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Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters Hardcover – April 27, 2021
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"Unsettled is a remarkable book—probably the best book on climate change for the intelligent layperson—that achieves the feat of conveying complex information clearly and in depth." —Claremont Review of Books
“[Unsettled] is no polemic. It’s a plea for understanding how scientists extract clarity from complexity.” — Wall Street Journal
"Surging sea levels are inundating the coasts."
"Hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming fiercer and more frequent."
"Climate change will be an economic disaster."
You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading.
When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions—about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be—remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe.
Now, one of America's most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn't say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas.
Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What's more, the models we use to predict the future aren't able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed.
Koonin also tackles society's response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed "solutions" would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren't getting elsewhere—what we know, what we don't, and what it all means for our future.
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Print length320 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherBenBella Books
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Publication dateApril 27, 2021
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Dimensions6.25 x 1.05 x 9.31 inches
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ISBN-101950665798
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ISBN-13978-1950665792
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—Wall Street Journal
"Unsettled teaches that we need to follow scientific knowledge as it develops, and carefully to consider the costs and benefits of different alternatives."
—Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Forbes
"Koonin . . . is an authority, in the best academic sense of the word . . . Unsettled will be a mainstay of reference sections in heterodox critiques of the climate-catastrophe-industrial complex for years to come."
—Commentary
“We have too many global warming books—but this one is needed. Steven Koonin has the credentials, expertise, and experience to ask the right questions and to give realistic answers.”
—Vaclav Smil, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba
“Essential reading and a timely breath of fresh air for climate policy. The science of climate is neither settled nor sufficient to dictate policy. Rather than an existential crisis, we face a wicked problem that requires a pragmatic balancing of costs and benefits.”
—William W. Hogan, professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard Kennedy School
“Tough talk about climate politics from a statesman scientist—and a vision of what will actually come to pass.”
—Robert B. Laughlin, Stanford University
“Unsettled will definitely and rightly unsettle your climate thoughts, and all for the better. If we are to make trillion dollar investments, we deserve to be as well informed as possible.”
—Bjorn Lomborg, president of Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford University
"In a carefully researched and insightful book, Steven Koonin highlights the significant uncertainty underlying climate models and statistics, the limits of technical and political responses, and the need to reassert the core values of scientific independence and integrity that drive social progress."
—William van Wijngaarden, The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute and professor of physics at York University
“The most important book on climate science in decades.”
—Rupert Darwall, RealClearPolitics
“Fascinating and informative reading, and one hopes it will improve the climate for honest and open discussion.”
—Jonathan Tennenbaum, Asia Times
"Koonin takes his fellow scientists to task for withholding the information he presents in this book. Ironically, most of the data he reports comes directly from the very reports that are used to exaggerate the problems we face. This scientific malpractice seems mainly driven by self-interest . . . Because of this, it is time confront the true climate deniers."
—Robert M. Whaples, The Independent Review
“Koonin takes deliberate, explicit care to write dispassionately and factually . . . This book should be read by every journalist, pundit, and environmental activist, and by all politicians, policymakers, as well as their staffs.”
—Henry Bauer, Journal of Scientific Exploration
“Unsettled is an excellent case study on climate science, its inherent complexity and uncertainty, and a cautionary tale on how interpretive filters in the policymaking process have shaped, and sometimes misinformed, the climate policy debate. It should on be the reading list of scientists and engineers whose responsibility, as citizens, extends beyond the laboratory to communicating to a larger public often overwhelmed and confused by the media. Policymakers and politicians will find it a source of reflection for their arguments, positions, and decisions.”
—Jean-Lou Chameau, President Emeritus, Caltech
Review
—William van Wijngaarden, The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute and professor of physics at York University
“The most important book on climate science in decades.”
—Rupert Darwall, RealClearPolitics
“The book is no polemic. It’s a plea for understanding how scientists extract clarity from complexity. And, as Mr. Koonin makes clear, few areas of science are as complex and multidisciplinary as the planet’s climate.”
—Mark P. Mills, Wall Street Journal
“Any reader would benefit from its deft, lucid tour of climate science, the best I’ve seen.”
—Holman W. Jenkins, Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating and informative reading, and one hopes it will improve the climate for honest and open discussion.”
—Jonathan Tennenbaum, Asia Times
“Koonin points out scientific facts supported by hard data and the peer-reviewed literature.”
