wall. see hive coverage starting at 9:00 eastern on c-span. sunday, on q and a, author and climb nis james grant. >> i make my living about writing about markets. i think the trouble lies not so much in wall street -- wall street is what it is. it e it's been -- wall street is an -- but i think what we are more -- what we ought to be on guard the institutions in the federal government that are validly benign in their intentions. the federal reserve for example. the department of treasury. the securities and exchange commission.

these institutions set up as benefactors of the public. increasingly they are not so. >> author and columnist james grant on sunday's q and a. welcome back and we're go into our spotlight on magazines segment. we will be talking with "wired" magazine contributor jon gertner about his recent piece examining climate change and its impact on glaciers in antarctica. good morning. >> good morning, thank you for having me. >> why did you decide to write this piece, and why did you focus on this glacier right now? >> well, i write a lot about science for magazines and newspapers and one of the big stories is climate change, we talk about temperatures going up, we talk about coral reefs in danger, but one of the biggest issues is really the sea level rise.

the biggest influence on sea level rise is the potential for these vast ice sheets in both greenland and antarctica to fall into the sea. the ice on land slips into the sea. they can do it by melting, running off, these huge icebergs can fall off land into the ocean. sea levels can go up. what that means is coastal cities are in peril by that. now, there are a lot of projections for what's going to happen by the end of the century in terms of how much sea levels will rise. one of the most dangerous points is this group of glaciers in antarctica, about as far away as you can get from the rest of the world. these are really remote places. but these -- portions of the ice sheet that hold a lot of water, and they're on land, and the worry amongst the science community is that these glaciers are potentially unstable, and as the world

continues to warm, they will really kind of cut loose from their warming's place on the land and contribute to a significant sea level rise. >> so, you call it the thwaites glacier. am i pronouncing it right? >> it, it was named after fredrik t. thwaites. >> talk about how this glacier can cause so much trouble. >> if you have seen pictures of glaciers in greenland or in canada or switzerland even, they look like rivers of ice. they flow down through mountain passes. and they can be quite beautiful. they advance and recede almost

like a river might, but thwaites is different. it is many thousands of feet deep. it goes for hundreds of miles inland to west antarctica. the first thing to know about thwaites is that it's enormous. it's about the size of florida or great britain. the second thing about thwaites is, it seems to be unstable. warmer waters around western antarctica in a region known as the sea. it is starting to pull back. and become unstable. the third thing is, when thwaites starts to enter a period of what geologists consider a collapse, it will run into other glaciers. if thwaites goes, everything might collapse. in that scenario, which is very dire, which is not imminent, but

is possible, we're talking about 10,000 feet of sea level rise. >> in fact, in your article, you talk a little bit about the worst case scenarios if water level goes up 15 feet. in that scenario, the jefferson memorial and fenway park would be under water. outside the u.s., the damage would be incalculable. shanghai, lagos, mumbai, jakarta, all would flood or drown. >> this is a collaborative effort that will stretch really over the next four or five or six years to investigate how

-- it's 1,000 miles from the station which is the main staging ground in antarctica. it will stretch really over the next, four, five, six years to investigate how fast this glacier might become unstable. because we really don't know. we have models. scientists use computer models to look at what temperatures might be in the future, for instance, by looking at where carbon dioxide emissions are going. but it is different when you try to predict the movement of a glacier. the physics of glaciers is really complicated. we do not know necessarily what is underneath the glacier and how fast it might slide forward or back or retreat. these are the questions that teams of scientists will investigate over the years, and the idea is that they'll collect data or collect information about remote glaciers. eventually, we can plug back into the models and it might

give us a better picture not so much about whether thwaites will collapse, but there's an agreement that some collapse of this glacier will be inevitable, but the real question is, how fast? if it is over the course of 1,000 years or 10,000 years, there is a lot we can do as a society to change our ways, to alter the trajectory of the warming climate that might have real impacts of this glacier, but if it is a more dire scenario, one of the worst case scenarios like we were talking about from my story, then things become much more complicated about what can we do to kind of sort of stem the collapse of this crucial chunk of ice. >> let's let our viewers join in on this conversation. once again, we'll open up the lines by region. if you're in the eastern or central time zone, you can call in at 202-748-8000. if you're in the mountains or pacific time zone, you can call

in at 202-748-8001. keep in mind, we are always available on social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. let's go to cliff. who is calling from essex, maryland. cliff, good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for cspan for letting people get their opinions out as well as the facts. i would like your guest, if he can, to let the viewers know what government agencies are responsible for geo-engineering. >> yeah, maybe i can just define geo-engineering for people who are watching who might not know much about that. it is about using a human intervention, some kind of engineering technique to alter climate, or in this case, i think cliff might be talking about the collapse of a glacier.

