Speaker 1: pressure and it shoots out, it's the whole process just
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Speaker 1: begins again, and you have, Um, guys, there's like Old
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Speaker 1: Faithful that or run like on a pretty regular schedule.
12:01
Speaker 1: I think it's between like sixty and eighty five minutes
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Speaker 1: or something like that. Well, I've got the new schedule
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Speaker 1: to help schedule because it's been it's been happening with
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Speaker 1: greater with less frequency and greater power in recent years.
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Speaker 1: I think it's said since two thousand UM. And it's
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Speaker 1: a bimodal. They call it bimodal. And if you're going
12:21
Speaker 1: to Old Paple and Wyoming, Um. There are generally two
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Speaker 1: eruption durations now, either a long one which is over
12:28
Speaker 1: four minutes, or a short one, which is about two
12:31
Speaker 1: and a half minutes. And if you have just missed
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Speaker 1: the short one, there'll be about an hour before your
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Speaker 1: next eruption. If you have just missed the long one,
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Speaker 1: then there's gonna be about an hour and a half
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Speaker 1: until the next one. But either way, it's it's worth
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Speaker 1: sticking around for it. Yeah, and it's funny if you
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Speaker 1: go to the page and there's obviously a webcam up
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Speaker 1: where you can see it and stuff, but that's not
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Speaker 1: as fun. But if you go to the web page
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Speaker 1: and they ask for tips on you know, seeing it,
12:56
Speaker 1: they say, well, if there's a lot of people sitting
12:58
Speaker 1: around on the benches, that means there's one upcoming. If
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Speaker 1: there's a bunch of people getting up and leaving, that
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Speaker 1: means it just happened. It's like, wow, really, yeah, that's
13:07
Speaker 1: the best you can do. That sounds like, um, like
13:09
Speaker 1: hippie park ranger logic exactly. Um okay, so, uh well,
13:15
Speaker 1: I guess we're onto like famous geysers, right, yeah, Actually
13:18
Speaker 1: quickly I mentioned I teased about the fourth um thing
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Speaker 1: being remoteness. Apparently, in the last fifty years, uh producing
13:26
Speaker 1: energy with geothermal energy production is increased so much that
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Speaker 1: it's affecting geysers, and so being remote is now believed
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Speaker 1: to be one of the requirements to be a geyser
13:38
Speaker 1: because geysers are vanishing because of man because so I
13:41
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out this out. Maybe you can
13:44
Speaker 1: help me. That's because we dig down to these this
13:48
Speaker 1: this um, these geysers of this geo thermal activity, and
13:52
Speaker 1: in doing so, are we creating like a release valve
13:56
Speaker 1: so the pressure camp build as much I think So,
13:58
Speaker 1: I mean they're using it to spind turbines to create energy,
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Speaker 1: but I know you can also have like a geothermal
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Speaker 1: system in your backyard, which I don't think he uses.
14:07
Speaker 1: I don't think it like creates steam. So I feel
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Speaker 1: like what we're doing then is creating artificial geysers, like
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Speaker 1: creating an artificial pipe to let steam out, which would
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Speaker 1: impact any natural guys activity because like we said, they're
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Speaker 1: very fragile. Earthquakes frequently um cut them off. They also
14:24
Speaker 1: bring them back to life to Yeah, that's like there
14:27
Speaker 1: was one called the Stroker geyser that that would be
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Speaker 1: st r O k K you are, yeah, and that
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Speaker 1: stroker like stroker race right right, So stroker geyser um
14:38
Speaker 1: is after the Icelandic well, stroker is after the Icelandic
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Speaker 1: verb to churn, and actually geysers after the Icelandic verb
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Speaker 1: um to gush. So this is all very Icelandic in origin,
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Speaker 1: but that would be g e y s I r
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Speaker 1: okas in Icelandic. Sure, I won't know how byork pronounced.
15:00
Speaker 1: And you've seen Christian Wiggs impression of her. Huh, it's
15:03
Speaker 1: really great. Um Okay, So the Stroker Geyser was actually um.
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Speaker 1: It was enacted in seventeen nine um because of an earthquake,
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Speaker 1: and then another earthquake hit in Ee and it became inactive.
