john holdren, thank you for joining us. your report today talks about to residential rains -- torrential rains and rising sea levels and you also say about a 2-degree increase in fahrenheit in global warming. doesn't seem that sounds so miner would have such an outsized effect. >> i think one needs to understand about the global average temperatures, a little bit like the temperature of the body. it's really an index of the state of the whole climate system, and if your body temperature went up by 2 degrees celsius, 3.6 degrees fahrenheit, you know it was telling you something is seriously anis your body system and, similarly, when the average temperature of the earth goes up by a couple of degrees, it is a really big deal. it is indicating changes in circulation patterns, patterns in rain and snow, winds, ocean currents and extremes of weather that are things that people really notice. >> ifill: one of the things that's interesting in your report is how you targeted exactly which areas of the united states will be affected

john holdren is the president's chief science adviser. it's a big job.t covers everything from guarding against nuclear attacks to high-tech brain research. tonight, dr. holdren talks about his wide ranging portfolio with john markoff of "the new york times." major funding for "revolutionaries" is provided by the intel corporat >>> do you think of yourself as a californian? >> originally, certainly, i'm pretty much bicoastal now, but

so to learn more about de-growth, you can call john holdren, the president's science adviser, or maybe greenpeace. but robert points out -- or offers, rather, an alternative vision for america's future. again, a positive one in which we do more with less, and we grow the pie rather than ration it. so as i was reading the book, i said, well, he really speaks so answer -- seeks to answer two questions; why and how do we keep this going? rather than saying, well, it's going to end soon and throwing hands up in alarm. so he wants to see the good times continue to roll. now, while the substance of robert's talk, i'm sure, will focus on answering these two questions -- why and how do we continue this -- i think he offers a pretty simple answer, that we continue to innovate by making things smaller, faster, lighter, denser and cheaper. i hope that was in the right order. you have talking heads on tv who say, well, we'll just solve our way out of a problem with new technology. it's more nuanced than that. it's in some ways a globe-trotting showcase of the actual innovations, the real people, t

i'm john holdren attractor of the white house office of science and technology policy. it's my honor to be able to welcome you all to the white house and to launch this extraordinary event. we are here of course to talk about the release of the third national assessment of climate change impacts on the united states. it exists. this is the 20 page overview. this is the 140 page highlight, the eight and 40 page whole document is live on www.global change.gov, and folks are invited to go there but not while today's speakers are talking. the assessment and we're launching today is distinguished by laying out with unprecedented operatives of ms., this aggregation detail and clarity, how the climate is changing across the united states, disaggregated by a geographic regions and also by various crucial sectors of the economy, agriculture, fishery, the ocean, energy and so on. it basically is letting americans know how climate is changing where they work and live, what impacts that is having on things they value, and how this picture is expected to evolve going forward. and, o

john holdren. kathy sullivan. dr. john karl and all of their teams.this is an outstanding report and i want to say how much the president appreciated it along with the work of the many scientists to contributed and made it a create. -- reality. i also wants to thank the web development team for the dynamite website that goes along with this report. who says we can't built a -- build a great website in the white house? let's give them all a big hand. [applause] this is a tremendous contribution to our knowledge about climate change with hundreds of pages of rigorous scientific analysis, it underscores something that many of us in the administration and in this room have been saying for some time now that climate change is no longer a distant threat. i don't doubt there will be some media reports that try to place e third assessments in a non-glowing "climate change debate." what the report tells us is that there is no debate. an overwhelming majority of scientists tell us, frankly, there is no debate. climate change is real, it's being driven by human