0:00

A scientist who's skeptical about climate

0:02

science, or at least about a lot of what

0:04

passes for climate science, which

0:07

would of course make him another crackpot conservative.

0:10

Or not.

0:11

He served as Undersecretary of the Department

0:13

of Energy

0:14

in the Obama administration.

0:17

Stephen Koonin on Uncommon Knowledge,

0:20

now.

0:30

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson.

0:33

Now a professor at New York University and

0:36

a fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stephen

0:38

Koonin received a Bachelor of Science degree

0:40

at Caltech and a doctorate in

0:42

physics at MIT. During

0:44

a career in which he published more than 200 peer-reviewed

0:48

scientific papers and a textbook

0:51

on computational physics, Dr.

0:53

Koonin rose to become Provost of Caltech.

0:57

In 2009, President Obama appointed him Undersecretary

1:00

of Science at the Department of Energy, a position

1:03

Dr. Koonin held for some two and a half years,

1:07

during which he found himself shocked

1:10

by the misuse of climate science in

1:12

politics and the press. In 2021,

1:15

Dr. Koonin published

1:17

Unsettled, What Climate Science

1:19

Tells Us, What It Doesn't,

1:22

and Why It Matters. Steve Koonin, welcome.

1:25

Wonderful to be talking with you, Peter. The

1:29

shaken

1:30

secretary. In Unsettled,

1:33

you write of a 2014 workshop

1:36

for the American Physical Society, which

1:38

means it's you and a bunch of other people who

1:41

I cannot even begin to follow, serious

1:43

professional scientists, in which

1:46

you and several colleagues were asked

1:48

to subject

1:49

current climate science to

1:51

a stress test,

1:53

to push it, to prod it, to test it,

1:55

to see how good it was. From Unsettled,

1:57

I'm quoting you now, Steve,

1:59

I'm a scientist. scientist. I work to understand

2:01

the world through measurements and observations.

2:05

I came away from the workshop not

2:07

only surprised, but shaken

2:10

by the realization that climate science

2:12

was far less mature

2:14

than I had supposed." Close quote. Well,

2:16

let's start with the end of that. What had you supposed?

2:19

Well, I had supposed that humans

2:21

were warming the globe. Carbon

2:24

dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere,

2:27

causing all kinds of trouble, melting

2:29

ice caps, warming oceans, and

2:32

so on. And the data didn't

2:34

support a lot of that. And the projections

2:38

of what would happen in the future relied

2:40

on models that

2:41

were, let's say, shaky at best.

2:46

All right.

2:48

Former Senator John Kerry is now President

2:50

Biden's special envoy for climate. Let

2:52

me quote you. This is John Kerry in a 2021 address

2:55

to the United States, a bigger pardon, to the UN

2:58

Security Council. John Kerry, 2021 to

3:01

the UN Security Council, quote,

3:04

"'Net-zero emissions by 2050 or

3:06

earlier is the only way

3:09

that science tells us we

3:11

can limit this planet's warming to 1.5 degrees

3:14

Celsius. Why is that so crucial?'

3:16

I'm still quoting Kerry, because overwhelming

3:18

evidence tells us that anything more

3:21

will have catastrophic implications.

3:24

We are marching forward in what is tantamount

3:27

to a mutual suicide pact,"

3:30

close quote. Overwhelming

3:32

evidence science tells us.

3:35

What's wrong with that? Well,

3:38

you should look at the actual science,

3:40

which I suspect that Ambassador

3:42

Kerry has not done.

3:44

You

3:45

know, the UN puts out every five

3:47

or six years assessment reports

3:49

that are the IPCC, the Intergovernmental

3:52

Panel for Climate Change, that are meant to

3:54

survey, assess, summarize

3:57

the state of our knowledge about the

3:59

climate.

4:00

The most recent one came out about

4:02

a year ago in 2022. Previous

4:06

one came out in 2014 or so.

4:09

And when you read those

4:12

reports, they're massive.

4:14

The latest one is 3,000 pages, and it took 300 scientists

4:16

a couple years to write. And

4:20

you really need to be a scientist to

4:22

understand them. Even I, as I

4:24

started to dig into climate science, I

4:26

got a background in theoretical physics.

4:29

I can understand this stuff. It took me a couple

4:31

years to really understand what

4:33

goes on. Now, Ambassador Kerry,

4:36

other politicians certainly have not

4:39

done that.

4:40

But when you, he's

4:42

getting his information, perhaps

4:44

from the summary for policymakers

4:47

in those reports, or more likely

4:50

for an even further boiled down

4:52

version. And as you boil down

4:55

the good assessment

4:57

into the summary, into

5:00

more condensed versions, there's

5:02

plenty of room for mischief. And

5:05

that mischief is evident when you compare what

5:07

comes out the end of that game of telephone with

5:09

what the actual science really

5:11

is. All right. Now, what

5:13

we know and what we don't. Let's start with what we know.

5:16

Unsettled. I'm quoting you again, Steve. Not

5:18

everything you've heard about climate science is wrong. In

5:21

particular, you grant in this book two

5:23

of the central premises or conclusions

5:25

of climate science

5:27

that are in the air that the press

5:29

is always telling us about. Here's one. And again, I'm

5:31

going to quote you. We can all agree that

5:34

the globe has gotten warmer over

5:36

the last several decades. No debunking.

5:38

No debunking. In fact, it's gotten warmer

5:40

over the last four centuries.

5:44

OK. Now, that's a different assertion. Well,

5:46

yes, that's correct. But it's equally supported

5:49

by the assessment reports.

5:51

All right. All right. So

5:53

that we'll have to come back to that because the time

5:56

scale is important. It's one

5:58

thing to say.

6:00

Oh my goodness, in my own lifetime,

6:02

the climate of the

6:05

surface of this planet, and it's an entirely

6:07

different thing to say, that beginning 150

6:10

years before this nation was founded,

6:13

temperatures began to rise. This

6:15

is something that's all right. It's a different

6:18

statement, but it's equally true

6:20

and has some bearing on the warming

6:23

that we've seen over the last century. All right. Here's

6:26

the premise that you do, Grant. Again, I'm going to quote on Settle. There

6:28

is no question that our emission of greenhouse

6:31

gases, in particular CO2,

6:33

is exerting a warming influence

6:36

on the planet.

