Dr. Steven E. Koonin’s 2021 book “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” pushes back against the characterization of climate change as “settled science” in media and policy discussions.
All figures in this post come from the book.
The book argues that policymakers and the media have deliberately misled the public into thinking that there is “consensus” on this issue in the scientific community. Dr. Koonin uses a series of fact-based statements to articulate a rigorously scientific contrarian view:
““The earth has warmed during the past century, partly because of natural phenomena and partly in response to growing human influences. These human influences (most importantly the accumulation of CO2 from burning fossil fuels) exert a physically small effect on the complex climate system. Unfortunately, our limited observations and understanding are insufficient to usefully quantify either how the climate will respond to human influences or how it varies naturally. However, even as human influences have increased almost fivefold since 1950 and the globe has warmed modestly, most severe weather phenomena remain within past variability. Projections of future climate and weather events rely on models demonstrably unfit for the purpose.”
Koonin is a professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, a former Under Secretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy under Obama, former Chief Scientist at BP, and former Provost of CalTech. Here’s a summary of the main arguments from Dr. Koonin’s book.
1. The Consensus Myth
The book acknowledges that the climate is changing, partially due to human influence, but refutes the existence of “scientific consensus” on this issue. Dr. Koonin notes that media and policy discussions hide uncertainty about the extent of the problem, the relative impact of human contribution, the model predictions, and the effectiveness of proposed solutions. Many aspects of the Earth’s climate are not fully understood, and climate science is rapidly evolving.
2. The Inaccuracy of Climate Models
Climate models, which form the basis for the calls to urgent action on climate change, have several limitations:
- Models describe extremely complex systems by making simplifying assumptions. It is difficult to predict weather more than about two weeks out because minor inaccuracies in the inputs affect model accuracy significantly the farther you go into the future.
- Models necessarily oversimplify complex processes like cloud formation and ocean currents.
- The spatial and temporal resolution of current models is limited by computing power. The most detailed models take days to execute a single modeling run on the best available platforms. Our ability to model the future will improve as our computing power increases.
- Models are “tuned” to adjust for differences between modeled outputs and reality, but many of the tweaks to parameters that are used to tune the models so that they reflect real world conditions are unrealistic. Science reporting sometimes hides the effects of these tunings because they call into question the usefulness of the models. Even if the scientists developing the models include appropriate caveats in their conclusions to account for tuning, people who are communicating the model results to the public often drop the caveats.
- Notable claims about future conditions are based on the outputs of many models averaged together to reduce errors.
Koonin quotes the British statistician, George E.P. Box, who said “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” He notes that models should be used cautiously if they are influencing policy because they cannot predict the future reliably, although they can offer useful insights.
A salient point on modeling comes after a quote from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “It remains difficult to quantify the contribution to this warming from internal variability, natural forcing, and anthropogenic forcing, due to forcing and response uncertainties and incomplete observational coverage.” Dr. Koonin bluntly paraphrases this as, “[the IPCC has] no idea what causes this failure of the models.”
3. Climate Change Observations
The book summarizes historical climate data and sources of natural variability. Dr. Koonin asserts that while global temperatures have risen, the increase is not as alarming as often depicted. He also notes that although atmospheric CO2 concentrations are higher now than they were 100 years ago, geologic evidence suggests they have been much higher in the past. Additionally, warming oceans and melting ice release additional CO2 into the atmosphere. These concepts and others make it difficult to quantify the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gas releases compared to natural variations in the earth climate.
Koonin points out five observations from the research literature and climate assessment reports created for the U.S. government and the United Nations to suggest that the mainstream narrative on climate change is not telling the whole story:
- Heat waves in the US are no more common now than they were in 1900.
- The warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past 50 years.
- Humans have had no detectable impacts on hurricanes in the past century.
- Greenland’s ice sheet is shrinking no more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago.
- The net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of the century.