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Speaker 1: It went dormant and the local said, we gotta get
15:22
Speaker 1: our guys are back. Man, it's all blocked up. So
15:24
Speaker 1: they cleared it off and now it's running again. I
15:27
Speaker 1: bet that's probably dangerous work. Dangerous. Um. Another way to
15:32
Speaker 1: that humans are impacting is a mineral extraction. Apparently in
15:36
Speaker 1: two thousand three, uh, they were extracting minerals in Chile,
15:42
Speaker 1: the second largest geyser field in South America, and it
15:47
Speaker 1: killed it basically from extracting golden stuff. Because basically they
15:52
Speaker 1: mess with the plumbing and then you're finished. Because it's
15:55
Speaker 1: like you said, like um, in a pressure cooker has
15:58
Speaker 1: that little steam, but also it's doesn't explode. The guys
16:02
Speaker 1: aren't supposed to have that. If they have that, they
16:04
Speaker 1: just don't go off. They're like, well, fine, I'll just
16:06
Speaker 1: let some steam off and um, um, that does happen naturally.
16:11
Speaker 1: There are steam vents located near geysers, um like yellow stones. Like,
16:16
Speaker 1: we have ten thousand um geo thermal um what is
16:21
Speaker 1: the word they use, Uh, basically different things. We have
16:26
Speaker 1: ten thousands of your thermal different things. Um. But the
16:29
Speaker 1: vast majority of those are like steam vents. No, they're
16:33
Speaker 1: they're natural, Like they're like little steam releases that come
16:37
Speaker 1: up through fissures in the earth. I thought you meant
16:40
Speaker 1: we put those in to make old bathele like safers. No,
16:42
Speaker 1: they happen naturally. Um. But I think it's the same
16:45
Speaker 1: thing as drilling a hole down to a geotherrmal um
16:48
Speaker 1: different thing and uh and tapping it to run a turbine. Okay,
16:55
Speaker 1: at least you didn't say interesting. Interesting, man, This stuff
16:58
Speaker 1: is very interesting. Um, Old people, is a cone geyser?
17:03
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I understand the difference. Is it the
17:05
Speaker 1: is it the difference? Is it the outlet like the
17:08
Speaker 1: shape of the thing above the earth. Yeah, So with
17:10
Speaker 1: the cone, guys, where the ryo light bubbles up enough
17:13
Speaker 1: over time that it builds up and it forms a
17:15
Speaker 1: little cone and that's what the guys are shoots out of.
17:17
Speaker 1: And normally with the cone guys or you have a
17:20
Speaker 1: big stream going is yet going into the air like
17:23
Speaker 1: hundreds of feet That one in um in uh New Zealand,
17:28
Speaker 1: the Wyman Geo geyser. Um, that one streamed four d
17:33
Speaker 1: seventy ft into the air and for those of you
17:35
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, that's four hundred and fifty that's a
17:38
Speaker 1: world record, right yeah, yeah, nineteen oh two, yeah, before
17:43
Speaker 1: it killed people, right, and then it went dormant in
17:45
Speaker 1: nineteen o four because of the landslide, which makes me
17:49
Speaker 1: think like this thing is coming back. It just gotta
17:51
Speaker 1: bubble back up, kill people and then shut down right afterwards. Yeah,
17:55
Speaker 1: it's really had a really chaotic to your career. It's
17:59
Speaker 1: like a rock star overdosed on heroin or something. Um.
18:02
Speaker 1: But anyway, as I was saying, um, the cone shoots
18:06
Speaker 1: a jet into the air. The fountain Um, it shoots
18:10
Speaker 1: in a much more like chaotic streme whatever. But it
18:13
Speaker 1: doesn't come up from a cone. It comes up from
18:14
Speaker 1: a pool. So at the surface the geyser goes into
18:19
Speaker 1: a pool of water and then that it will erupt
18:22
Speaker 1: out of the water, and that would be the Grand guyser. Um,
18:26
Speaker 1: the tall that's the tallest regularly erupting guys are on
18:29
Speaker 1: the planet. And that is also a yellowstone. Yeah, the tallest,
18:32
Speaker 1: and that it shoots up in the air. Yeah, two
18:35
Speaker 1: feet in crazy fountain e hard to predict fashion. Yeah,
18:40
Speaker 1: which is pretty surprising too, because the cone geyser shoots
18:43
Speaker 1: a jet straight up in the air and this fountain
18:46
Speaker 1: geyser is still beating the average one. Yeah. Could you
18:49
Speaker 1: imagine if it was a cone guyser, it would be
18:51
Speaker 1: mind blowing to the moon. Uh. You mentioned the stroker
18:56
Speaker 1: Ace geyser, the steamboat guys Yeah, apparently can sheet water
19:00
Speaker 1: up to three hundred feet. But don't bother stopping by
19:04
Speaker 1: because it hasn't happened for fifty years. It can go
19:07
Speaker 1: fifty years, but yeah, it's finicky. Yeah. Um. There's also
19:11
Speaker 1: the geyser, which is the o g geyser because that's
19:15
Speaker 1: where the word came from. It's a geyser in Iceland.
