intellectual feast, every saturday, megan is receiving documents america story and on sundays, potentially bring you the latest nonfiction books and authors and funding for "c-span2" comes from these television companies and more, including - the greatest is the place that you go home and it is our goal right now we are all facing our greatest challenge and that's was black lives working around the clock to keep you connected. it's a little easier to do yours - spark lifelong with these television companies, support "c-span2" as a public service. >> welcome to the latest in a series of messages event. and today, and a pleasure of hosting the event with steven koonin, and stephen is an eminent scientist, now a famous scientist and for some and infamous scientists, professor

in new york university at nyu and formally the head of the informative energies research portfolio, undersecretary of energy in other words, approves post under president obama. he is a chief scientist for those of you who may remember, use mean petroleum, inanimate beyond petroleum and then went back to vp will be talking about that and part of that is a professor at caltech which is i am jealous because that is my first choice were wanted to go to school and into queens queens university in canada and some of you know. i like to think of it as a good business school caltech is the genuine mothership. so in short, scientists and some have consequences, and were going to talk about his book, an attorney is coming know why were talking about the book titled

"unsettled" and climate science tell us that it doesn't and why it matters and is published and he was on the circuit, i know this like to be fun, could be annoying, but to write a book is a lot of work. you hope people will read it. some going to talk about this book which is the science of the planet's climate. going to talk about the nature of the debate, not just this debate but this issue talking about science in the public space and will talk some about the idea of changing settlement energy and how we can energy to survive, no energy, no life and will stop and a full disclosure, i've not known him before and i have gotten to know him and i like him. i thought i would like him whenever the book and reviewed the book and very favorably. and if you follow it, you often

go to the website and you seen on facebook and the cancellation and this was god. and i guess you could say publicity, helps people focus on why the book was written. as a preamble, as a fellow physicist, should point out some history here, humanity has known that the earth his hand and mr. verma 400 years. so it figure this out a while ago. when carbon dioxide was figured out about 200 years ago. the biochemist discovered it. and electricity and you name it. i'm not scottish, british roots but they did a lot. 200 years ago almost exactly a couple of years to the anniversary the idea of the greenhouse effect in the very worst were created invented and identified by mathematician which is kind of fun. and fully a transform anybody is been nothing science, his

mathematician to napoleon and he figured out that the earth was kept warmer and otherwise would be read if it the atmosphere function like a greenhouse and if it didn't dinner, there would be no life on earth. some humans have been interested in climate science for a long time and also interested in the weather which is the related and will talk about different phenomena read because we care about the weather and its effects our lives in nature has been trying to kill humans with the weather and foremost as well, forever. so understanding the climate and weather matters and matters because it's consequential and it it's interesting. so that is my bias. that's why i'm here discussing the book, and what stephen has written so let's start out with this title because when you're in the circuit, typically you'll find people of nothing but her

to ask you, why did you name of this. every since. so enough about me, why the title, and it gets to what we will talk about, why did you read the book. steven: so first of all is a pleasure to be talking to you and think when the great conversations, the titles actually refers to the silence itself and that there are still important things about your it's climate and human influences on it and we do not understand but it also refers to my state of mind when i found out the science is not a solid as i had previously believed. mark: why think that this gets to an interesting point, he wrote about this, two things that struck me in your book. you're right when that happened and how it happened and i thank you so important to understand

that the epiphany that the science was not a settled issue thought it occurred because you are looking into the science, because somebody paid you to do that, you're the undersecretary as an energy been of the page you in the kind of ad hominem world the weight live in when it comes to climate issues. nobody paid you to disassemble the narrative that we have now. a solid view of climate. sue and about 2005, when a joint is vp, often when i left the government in 2012, is working to develop and demonstrate emissions technologies in various kinds and we can talk about this. but in 2013, i was asked by the american physicist decided the professional society the represents 50000 physicist to do