6:37

Close quote. We're

6:40

pumping CO2 into the air, into

6:42

the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse

6:45

gas. It must be having some effect. Of

6:47

course. Absolutely. That's

6:49

as far as you're willing to go. Yes. Okay.

6:52

Well, I mean, you tell me the next one. Okay. So

6:55

here's the next one. Can you say ... So

6:58

actually, those are pretty two anodyne

7:00

premises that you're grant. Correct.

7:03

The Earth has been warming, and it's been warming

7:05

for a long time. CO2 is a greenhouse

7:07

gas, and it must be having some

7:09

effect. It's coming from human activities. And it's coming from

7:11

human activities. Mostly fossil fuels. All right. Now

7:14

on to what we don't know.

7:16

Okay. Again, unsettled. Even though human

7:18

influences could

7:21

have serious consequences for the climate,

7:23

they are small in relation to

7:26

the climate system as a whole. That

7:28

sets a very high bar for

7:31

projecting the consequences

7:33

of human influences, close quote.

7:36

Right. That is so counter to

7:39

the general understanding that informs

7:41

the headlines, particularly ... We'll come to this,

7:43

but particularly this hot summer we've

7:45

had. So explain that. Yeah.

7:48

Okay. Human influences,

7:51

as described in the IPCC, are

7:54

a 1% effect

7:57

on the radiation flow.

10:00

Most of the disconnect comes from a long

10:02

game of telephone that

10:05

starts with the research literature and runs through

10:07

the assessment reports, to the summaries

10:09

of the assessment reports, and then onto the

10:11

media coverage. There are abundant opportunities

10:14

to get things wrong. Close quote.

10:16

So let's start at the very beginning. The

10:19

IPCC itself. You

10:22

served as provost of Caltech. So

10:24

you know that you put together six academics

10:27

on a committee and you've already

10:29

got politics. Yes. You've got it. That's

10:32

academic life.

10:34

How can it be that

10:36

this committee,

10:38

the IPCC, nominated by 195 countries,

10:41

which means 195 parochial interests at play,

10:46

how can they produce anything that's any good in the first

10:48

place? And yet you seem quite

10:51

relaxed about the original science. The

10:54

underlying science is expressed

10:57

in the data

10:58

and expressed in the research literature,

11:01

the journals, the research papers that people

11:03

produce, the conference proceedings,

11:06

and so on. The IPCC

11:08

takes those and

11:10

assesses and summarizes them.

11:13

And in general, it does a pretty good job.

11:16

They do a fair job of that. And there's not going

11:18

to be much politics in that, although they

11:20

might quibble about, among themselves, about

11:22

adjectives and adverbs. This is

11:25

extremely certain or this

11:27

is unlikely or highly unlikely and so on. But

11:29

by and large, it's pretty good. Okay.

11:33

You're a professional. You look at this

11:35

and you say this is done by fellow professionals in a professional

11:37

manner. Mm-hmm. All right. Now

11:40

things begin

11:40

to go wrong. Right. What, where?

11:43

So the next step is nobody who isn't

11:45

deeply in the field is going to read all that stuff.

11:48

All right. So there is a formal

11:50

process to create a summary for

11:52

policy makers,

11:54

which is initially

11:56

drafted by the governments, not by

11:58

the scientists. Wait a minute.

12:01

A hundred and nine representatives of a hundred

12:03

and ninety five? Well, it's not of course all of them don't participate.

12:06

In fact, all the scientists who are listed don't

12:08

participate in everything. There's

12:10

some subcommittee, right, that is

12:12

meant to

12:14

do the summary for policymakers. And

12:16

that gets drafted

12:18

and passed by the scientists for

12:20

comment.

12:21

Some of them grumble, okay.

12:23

But in the end, it's the governments

12:25

who have approved the summary for policymakers

12:28

line by line. And

12:31

that's where the disconnect happens, first

12:33

disconnect. I'll give you an example, all

12:35

right. So you look at the most recent report

12:38

and the summary for policymakers is

12:41

talking about deaths from extreme

12:43

heat,

12:44

incremental deaths. And it

12:46

says that extreme heat

12:49

or heat waves have contributed to

12:52

mortality. And

12:55

that's a true statement. But what

12:57

they forgot to tell you was that

12:59

the warming of the planet

13:01

decreased the incidence of extreme

13:04

cold events.

13:06

And since nine times as many

13:08

people around the globe die from extreme

13:10

cold than from extreme heat, the

13:13

warming from the planet has actually

13:15

cut the number of deaths from extreme

13:18

temperatures by a lot. And

13:20

that doesn't make it into the... No, that's not in there at all.

13:22

Okay. And that statement was completely

13:25

factual, but factually incomplete

13:28

in a way meant to alarm

13:30

not to inform. All right. And

13:33

now

13:34

press... So it goes to these policymakers

13:37

and then John Kerry stands up and gives a speech

13:39

which is... Yeah. Well,

13:41

maybe he read the SPM. I don't know. Or his

13:43

staff read it. His staff read it in probably some of our talking points. And

13:46

so you get Kerry saying that. You

13:48

get the secretary general of the UN, Guterres,

13:51

saying we're on a highway to climate hell with

13:53

our foot on the accelerator. And these statements are preposterous. Yes,

13:55

of course they are. Okay. Even

13:57

by the IPCC reports.

13:59

the climate scientists are

14:02

negligent for not speaking up and

14:04

saying that's

14:06

preposterous. Okay. On

14:08

to another one of the aspects

14:11

of things going wrong.

14:14

You write in a way that

14:18

I have never seen anyone write about computer

14:20

models. I have never seen anybody make computer

14:23

models interesting. Thank you. So congratulations,

14:26

Steve. You did something, as far as I know, in

14:29

the entire corpus of English language. No, that's

14:31

good. Okay. So

14:33

here I'm going to depart from Unsettle for a moment, a quote

14:35

from a piece you published in the Wall Street Journal not long

14:37

ago. Quote, projections of

14:40

future climate and weather events

14:42

rely on models

14:44

demonstrably unfit for

14:46

the purpose. Explain. Well,

14:51

to make a

14:53

projection of future climate, you

14:56

need to build this big, complicated computer

14:58

model, which is really one of the grand

15:01

computational challenges of

15:03

old times. And I remind

15:05

myself and our viewers that

15:07

I'm now talking to a man who was provost

15:09

of Caltech, whose background

15:12

is in... In other words, you really

15:14

understand this field. I do. This is not something...

