Sir David King: "Global Heating: The Science and the Response”
Episode 95
October 24th, 2023
(Conversation recorded on October 16th, 2023)
Show Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate scientist and policy ambassador Sir David King to unpack the current situation regarding Earth’s climate system and human response (or lack thereof) to the accelerating heating of the atmosphere. While there are many uncertainties this field still grapples with, the fundamentals of the rising average global temperature as a response to increasing man-made greenhouse emissions are widely recognized by the global scientific community. Yet - especially in the United States - climate change remains a contentious issue, making it an even tougher political topic with no easy solutions. What is the basic science behind our understanding of the atmosphere? Will we resort to geoengineering to avert the worst climate outcomes - and which plans look the most promising? What are the implications of global heating for the coming decades and beyond?
About Sir. David King
Sir David King is an Emeritus Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is the Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, Founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, and an Affiliate Partner of SYSTEMIQ Limited. He was the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser from 2000-2007 and the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative on Climate Change from 2013-2017. He also spearheaded a collaborative program called Mission Innovation, which involved 25 countries and the EU to create a publicly funded £23bn pa research and development international exercise aimed at delivering all technologies needed to complete the transition into a fossil-fuel-free world economy. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1991 and a Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2002. Sir Dave was knighted in 2003 and made "Officier dans l'ordre national de la Légion d'Honneur" in 2009. Recently, he was also named The American Association for the Advancement of Science 2022 Hamburg Awardee for Science Diplomacy.
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Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 - Sir David King Works + Info
00:52 - TGS Episodes for Sian Sutherland, Robert Sapolsky, Luke Gromen, Chuck Watson
04:07 - Lord John Browne
07:44 - Joseph Fourier On the Temperatures of the Terrestrial Sphere and Interplanetary Space
09:34 - John Tyndall radiant heat apparatus
11:10 - Chemistry of Greenhouse Gasses
11:37 - Svante Arrhenius On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground
14:06 - CO2 ppm over time, 420 ppm today + CO2 Equivalents
15:01 - Ideal Greenhouse ppm
16:15 - Climate Crisis Advisory Group
16:55 - British Antarctic Survey
17:42 - Carbon Dioxide analysis of ice cores and climate implications
18:14 - Climate science using ocean (sediment) cores
20:08 - Correlation between CO2 and temperature patterns
20:41 - Feedback Loops
21:09 - Snowball Earth - Gabrielle Walker
22:50 - Albedo Effect
23:38 - Arctic region heating up 4.3x faster than the rest of the Earth
24:02 - Tipping Points
24:25 - Greenland ice mass, if completely melted sea level will rise by 7.5 meters/24 feet
25:22 - Permafrost methane tipping point
26:37 - Methane emission sources
27:02 - Arctic jetstream disrupted by climate feedbacks
28:02 - 2021 heat wave on the west coast of the United States relations to the jet stream
29:48 - IPCC
30:25 - The Butterfly Effect
31:24 - Western/central Europe century long weather prediction made in 2002
32:40 - 2003 Central Europe Heatwave
33:01 - Record heat globally in 2023
35:58 - Humans can’t survive at a temperature of 45ºC
37:12 - Sea level rise impact on the UK
37:45 - Mekong Delta
37:59 - Vietnam is the 3rd largest rice exporter in the world
38:15 - Vietnam landmass submerged under sea water by 2050
38:37 - Salt water intrusion
38:55 - Research creating salt water resilient rice crops
39:16 - 2023 Extreme Weather events, El Niño
41:46 - Possible limits to heat absorption in the ocean
42:04 - [Correction: 2 billion years ago] Earth’s atmosphere was made predominantly of CO2
42:45 - Dolomite Hills
43:57 - Ocean acidification
44:28 - Biodiversity risks
44:44 - Reality Roundtable #4 on Oceans
46:30 - United States Lobby system, most powerful interest groups
48:26 - Pew poll on global climate change views and polarization in English speaking countries
49:15 - The United States has emitted more CO2 than any other country in history
50:03 - Montreal Protocol
50:44 - Ecological Overshoot
52:17 - Extreme wealth inequality
54:27 - Ikaria, Blue Zone
56:36 - Tony Blair, Gordon Brown
57:41 - Britain’s lead on climate action in the early 2000s
58:03 - Bush administration’s stance on climate change and climate action
59:11 - Prime Minister Cameron
1:02:29 - CCAG 3 R’s for climate strategy
1:02:59 - 50 billion tons of greenhouse emissions per year globally
1:05:01 - James Hansen
1:06:35 - Center for Climate Repair
1:07:10 - Marine Biomass Regeneration
1:08:16 - Smetacek work on whale poop and carbon sequestration
1:11:25 - Blue whales at 1% of the population compared to 100 years ago
1:15:43 - Regenerative agriculture and increase soil carbon capacity
1:17:05 - Silting the Cold Sea
1:20:09 - Google maps shipping boat tracker
1:20:57 - Tonga GDP dependent on fishing exports
1:23:18 - UK incremental renewable energy mandate
1:24:52 - The cost Solar Voltaics has reduced by a factor of 100, and wind power has reduced in cost as well
1:26:10 - 2023 all time highs of coal extraction
1:26:54 - 32% of global electricity produced is from renewables
1:27:10 - Electricity is 20% of energy use
1:27:38 - It is cheaper in the UK to produce electricity with renewables than any fossil fuels
1:28:48 - China is producing more renewables, nuclear, and hydropower than the rest of the world
1:29:04 - CCAG COUNTRY REPORT | China
1:29:37 - Chinese percentage of EVs on the road is higher than anywhere else
1:30:10 - Chinese economic growth slowing
1:32:16 - Marine Brightening
1:32:56 - Geoengineering through sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere - risks
1:34:25 - Ozone layer
1:35:28 - Sulfur Dioxide and coal - health issues in the lower atmosphere
1:39:03 - American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Diplomacy Award