a refresh of the statement on climate change and in 2007 of the issued a statement to great controversy among the membership because it uses the world in incontrovertible freighted and you know that is a red flag is a geo's physicist and in 2013, tos in on the statement and i thougt rather than write many professional societies who have these kind of statements, just rubberstamping with you and and they say, i thought that, we are physicist and we should have people look at the issue. and so giving the workshop in my panelist was five physicist were not climate experts, they said and listened to three consensus and scientists and some of them a thank author said three potential skeptical scientist. their presentations and we would talk for a day or so. and i came away again with the

sense that gosh, there's a lot here that we don't understand it and some of it is very important to note that we didn't know. i was also surprised by how we had not learned about the shortfalls in the time that i had been studying the matter. so is both a revelation about the substance of the science and also how clearly and had been communicated through even the literate public. mark: it was funny because your company was similar to mine on a different subject on nuclear energy which we will come back to, having to spend a week at the island and as an undocumented immigrant from canada. to speak and i'm also now american citizen. despite all the trials and tribulations, it's hard to get here. [laughter] is challenging these days. anyway, so i started a debate

around nuclear energy in 1979, because of the accident at 3-mile island and what emerged in what was called the mission hearings which looked out nonproliferation and energies for this primarily and then the safety issues, the commission in a mathematician, he did a spectacular job at doing what you just described. the accusation of of their state to operate, we should abandon it and the government set up a commission to examine the science and engineering around what we know of the uncertain of the anyway, great experience but what i learned, your point is this profound difference between what people thought they knew the public space and then the policymakers and then with the sizes of the new they debated about others big chasm and the

people across the chasm or minority a lot of scientists, ty just didn't want to get into it, and i can tell you i try to get this in your community to come and join me about the debate of the safety of your energy. we were being told the world would end with prominent scientists and to name names and other places like that, you know, we almost lost pennsylvania and all these things are going to happen. scientist did not want to drag me. i was very fortunate, they did not want to join the public debate for a variety of reasons the subject in fact i would say that some like where we are now ready so you learn that there's something to debate and a bit of a blowback on that when you run a piece five years ago now, seven years ago.

[laughter] were you surprised, i guess i was surprised blowback that i fell because i'm in the middle of an accident but there is a trigger event because hyperbolic media coverage. a billion-dollar reactor, melting down on this reactor and blowing up the investment was a consequential event was a trigger that you saw a lot of emotion and this is a little different. sue and i would say that the discussion now compared to nuclear energy and so i think the difference in the climate is two things. one is we have now and allegedly authoritative set of documents that are in fact the reports are the u.s. government reports and

they allegedly define and the second thing we have is that this is been building for quite a while but i think that is getting more serious now as you see governments proposing actions that will in fact affect people's lives more directly in terms of reliability of energy, energy and even behavioral patterns. i think there's a much greater desire about to be looking out i thwarted and authoritative science than let's say five years ago. mark: i do want to get to know one thing that you writing a book that i thought you handle actually well pretty the language of the debate when people have decided to go to those who argue about the science called deniers, this

construct that was created which i was with what happened was created, you wrote eloquently, briefly), i think it's important that you have announcements by others from thank you so important to take head on this issue having labeled a denier when you try to talk about the science of climate read sequence of her swallow me just say, micro aggressions, would be really offended and i had been called recently in some of the media, 200 might extended family died in world war ii camps from the. i get really mad so this is about science so we should probably take the emotion out of it. whatever the book, i was very careful to almost entirely from the official assessment reports,

but the human in the u.s. government. so somebody takes issue with what is in the book, we can then have a conversation about who is denying what. in fact some of the people who were criticizing me actually wrote the reports themselves. mark: [laughter] i have to say, so like you, what are right in a public space and this is just the nature of the spacebar and whatever the subject is, energy and climate science pretty there's research but others have done because you go to the primary sources and then you look at what they said and then you do your best to accurately reflect of what they said and you write your and that's what research is like. in this particular debate, the size debate on climate, this is what struck me early on i would say 20 years ago when i first started looking at this.