15:16

Okay. I wrote a textbook in the mid-1980s

15:20

when the first PCs came out about how

15:22

to do modeling on computers with physics. So

15:25

I don't know what I'm talking about. Okay.

15:29

And

15:30

then you have to feed into

15:33

the model

15:34

what you think future emissions are going

15:36

to be.

15:37

And the IPCC has five

15:39

or six different scenarios, high

15:41

emissions, low emissions, and so on. If

15:44

you take a particular scenario and

15:47

feed it into the roughly 50 different

15:49

models that exist that are

15:51

developed by groups around the world. So

15:54

Caltech has a model. Well, you... Harvard

15:57

has a model. Yeah, but... Oxford...

15:59

but the Chinese have a model or several

16:02

models, the Russians and so on. So

16:05

then you feed the same scenario into

16:07

those different models. You get a range

16:10

of answers.

16:12

The range is as big as the change

16:15

you're trying to describe itself. We

16:17

can go into the reasons why there

16:19

is that uncertainty. And in the latest

16:22

generation of models, about 40% of

16:25

them

16:25

were deemed to be too sensitive

16:28

to be of much use. Too sensitive.

16:31

That's right. Namely you add the carbon dioxide

16:33

in and the temperature goes up too fast. Okay?

16:36

Compared to what we've seen already.

16:38

All right? So that's really disheartening.

16:41

The world's best modelers trying as

16:43

hard as they can, they get it very

16:46

wrong at least 40% of the time. Okay,

16:49

go ahead. Now I was gonna say, this is

16:51

not only my assessment. You

16:54

can look at papers published by Tim Palmer

16:57

and Bjorn Stevens who are serious

16:59

models in the consensus. And

17:02

they, their own phrase is, these models

17:04

are not fit for

17:06

purpose. At least at the regional

17:08

or more detailed global level. All

17:10

right. So I'm reading this and

17:13

I'm thinking, oh okay, fine, fine, fine.

17:15

But we know Moore's law,

17:17

maybe Moore's law itself doesn't apply any longer

17:19

as we get

17:22

to the atomic level of processors. But

17:24

the general trend is still for

17:26

processing power to expand rapidly.

17:29

So I'm thinking

17:30

these problems that Dr.

17:33

Kunan is describing will become

17:35

less and less and less and then we'll get

17:37

it. And then I read this

17:40

passage. I am quoting Unsettled.

17:43

Yep. And this is one

17:45

of the most astonishing passages in

17:47

the book. Here you're writing about

17:49

the effects of the increases in computing power

17:51

over the years. Quote,

17:53

having better tools and

17:55

information to work with should

17:57

make the models more accurate and more in line with

17:59

the world. each other. Of course it should.

18:02

This has not happened. The

18:05

spread in results among differing computer models

18:08

is increasing, close

18:10

quote. I

18:12

don't, this is, this one you're going to have

18:15

to explain to me. As our

18:17

modeling power, as our processing

18:19

power increases,

18:22

reliable conclude, we should be closing in

18:24

on reliable conclusions and yet they seem

18:27

to be receding faster than we approach them.

18:29

Have I got that correct? How can

18:31

that be? Because there are

18:34

more, as the models become

18:36

more sophisticated, what does that mean? That

18:38

means either you made the boxes a little bit

18:40

smaller in the model, the grid boxes, so

18:43

there are more of them, or you

18:46

made more sophisticated your

18:48

description of what goes on inside the grid boxes.

18:51

And either

18:52

of those are opportunity- The whole globe

18:54

is sort of divided up in these boxes. The whole globe is divided into 10

18:57

million really slabs,

18:59

grid boxes. The average size of a grid

19:02

box in the current generation is 100

19:04

kilometers, 60 miles. And

19:07

within that 60 miles, there's a lot

19:09

that goes on that we can't describe

19:12

explicitly in the computer. Because

19:14

clouds are maybe five kilometers big

19:17

and rain happens here and

19:19

not there within the grid box, we can't

19:22

describe

19:22

all that detail. One day soon we'll be able

19:24

to. Well, not really very

19:26

soon. And let me explain why. The

19:31

current grid boxes are 100 kilometers,

19:34

so you might say, well, why not make them 10? Well,

19:37

suddenly the number of boxes has gone up by 100, okay?

19:40

So you need a 100 times more

19:42

powerful computer. But it's worse than

19:44

that because the time steps have

19:46

to be smaller also because

19:49

things shouldn't move more than a grid box in

19:51

one time step. And so the

19:54

processing power actually goes up as

19:56

the cube

19:57

of the grid size.

19:59

And so if you want to

19:59

go from 100 kilometers

20:02

to 10 kilometers, that's a factor

20:05

of 10. The processing power required

20:07

goes up by a factor of 1,000.

20:10

And it's gonna be a long time before we

20:12

got a computer that's 1,000 times more

20:14

powerful than what we have today. But am I wrong that

20:16

in principle,

20:18

it's all reducible to data and

20:20

we'll get it someday? Well, I think

20:22

we will do better. You're queasy even about that though, aren't

20:24

you? I mean, there

20:26

are several reasons why I'm still queasy a

20:28

little bit about that. One good example

20:31

is weather prediction, which

20:34

is kind of the same stuff. But...

20:38

In other words, you feed data into models. You feed the

20:40

current state of the weather into the model

20:43

and you can predict what the weather's

20:45

gonna be tomorrow, next day and so on. And

20:47

we've gotten better and better at that

20:50

over the last 20 or 30 years.

20:53

So we now see forecasts that go out 10

20:56

days or something like that. Well, I think it works

20:58

as you go out, but they're at least made.

21:01

And

21:03

so you might say, okay, it's gonna get better

21:05

like that. The main reason that

21:07

that's gotten so good is

21:10

the initial data.

21:11

Namely, we know better and better

21:14

the state of the atmosphere right

21:16

now so that we can predict it going

21:18

forward. Climate's a different problem.

21:22

Climate is really driven by the oceans.

