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>> along with of these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. welcome to the latest in the series of the institute's streaming events and today i've got the pleasure of hosting the event with stephen and eminent scientist, now a famous scientist, for some and infamous scientist and professor at new york university nyu, formerly the head of the department of energy's research portfolio under the secretaryta of energyn other words, the post under president obama and prior to that he was a chief scientist at bp. for those that may remember that used to mean british petroleum then amend beyond petroleum then it went back. prior to that, he was a professor and then provost at

caltech which i will confess i'm jealous because that was myas first choice where i wanted to go to school. i went to queens in canada some of you know. i like to think of it as a good physics school. it's the genuine mothership so in short he's a scientist of some consequence, he's not a dilettante. we are going to talk about his book and if you are joining us you know why we are talking about the book it is what climate science tells us and why it matters. it can be fun and it can be annoying but when you write a book it's a lot of work. you hope people will read it. we will talk about the nature of signing a debate, this issue in

the public space and some about the idea of changing civilizations energy. we need energy to survive in full disclosure i've reviewed the book. i've not known him before, i got to know him, i thought i would like him when i read the book but i reviewed the book for "the wall street journal" very favorably and it caused a bit of a flack which if you haven't followed you all can go to the manhattan institute website and see about the because i cancellation which was good i it helps could say people focus on why the book was written. i should point out some history here, humanity has shown there is co2 carbon dioxide was discovered about 250 years ago and i think a scottish chemist

rydiscovered it. electricity, you name it. i am on scottish and british roots and 200 years ago he transforms anybody that's been in math or science. he was a mathematician and figured out that the earth was kept warmer than it otherwise would be but if it didn't, the atmosphere function like a greenhouse. for even longer because we care about it it affects our lives and nature it has been trying to kill humans with whether for

most of -- well, forever. it matters because it is consequential and it matters because it is interesting. when you are on the circuit. why the title, and it gets to what we are going to talk about, why did you write the book? i think we will have a great

conversation. there are still important things about the climate and human influences that we don't understand. but to my state of mind when i found out the science wasn't as solid as i had previously believed. you write about when that happened and it's important to understand the epiphany that it wasn't as subtle as you thought occurred because you are looking into the science and not just because - somebody paid you to o that. nobody paid you in the ad hominem world to disassemble the

narrative [inaudible] >> about 2005 when i joined bp up until the time i got to the government in 2012 i was working to develop and demonstrate emissions like technologies of various kinds but in 2013 i was asked by the american physical society that represents 50,000 physicists to do a refresh of the statement. in 2007 they issued a statement to break controversy among the membership because it uses the word in incontrovertible. if you are a physicist, you know that that is a red flag. so it was time to look again at the statement and i thought rather than like so many professional societies, just rubberstamping what the ipcc

says, i thought the heck with it, we should have a deeper look at the issues. so i convened a workshop. we sat and listened to the consensus scientists. the skeptical scientists there were presentations and we would talk for a day or so. i came away again with the sense there is a lot here that we do not understand and some of it is very important to know that we didn't know. i was also surprised by how i hadn't heard about those shortfalls in the time that i had i been studying the matter o it was the revelation about the substance but also how poorly it had been communicated to even the literate public.

on a different subject of nuclear energy which we will come back to i happened to spend the week of the accident when i came to the united states as a documented immigrant from canada. i am an american citizen now, proud to be. despite the trials and tribulations, still proud to be here. although it is challenging these days. i was thrown into the debate around nucleary energy in 1979 i was spent in 3-mile island amherst earlier in the commission hearings which looked at nonproliferation for nuclear energy primarily and then the safety issues, the commission he did a spectacular job at doing what you described. the accusation to safe to operate and we should abandon

it. the government set up the commission to examine the science and engineering around what we know or don't know what's uncertain, how dangerous could they be. it's a profound difference between what people thought they knew in the public space and some scientists thought they knew and debated about and the people across were a minority. a lot of scientists don't want to get into than i can tell you to come and join me in the debate we were being told the world would end. the day we almost lost pennsylvania because of 3-mile