is that if you read the literature including the reports, you find as a friend of mine as you know, and paraphrasing the frequently saying to the calling to her debating this. don't keep saying and he is very adamant that the very good and that the vast majority of research is honest, solid, impressing, importing, and to the extent getting it borderline angry when people label the science is bulk, so it is a translation of what is there. into public discussions and some scientists, et al., in the media and we get the sources happening, but this is not there's no answer the question whether want to end this bike.

so in science and public policy, they merge new can't avoid it, public policy supports science is not like it is a bad, is difficult one but the process of science and reaching consensus is important to understand in understanding the difference between continuing of the say, knowing the earth is round denying the temperature of the planet are very different for a continuum. and you undertook this examination based on that kind of simplistic promise. how do you bridget that divide and will people say to you, is a consensus and 70 scientists say given the new saying, your cherry picking. it's a consensus that we have a problem. we'll what do you say. steven: so you with the sciences

from what you are anybody things that we should do about it. i try to be very careful about that. we can discuss what we might do well is talk about the science. there is this long game of telephone i like to say the stars with the papers and that goes into the assessment of the course and the summaries and policy makers and then heavily influenced by the government, and the media and the politicians. there's so many opportunities to distort the message. and as i wrote the book, i tried very hard to stick with summary statements in the reports and to circumvent that whole chain of distortion and give the public some insight into what the science actually says brady and i often like to put the line from the newly the princess bride where he says, you keep

using that word. we think think a sales. in fact a lot of people say no human influences in the hurricanes of the economic impact of the warming will be minimal etc. [inaudible]. and there's some real surprises that the process has been very tonight tried to get them and somebody thinks that an cherry picking, show me the part of the tree. mark: date yourself like me, by 21 of the great movies of all time. princess bride. the great line when he tells them that i don't think that word means what you think it means. [laughter] there was a physicist who said that by the way. sue and we can go back and look it up. mark: will have to go back into the clip. [laughter] and anyway, so look, you put

your finger in something here this really important. especially the public policy space so you went to great pains in your book to his primary sources, the same sources that others, reached a different conclusion in the same primary sources, perfectly reasonable liberation. sue and i actually did not come to a different conclusion, i tried the conclusions for the u. government conclusions but sometimes they were quite in the proper context and the transform history or don't give a sense of scale and so on. mark: you are right, correct me on that because they think again, the precision in the language which is difficult in soundbites on tv as you know.

and if you're lucky, you get three - four minutes of airtime and usually the host was an impact thing like is a hoax or obama was wrong biden did this or what ever read it and can hammered for that and you need to come back with an answer, you can't, you have to read a conclusion and in three minutes it is hard pretty. steven: i would say this one in particular is so complicated that it does not adapt well at all to soundbites. mark: you're right, talk about this. in after i published my review which i can share with the audience. if i look at your book in the last sentence which is very appalling again, i would tell those listening, if you have not read it, you should and it is a i would characterize it and it's a lecture and pretty for more it's carefully explaining what is happened and where we are with the data means and where

they come from. look at the sea level rise perhaps and of course it also lays, it is celebrates and thinning decelerates. and you see a graph, and what you don't see is a signal saying there's a clear trend the last few centuries. steven: 150 years. mark: say don't have a straight line this gives oscillation. in the right. there's actually a point, this is the precision, there's a clear trend for sea level rising for the last 10000 years now predict. steven: actually 20000 years. mark: and we know about it because human beings have adopted the sea and measured carefully. [laughter] for a couple of millennia. in those member of the measure was solid. a lot of other historic measurements are not, the

temperature is a sloppy because we didn't have thermometers anyway, we'd look at that and we say how do you distill that varied in a soundbite that you don't see an acceleration or signal in a noisy phenomenon. simplistically is for those who say, will the sea level accelerating. well for how long. it arises and accelerates the last couple few decades. when i was a 40 years. it's been accelerating. mark: what is a tell you, maybe we don't know that much about what the factors are pretty. steven: i think the thing that you have to that people are not up-to-date in the subject, with human influences, a quarter of what they are today if you go back to 1950 and maybe even less than that so the sea level has its ups and downs pretty much on its own. that makes it hard to understand the recent up rated.