21:26

We have not very good data on the

21:28

oceans. And to be

21:30

able to specify the state of the ocean now

21:33

and then know it 10 or 20, 30, 40 years

21:36

from now is a much harder

21:38

and difficult problem. So it's

21:41

not obvious to me we're gonna get it right.

21:43

But it's worth trying, all right? Because

21:46

if only because it's a grand

21:48

computational challenge and we will develop

21:50

technologies and learn techniques. We'll

21:53

learn a lot trying. And we'll be helpful in other

21:55

applications.

21:56

Okay. Yeah. Steve

21:59

Kuhnen versus the Head of the So after reading your book,

22:01

which I did this past spring,

22:05

you and I are speaking in the middle of August,

22:08

I just started collecting headlines, thinking

22:10

I'll just read this to Steve and see what he says about

22:13

it. So the moment has come. CBS News

22:15

this past May, quote, scientists

22:18

say climate change is

22:21

making hurricanes worse. Close

22:23

quote. Here's Kuhnen in

22:25

Unsettled, quote, hurricanes and tornadoes

22:27

show no changes attributable to human influences.

22:32

Well, what do you think you're doing taking on CBS?

22:35

Well, you know, what science does CBS know? The

22:38

media, if you'll excuse me, gets

22:41

their information from reporters who

22:44

have no or very little scientific training.

22:48

You mean you didn't graduate people from Caltech who

22:50

went to work in the media? Actually, there's probably one or so. And

22:53

they do a good job. They have reporters on a climate beat who

22:58

have to produce stories.

23:01

The more dramatic, the better. If

23:04

it bleeds, it leads. And so

23:06

you

23:07

get that kind of stuff. I quote, when I say

23:09

something about hurricanes, I quote

23:11

right from the IPCC reports. And it doesn't

23:13

say that at all. Okay?

23:17

Actually, the most recent

23:18

report says that

23:21

actually the most recent report said

23:23

it based on a

23:25

paper which was subsequently

23:27

corrected. So, okay.

23:30

Okay. Floods. Actually,

23:33

this is an old headline. Here's a 2020 headline.

23:36

This is from an article or press release published

23:39

by the UN Environment Program, quote,

23:42

climate change. This is the UN now.

23:44

Not the IPCC, but it is a UN

23:48

agency. Climate change is making

23:50

record-breaking floods the new normal.

23:53

Here's Steve Cohen in Unsettled. We don't know whether

23:55

floods globally are increasing, decreasing,

23:57

or doing nothing at all. Well, what I would say is that

23:59

is the UN needs to be consistent and

24:02

they should check their press release against the IPCC

24:05

reports before they say

24:07

anything.

24:08

All right. All right. Again, when

24:10

I wrote Unsettled, I tried very

24:12

hard to stick with the gold standard,

24:16

which was the IPCC report

24:18

at the time or the subsequent

24:20

research literature.

24:22

And I had available

24:24

to me when I wrote the book only the

24:27

fifth assessment report, which came

24:29

out in 2014, as we've

24:31

discussed, the sixth assessment

24:33

report came out about a year ago. And

24:36

I'm proud to say there's essentially

24:38

nothing in there now that

24:41

needs to be changed. The paperback

24:43

edition is not going to be totally rewritten.

24:45

No, I will do an update, of course, on the paperback

24:48

edition. All right. Agriculture, here's

24:50

another... here's a 2019 headline,

24:52

The New York Times, quote, Climate

24:54

Change Threatens World's Food Supply

24:57

United Nations Warns. And

24:59

here's Steve Coonan in Unsettled. Agriculture

25:01

yields have surged during

25:04

the past century, even as the globe

25:06

has warmed. And projected price

25:08

impacts of future human-induced climate

25:10

changes through 2050 should hardly be

25:13

noticeable among ordinary

25:15

market dynamics, close quote. Not

25:18

what I said, but what the IPCC

25:20

said. Okay.

25:22

So you see this game of telephone.

25:25

Well, I can take current media

25:28

and almost any climate story I

25:30

can write, I think, a very

25:32

effective counter. It's like

25:35

shooting fish in a barrel. All right?

25:37

And I've actually gotten to the point where I

25:40

say, oh, no, not another one. Do I have to

25:42

do that, too? So this

25:44

is endemic to a media

25:47

that is ill-informed and has an

25:49

agenda

25:50

to set. And what is

25:52

their agenda? The agenda is to promote

25:55

alarm

25:57

and induce governments to...

25:59

I think that probably the primary

26:02

agenda is to get clicks and eyeballs.

26:05

And you know, there are organizations. It's

26:08

wonderful. There's an organization called

26:10

Covering Climate Now,

26:12

which is a nonprofit membership

26:14

organization. It's got the Guardian,

26:17

it's got various other media, NPR,

26:19

I believe. And their mission

26:21

is to promote the narrative.

26:23

They will not allow anything

26:26

to be broadcast or written

26:29

that is counter to the narrative. The

26:31

narrative, the John Kerry

26:33

narrative. We've already broken the climate and

26:36

where it's for now. The neutral suicide pact. Et cetera.

26:38

Okay. Okay. All

26:41

right. So here, sit tight because I'm going to read you several headlines

26:43

now. Okay. I'll listen.

26:46

And these are headlines on July of 2023.

26:50

So as you and I taped this, this is last

26:52

month.

26:53

Here are a few headlines I collected.

26:56

The New York Times on July 6th. Heat

26:58

records are broken around the globe as earth

27:00

warms fast. From

27:02

north to south, temperatures are surging as greenhouse

27:05

gases combine with the effects of El Niño. Close

27:07

quote. New York Times on July 18.

27:10

Heat waves grip three continents as

27:12

climate change warms earth across

27:14

North America, Europe and Asia. Hundreds

27:16

of millions endured blistering conditions. A

27:19

U.S. official called it a threat

27:21

to all humankind.

27:23

Wall Street Journal.

27:26

Lest you think I'm going after the New York Times here,

27:28

the Wall Street Journal on July 25th. Quote,

27:30

July heat waves nearly impossible

27:33

without climate change. Study

27:36

says record temperatures have been fueled

27:38

by decades of fossil fuel emissions.

