BenBella Books Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters

El autor fue parte del gabinete de Obama, desempeño el papel de subsecretario de energía. Analizo el calentamiento global y en este libro desarrolla su idea de que NO HAY PRUEBAS EXACTAS DE QUE LOS HUMANOS ESTAMOS CAUSANDO EL CALENTAMIENTO GLOBAL, de ahí el nombre "unsettled". Comenta que los contaminantes que generamos los humanos afectan al ambiente pero de una forma muy muy diminuta. Mediante decenas de gráficas y estadísticas demuestra su argumento.Sin duda un libro que abre los ojos en cuanto este tema. Muy recomendado!

Unsettled – Book Review by Michael J. MurrayA 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.

An evidence based look at the real issues. Well constructed arguments, easy to read, gives a balanced understanding of one of today's most important yet misrepresented concerns.

Boken lyfter människors medvetenhet om att alarmismen i världen inte är så som den framförs i media och av vissa politiker. Det är bättre att skaffa sig en egen uppfattning genom kunskap.

L'autore mostra come la 'Scienza' (con la S maiuscola) del clima è un campo con certezze molto meno consolidate di quanto non passi attraverso i media. Attraverso uno sguardo realmente scientifico descrive tutto ciò che sappiamo (e che non sappiamo) sul cambiamento climatico. Se davvero ci approcciamo con giudizio alla 'emergenza' climatica, le soluzioni di cui ci parlano i nostri governanti dovrebbero essere accolte con un grado di scetticismo molto maggiore. Queste soffrono spesso di vari difetti: implicano enormi costi economici per la maggior parte della popolazione, specie delle fasce meno abbienti; sono estremamente difficili da realizzare sia dal punto di vista politico sia dal punto di vista tecnico; contribuirebbero spesso in maniera solo marginale a modificare le temperature globali; implicherebbero rischi di deriva anti-democratica e tecnocratica, etc.