| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Why We Left Academia
00:03:03
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| That's how important I consider it. | |
| The book is unsettled? | |
| What climate science tells us, what it doesn't, why it matters. | |
| Stephen Kunin was the top scientist in the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. | |
| Former professor of physics at theoretical physics, to be precise, at Caltech. | |
| And now a professor, we didn't establish, a professor of what at NYU? Well, you know, when I went to NYU, because I'd been a provost at Caltech, I had kind of been fed up with the academic tribalism. | |
| And I said, I don't want to be a professor of anything. | |
| I just want to be a professor. | |
| And the provost at the time, a nice guy whom I know, well, Dave McLaughlin, said, you've got to be a professor of something. | |
| So I'm in the civil engineering department. | |
| I'm in the business school in technology and operations, and I've got an appointment in physics as well. | |
| Nice. | |
| So, the data that you gave at the end of the last segment were staggering. | |
| If we did nothing, maybe the temperature of the world would increase one or one and a half degrees Fahrenheit. | |
| No, centigrade. | |
| Oh, I thought you said Fahrenheit. | |
| No, no. | |
| So that's about two and a half to three degrees Fahrenheit. | |
| Right. | |
| And let's say that happened. | |
| What would the results be for humanity? | |
| Well, you know, given that we've gone up by one degree centigrade or two Fahrenheit already since 1900, roughly, and the world has prospered. | |
| It's not such a big deal. | |
| Okay? | |
| And even the IPCC said that. | |
| The official reports say for a temperature rise of even up to 7 or 8 degrees Fahrenheit, the economic impact is minimal for the U.S. and the globe. | |
| Okay? | |
| Minimal. | |
| You know, in the book you can find the exact text. | |
| I'll put you on the spot, but you're certainly free to say anything. | |
| So when we're told that Manhattan will be underwater, fires will engulf the planet, the Antarctic ice sheet will melt and rise seas seven feet, would you characterize these as lies? | |
| I would characterize them as gross exaggerations. | |
| You know, with the sea level at the battery in Manhattan, just to take that example. | |
| It's going up. | |
| It's been going up since 1850. And it's been going up at one foot a century. | |
| Now, you know, the IPCC will say, well, in the next 80 years it could be going up a little bit. | |
| Listen, I want to thank you for a magnificent hour and a magnificent book. | |
| Okay. | |