27:41

Once again, the New York Times. This

27:43

is my last headline. This is on July 27,

27:46

just a couple weeks ago. This looks

27:48

like earth's warmest month. Hotter

27:51

ones appear to be in store. July

27:53

is on track to break all records for

27:55

any month, scientists say, as the planet

27:57

enters

27:59

an extended period of exceptional warmth."

28:04

Unsettled came out in April 2021.

28:06

So we

28:08

will forgive you, Steve, because

28:10

you could not have known in April 2021

28:14

what would happen last month, July

28:16

of 2023. But

28:19

now July 2023 is in the record books, and

28:21

it proves that climate

28:23

science is settled.

28:26

That statement, together

28:29

with all those headlines, confuse

28:32

weather and climate.

28:34

All right. Give

28:37

me a tutorial now. So climate, weather

28:39

is what happens every day, or maybe

28:41

even every season. Climate,

28:44

the official definition, is

28:46

a multi-decade average of

28:48

weather properties. That's

28:51

what the IPCC? Yeah, the World Meteorological

28:53

Organization says that also. All right. Which

28:56

is another UN agency. So

28:59

don't tell me about what happened this

29:02

year,

29:02

but tell me about what happened the average

29:05

of the last 10 or 20 years.

29:08

And then we can talk

29:10

climate. Now, with respect

29:12

to the unusual heat that we saw last

29:15

month, there is

29:18

a observation. You were in New York last month. I

29:20

was, indeed, in New York. So you felt it. It

29:22

was hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was hot? Of course it was hot. All

29:24

right. I

29:27

wasn't in the city, fortunately, but still. And

29:29

actually being in the city has got an issue. It's

29:31

a piece of the story. But let me continue. We

29:35

have satellites that are continually

29:37

monitoring

29:38

the temperature of the

29:40

atmosphere. And they report

29:42

out every month

29:43

what the monthly temperature

29:46

is, or more precisely, what the monthly

29:48

temperature anomaly is. Namely,

29:51

how much warmer or colder is it than

29:54

the average what would have been expected for

29:56

that month, because in July it's expected.

29:59

And the average is at...

29:59

at least over a decade. Well, we have data

30:02

that go back to about 1979. So

30:05

we have good monthly measures

30:08

of the global temperature,

30:10

lower atmosphere, for

30:13

40-something years. What

30:15

you see is month-to-month variations,

30:18

of course. But a long-term

30:20

trend

30:21

that's going up.

30:23

No question about it. It's

30:25

going up at about 0.13, 0.15. I

30:29

won't get the number exactly right. Degrees per

30:31

decade. That's some

30:33

combination of natural variability and

30:35

greenhouse gases, human

30:38

influences more generally. And

30:40

then every couple years,

30:43

you see a sharp spike. It

30:46

goes up.

30:47

And that's

30:49

El Nino.

30:51

It's weather, and so on. When

30:54

you say spike, it goes up and down.

30:56

It goes back down. Correct. We're not talking about to a new

30:58

plateau. No. So

31:00

there's a long-term trend, which is greenhouse

31:02

gases and natural variability.

31:05

And then there's this natural spike every

31:07

once in a while. When a two-bow

31:09

goes off, you see something. El Nino's

31:11

happen, you see something, and so on. The

31:14

last month in July, there

31:17

was another spike.

31:19

In the anomaly, the anomaly is about

31:22

as large as we've ever seen,

31:24

but not unprecedented. Now,

31:29

the real question is, why did it spike

31:32

so much? Nothing to do with

31:34

CO2. CO2 is kind of the human

31:36

influences, kind of the base on

31:38

which this phenomenon

31:41

occurs. So because the

31:43

CO2,

31:45

even if you stipulate that

31:47

CO2 is causing some large

31:49

proportion of this warming.

31:52

Slow, steady warming. It's a slow, steady process.

31:54

You would not expect to see spikes. You wouldn't

31:56

expect to see sudden step functions. Absolutely

31:58

not. All right. I'm sorry.

31:59

And there are various reasons,

32:02

people hypothesize, we don't know yet why

32:05

we've seen the spike in the last

32:07

month. One of the more interesting ones,

32:10

I mean apart from changes in

32:12

El Nino and other oscillations in the climate system. You've

32:14

got to take just a moment to explain what is El Nino?

32:16

El Nino is a phenomenon

32:19

in the climate system that happens once

32:21

every four or five years. Heat

32:24

builds up in the

32:26

equatorial Pacific to

32:28

the west,

32:29

Indonesia and so on. And

32:32

then when enough of it builds up, it kind

32:34

of surges across the Pacific and

32:36

changes the currents and the winds as

32:39

it surges toward South America.

32:42

It was discovered in the 19th century

32:45

and it kind of

32:46

well understood at this point. 19th

32:48

century means that phenomenon has

32:50

nothing to do with CO2.

32:53

Correct, now people talk about changes in

32:55

that phenomena as a result of CO2.

32:58

But it's there in the climate system already. And

33:00

when it happens, it

33:03

influences weather and climate

33:05

or weather all over the world.

33:08

We feel it. We feel it gets rainier

33:10

in Southern California, for example, and

33:13

so on. So we have

33:16

been in the opposite of an

33:18

El Nino, a La Nina for

33:21

the last, I don't know, 10 years

33:23

or so, maybe longer. Part of the reason

33:25

people think the west coast has been in drought

33:28

and it is shifting. It has now

33:30

shifted in the last many months to

33:33

an El Nino condition. That

33:36

warms the globe and is thought

33:38

to contribute to this spike

33:40

we have seen. But there are other contributions

33:42

as well. One of the more surprising ones

33:45

is that back in January of 22, an

33:49

enormous underwater volcano went

33:52

off in Tonga.

33:54

And it put up a

33:56

lot of water vapor into the upper

33:58

atmosphere. the upper atmosphere

34:00

water vapor by about 10%. That's

34:03

a warming effect. That's a warming effect.

34:06

And it may be that that is contributing

34:08

to why the spike is so high. So

34:10

you're, let me go back to New York.

34:13

Yes.

34:14

You spent July

34:16

back there. I happened to visit in

34:18

July. And we have Canadian

34:20

wildfires. And the press

34:22

telling us that the wildfires are because of climate

34:25

change. And

34:27

for the first time that anybody can remember, you

34:30

grew up in Brooklyn. Maybe your memory goes back farther.

