42. David Stainforth on climate models and uncertainty

Pete and Jesse must bring Challenging Climate to a close. Since starting the podcast almost three years ago, we have each taken on more professional responsibilities and no longer have the time for this volunteer effort. In this short recording, we describe what we are now up to:The Degrees InitiativeThe Degrees Global Forum on SRMSRM360Climate Reflections, the SRM360 podcast - coming soon to all major podcast platformsCo-CREATEWe also sincerely thank Gillian Cheong, our producer; our guests; our listeners, especially those who supported us via Patreon; and each other.Support the showSubscribe for email updates

Our guest is Maarten Albers, a journalist who reports on agriculture and food for the Volkskrant, one of the Netherlands’ leading newspapers. In today's episode, we draw our attention to the 'nitrogen crisis' in the Netherlands - a major environmental story that has reshaped politics in the Netherlands and societal views on environmental regulation, science and technology, and even international relations.Listen as we discuss why we should care about nitrogen in the environment, and what lessons we can draw from the nitrogen crisis happening in the Netherlands. Links:Maarten's articles on de VolkskrantInterview on the nitrogen crisis, with Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, emeritus professor of agricultural sociologyCheck out this article on 'An organic farmer can also be a peak polluter'Support the showSubscribe for email updates

Our guest is Gwynne Dyer, an author, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs. In this episode, we discuss the key messages from his new book Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers, based on extensive interviews with the world’s top climate scientists. We discuss his insights from these interviews on the state of our climate, and address controversies and concerns over carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM).Links:Gwynne Dyer’s profileCheck out his new book, Intervention Earth: Life-Saving IdeasCheck out this survey: World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C targetSupport the showSubscribe for email updates

Jonathan Blake is Associate Director at the Berggruen Institute, where he leads the Planetary Program. Nils Gilman is Senior Vice President at the Berggruen Institute and Deputy Editor of Noema magazine. In this episode, we discuss the ideas in their recently published book, Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises. We grapple with ideas of sovereignty, planetary governance and subsidiarity.Links:Jonathan Blake’s profileNils Gilman’s profileCheck out their book, Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of CrisesSupport the showSubscribe for email updates

Today’s guest is Dr. Shuchi Talati, a climate technology and governance expert and the founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering. In this episode, we discuss ethics and governance of solar geoengineering, the formal cancellation of Harvard’s SCoPEx experiment, and the UN Environment Assembly deliberations on Solar Radiation Modification.Links:Shuchi Talati’s profileThe Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar GeoengineeringCheck out this paper, Who Are the Engineers? Solar Geoengineering Research and JusticeSupport the showSubscribe for email updates

Today’s guest is Ulrike Lohmann, Professor of Experimental Atmospheric Physics in the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich. Lohmann is also the Principal Investigator of the CLOUDLAB project, a multi-year project to investigate aerosol-cloud interactions in wintertime stratus clouds over the Alps. In this episode, we discuss the role of clouds and aerosols in our climate. We dive deep into aerosol-cloud interactions to uncover the science behind solar radiation modification (SRM) techniques like marine cloud brightening, and discuss a novel proposed SRM technique - Mixed Phase Cloud Thinning.Links:Ulrike Lohmann’s profileCheck out the CLOUDLAB projectSupport the showSubscribe for email updates

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Benjamin Sovacool and Dr. Chad Baum, about their newly published, high-impact paper, “Public Perceptions and Support of Climate Intervention Technologies across the Global North and Global South”. Join us as we discuss the key findings of their work, and how these findings can and should influence policy and governance methods.Dr. Benjamin Sovacool is a professor with affiliations at Aarhus University, the University of Sussex and Boston University.  Dr. Chad Baum is Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Development and Technology of Aarhus University.Links:Ben Sovacool’s profileChad Baum’s profileThe GENIE projectTheir Nature paper, Public Perceptions and Support of Climate Intervention Technologies across the Global North and Global South and accessible summaryCheck out their paper on sentiments and emotions of climate tech on Twitter And another one on field testing radical climate interventions, And another one on co-impactsAlso check out our related episode with Luke Iseman on Make SunsetsSupport the showSubscribe for email updates

George Monbiot is a renowned British author, The Guardian Columnist and environmental activist. George is the author of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which is Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, and he was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2022. In this episode, we discuss topics of his insightful and provocative articles such as de-throning GDP, radical climate activism, the ‘wealth curse’ and contentious technologies such as nuclear energy, GMO and SRM.Links:George Monbiot's profileMonbiot's article, The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed PeopleMonbiot's most recent book, RegenesisRelated articles by Monbiot:On the extreme wealthy, Here’s a question Cop28 won’t address: why are billionaires blocking action to save the planet?On climate and politics, The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is howOn UK climate politicsOn radical climate activism (and another one)Support the showSubscribe for email updates

This episode’s guest is Janos Pasztor. He has four decades of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development, including roles as Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G) and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change. In this episode, we explore the political lens of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), discussing the progress of CDR and SRM discourse, as well as its challenges and controversies.CORRECTION: Jesse suggested that the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) had a dozen or so members, but Janos pointed out that in fact it has universal membership, i.e., every UN member state is a member.Links:Janos Pasztor’s profileCarnegie Climate Governance InitiativeJanos’ article on the role of UN Secretary-General in Climate Change, in Global Policy 2016 Support the showSubscribe for email updates

David Stainforth is a Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. David has had a long career studying the climate problem and the challenges of making predictions of future climate change. His research spans the philosophy of climate science, climate economics, climate modelling, and decision-making under deep uncertainty.In this episode, we discuss David’s new book ‘Predicting our climate future’, exploring the challenges of making predictions about future climate change, and navigating this uncertainty to address climate problems.Links:David Stainforth’s profileDavid’s book, Predicting our climate futureSupport the showSubscribe for email updates