in my story, there are some ideas of maybe building something underneath the thwaites glacier to protect us from warming waters in the amundsen sea, so the waters will be productive and might not break down as quickly. this is a tremendously complicated idea, nobody has ever built something like this, but this would be classified as a geo-engineering project. geo for trying to engineer the earth's system. there are not really any agencies responsible for this at the moment. this is still in the realm of ideas for basic science. so, it's not like -- there are people at nasa, for instance, that can discuss this. these are controversial ideas in many cases. they may have unintended consequences. another geo-engineering idea for instance is to put sulfate or

particulates in the upper atmosphere so that sunlight is reflected back out so that it would, in effect, delay the onset of rapid warming that is happening on earth. that kind of geo-engineering is meant to mimic volcanic explosion. but again, that is quite controversial. only now are experiments beginning to happen. this is a harvard professor who is looking into doing something on that. again, it is not in the realm of government. it is not in the realm of anything beyond basic research at this point in time. >> let's go to bill who is calling from norfolk, connecticut. bill, good morning. >> caller: good morning, how are you? happy new year. >> good morning, go ahead. >> caller: is it possible that we can't reverse this trend? that it may be too late. and cities like new york, sacramento, new orleans, they would all have to abandon them.

>> that's a great question. it is something i discussed in the story, too. what we are looking at, for the future in a lot of cases, are these computer models. how will these glaciers or ice sheets in greenland and antarctic react to a warming climate and a warming ocean? what we often find, as if we change the trajectory of our co2 emissions, which will be keeping the climate to, say, 1.5 degrees warms this century, and this is for people who are more familiar with this idea, this is part of the treaty or agreement that was hammered out in paris in 2015. if we could that, it might make a very significant difference in how fast these glaciers break down. so there is a lot to do. the question is, how can we do this politically and socially? at the moment, the news is not

very encouraging, i think. the united states, it showed its intentions not to participate with the paris agreement. we also have in the past year reached a new milestone in co2 emissions. so we are not going in right direction yet at all, and probably the best way to sum this up is, if we really want to get serious about meeting these targets for eliminating climate change, we would have to go undergo a rapid, almost immediate switch to renewable technologies and that would be really anything that produces carbon and transportation, power generation, and we would have to really alter our entire system of society. >> let's go millie who's calling from asheville, north carolina. millie, good morning. >> caller: good morning, i do not if your guest is aware, but there was a mini ice age in

europe during medieval times. i would like to know what brought the end to that mini-ice age. obviously, they did not have the technology that we have now, so what was it? >> is that something you can address? >> yeah, it's a little bit -- i don't want to go too deep into it. but what's useful to say the earth's history, as reconstructed by scientists for research, glaciology, geology, all the clues they have got into the history of the earth. it's obvious that earth has gone through numerous warnings and coolings through the last several million years. there were much more significant increases and drops in temperatures that have occurred, for instance, 11,000 years ago, there was a great warming trend

in the arctic regions. but i think what it is crucial to say now is, we're undergoing a period of extraordinary warming due to industrial emissions. and this is sort of a change unlike any that has gone before. so we have now entered a new era, i think, the climate of man where we are changing the climate dramatically at a rate which appears to not have any kind of precedent in recent history. >> let's go to tom calling from illinois. tom, good morning. >> caller: good morning. the first thing i want to say is, i read a book a few years ago, and in that book, she said that in ten years, washington, d.c., would be devoid of any kind of snow, and that the children would not know what it is. and on that anniversary, they

were all sledding down the hills on snow. the point i'm trying to make is, i am a farmer in illinois. and last year, we had record crops. we have had record crops for the few years that we have had it. i think six years now, and the prices have gone down. nasa takes satellite imagery of our fields. and in those fields, they have found that the cornfields produce more oxygen than the rainforests in south america during the growing season. now, my point is -- i listen to a lot of different scientists, and one of the scientists said that if you want to corrected the co2 level in the world that you would have to stop all emissions now. you would have to get rid of your cows and bovine, because