34:32

But for the first time anybody I know could remember,

34:35

smoke is so heavy in Canada. It gets

34:38

blown into New York. And

34:40

the sky is, it feels

34:44

as though there's a solar eclipse taking

34:46

place. For two, three days it's so dark in

34:48

New York. Meanwhile, New York, I'm just

34:51

giving you a certain beginning experience. Meanwhile,

34:53

New York is hot. It's

34:55

really hot. And we're reading reports

34:58

that Europe is hot. And

35:00

they're sweltering even in Madrid, a culture

35:02

built around heat in the mid day where they take

35:04

siestas. Even in Madrid, they

35:06

don't quite know how to handle this heat. And

35:09

it's perfectly normal for people to say,

35:11

wait a minute, this is getting scary.

35:15

It feels for the first time

35:17

as though the earth is

35:20

threatening. It's unsafe.

35:23

In New York of all places where one thing you

35:25

didn't have to worry about earthquakes, the other thing

35:27

you didn't have to worry about was breathing the air

35:29

at least. LA, different,

35:32

pollutant. But

35:33

suddenly you can't breathe the air. It feels uncomfortable.

35:35

It's scary. It's scary. And

35:38

your response to that is what? So we have two

35:41

responses. We have a very short

35:44

memory for weather.

35:46

So you go back

35:48

in the archives of the newspapers.

35:51

And you can read from even the 19th

35:53

century on the East Coast descriptions

35:56

of so-called yellow days

35:58

when the atmosphere of the atmosphere.

35:59

was

36:01

crowded by smoke

36:03

from Canadian fires. So

36:06

look at the historical record first. And

36:09

if it happened before human influences

36:11

were significant, you got a much

36:13

higher bar to clear to say, aha,

36:16

that's CO2. That's the first statement.

36:19

The second statement is there's a lot

36:21

of variability. Here in California,

36:24

you had two decades of drought.

36:27

And the governor was screaming, new normal,

36:29

new normal. And look at what happened last

36:32

year. Record, at

36:34

least historical record, torrential rains.

36:37

Because people forgot about the 1860 some odd event where

36:41

the Central Valley was under many feet

36:43

of water. So climate

36:46

is not weather.

36:48

And the weather can really fool you. All

36:51

right. Steve, some last questions

36:53

here. Unsettled. Humans

36:56

have been successfully adapting to changes

36:58

in climate for millennia. Today,

37:01

society can adapt

37:03

to climate changes, whether they are

37:05

natural phenomena or the result of human influences. So

37:09

you draw the distinction between

37:11

adapting to climate

37:13

change on the one hand and

37:16

the John Kerry approach on the other,

37:18

which is trying to stop climate change. Explain

37:20

that distinction and explain why you

37:22

favor one over the other. All right. I

37:24

would take issue, though, with your description of

37:27

Kerry's approach. It's

37:29

not trying to stop climate change. It's

37:31

to reduce human influences on the climate, because

37:34

the climate will keep changing even if

37:37

we reduce emissions. You're fairer to

37:39

John Kerry than I would even dream of. All

37:42

right. Go ahead. So let me talk about adaptation a

37:44

little bit and give you some example that

37:46

is probably not well known.

37:47

It's

37:51

probably not well known. At least it wasn't really known

37:53

to me until I looked into it. If you

37:55

go back to 1900 and you look from 1900,

37:59

until today, the

38:02

globe warmed by about 1.3 degrees. That's

38:06

this global temperature record that everybody

38:08

more or less agrees upon. Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

38:10

Celsius. Celsius, you can convert.

38:15

And

38:16

you might ask,

38:17

well, the other statement

38:19

before we get to the consequences is

38:21

that the IPCC projects about

38:24

the same amount of warming over

38:27

the next 100 years. And

38:31

you might ask, what's going to happen

38:33

over the next 100 years as that warming happens?

38:36

We can look at the past

38:38

to get some sense of how we might

38:40

fare. Not perfect,

38:42

but a good indication. Since 1900

38:45

until now,

38:47

the global population

38:50

has gone up by a factor of five, about

38:53

eight billion people.

38:54

The average lifespan

38:57

or life expectancy went from 32

38:59

years to 73 years.

39:00

The

39:04

GDP per capita in constant

39:06

dollars went up by a factor

39:08

of seven. The literacy rate

39:11

went up by a factor of four. The

39:13

nutrition, et cetera, et cetera. And

39:16

we've seen the greatest flourishing

39:19

of human well-being ever,

39:22

even as the globe warmed by 1.3 degrees. And

39:25

the kicker, of course, is that the deaths,

39:28

the death rate from extreme

39:30

weather events fell by a

39:32

factor of 50. Better

39:34

prediction, better resilience of infrastructure,

39:37

and so on. So to think that

39:39

another 1.3 or 1.4, whatever degrees over the next century, is going to

39:45

significantly derail that

39:48

beggars belief.

39:50

So not an existential

39:52

threat. Perhaps some drag on

39:54

the economy a little bit. The

39:56

IPCC says not very much at all.

39:59

You know, the notion that the world

40:02

is going to end, unless we stop

40:04

greenhouse gas is just nonsense. This is

40:06

not a mutual suicide pact. No,

40:08

not at all. Okay.

40:12

On August 16th of last year, a

40:14

year ago, President Biden signed

40:16

legislation that included some 360 billion

40:19

of climate spending, at

40:22

least the Biden administration claimed it

40:24

was climate spending over the next decade.

40:27

President Biden, quote, the American

40:29

people won

40:30

and the climate deniers lost. And

40:33

the Inflation Reduction Act, which

40:36

curiously enough, since it seems

40:38

to have prompted inflation rather than reduced

40:40

it, but curiously enough, that's what

40:42

they called it, the Inflation

40:44

Reduction Act takes the most aggressive action

40:47

to combat climate change ever, close

40:50

quote. Good legislation?

40:52

Was that a useful adaptation? It's

40:55

aimed at mitigation by and large, namely

40:58

reducing emissions.

40:59

I think there are parts

41:02

of it that are good, in

41:04

particular the

41:06

spur to innovate new technologies.

