CO2: An Existential Threat? - Dr. William Happer, Princeton DSPod #208

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William Happer is a Professor of Physics at Princeton
University, where he has spent decades working out the details of
atomics, spectroscopy, and adaptive optics that are used in
telescope arrays around the world to counteract the distortions
caused by atmospheric currents. Harper has also served the Bush
and Clinton administrations as director of the Department of
Energy’s Office of Science, where he was tasked with allocating
DOE funds to promising research projects. More recently, he was
appointed senior director of the National Security Council office
for emerging technologies by the Trump administration - an
position that was cut short due to disagreements within the
administration about Happer’s strong stance on the relationship
between CO2 and climate. Namely, that there is not a strong
relationship between CO2 and warming, and that mitigation
strategies that are being rolled out around the world will do
more harm than good. On the podcast we talk about science as a
refuge from social conflict, leading DOE science policy in the
nineties, the questionable success of the Ozone hole story, the
future of energy, and the disaster of making the wrong moves.
Tell us what you think in the comments or on our Discord:
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membership for discounted conference tickets:
https://bit.ly/3lcAasB (00:00)


Go! (00:00:18)


What drives Will Happer


(00:09:07)


Science as refuge from social conflict


(00:15:53)


Degradation of free inquiry


(00:23:56)


Paying attention to paradoxes


(00:41:27)


Threshold & the quantum of action


(00:45:51)


Leading the DOE science


(00:53:24)


The ozone hole controversy


(01:03:22)


The energy future


(01:09:14)


The Sri Lanka disaster


(01:16:29)


Problems with the CO2 narrative


(01:29:09)


Existential fear as motivator


(01:45:38)


Reading the CO2 record from the distant past


(01:59:29)


Hidden motivations


(02:13:54)


Public v private academics


(02:25:51)


Science 2.0


(02:37:12)


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to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time
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did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of
molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring
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