—Tilak Doshi, Forbes
"Koonin takes his fellow scientists to task for withholding the information he presents in this book. Ironically, most of the data he reports comes directly from the very reports that are used to exaggerate the problems we face. This scientific malpractice seems mainly driven by self-interest . . . Because of this, it is time confront the true climate deniers."
—Robert M. Whaples, The Independent Review
“Koonin takes deliberate, explicit care to write dispassionately and factually . . . This book should be read by every journalist, pundit, and environmental activist, and by all politicians, policymakers, as well as their staffs.”
—Henry Bauer, Journal of Scientific Exploration
"Koonin . . . is an authority, in the best academic sense of the word . . . Unsettled will be a mainstay of reference sections in heterodox critiques of the climate-catastrophe-industrial complex for years to come."
—Commentary
“We have too many global warming books―but this one is needed. Steven Koonin has the credentials, expertise, and experience to ask the right questions and to give realistic answers.”
—Vaclav Smil, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba
“Unsettled is an excellent case study on climate science, its inherent complexity and uncertainty, and a cautionary tale on how interpretive filters in the policymaking process have shaped, and sometimes misinformed, the climate policy debate. It should on be the reading list of scientists and engineers whose responsibility, as citizens, extends beyond the laboratory to communicating to a larger public often overwhelmed and confused by the media. Policymakers and politicians will find it a source of reflection for their arguments, positions, and decisions.”
—Jean-Lou Chameau, President Emeritus, Caltech
“Essential reading and a timely breath of fresh air for climate policy. The science of climate is neither settled nor sufficient to dictate policy. Rather than an existential crisis, we face a wicked problem that requires a pragmatic balancing of costs and benefits.”
—William W. Hogan, professor of global energy policy at Harvard Kennedy School
“Tough talk about climate politics from a statesman scientist―and a vision of what will actually come to pass.”
— Robert B. Laughlin, professor of physics at Stanford University
“Steve Koonin, the undersecretary for science under Obama, has written a very interesting and thoughtful book on climate. He documents how much of what you think you know about climate just ain’t so. Did you know that while the United States is now seeing many fewer cold records, absolute heat records are not increasing? Unsettled will definitely and rightly unsettle your climate thoughts, and all for the better. If we are to make trillion dollar investments, we deserve to be as well informed as possible.”
—Bjørn Lomborg, president of Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford University
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : BenBella Books (April 27, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1950665798
- ISBN-13 : 978-1950665792
- Item Weight : 1.11 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.05 x 9.31 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #12,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Weather (Books)
- #5 in Climatology
- #13 in Environmental Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Dr. Steven E. Koonin is a University Professor at New York University, with appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics. He founded NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, which focuses research and education on the acquisition, integration, and analysis of big data for big cities.
Dr. Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy under President Obama from 2009 to 2011, where his portfolio included the climate research program and energy technology strategy. He was the lead author of the US Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan (2011) and the inaugural Department of Energy Quadrennial Technology Review (2011). Before joining the government, Dr. Koonin spent five years as Chief Scientist for BP, researching renewable energy options to move the company “beyond petroleum.”
For almost thirty years, Dr. Koonin was a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. He also served for nine years as Caltech’s Vice President and Provost, facilitating the research of more than 300 scientists and engineers and catalyzing the development of the world’s largest optical telescope, as well as research initiatives in computational science, bioengineering, and the biological sciences.
In addition to the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Koonin’s memberships include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and JASON, the group of scientists who solve technical problems for the US government; he served as JASON’s chair for six years. He chaired the National Academies’ Divisional Committee for Engineering and Physical Sciences from 2014 to 2019, and since 2014 has been a trustee of the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is currently an independent governor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and has served in similar roles for the Los Alamos, Sandia, Brookhaven, and Argonne National Laboratories. He is a member of Governor Cuomo’s Blue Ribbon Commission to Reimagine New York in the post-COVID-19 era.
Dr. Koonin has a BS in Physics from Caltech and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from MIT. He is an award-winning classroom teacher and his public lectures are noted for their clarity in conveying complex subjects. He is the author of the classic 1985 textbook Computational Physics, which introduced methodology for building computer models of complex physical systems. He has published some 200 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of physics and astrophysics, scientific computation, energy technology and policy, and climate science, and has been the lead author on multiple book-length reports, including two National Academies studies.
Through a series of articles and lectures that began in 2014, Dr. Koonin has advocated for a more accurate, complete, and transparent public representation of climate and energy matters.