41:09

The only way we're going to reduce emissions, if

41:11

that is the goal, is to

41:13

develop

41:14

energy technologies that are

41:17

no more expensive

41:19

than fossil fuel technologies,

41:21

but are low emission or zero

41:23

emission. Okay, so hold on. Let's

41:25

take that one right there. Let's do the R&D. Because

41:29

here I have a provost of Caltech

41:31

who knows what tech, what we can reasonably

41:33

hope and what we cannot reasonably hope. Can

41:36

we reasonably hope? You and I are talking

41:39

after, 10 days

41:41

after the internet went crazy

41:44

with some claim of cold fusion or,

41:46

no, it was room temperature

41:48

superconductivity.

41:51

So is this a problem we can

41:53

crack? I think it's going

41:55

to be really difficult. There is one existing solution

41:58

and that's nuclear power, fission. We can

42:00

talk about fusion separately. Fission

42:03

exists. Yes. It can be done.

42:05

Right. It's more expensive than

42:08

others, methods. But

42:12

because of the regulatory overlay, isn't it?

42:14

And it's not, largely, right? But

42:17

also because at least in the U.S. we build

42:19

every plant to a custom design. So

42:22

one of the things I helped categorize when I was

42:24

in the Department of Energy was small

42:26

modular reactors. These are about

42:28

the tenth the size of the big ones. You

42:31

can build them in a factory, put them on a

42:33

flatbed truck and... And

42:35

this is not a crazy dream. No, this is not

42:38

a crazy dream

42:38

at all. Is venture money going into this? No, a lot.

42:40

And there are companies that are on the verge

42:43

of putting out a test appointment of

42:46

commercially construct...

42:48

So why isn't John Kerry

42:50

going to one of these hot new startups

42:53

and doing a photo shoot and giving us...

42:55

He may have. I don't know. Well,

42:58

Ambassador Kerry in detail. But

43:02

isn't this the way? Isn't this the

43:04

hope? There is the nuclear word that is

43:06

a political hot potato in some

43:08

quarters. Again, not

43:11

to get too much into politics. I

43:13

think there is a faction of the

43:16

left wing that

43:18

just sees that as an athema and not

43:20

a solution at all. Meanwhile, the Chinese

43:22

are doing it.

43:23

So I like

43:25

the technology parts of the IRA.

43:27

I do not like the subsidies

43:30

for wind and solar.

43:31

And let me take a moment to explain that.

43:34

So there are significant incentives.

43:37

I keep saying you're a provost of Caltech. You're also an Obama

43:39

guy. I'm an Obama guy. And one of the

43:41

things I don't think you mentioned, I was chief

43:43

scientist for BP,

43:45

the oil company, for five years. So

43:47

you know the energy industry. So I learned the energy

43:50

industry. I never had to make any money in

43:52

it. But I helped strategize

43:54

and kind of systematize

43:57

thinking for them.

43:59

from the inside. So subsidies to solar

44:03

and wind. Everybody thinks that's a solution. Let

44:06

me

44:07

note that wind and

44:09

solar are intermittent sources

44:12

of electricity. Solar obviously

44:14

doesn't produce at night or when it's cloudy. Wind

44:18

does not produce when the wind doesn't

44:20

blow.

44:21

And if you're going to build a

44:23

grid that's entirely wind and

44:25

solar, you better have some way

44:28

of filling in the times

44:30

when they're not producing. Now

44:33

you know if it's only eight hours or 12 hours

44:36

you're trying to fill in, not so hard. You

44:38

can build batteries and so on.

44:41

But if you need to fill

44:43

in a couple of weeks and

44:45

we do see times in Europe,

44:48

Texas, California when

44:50

the wind has become and the solar is clouded

44:53

out. So you need something

44:55

else. Right. And that means that

44:57

there's something else which might be

45:00

batteries, although I think that's unlikely,

45:02

gas with carbon capture or

45:05

nuclear. There's something else that's got to be

45:07

at least as capable as the

45:09

wind and solar. And since

45:11

the wind and solar are the cheapest, the

45:14

backup system is going to be more expensive

45:16

than the wind and solar. So you wind up

45:19

running two parallel

45:21

systems making electricity at

45:23

least twice as expensive. So

45:26

what I'd like to say is that wind and solar can be

45:28

an ornament on the real electrical

45:31

system, but they can never be the backbone

45:33

of the system. Okay.

45:36

What scientists, what

45:38

many of your colleagues are up to

45:40

or think they're doing, in unsettled,

45:43

you quote the late climate research scientist,

45:45

Steven Schneider. Right. This

45:47

is a Stanford guy. Stanford guy. Right. This

45:50

is Schneider

45:51

writing all the way back in 1989. Schneider,

45:55

on the one hand as scientists, we

45:57

are ethically bound to the scientific

45:59

method. On the other hand, we are not

46:02

just scientists, but human beings as well.

46:04

We'd like to reduce the risk of disastrous

46:07

climate change.

46:09

That entails getting media coverage, so

46:11

we have to offer up scary scenarios,

46:14

make simplified, dramatic statements,

46:17

and make little mention of any doubts we

46:19

might have."

46:21

Well, scientists are

46:23

human beings. What's wrong with

46:25

that? I think

46:27

Scheiner's attitude, and I never met him by

46:29

the way, which is not

46:32

uncommon among many people, is

46:37

an advisory malpractice and

46:40

is a usurpation of

46:42

the right of non-experts to make

46:44

their own decisions. And let me explain.

46:47

The

46:49

biggest problem in trying to reduce

46:51

emissions is not the 1.5 billion

46:53

people in the developed world.

46:55

It's the 6.5 billion people

46:58

who don't have enough energy.

47:00

And

47:02

you're telling them that because of

47:04

some vague, distant threat that

47:06

we in the developed world are worried

47:09

about, that they're going to have to

47:11

pay more for energy or get less reliable

47:13

sources and so on. They

47:15

should be able to make their own choices about

47:18

whether they're willing to tolerate whatever

47:20

threat there might be from the climate versus

47:23

having round-the-clock lighting,

47:25

having adequate refrigeration, having

47:28

transportation, and so on. Billions

47:30

of people in India and China after still poor. Six

47:32

and a half billion people. Right, absolutely. Their

47:35

energy's stalled. So a great statistic,

47:38

I don't think I have it in the book, three

47:40

billion people on the planet of

47:42

the eight billion use less electricity

47:45

every year than the average U.S.