mark: in fact, the challenge of one another iconic one which is temperature pretty we used to call it global warming party the change of climate change, will speculate and why let's just say this seems like a better description about and then we are now reporting this carefully that it would like to have is called a climate crisis rather than climate change brightest we have this problem which is pushing it to catch stupefies egg what is going on and attaching we should get to this because it's in your book and it's important point. attaching whether, short-term events and geographically located to atmospheric planetary events which are long cycled. they're related with their

different and is important for you to explain when they have experts in the audience i think it's important to understand how the related and other different. steven: so this is what happens, a second day, while the climate is defined as long-term hazards of whether particularly 40 years and some people sometimes talk about 20 or so if you tell me less 34 years have been unusually dry, with us whether. if you told me last two decades of dry, then we can start talking about climate and i have this wonderful graph of my data is the height of the nile river over about a thousand or maybe 800 years has measured. and what you see the conditions are good and precise full-time. is long term trends superimposed on the ups and downs every year.

and you be sure that there was some farmers to got really worried that they were entering a drought and is going down for a couple of decades the change drug given that had nothing to do with because of his long before the fossil fuels. mark: i think that's one of the delicious craft your book because i'm sure you have this experience with books in the public space. generally speaking, editors tell you to get the grass out of your because it scares people away. and it's a real graph but an illustration, it's just the elements, information the pictures are worth a thousand words is so true and it is very dramatic and provocative in the words to be cited in the back graph, this piece volumes to that specific phenomenon. steven: it's interesting that

you mentioned the graph, is up at the book together, and a big debate, the editor and i the publisher the agent, show up at the grass and or not. it's quite unusual for popular level book writing but as you say the graphs on the way in which you talk about data and data on the language of silence and you can't talk about any other other way. but when i have had some long trends and read the book and they said you can perfectly well read it without looking at the graphs. mark: and i see how you qualified that. [laughter] so whatever it may take. steven: will look, people of the sox and so on, the more complicated than this. mark: some friends of mine and debates, is that is like every other skill, people are good at

reading balance sheets on financial reports and just look at it and smelled company that's like boom and i was amazed when i was 14 and helping out investments and watching you know, some of the guys work with, they would just look at the financial pages and just smell it when the numbers because they can tell read and i felt that i felt the same way the mines traded, that you are right, you explain the graphs he don't have to understand them to read the book. so let's go to the love about climate as they say, but let's just speculate that those who think we shouldn't be in a hurry to change the energy system of the world, for the time being it's a lost debate. because the world the western world strong hearted change and it has not changed. in a written about it and you've written about it, this audience really knows that the world is about 3 percent of its energy

from solar landed another roughly 10 percent from other non- combustion sources and then then 80 plus percent burning oil and gas 94 percent 20 years ago as a really hard hundreds of billions of dollars before he spent in the last two decades, some of it is $2 trillion in europe and the united states noncarbon energy sources where hydrocarbon sales, utterly dominate read so you are for vp at the height of the petroleum days. and for whatever reason they had a public relations side, to signal that there's a long transition to a close petroleum world. and let me ask you, and talk more about energy and infusion let me ask you this question. i get in all of the time as well. sarah scientists, you study the stuff so you gotta put a marker

down, it is 2035, forecasting 2035 based on what you know about physics of energy economics and inertia systems and financing. [laughter] and 2035 is a world still using a lot of oil. is it still the dominant source of transportation. sue and energy systems, they change slowly and there are a very good reasons why they change slowly. two of the most important are they need to be reliable and you don't make changes in a system that's electricity with reliability or fuel supply needs to be there. that is not in the second is that there are large capitol investments involved and you put down a nuclear power plant or even a gas plant, expected to last many decades and so it is still there, still running. so it takes a long time was