19:18
Speaker 1: It was discovered in Umour, so it's the oldest known
19:23
Speaker 1: guys are on the planet. But they took some samples
19:25
Speaker 1: of the silica that forms the cone of the castle
19:28
Speaker 1: guys are in Yellowstone. That's the one they think is
19:31
Speaker 1: five thousand to forty thousand years old. Apparently silicon dating
19:36
Speaker 1: can use some work. I did see one interesting little
19:40
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a joke. It was almost like you
19:44
Speaker 1: could hear science guys laughing about it. Though. You geysers
19:47
Speaker 1: are always called geysers, even if they quit erupting. But
19:52
Speaker 1: that ceased to make seeds to be a geyser at
19:55
Speaker 1: that point. But once you have erupted, you're always called
19:58
Speaker 1: a geyser. The cone formerly known as geyser. Yeah, that's
20:02
Speaker 1: what I would call it. Shameful. Uh, listen, do you
20:07
Speaker 1: know that whole story about Prince doing that, about changing
20:11
Speaker 1: his name. No, I never knew the story behind it.
20:13
Speaker 1: So he was locked in a contract with Sony that
20:16
Speaker 1: he didn't like, and Sony basically said, you can't release
20:20
Speaker 1: an album as Prince. Yes. And but also that had
20:24
Speaker 1: something to do with him acting basically crazy, like he
20:27
Speaker 1: acted crazy on purpose to get out of his contract
20:29
Speaker 1: because there was some sort of clause where like if
20:31
Speaker 1: he was if he went nuts or whatever, it would
20:33
Speaker 1: avoid his contract. So he did that, and he had
20:36
Speaker 1: that font release and I remember he released it to
20:38
Speaker 1: the media like, um, his little symbol yes to as
20:42
Speaker 1: like a font add on so you could just print
20:45
Speaker 1: the symbol when you were writing about him. And his
20:48
Speaker 1: contract with Sony was either avoided or they gave it
20:51
Speaker 1: up or whatever. But he was basically like, I'll show
20:53
Speaker 1: you crazy, but I need to get out of this contract. Boy.
20:56
Speaker 1: One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Oh yeah,
20:59
Speaker 1: I'll bet and I don't even think I put it
21:01
Speaker 1: my top five when we had that listener mail at time,
21:03
Speaker 1: but probably forgot. It's probably in my top five. I
21:06
Speaker 1: would like to see print. Sometimes he brings it he um.
21:10
Speaker 1: He bought you met a bottle of water at um
21:12
Speaker 1: a Miles Davis show at the Cotton Club. Really wow.
21:16
Speaker 1: Her friends came up to see the lemon Heads and
21:18
Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, I'll go with you, and then found
21:20
Speaker 1: out that Miles Davis was playing. It's like, I'm gonna
21:22
Speaker 1: go over here yourself, bottle of water. Evan Dando, Miles Davis.
21:28
Speaker 1: Let me think about that. Sorry, e d um So
21:32
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's print. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Guys are too. Um.
21:38
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about guysers, you can
21:40
Speaker 1: type that word g E y S e r s.
21:43
Speaker 1: That's the English spelling. We didn't do it icelandically. Um,
21:46
Speaker 1: but you type that in the search bar at how
21:48
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and it will bring up this fine,
21:50
Speaker 1: fine article. And I said search part how stuff works
21:54
Speaker 1: dot com, which means it's time for plug fest. It's
21:57
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this,
22:02
Speaker 1: uh given a local Brooklyn night a plug for his election.
22:07
Speaker 1: But that's not how it started. Okay, that was kind
22:10
Speaker 1: of a complicated title. Um, guys who just listen to
22:13
Speaker 1: your podcast How Labor Unions Work? And I want to
22:15
Speaker 1: thank you for trying to give a very balanced a
22:18
Speaker 1: story to what is a very complicated and contentious subject.