47:47

refrigerator. Okay?

47:50

So fix that problem first,

47:53

which is existential and

47:55

immediate and soluble, and

47:57

then we can talk about some

48:00

vague climate thing that might happen 50 years

48:03

from now. But scientists must

48:05

tell the truth. Absolutely. Completely

48:07

lay it all out. And we're

48:10

not getting that out of the scientific establishment.

48:13

I know that.

48:16

Two

48:19

more questions. Unsettled

48:21

has been out for more than two years now. How

48:23

have your colleagues responded?

48:26

Many

48:28

colleagues who are not climate

48:30

scientists

48:32

say thanks for writing the book.

48:34

It gives me a framework to think about these things

48:36

and points me to some of the problems

48:39

that we're seeing in the popular

48:42

discussion.

48:43

I got

48:45

some rather awful

48:48

reviews from mainstream

48:50

climate scientists, which disappointed

48:52

me not because they found anything wrong

48:54

in the book. They didn't. But

48:56

the quality of the discussion, they had homonym

48:59

attacks, the putting words in my

49:01

mouth, and so on. So

49:03

that wasn't so good. The argument

49:05

was Steve Kuhnen,

49:07

you're one of us.

49:08

You know you shouldn't be saying this. It may

49:10

be true, but you shouldn't be saying this.

49:13

Yeah. Steve, how could you? How

49:15

could you? And my response

49:18

to that is, first of all, I've

49:20

been involved in science advice

49:22

in other aspects of public policy, particularly

49:25

national defense,

49:27

together with some Stanford former, now

49:30

passed on Stanford colleagues. And

49:33

I was taught that you tell the whole truth.

49:36

And you let the politicians

49:38

make the value judgments and the cost

49:41

effectiveness trade-offs and so on.

49:44

My sense of that balance is no better

49:47

than anybody else's.

49:48

But the thing I can bring to the table are

49:51

the scientific facts. But you trust

49:53

democracy. You trust

49:56

people to elect politicians who

49:58

can, over time, they'll make a mistake.

49:59

They'll make a mistake here, they'll make a mistake there, they'll give a speech

50:02

that's in phlam, but over

50:04

time

50:05

you trust them. And your, and the colleagues

50:07

who say, no, don't tell them the truth,

50:10

we can't trust them to make the right decision.

50:12

That's fundamentally what's going on. That's right, yeah. I

50:15

know, I scientists know better than everybody

50:17

else. And you know, it's even worse because these

50:19

are scientists in the developed world. And

50:22

if you ask the scientists in Nigeria,

50:25

India and so on, you get a very different

50:28

values calculus.

50:29

Sorry, in what

50:32

way? Well, that primary concern is getting enough energy

50:34

for folks. Right, right, okay.

50:36

Steve, last question. It'll take just a

50:38

moment to set up here. According

50:40

to a Harris Poll in January 2022,

50:44

a little over a year and a half ago now, 84% of

50:48

teenagers in the United States agree with

50:50

both of the two following

50:52

statements.

50:54

They agree with both of these.

50:56

One, climate change will

50:58

impact everyone in my generation through

51:01

global political instability.

51:04

Two, if we don't address

51:06

climate change today, it will be too

51:09

late for future generations

51:11

making some parts of the planet unlivable,

51:14

close quote. John

51:16

Kerry, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg,

51:19

and on and on and on. You've got

51:22

countless voices warning

51:25

that climate change represents a genuine

51:28

danger to life on the planet. And

51:31

now millions of

51:33

young Americans are scared.

51:37

Really scared. Surely

51:39

this has some role to play in

51:42

what we see, the suicidal

51:45

ideation and the increasing unhappiness.

51:47

I'm sure social, there are all kinds of, but surely

51:49

this is part of

51:52

what's going on. There are two immoralities

51:55

here. The one immorality

51:58

is the treatment of the developing world, which we... talked

52:00

about already. The other immorality

52:02

is scaring the bejesus out of the

52:04

younger generation.

52:07

And you

52:09

know, it's doubly dangerous

52:12

because it's mostly in the west

52:15

and not in China

52:17

or India.

52:21

I've tried. I go out and talk in universities.

52:24

And of course the audiences I talk

52:26

to tend to be quantitative and factually

52:28

driven. But even so, the minds

52:31

get opened up. The eyes get opened up. I

52:35

think in the US, the problem

52:37

will eventually solve itself because

52:40

the route we are headed

52:42

down is starting to impact

52:45

people's daily lives. Electricity

52:47

is getting more expensive. You won't be able

52:50

to buy an internal combustion car

52:52

in 10 or 15 years if you're here

52:55

in California. People are going to say,

52:57

wait a second, as they already are

52:59

in Europe,

53:00

UK, Germany, France. And

53:03

I think there will be a falling

53:06

to earth of all

53:09

of this at some point. And we will get

53:11

more sensible. OK, one last question.

53:13

I'm sorry, I still won't quite let you go.

53:16

Your audience now is not a colleague

53:18

of yours. Your audience now

53:20

is an 18 to 24-year-old American,

53:23

pretty bright. Maybe

53:27

in college, maybe not. But bright reads newspapers, or at

53:29

least reads them online. Give

53:32

me in a sentence or two, speaking

53:34

to that person, speaking to an American kid

53:37

or young adult, do

53:40

they

53:41

need to be scared? No,

53:44

absolutely not. I would quote the 1900

53:47

to now flourishing as an example.

53:50

And I would say,

53:52

you probably believe that hurricanes

53:54

are getting worse. And then point them

53:56

to the IPCC line and

53:59

say, you know.

53:59

Well, you were misinformed about

54:02

that by the media. Don't

54:04

you think that there are other things about which

54:06

you've been misinformed?

54:08

You can read the book and find out many

54:10

of them and then go ask your climate

54:13

friends, how come it says that in the IPCC

54:15

report, but you're telling me something else? Stephen

54:18

Kuhnen, author of Unsettled.

54:21

Thank you. For

54:24

Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and

54:26

Fox Nation, I'm Peter Robinson. Thanks

54:29

for joining us.

54:30

["The Hoover Institution

54:32

and Fox Nation"]