being proposed now in the u.s. is to force the system to something unnatural. i would like to say changing the energy system but orthodontia not by tooth extraction. in a make this kind of radical changes that are being proposed, and the detailed plans of how it's going to come about we could be headed for several domestically and economy but also in our geopolitical posture. mark: i couldn't agree more and is amazing, i have taken it position publicly and is not a tough one to take a look, going to build more non- hydrocarbon energy systems that is locked into the system. a lot of that is good and normal because machines are better than the hard work we need lots of energy but accelerating it forcing the subsidies to create geophysics, it takes a very long

time. in the department of energy, i know you learn that and i learned when i was much younger as, suffocate, young man, in the reagan white house. you worked in the obama administration. for geopolitics of energy matters enormously because wars have been fought for millennia over energy. and the challenge we have today, the world still going to use a lot of oil the future, stick with oil and natural gas hydrocarbon cousin. given who produces the oil and you said meetings at the geopolitics i'm sure, there's two big players saudi arabia and middle east probably in russia. in the number two and three players let's go back to number one and two.

the rest of the world exporting regions primarily russia and saudia arabia. and i think it is not just frightening, they is a formula for serious challenges. steven: the current administration seems to be headed for slowly strangling the domestic oil and gas industry here and my people of tenant half million people in an attempt to have a percent of the gdp. and it doesn't produce about 20 percent of the world's oil or something like that but if we shut that down, were still going to need oil and other countries are going to need oil and we will be an geopolitical leverage for the countries that you talked about. russia and the middle east. and this seems to be a pretty silly thing to do and again, we

amount to 15 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and is declining as the rest of the world is using more and more energy to develop so is an influence on the climate negligible and i think we would be putting our economy and turbulence if we don't do this slowly parted betrayal at the obvious by not domestically producing, self-sufficient, shall are not domestically producing it but importing alternatives machines, we not only damage a person of gdp, we require the importation it is a percent of our gdp at least so the net net 16 percent had which is astronomically big hit to our economy. sue and i agree there's another aspect, i don't want to jump too much on the administration because i think they are doing a number of good things but this

notion that you're going to create jobs and was the economy by moving to clean energy, where the technology is different than mark is manufactured is different yet and work is deployed and whether you solar wind as an example, you can see that playing out in real time. so even if we invent income is obviously that will lead to economic benefit prayed. mark: an example is electricity, they were invented here and developed here first employed here and we import 90 percent of the solar panels that sold in america manufacturer largely in china nature broadly. and i would like to say because it turns out as brilliant as the invention was as incredible phenomenon, it is easy to make solar cells, not complicated things that there oil, it can't

make a rock yield hydrocarbon party that is hard work in the chinese are net importers, in fact the biggest importers of oil and don't think it's an accident that is the biggest exporters and it's easy to make stuff. mark: this is geometry and geography working against them as well. however availability and the fact that they haven't had the gas transport since they also said not going to produce gas. mark: business for both physicist, your geophysicist and i was a physicist for a while. i quit graduate school is my colleagues know because i because it was too hard, it was hard for because i wanted to work in microprocessors where i was believes in those days you didn't get to build anything at the university so - steven: a wonderful material and scientist as you know, and he

said to be in physics, is a license to poke your anybody's business. i found it great fun to do that and prayed. mark: i've used that added my whole life. [laughter] cell is turned before we go to q&a to the physicist savored energy sources the nuclear phenomenon. i like to call them in the negative column solar energy. in the history of humanity, or atomic atomic electron leaders by protons electricity, and integrated with nucleus which is nuclear energy rated in nuclear fission and fusion. as an earlier and earlier i was rented here in the intellectual sense and defending nuclear energy for years. mama nuclear boy. thank you is known phenomenon