island. scientists didn't want to join me. they didn't want to join in the debate for a variety of reasons and on that subject i would say you learned that there's something to debate. there was a bit of a blowback on that when you wrote a piece five years ago now. were you surprised i guess i wasn't surprised theba blowbacki felt because there was an event that caused hyperbolic media coverage, blowing up a billion-dollar reactor, melting down a billion-dollar reactor and blowing up the investment was a consequential event so you saw a lot of emotion. this one is different.

>> full disclosure i may nuclear physicist. the difference with the climate is two things. 1 is we have an allegedly authoritative set of documents that are in fact the un reports were the government reports and they allegedly define the science. this has been building for quite a while but it's getting more erserious now as you see governments proposing actions that will in fact affect people's lives more directly in terms of reliability, cost of energy and even the behavioral patterns. i think there's a greater desire

to be looking at the allegedly authoritative science then it was five years ago or thereabouts. >> one thing you wrote in your book that i thought you handled extremely well is the language of the debate of those who argue about the science and the deniers, this construct that was created.. you wrote briefly but upfront to take head on this issue of being labeled a denier when you talk about the science of climate. >> first of all let me say i

would be really offended. when i enter micro aggressions i get really mad but i'm not. when i wrote the book i was very careful to quote almost entirely from the reports of the un and the u.s. government. if somebody takes issue with what's in the book we could have a conversation about who is denying what. >> like you, what i write in the public space, and this is just ofis the nature of the subject n

energy and climate science what tends to give research that others have done because you go to the primary sources and look at what they said and did you do your best to accurately reflect what they said and then you write your own synthesis. this is what struck me early on i would say 20 years ago when i first started looking into it. if you read the literature including the reports, you find a friend of mine that you do know and i'm frequently saying in the public space to colleagues who fall into the camp of debating the science don't keep saying the science is bunk. the science and the scientists areen very good.

it's honest, solid. to the extent he can get angry it's the translation of what was there to the public discussion. some by scientists. there is no answer to the question but i want to phrase it this way. it's not like it's a bad fusion. it's a difficult one. the process of science and reaching the consensus is important to understand and understand the difference on the continuum of the consensus from knowing that the earth is round to knowing that the temperature are different parts of the

continuum. you undertook this examination based on that simplistic premise. how do you bridge that divide? so many say different than you are saying. you are cherry picking. the consensus is we've got a problem. what do you say? >> you have to distinguish between what the science says from what you or anybody thinks we should do about it and i try to be very careful about that. we can discuss what we might do but let's talk about the science. there's a long game of telephone that goes into the assessment reports and the policymakers and inthose assessment reports that are heavily influenced by government for the media and the

politicians and there are so many opportunities to distort the message. i tried very hard to stick with some of the statements in the report and so to circumvent that whole chain and give the public some insight into what the science says. a line from the princess bride where he says you keep using that word. i don't think it says what you think it says. and in fact a lot of people are surprised when i say no human influences detected in hurricanes. the economic impact will be minimal et cetera. so there were some real surprises, but the process has been varied and i try to elucidate them. if somebody thinks that i am cherry picking, show me the other part.

>> by one of the great movies of all time, princess bride and the great line when he tells them i don't think that word means what you think it means. we can go back and look it up. that's when they were following them. you put your finger on something important and especially in the public policy space. you went to great pains in your book to use primary sources to reach a different conclusion perfectly reasonable form of >>deliberation. >> i would say we do not reach a different conclusion. the ipcc conclusions or u.s. government conclusions. sometimes they don't put quite