22:22
Speaker 1: As a former New York City union organizer, so this
22:25
Speaker 1: guy is the real deal. I am very familiar with
22:27
Speaker 1: the arguments against unions, but I truly believe American workers
22:30
Speaker 1: in the American economy are better off with unions and
22:33
Speaker 1: without when unions are strong, organizing when unions are strong.
22:39
Speaker 1: There is some counterpoint to this total acceptance of rampant
22:42
Speaker 1: greed that was essentially the cause of the financial meltdown
22:46
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. At this point, with unions
22:48
Speaker 1: at their weakest and a half century, we average Americans
22:51
Speaker 1: are being held hostage by corporations. That's what he says. Um,
22:55
Speaker 1: I have to say in my line of work, violence
22:57
Speaker 1: was not the norm, but intimidation by the employers consant.
23:01
Speaker 1: They did everything from threatening workers with being fired, lying
23:04
Speaker 1: to them and telling them they did not have collective
23:07
Speaker 1: bargaining rights, to telling them the union would only steal
23:11
Speaker 1: their dues and not get them a good contract. The
23:17
Speaker 1: deceptive HR person right there. Yeah, Or they would tell workers,
23:21
Speaker 1: um they would work out individual deals with them, that
23:23
Speaker 1: they would vote against the union like, Yeah, that's pretty
23:27
Speaker 1: pretty Harry. Even once when we were organizing at a
23:31
Speaker 1: Catholic hospital, they told the workers they were going against
23:34
Speaker 1: God if they tried to organize. Yeah, can you see
23:37
Speaker 1: like those priests like union breaking cracking heads with mental
23:40
Speaker 1: to tongue. The only problem I had with your podcast
23:43
Speaker 1: was the lack of coverage you gave to the Triangle
23:46
Speaker 1: shirtwaist fire. We've mentioned that. He said it could have
23:49
Speaker 1: been not more. He said it could deserve its own podcast.
23:54
Speaker 1: He said it was one of the deadliest industrial accidents
23:57
Speaker 1: in the United States history. Last year hundreds of people
24:00
Speaker 1: came out to commemorate the one year anniversary remember of
24:03
Speaker 1: the lives lost due to lock stairwells and exits. That
24:07
Speaker 1: fire was a major turning point in labor conditions in
24:09
Speaker 1: New York City and around the world, as well as
24:12
Speaker 1: bringing light to women's terrible working conditions. And I wrote
24:16
Speaker 1: them back and it turns out, uh A day e
24:20
Speaker 1: d is his name, Fox is running for Brooklyn City Council.
24:25
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, dude, we'll plug your campaign.
24:27
Speaker 1: Uh www dot e d E f o X dot
24:32
Speaker 1: com a a fox dot com and good luck in
24:36
Speaker 1: your bid for city council in Brooklyn. Yeah, if you
24:39
Speaker 1: wear um sunglasses with Neon arms on them and into
24:43
Speaker 1: like your pro union, I would say your vote for this.
24:45
Speaker 1: I think we can help guarnering you a little bit
24:48
Speaker 1: of the hipster boat, maybe since we are both aging hipsters.
24:51
Speaker 1: I am not a hipster, dude. I am not a hipster,
24:55
Speaker 1: and I've maybe aging, but I'm not a hipster. Well,
24:58
Speaker 1: you look a lot more like a hips wan you
25:00
Speaker 1: used to. Well if you, uh, I guess if you
25:03
Speaker 1: have a political campaign you're running, Um, we want to
25:06
Speaker 1: hear about it. We heard from another guy. Um in, uh,
25:10
Speaker 1: was it in Maryland? A state legislator. He's a he's
25:13
Speaker 1: a legislator for Maryland who was writing about human trafficking.
25:16
Speaker 1: Next guy shout out to that guy as well. UM,
25:19
Speaker 1: but if you are a politician that listens to the
25:22
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know, we want to hear your viewpoints.
25:24
Speaker 1: Let us know what you gotta say, how we're helping you,
25:26
Speaker 1: how we can help more that kind of thing you know. Um,
25:29
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us, just please don't send us
25:32
Speaker 1: a picture of your junk like other politicians. UM to
25:35
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. You can join us on
25:38
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you
25:42
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
25:47
Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah h brought to you by the reinvented
26:05
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you