they put emissions into the air, and you would have to stop breathing, because that is what you emit when you breathe, and it would not change the amount of co2 in the atmosphere by 1% in 30 years. so, and part of it is, too, the reason i think some of our yield, which i just got through talking with university experts, we do not do any studies on what the carbon is doing to the crop, and if you come out here in the spring, and you look at the trees and you look at the corn and you look at the beans, they are extremely green. and part of that is i think is because we have a lot of co2. another thing about co2 is the food. plants need to have that to live. i do not buy this. this is about taxing us again, taking our money, and doing something that is farfetched and will not do any good anyway. >> how sound is the science here?

>> well, there's a lot to chew on there. i just want to know we should to make a distinction between weather and climate. one snowy winter and one cool summer does not necessarily indicate a particular trend of any significance. i think also it is important to remember that we are just one, tiny part of a very large earth, and as important as washington is, it is really just a dot on a map of an enormous, enormous planet, really. whatever weather is affecting us nearby when we look out the window compared to larger trends that are showing up, we can compare that to nasa and other agencies around the world. there is a fair amount of science that agricultural scientists are doing around the world to understand what increased co2 levels will do to plants. i think -- well, it's out of my realm -- it's outside of what i write about as a journalist. i am aware there are studies,

and it is an ongoing concern, especially with the idea that co2 levels will continue rising for the near future. as for whether this is a good thing in the long term, i think we can almost absolutely, positively say that rising sea co2 levels not be good for anybody. including farmers. they will change growing seasons. they will alter the trend and true methods and systems that farmers all around the world have depended on. they will shift areas where certain crops can be grown and can't be drown. they will alter drought patterns. they may alter insects and other pollinators. i think everybody, our friend on the phone had a good season which is certainly a good thing, i think, the long-term trends are very dire.

>> let's go to jonathan calling from minneapolis, minnesota. jon, good morning. >> caller: good morning. first off, it is a lovely, warm 45 degrees january 5th. now, usually, we have minus-15 degrees below zero and 15 inches of snow on the ground, so if you don't think global warming exists, take a look outside, people are walking around in shorts and flip-flops. my question is, regarding fl ii glaciers and rising waters, what do you think we can do -- i'm not missing the snow, but how do you think we can reverse it to make it a little bit better for the next generation live right now. but i can go outside and wear shots in minneapolis this week, so god bless, and have a great

week. >> that is a great question. there are -- earlier, i painted a sort of a darker scenario of how co2 emissions continue to rise and there doesn't seem to be a political movement, at least at the moment in the country. i should rephrase that a little bit, i think what we're seeing with the green new deal in congress that is being discussed with what we're seeing around the world in various countries with discussions of low carbon taxes. there are the sort of vast transportation systems, energy systems, moving away from coal power plants. there is a movement. there is a lot of encouraging sort of progress. i think it is just that the overall trend is very difficult in the sense that we have an expanding population that needs energy, that needs food and the

requirements for that has left us to depend on an older infrak strug church that emits billions of carbon every year. what we can do is accelerate that trend towards greener energy, toward renewable energy. there is a lot of discussion in the climate community about whether this should be an individual action or a concerted sort of group action, which is more important. i guess, you know, it is a matter of personal opinion, but i tend to think it is all important. it all matters. making a personal intention to drive a fuel-efficient vehicle matters, making a decision to vote for a representative, a political representative of whatever party you support. but somebody who does support renewable energy technologies and is interested in switching over towards cleaner technologies, matters quite a bit. i think there are a variety of

actions, and i will not go through them all, but certainly you can fly less on airplanes, you can certainly eat less meat. those are personal decisions, but i think the big ones really are changing these systems that emit billions of tons of carbon, and that would be transportation systems. that would be energy smgs, especially coal-power plants. those are the big things over the next decade. >> one of the ways that they study the health of this glacier but setting off small explosions on the inside. how explain that works and why this isn't detrimental to the glacier breaking apart? >> right. so, the thwaites as i explained, scientists will be descending upon it to study it. some will be studying the front of the glacier from the water's edge and some of them will be