to the proper context and that conclusion. they truncate the history or don't givehi a sense of scale ad so on and so i've done that. >> you are right to correct me on that because the precision of language is different and the sound bites on tv as you know. if you are lucky you get three to four minutes of airtime. it's a hoax or obama was wrong or bidenng did this or trumpeted that. you need to come back with an answer. you can't equivocate. you have to reach a conclusion and in three minutes it's hard. >> of the science in particular is so complicated and nuanced that it doesn't adapt well at

all to soundbites. >> you andou i talk about this after i published my review that i can share with the audience. if i look at your books and the graphs that are helpful, i will tell those who are listening if you haven'tst read it, you shoud read it. it is i would characterize it as a distillation in carefully explaining what's happened, where we are, what the data means, where they come from. i look at the sea level rise graphsev and it's accelerated ad then de- accelerated. what you don't see is the signal saying there is a clear trend over the last centuries.

we know about the sea level rise because there've been docs at the scene measured carefully. a lot of other historical measurements, temperature is sloppy because they didn't have thermometers. anyway you look at that and say how do they distill that it's in a soundbite without acceleration because it's a noisy phenomena which simplistically is but for how long lacks.

what does that tell you? it tells you maybe we don't know that much about what these factors are. that would be the conclusion. >> for those that are not up-to-date, human influences were a corridor of what they were today if you go back to 1950be and maybe even less. so it was doing ups and downs pretty much on its own and that makes it hard to understand. >> in fact, the challenge that you have through. it seems like a better description and then --

>> it would also like to have it called a climate crisis rather than a climate change so we have a nomenclature problem which is pushingg it towards cadastral sizing what's going on and attaching -- and we should get to this in your book, attaching whether short-term events that are geographically located to atmospheric planetary which are long cycles, they are related but they are different. it's important for you to explain. again, we may have experts in the audience but it's important to explain how they are related and how they are different. a. >> weather happens every day. second thing, it is defined as the long-term average of whether, typically 30 years, although sometimes people talk about 20 years. if you tell me the last three or four years have been unusually dry, that is still pretty much

weather. if you say the last three decades, then we can start talking about climate. i have a wonderful graph in the book, the height of the nile river over about 1,800 years as measured in cairo and what you see the egyptians were very good at these things. it's got long-term trend tesuperimposed on the ups and downs every year and you can be sure that there were some who got really worried that they were entering the drop when it was going down for a couple decades but then it changed around again and of course that had nothing to do with human influences because it was long before the long scale use of fossil fuels. >> that is one of the delicious graphs in your book, for me. i'm sure you had this experience with graphs and books in the public space. generally speaking they tell you

to get the graphs out of your book because it scares people away. when i see a graph it's not an illustration it just yells at you the information a picture is worth a thousand words. it's all true it's very dramatic and that speaks volumes to thatr specific. >> as i started to put the book together,we we had a big debate, the editor and the publisher and i. should we put the graphs in orono and one said there are too many which is quite unusual for a popular level but with the graphs are the way in which we talk about data and the language of science. you can't talk about it any other way although i had some

friends read the book and say you can perfectly well read it. >> it's probably because arithmetic. >> people who look at stocks and so on. >> the point i make two friends and mine andnd colleagues in ths debates it's like any other skill people reading balance sheets can look at it and smell if they are lying or not lying. when i was working at an investment fund i want watch some of the guys and they would look at the financial pages and i would smell it and i could just tell. i feel the same way when i was trained. you are right. you explain them, you don't have to understand them.

let's stipulate those who think we shouldn't be in a hurry to change the energy system of the world is a time lost for debate because the world is trying hard to change its energy system. it hasn't changed. i've written about it, you've written about it. the audience knows the world gets about 3% from wind and solar and another 10% from other non-combustion sources otherwise it is 80 plus%. ....