and is remarkable is challenging it in making nuclear energy viable and, i mean, safe at and easy to deploy. and really encouraged by this new class of small reactors, i wonder if you're is encouraged with the design and seemed genuinely a breakthrough. what someone is at the department of energy, i was promoting the outing to get the first modular reactors designed it in obesity at least one of the moving into and reactors generally a lot of new idea. dozens of them are out around the world and export carriers and in submarines in the run just fine. not quite the same reactor in about as it is to put one on land but many of the same principles in the way that you look good and is it entered new designs, have to be able to build them in effect right and there will be much safer. they will be modular so you can

build one in use it to build the second one and licensing should be a lot easier. so i am a great fan of that and if nation really wants to take carbonized is electricity system, and run transportation on electricity as well, it's going to have to have fission and important part of it, no question. mark: to be what is interesting, if there is nothing like the energy density of nuclear fusion in the materials you need are irrelevant. it's just pure noise inner fueled material perspective but to get to the next stage more quickly, and for those who want to have a transition go faster, there's nothing there will be as effective as a decelerating your energy. so given that nature of the environment we have you know it

so well for having working oriented, if the administration for to be serious about energy transition, wouldn't that be the first thing he would tackle. steven: i was sure hope so but this administration is a little bit shy about talking about nuclear as for not telling the whole truth. i think remember the part of the sectors involved here as well and the companies who are doing this can't get an initial deployment in the u.s., and they're going to try to go elsewhere. i'm sure there are many countries it would be interested in hosting a demonstration pretty. mark: we think about the cycles and reactors to your point about small reactors, think there up to three years or maybe five years between feelings. and the idea that you could build a reactor that small, be married under next to a talent

the town for five years, with no fuel showing up and then every five years, trunk show up and swap it out and go away. what a magical thing, this is something that we never had. steven: the analogy between the naval reactors in the civilian, and uranium which you do not want floating around in unprotected spaces yes, you don't have to refuel them for often in the make some very wonderful. and people worry about the ways, there's a way to do it safely and economically it is not a technical problem. it is perception problem. mark: the fact is you will know, the solid is so small volume, and fairly easy to moderate, the radiation is easy to monitor so we can track single atoms in

their radioactive. single atoms, there's nothing else like infected you want to track something as you know, you take it with something radioactive. steven: we don't do that because of safety issues radiation stands up and wants to be counted is the way i like to say it. mark: for the one place we do is as you know. [inaudible]. steven: very small amounts pretty. mark: trivial amounts. so the next question fusion. have a good friend is a physicist, has his phd in infusion and he was asked by his advisor probably 75, how many fusion reactors he thought, my friend would be in the world in 20 years or 30 years by the year thenhe said a couple. he was overly optimistic because

we still don't have a couple. and i had my opinions about what fusion is and they said fascinating physics partied where is your head on the visibility to what i would guess you would call, the equivalent of a shipping port reactor. commercial reactor. steven: so let's step back and ask what is going on actually. so the world is focused on an enormous one being built in southern france and i think they expect to see the first fusion pods in about 15 years and i'm not mistaken and from there you have to do a demonstration plant and then from there it starts to get more commercial. and on the interesting observer i'm a fan of the small commercial efforts to full disclosure, i synthesize bureau of the small commercial one pursuing fusion in a different way and have been watching for

more than a decade. as an advisor and if things turn out well for them we could see within six or seven years something that is got a positive and you get more energy out the new put in and from there probably nasa difficult. so i think the car on the grid in 15 years, the earliest, maybe some scale, maybe 12 and probably meant more wrist realistically 25 years. and i will keep asking why do we need this. it's got to work better. better than fusion and solar and so on. and try to develop it and it's wonderful but the commercialization. mark: if i would get to to

