Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

by Steven E. Koonin

In a speech in which he compared human-caused climate change to weapons of mass destruction, then secretary of state John Kerry (now the Biden administration’s climate envoy) said, “The science is unequivocal . . . President Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.”18 But the science is not settled. Open debate is at the heart of the scientific process; it is absurd that scientists should fear being labeled antiscience for engaging in it. In that light, this book issues a challenge and solicits, indeed welcomes, informed argument and disagreement. This would be an important step toward wiser societal decisions on climate and energy—and less heat in the debate over the science of our warming planet.