>> the economics of energy and the inertia system. is the world using a lot of oil? settling theth supertanker but that is the dominant force. >> energy systems change slowly and for good reasons why the change slowly two of

the most important are reliable and you don't make changes in the system for electricity or fuel supply so there are large capital investments involved even gas pipe you expect that to last many decades so it takes a long time and what is being now in the east and the west is to force to do something unnatural we change it but not by a cupid but in those changes that are proposed i think we could be headed for trouble domestically in the economy and also with the geopolitical posture.

>> so i have taken a position publicly it's not a tough one to take but we will build more noncarbon energy machines. a lot of that is good at normal because machines are better than they a ever were but forcing it through subsidies doesn't create new physics of energy it takes a long time. the geopolitical part in the department of energy and i learned this when i was much younger and i must've been in diapers with the reagan administration. but the geopolitics of energy mattered enormously the world

will still lot use a lot of oil in the future. you set a meeting i'm sure so now the two big players russia the number two and three players we go back to number one and two and the rest of the world primarily russia and saudi arabia. i think it's not just frightening but a formula. for domestic and oil but this

is about and we will be ceding that geopolitical leverage. so amounting to 15 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions so it is a negligible influence on the climate so then put the economy if we don't do this in a thoughtful way quick. >> and then to add the obvious we are self-sufficient. net net.

not domestically producing it or are reporting alternatives. we not only damage a percent of gdp at least it is a net net 16 percent hit which is astronomically being hit to the economy. >> i would agree. there is another aspect. i don't want to jump too much on the n administration and then moving to clean energy or technology is invented a gets manufactured and where it gets the point using solar or wind as an example if you see that playing out in real time so even if we invent something here it's not obvious will leap forward. >> the quintessential example

is electricity they were invalid first to point here it developed here invented here any percent of solar panels areac manufactured largely in china so it turns out as brilliant as the invention was it's easy to make solar cells they are not complicated but hydraulicin fracturing that is hard work and the chinese are net importers the biggest net importers of oil don't think it's an accident there the biggest importers. >> also geometry angiography and then the fact and then the federal also says they will not produce gas. >> you are a real physicist i

was for a while but i quit graduate school as my colleagues know not because it was too hard but because i wanted to work with microprocessors t in those days you couldn't build anything at the university my elders once said something so with the degree of physics is a license to poke your nose into anybody's business. f [laughter] with that new other phenomenon because then i can include solar energy that's in the

history of humanity. or the electron layers excited by photons and then tinkering with the nucleus. we have nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. as ifi said earlier there was a fear in the intellectual sensear so i am in a nuclear bowl so it's as challenging as making nuclear energy viable safe and low cost and easy to deploy but i am encouraged by the small class of reactors you are as encouraged. and then the small reactors

there are dozens of them's throat putting on —- floating out from submarines. and then it's not the same on about our in land but there many of the same principles as we hope to build than in our factory to be much safer they willil be modular and licensing should be a lot easier so the nationan really wants to decolonize it system and run the transportation that has to be an important part. no question. >> to me what is interesting not that it's no question but butth that materials that you

need are essentially irrelevant. they disappear with the noise. so those who want to have a transition faster nothing would be as accelerated as nuclear energy so given the nature of the regulatory environment we know full well. with the administration were serious about energy transition, wouldn't that be the first thing? >> i would think so. and then to be shy talking about nuclear. remember the private sector is involved here as well and the companies that are doing this

they don't have the initial deployment in the west there are many countries i'm sure with the demonstrations. >> and with the point of small reactors three years or five years. the idea that you could build the reactor that small. and then run the town for five years and then every five years and goes away. what a magical thing? >> you have to be careful without the naval reactors and civilian that's what you do not want floating around in those unpredicted spaces but yes. and that makes them wonderful.