Koonin also points out that, since observation began in 1998, the global area burned by fires each year has declined by 25 percent.
4. Misleading Communication
Koonin notes that most of the public concern over climate change today comes from misrepresentations of scientific observations. He describes the process by which scientific research passes through various filters before reaching the public. The primary source for climate science information is in the research literature, which is reviewed broadly and summarized in assessment reports prepared for the U.S. government, the United Nations, and others. The media often takes conclusions from these reports out of context to attract audiences to their content by stoking fear, and policymakers similarly take these conclusions out of context to instill a sense of urgency. Koonin argues that the media, advocacy groups, and even some scientists mislead the public by exaggerating findings to promote this sense of fear and urgency. He advocates for more transparency in presenting scientific uncertainty and the nuances of the scientific claims.
5. Public Policy Implications
Koonin notes that – contrary to popular belief – many of the effects of climate change may have positive economic impacts and benefits to human wellbeing. For example, data indicate that higher atmospheric CO2 increases agricultural productivity, as would be expected from first principles.
Koonin argues that the push for rapid decarbonization and transition to renewable energy is not safe or effective, even without the well-known reliability issues with renewable energy sources. He notes that these strategies could lead to unreliable energy markets and economic instability. Civilized society requires reliable power, and order predictably breaks down in places that do not have reliable power. Energy transitions cannot be safely undertaken through a “Moonshot” or a “Manhattan Project”-style approach, because grid reliability is extremely important to human safety. Koonin advises that transitions are more safely made in deliberate, gradual changes over time.
Koonin is not convinced that we are facing a catastrophic climate crisis, but if we are, he believes efforts spent on adaptation are likely to have much better returns on human wellbeing than efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, he argues that policies that increase fossil fuel prices directly or indirectly are particularly dangerous for the global poor.
Koonin advocates for moderate action, continued use of fossil fuels, and an emphasis on innovation and adaptation. He notes his own belief that humans will primarily address climate change by adapting to it, because this is what humans have always done to address changes in their environment, even when they didn’t understand the causes or attributed them solely to supernatural forces.
In an interesting side note on the Paris climate agreement, Koonin points out that progress is reviewed through self-reporting. He also clarifies that the agreement itself was nonbinding, as the Trump Administration proved when it withdrew the U.S. in 2020.
6. Better Science and Science Reporting
Koonin calls for more rigorous climate research and better scientific communication. He notes that we are being told that we “broke the climate,” but what we really broke was the science behind climate change analysis. Koonin stresses that to make better decisions about how to address climate change, we need to acknowledge the uncertainties and limitations of our current knowledge.
Conclusion
“Unsettled” takes a contrarian view on the current climate change debate, challenging the notion that the science is settled. Koonin recommends a careful, measured approach to both understanding and addressing climate change. His book has sparked significant debate, with supporters praising its advocacy for scientific rigor and critics arguing that it dangerously downplays the urgency required by climate change.
If you are hearing the preceding arguments for the first time, I would encourage you to read the book to familiarize yourself with the underlying data. This summary is necessarily cutting out much of the detailed data for the sake of brevity. I was not inclined to believe most of these assertions the first couple of times I heard them. But the more I looked at the underlying facts behind Dr. Koonin’s claims, the more I became convinced that his viewpoint is the moderate one when compared to the so-called “consensus.”
I will finish this review with some fascinating quotes that he lists in the introduction to his book:
- “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” -Paul Watson, Cofounder of Greenpeace
- “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” -Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
- “Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve.” -Daniel Botkin, Former Chair of Environmental Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara
- “[Inaction will cause] … by the turn of the century [2000], an ecological catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.” -Mostafa Tolba, Former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, 1982
- “[Within a few years] winter snowfall [in the UK] will become a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t even going to know what snow is.” -David Viner, Senior Research Scientist, 2000
- “European cities will be plunged beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020.”-Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, Quoting a Pentagon Report in the Guardian, 2004