In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Steven Koonin about climate change and how to best engage with climate science. They discuss how people can trust the science on climate from institutions and published data. They mention the differences between weather and climate, radiative equilibrium, and greenhouse gases. They review the data on carbon, discuss various forms of energy such as fossil fuels, clean energy, and nuclear energy. They talk about rising temperatures, increased precipitation, and rising sea levels. They discuss how much responsibility humans have on the changing climate, balanced responses to tackle climate change, and many other topics.
Steven Koonin is a theoretical physicist and Professor of Information, Operations, & Management Sciences and Director for Urban Science and Progress at Stern School of Business at New York University. From 2009-2011, he was the Undersecretary for science, Department of Energy during the Obama administration. Formerly, he was BP's Chief Scientist and Provost and Vice President of California Institute of Technology. He has his Bachelors in Physics from California Institute of Technology and PhD in theoretical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the member of numerous academies such as the American Physical Society, the American Association of the Advancement of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the most recent book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn't, and Why it Matters. You can find his work here and here.
#139 - Accuracy in Climate Science: A Dialogue with Steven Koonin