>> we have ways to handle the waste. it's not all technical problem. >> it is small and volume and is easy to moderate radiation is moderate so we can track single atoms of a radioactive. there's nothing else like it if you want to track something that's hard to find. >> but we don't do that. [laughter] because of safety issues. but radiation stands up and wants to be counted. >> that we do do it in the essays. >> very small amounts. >> very trivial. >> i have a good friend who is

a physicist and he was asked by his advisor in 75 how many fusion reactors he that would be in the world and 20 or 30 years? his answer was a couple. [laughter] and he was overly optimistic because we still only have a couple. i have my opinions about fusion and physics but where is your head on the visibility to what you would call of the shipping reactor quick. >> . >> so the world is focused on the south of france they

expect to seey the first in about 15 years if i'm not mistaken and then with that demonstration plant and then it gets more commercial i'm a more interesting observer and a fan of small commercial efforts and full disclosure i said on the science board of a small commercial firm pursuing fusion. i have been watching them for more than a decade as an advisor. they are making good progress. if things turnit out well for that we could see within six or seven years something that's positive which means you get more energy out than what you put s in and from there are not so difficult so with the grid 15 years that scale 12 if they are lucky may be

realistically 20 or 25 years. but i keep asking why do we need this has to not just work but work better than fusion and wind and solar. i think it's perfectly fine if you try to develop it with the commercialization will be an issue. >> if i were given the time maybe 12 or 15 years then you add ten or 15 years after that get to commercial beta that is 30 years and then you start to scale that is another ten or 20 years see you are half a century out before you start scaling which is typical of big systems. the first question comes from the audience i saw some of that but it was very specific

specifically what could be done to accelerate the next generation of reactors this administration asks that questioning gets to that what would they propose to do? >> i think there are some lessons to bemm learned from the commercialization and then they have the military need to build reactors for weapons and propelling submarines and the commercial effort was an offshoot from that. but it promoted the technology and the liability from operators. in i general through regulation and financial help to get the industry off the ground.

now if you could do that today with the new emerging generation i think it would be much more difficult to do that in the present political climate. as you know there is a proper relationship between the private sector and the government in new technologies. and with theis federalist papers i think madison road who asked the question, what business man word stake is business on government regulations? because it is fickle and can change every four years. >> or two. >> so to get down to brass tacks even with regulation and the nrc it is our hurdle to get over but they can make

that lower i educating the and rc better and then the land confessions to get the first couple. >> here is not a new idea that an idea you've heard before that the small reactors are that natural size for cities or towns or military bases the potential fire we can stimulate a buyer also the defense department by hundreds and then run the contest the way dod runs contest —- contest for new aircraft. give them the contract and build a bunch. >> coming back to new york from washington the guy said i

want brooklyn to be the clean energy capital of the us i said how about we put a reactor and then things got very quiet after that. [laughter] >> that is exactly new york city's classic example of the kind of geography where that make sense. because the threat or the profile from nature and bad actors to get energy into new york that means the geography is not your friend. but anyway. we are getting close to the wrap up time but i have a question that brings us back to where we started. take the question you can choose how to answer it. >> my answer is i was trying to and physics not psychology

when you hear what you said about climate science and the study of climate to read your book then it begs the question why? is that because the other analysis is subpar they are not genuine good analysis? they are concerned people that are there other personal or political agenda is animating the system i get asked that i'm sure you do all the time it does require to respond. >> my first answer is the one you gave i'm not trained to get inside people's heads.

but you can see there is a confluence of interests among the various players if it bleeds it leads so now blaming it on climate so for the scientist i think they genuinely do feel the earth is in peril and b want to help but there's other academic prestige and for politicians hl minkin who is a journalist in the 20th century and he has quotes in the book i won't get it exactly right but the purpose of practical politics is to keep the public alone by mostly imaginary hobgoblins so they can be led to safety so whether it is the climate or immigration or any number of other things i think that's also motivating people.