attend to the timeline, or out than he and i would say 12 - 15 years. the event ten - 15 years after that to get to commercial data in 30 years from now and then you start scaling but the design looks like, another ten or 20 years predict so a half a before you begin to start scaling is typical. the first question, coming from the audience, we touch on some of this but a specific question about book is specific be done to accelerate the next generation of reactors. what things, if the administration asked you that question to get to that what were they supposed to do. steven: i think there are lessons to be learned from the commercial commercialization of the first generation of reactors where the government first all

had military means to build reactors as weapons and propelling submarines and in some ways after entered collective effort roadmap of the government has promoted this technology with reduced liability from reactor operators. in general, is stimulated to regulation and financial help to get the industry off the ground now but you could do today the new emerging generation reactors, and you think it would be much more difficult to do that in the present political climate as you know so is been a big debate about the proper relationship between the private sector and the government and stimulating dew point technologies. there's this wonderful line nor the federalist papers i think it was madison who wrote it. last question, what businessman

would stake his business on government regulations because it is fickle. and can change every four years. so it is got to have last year say in terms of merit. so to get down to brass tacks come i think easing the regulation of the nrc is currently properly get over but we can make that hurdle lower by educating them better. and then some financial land confessions in order to get the first couple running. mark: poll this is not a new idea but it's an idea of sure you've heard before which is the small modular reactors of course are the natural size for towns and cities so the potential buyer that can have a marker in

the market is a buyer that is the government self-defense department buying hundreds, not one reactors. and that the dod wants to do this for like aircraft partied were down to two or three and have them under contract and then we built a bunch. c1 and then in the military bases, when i first got to new york back to new york, elected the different borough president there, wonderful guy, is in office. he said on the make clean energy for the u.s. capitol boarding i suggested to him, haven't reactor, in the navy yard in these got very quiet after that pretty. mark: that's exactly, new york city is classic example of the kind of geography will make sense because will call in the profile from nature and that

actors of getting energy to a city like new york means that the geography is not your friend, you want these entities but anyway here's a question, getting close to ramp up time i think, but i have a question of where we started and salty with the question is, you can choose have answered have opinions on this in my answer of the advanced, i was trained in physics, psychology. but i'm asked this question would you can ask this question all of the time. so when you hear you said about climate science and the study of science, you read your book, if one doesn't people should we have to do, then your basic question of why is it is because the other analyses are subpar, not just genuinely good analyses, is it because and just

general folks or are there other personal or political agendas animated in the system. and i could ask that i'm sure you could ask god all the time. it does require well let's say you. steven: i'm not trying to get inside people's heads but you can see there is a confluence of interest among the various players in the media, if it reads, so the blaming it on climate. [inaudible]. and from the scientist i think that some of the scientists generally do feel that's in peril and they want to help but the usual motivations and grants emphases and so on. and i would like to quote lincoln journalist in the early part of the 20th century" this

exactly but is the purpose of practical politics is to keep the public around by a series of imaginary governance so that they will be primary to be led to safety and whether it is the climate or immigration or anyone of another things that you can side, i think that is also something that is motivating people. mark: related question came to a a sort of in the deficiencies in the local at the educational system of the pipeline of bringing scientists into the work in the public policy debate printed will expand by not asking about deficiencies per se but list the characteristics of the system that need to cut of the debate, what is to come often heated emotional home in

sparta but this particular debate seems really ignite that in the question is raised, is that a deficiency can i would say or is that the each of the system him. efficient now compared to what used to be the say when you went to school. c1 people go into physics to a degree of curiosity. and people who go into some other fields but you know i have not interacted with students who are doing k - 12 level but it did teach a graduate class. and also in climate mostly engineers and mbas ultimately. and it is such a joy for me to say for not doing politics here, doing technology and regular things a business and i'm going to show you the science.