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A Master Teacher Explains Climate Science
A while ago, I read a WSJ Op Ed article Steven Koonin about our changing climate. The clarity of his prose, the objective tone, and the forthrightness of his convictions impressed me. Dr. Koonin, after having attended recent international conferences on climate change, expressed concern that many of the participants lacked a deep understanding of their subject. They were regarding as “settled” certain climate projections that still needed to undergo the rigorous checks and balances of the scientific method. Only a scientist of substantial intellectual clout would venture such a bold statement.
Koonin’s credentials as a climatologist are impeccable – BS in physics from Cal Tech, PhD in theoretical physics from MIT, award-winning classroom teacher, five years as chief scientist for British Petroleum, researching renewable energy options, Undersecretary for Science in the Department of Energy under President Obama. This experience in the three spheres that most influence climate science – the scientific, the business, and the political - affords him a unique perspective from which to judge the large and intricate picture. He is certainly not a climate denier and understands the effect of humans on greenhouse gases.
I bought a copy of “Unsettled” as a concerned citizen, eager to learn more about a controversial subject that looms large in current world affairs. Reading its 255 pages of text, I learned much about the scope and depth of climate research with its complexity of variables, especially those used to construct models projecting world climate 50 or 100 years from now, a subject that has fueled much heated debate.
The organization of “Unsettled” facilitates understanding. Its Table of Contents and Introduction set a clear path. It contains 24 pages of thorough notes, and its Index conveniently allows for backchecking and cross referencing if the reader so chooses.
“Unsettled” has two parts. The first deals with the science of changing climate; the second with responses “society might make to those changes.” Part I contains specific chapters about our current knowledge of climate study, human influences on greenhouse gases, emissions, climate models, hurricanes, precipitation and fires, and sea levels.
Koonin doesn’t lecture about climate science. Rather, he guides the reader, chapter by chapter, through each strand of the science, attentive always to the larger picture. And his use of graphs to do this is brilliant. The 85 graphs in “Unsettled,” far from being scholarly decorations, serve as illuminative teaching instruments in the spirit of one picture being worth 1,000 words, and in conjunction with the author’s astute commentary provide the reader with a good sense of the challenges posed by this highly complex field of study.
Several graphs come from the reports of prestigious world climate organizations such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) with its consequential ARs (Assessment Reports), and the CMIP (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) reports. This affords the reader a glimpse at some of the actual data discussed at high-level international conferences
“Unsettled” also presents a cogent argument in favor of the scientific method. Dr. Koonin, his tone always civil and dispassionate, draws a contrast between “The Science” and science. “The Science” refers to the fashionable narrative that predictions of climate doom are settled matters because “The Science” says they are. True science, of course, is never settled, or is so merely in an ephemeral way. The method of science is to probe and test ideas and theories, objectively scrutinizing the data, trying to replicate experiments, testing for flaws. It applies whether a theory has existed for three years or three centuries. It is the most effective tool we have for ascertaining the validity of a scientific theory.
Throughout “Unsettled” Koonin maintains that science ought to inform, not persuade. Science is not advertising. To illustrate, he refers to a commencement speech at Cal Tech in 1974, given by his former teacher and colleague, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman exhorted the graduates “to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contributions; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”
Feynman referred to a TV ad for cooking oil that claimed its oil “doesn’t soak through food.” While that statement is not untrue, Feynman said, it lacks scientific integrity because no oil soaks through food, or all oils do, depending on the temperature. Koonin’s book contains a number of examples of such specious presentations in climate science reporting that present the part for the whole and that lack scientific integrity not by lying but rather the sin of omission.
Dr. Koonin, who has been tracking the misrepresentation of climate science by politicians and the media since 2017, recommends a Red Team exercise for examining climate Assessment Reports. The Red Team, a group of qualified scientists, would scrutinize one of the Assessment Reports trying to find “What’s wrong with this argument?” A Blue Team, the Report’s authors, could then rebut the Red findings. He advocates such safeguards because the “processes for drafting and reviewing the climate science assessment reports do not promote objectivity.”
I am not a scientist. I taught high school English with some stints in college for 45 years and appreciate good teaching. Reading “Unsettled” was like taking a course by a master teacher, who could break down a complex subject into a series of simple steps and rebuild it again to this reader’s delight.
The key prescription I got: we need to think a lot more about adaptation to the inevitable and redirect resources away from some of the prevention efforts.