>> so the phrase of the deficiencies of the educational system in the pipeline process into the work and the public policies i will expand my not asking about deficiencies per se but the characteristics of the system that lead to the debate where it becomes heated and emotional but this particular debate it seems to ignite that. is that a deficiency or is that the nature of the system that we have or is it efficient now compared to what it used to be when we went to school quick.go >> people who have physics have a different degree of curiosity and skepticism than those in another field.

but i have not interacted with students at the k-12 level. but i do teach a graduate class and energy and climate to mostly engineers and mbas most —- ultimately. it is such a joy for me were not doing politics but technology, regulation, busines. i will show you with the department of energy and those that open up for the students who have had no exposure at all to climate or the energy system. so part of our hope is to educate and inform people andnd to persuade them these are the facts and whatou you find in the government reports. >> so it is one of two

reactions often you get just amazement is what i encourage people to do not read what i wrote somebody said go read the source most people can't do that so you end up they are busy or they are doing something else so it's a certain amount of faith which is the nature of all teaching but i get this question a lot and you must have for the last seven years since you wrote the wall street journal piece if what you say is true and i accept what you say is true come it seems reasonable what's going on? that is the whiskey tango

foxtrot. $1trillion that this administration is proposing to spend sensibly which is typical but just ignore that so again it gets back but you cannot dodge it's hard to dodge if you work in public policy. people say why? >> i can't and shouldn't try for those policy choices people make and that attitude and those decisions that get made with at host of other factors of which are not

particularly expert of intergenerational equity development and i don't know about that and d that is the political debate we should be having. the country decides to go one way. okay. so be it. but that is with a full understanding of whatde we know and what we don't know about the changing climate and the book is an attempt to do that. >> you put your finger on the right answer when it comes to the fact working with the science advisor years ago so politics matter you want decisions to be made as best they can with the best information thate you have so let's come back to this

question it's a big question now elevated by their debates that my grandson calls at the corona pirate. [laughter] so you get expert advice. so with covid-19 are the environmentalir effect do remember the nuclear winter debate? >> the president science advisory but that is the political office so these policy debates are in congress where they belong. congress doesn't have an advisory body anymore there are reasons it suffered but without going into that i'm

curious about your view that be in a few minutes we have left this debate certainly touches on the importance of how do you do that? what is that framework. >> i would say there is another set of players and the advising world to do something that is the national academies or national research or counsel so a host of studies for government agencies by a larger think they do a very good job i've chaired studies on fusion over the decades but on climate they need a refresh of the players so you get

locked in and fresh eyes would be wonderful and those mostly for the defense department for institute of the defense analysis with randa cna and those are real analytic advice providing input into the legislature but that would be good to have an organic set of analyst in the congress for a short turnaround. >> you are correct that the whole kind of institutions provide impact and device are

important could be raised a notch but the velocity is a different feature of policymaking they don't like to be rushed but that's life. so in my mind i would like to believe if we have an office of science af multi- investment but apparently it isn't but that indicates it could have a budget to do with the pentagon has done with the little bit of talent that is available in private sector that can be turned on quickly funded in a minimal basis in a search capacity so that model strikes me if packaged correctly because money distributes but

as a practical matter as a way to achieve what you describe. >> that they are pretty slow. >> but i have been a member of the group for 40 years with detailed technical advice and in about a year but the policy and that decision to abide by a comprehensive in the early nineties when it was significant in a good piece of

work. >> so to close on that note a version for congress would be terrific and obviously has a cost we are getting the wrap up signal you are generous with your time i know you're crazy busy on the book circuit i do tell everybody who is listening to read the book steve is an excellent writer with clear explanations i cannot more highly recommend it. thank you for joining me. >> i appreciate it. >> thank you for the great conversation i can continue at some point. >> i have to pay homage to my masters and commanders for those that don't know much about it if you don't go to

the website with lots of reports obviously a nonprofit of think tanks it's a think tanks that is involved with supporters. take a look i would appreciate it so thank you all for watching and listening my friend of the braves scientist. manage cyberprivacy and privacy reforms. here is bill mckibben. >> i am an investment specialist focusing on the impact environmental and social factors has support but before that i was an actress and is an activist is the