looking at it from above and satellite imagery. the scientists i wrote about used literally bombs. they cover up the hole with snow and detonate it and they look at the way the waves travel from the site of the explosion to the bedrock underneath the ice sheet and back up to the surface. by doing that, they can kind of understand a bit more the glacier bed that's underneath all this ice and the idea is, if they can understand that better, it will give them a glue to how fast and slow the glacier might slide back and retreat over the coming decades. these are small bombs. the size of your index finger. sometimes they'll put two, three or four together. they're not big in any way to break the fwla her apart or fracture in any kind of significant manner. the forces of nature are much, much more powerful than these

small bombs. >> let's go to matt who's calling from cleveland, ohio. matt good morning. >> caller: hi, how are you? i'm wondering, sir, mr. gertner, what is your technical background? are you -- do you have degrees in atmospheric chemistry, things like that? >> hmm, i'm a science journalist and a technology journalist. i have written a long book on the great laboratory of the 20st century. i have just finished a book at the greenland ice sheet which is out in june. i went to greenland six times. for that, i have spent the last few years writing about glaciers all over the world. so, no, i'm not an atmospheric scientist. i talk to scientists every day,

almost, and that's pretty much my work. >> let's go to bob who's calling from philadelphia, pennsylvania. bob, good morning >> caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. i think that you just kind of prove the last caller's point. sir, you're not qualified. you're certainly a parrot who repeats what other people tell you. you only go to the sources you want to go to. the other point that i need to make is that, at a time when, you know, the president wants to get, you know, money to build a wall, okay, to -- to effectively -- >> can i interrupt for a second. i mean, i just find it kind of strange because you're saying i'm a parrot of scientists yet you're saying so if i'm explaining what scientists are saying that's not true, but if i were a scientist saying that it

would be true. >> you only repeat the sources that you want to repeat. okay, so, you only selectively take -- you're looking at this subjectively not objectively. you're only going to the sources that you want to go to and that's the problem. you have a bias, okay, and it's not, you know, it's not a scientific bias, it's subjective bias. the other point that i wanted to make is, at a time when, you know, we need to secure the country and the president wants a drop in the bucket, $5 billion to build a wall, people like you want to actually spend money to figure out a way to interdict a glacier. the liberals in the house of representatives and you said to them, instead of taking $5 billion and building a wall to secure the country we'll take the $5 billion and we'll build a

wall around a glacier they'd happily do it. it's like nero fielding while rome burned. >> got a response? >> no. i just -- that caller seems to be saying things about me that i have never said. i just find it a befuddling. i don't support building a wall around a glacier. i'm not sure how the president's idea for a wall with mexico really relates to what we're discussing now. >> let's go jenny calling from honolulu, hawaii >> caller: good morning. >> go ahead, jenny. >> thank you, mr. gertner. i was a very lowly technician at

washington university, but my thoughts over the years, i had long time to think about this subject, why don't we stop doing things, flip off the lights, stop driving our cars, if we did this one day a week, we would stop 1/7th of the pollution. if we did it saturday and sunday there goes a huge amount of pollution. friday, saturday and sunday. the sabbath idea of the jews was a marvelous contribution to community and the christians adopted it and the muslims adopted it and apparently we taught it to most of the world and now we should embrace fully as god intended. turn off the lights. if people want to get around, they can ride a bike. >> yeah, i mean, it's -- it's

certainly wouldn't hurt if we used less electricity and sort of scaled back a little bit. the problem is, unfortunately, is much ladies and gentlemen of the jury than that when we have power plants emitting so much and steel plants that emit carbon or cement plants that we depend on for, for our industrial society, for our jobs, for our living. so, i think it's certainly not unhelpful but i think unfortunately the problem is probably a little bit more complicated than just scaling back a little. we also need to sort of change the way our industry, our systems, actually work. >> really quickly, what's the next steps we can see for the study of the thwaites glacier. >> well, i think what we'll see over the next few years is literally scientific data and reports coming in and sort of, you know, a number of insights

that are probably mostly within the scientific they might come out into the mainstream media. again, i think the most crucial value of what's going to happen over the next few years with the scientists who are studying this glacier is to put some of this data and observations into models that can help us understand what's going to happen in west antarctica over the next few years, a lot of uncertainty when it comes to glaciers. lot of uncertainty to our future and how we for instance might change our behavior and change our carbon emissions. the question is, being that, you know, can the scientists who are racing to understand this glacier, can they give us more information so we can make better decisions on the future? >> we'd like to thank jon gertn

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