we get these reports and the department of energy and the reports and to see the eyes open up to the students who had no experience at all to either the climate or the system except that they read the newspapers. so part of the book is just to kind of educate and therefore people. not to betray them but these are the facts, and this is not what you find in the government papers. mark: have had the same experience, what you get as you know is reactions, so what is often just amazement the people so they can go through the research which is why encourage them. doubly what i wrote of what they said, going the source and most people can't do this the end of having to, they're not capable the busy or doing something else. so the places certain amount of

faith in that you are being honest which nature of all teaching. i get this question a lot and you must have for the last big leap seven years since you wrote the wall street journal piece. okay, if what you say is true, and i except what you are saying is probably true, seems reasonable partied what is going on. this sort of the foxtrot, look at this. trillion dollars, may be 1.7 trillion now that this administration is proposing to spend and addressing the climate change though a lot of it is in the conundrum which is really difficult thing. let's ignore that. his back to the political question but you can't dodge coming as part of god rather if you actually work in public

policy like you did for you in public policy sphere and people say why, what gives here. steven: i can try to account for the policy choices that people make. it's an attitude about science advising and i am there to inform that the decisions that have made involve a host of other factors in which are not particularly expert in generational equity development versus environment and so on. i don't know about that. that is the political debate that we should be having. in the country decides to go one way or the world decide to go one way or another, so at least they made it with a full understanding of what we know and what we don't know about the changing climate right now they are not eating that complete story.

in the book is an attempt to do that. mark: you put your finger on the right answer comes to the science device. back having worked in this advisor years ago, is clear to me is that they matter one has one's political opinions but we want decisions to be made best i can on what the best information you have so let's go back to this question. this big question now. is been elevated by the debates around is when my grandsons calls at the corona virus and how it disrupted the world. so you get expert advice weather is on climate or covid-19 or environmental factor or something or about you remember the debates. anyway, we don't have a

technology system in the morning president's science advisers of office important one in my opinion. i worked in it. pets political office. and to your point, these policies base our congress and that's where they belong. congress does not have an advisory body anymore. there are reasons that ota suffered, but without going into that, i'm curious about your view of resurrecting something like ota if you think that's a good idea but also in a few minutes we have left, this debate certainly touches on in the importance of how do you do that. but the general framework. steven: i would say there's another set of layers in the advising world i can do something about what ota does.

national academies and research counsel partied there in a host of studies from government agencies and by and large i think you do a very good job. now as part of the organization as you may know for six years i chaired a couple of studies on fusion for them over the decades. and i think on climate, any refresh of the players in the academy involved. it's the same old gang and so you kind of get locked in an fresh eyes would be wonderful on the climate side. and then the think tanks, mostly for the defense department and ida and analyses which i had some association with. so these are sources of advice and they do provide input to the

legislature. it would be very good to have an organic some analysts in the congress that could be a good for short turnaround advice. mark: so you are correct as you well know better than i do that whole order of the kinds of institutions that exist of the science expertise are designed for the extremely important they could be raised a notch by the velocity is required is a different teacher of policy making as you know and the science doesn't like to be rushed. that is life and you've got a rush some things so i guess my mind, i would like to believe that if one were to create list a an assessment, that is a different thing. ... ... is

private sector that can be turned on quickly on a minimal basis and search capacity we will call it. that model strikes me as if it's packaged correctly and syllable, money distributes the statement of but it's a practical matter, it's a way to achieve what you describe. >> it is pretty slow -- [laughter] >> trying to get better. >> i know. i bent part of the group for 30 years, detailed technical advice

and these other organizations. turns around to study in about a year and with the policy was providing technical input to the decision to abide by a comprehensive test in the early 90s. significant pretty quickly done. >> i think that's a great example. a version of the jason for the congress would be terrific and pretty low cost by those standards. let me wrap up, he's been generous with your time, i know you are crazy busy on the book circuit. again, i tell everybody

listening, read the book. steve is an excellent writer, clear explanations, i can't more highly recommend so thank you for joining me. >> i hope we can continue. >> the great institute for those of you who don't know much about if your ranch watching, a lot to report, great scholars and other areas, obviously nonprofit think tanks, it's a think tank evolved supporters, take a look. i would appreciate it and it work like this. thank you all for watching and listening and i think my new