I hope the author does a second edition when enough time has passed to warrant it. Surely the misinformation that will likely continue will need an update in a few years. And the author surely will have more people who went after him with illogic and untruth that he can write more about.
By the way, I deal with science misconceptions all the time in my job, like the idea that people feel temperature (we don't, and if it shocks you try "Misconceptions About Temperature" on YouTube). So it is from that viewpoint that is part of the reason I like how the author of this book deals with the misinformation age. Society advances forward better and faster when it focuses on what is true. When we spew falsehoods we slow progress and even worsen things.
Still Koonin does not expand upon other points, including the Earth's atmospheric CO2 is near the lowest in geological history, nor that some plants have evolved a more efficient photosynthesis process in response. Nor does he expound on what is the dire consequences of climatic change.
Also neither Koonin nor Bill Gates communicate viable and more immediate solutions to human contribution to atmospheric CO2, some of which I list under the rubric 'Think Globally, Act Locally'
- change out to energy efficient devices such as
*incandescent light bulbs for energy efficient LEDs
*refrigerator
*furnace
- set the house thermostat to reduce energy consumption;
- turn off heat or cooling in little used rooms, and the bedroom;
- set temperature of hot water tank not excessive;
- hang laundry outdoors instead of using electric or gas clothes drier;
- use hand push lawn mowers instead of gas or electric mowers;
- buy locally produced food, and encourage farmer's markets to reduce long distance transportation;
- grow food in your own yard, convert grassed areas to garden, and grow flowers to help beneficial and endangered butterflies;
- reduce the amount of your trash by intelligent purchases and use of articles;
- compost your kitchen waste, yard grass and shrub cuttings;
- walk or use a bicycle as much as possible, or use public transportation;
- analyse your purchases and reduce your consumption;
- use articles until worn out or repair if possible;
- reuse or re-purpose old articles;
- recycle and become an activist to get your local authorities to mandate intelligent recycling;
World Over Population
The major omission by Koonin, and all other advocates for reduce atmospheric CO2, is that the world's human population load should be significantly and immediately reduced. This would not only address atmospheric CO2 build up, but also dwindling Earth resources, habitat destruction, and pollution.
This is important in the Developed World, where energy consumption is the highest, but most importantly in the Developing World, where the growth in energy consumption is highest. Until the West began massive immigration from the Developing World, the West was on a steady trajectory of reducing their populations. China was also reducing its population by one-child policy. The Developed World must greatly reduce immigration from the Developing World so that the natural population decline can recommence in the Developed World.
World health bodies should mandate family planning in the Developing World and promote the benefits of smaller, more affluent families, so as to reduce the load on the local governments, which constantly are behind in keeping up with the needs of burgeoning populations.
Most importantly, reduced world population will reduce the demands on the Earth. Humans are consuming 2-5 Earth's worth of resources and pollution handling each year. The consequences of a depleted Earth's resources are much more dire, immediate and predictable than the unknown consequences of atmospheric CO2 buildup.
If the sentiments over atmospheric CO2 have been contentious, the argument over population reduction will be even more polarizing, and politically poison.
Top reviews from other countries
Sin duda un libro que abre los ojos en cuanto este tema. Muy recomendado!
Reviewed in Mexico on August 16, 2022
Sin duda un libro que abre los ojos en cuanto este tema. Muy recomendado!
It’s a clear 5* for me, and every 1* review I’ve seen treats Mr Koonin as a “denialist”, whilst he is not at all, he just presents facts and scientific evidence as they are, no more no less…. But this approach always cause discomfort among those (the majority of the 8 billion of us) who need simple conclusions and clear beliefs to follow.
Please note that most of this book’s content is based on the same scientific evidence used by the prophets of catastrophe, but Mr Koonin explains the key aspects from raw data and from reports that have been peer-reviewed, in stead of broadcasting simplistic and unrevised “political summaries”.
To all the world leaders and celebrities etc telling the plebs of the world to check our privileges, take less holidays, install expensive heat pumps, give up petrol cars, stop eating meat blah blah blah. Maybe if you practiced what you preach and stop flying all over the world in your private jets (Harry & Megan, Joe Biden etc etc) dumping god knows how many carbon emissions into the atmosphere, gave up your big expensive gas guzzling cars with entourages in tow and huge mansion houses that could home 6 families maybe then us plebs could take you more seriously. Until then give it a rest and let the rest of us have some peace from constantly being scolded like children. I listen to what someone says and then watch what they do. Funnily enough they rarely match.