I have some disagreements with most climate scientists.

Not about the really big questions.

We agree that climate change is happening, that it's man-made,

and that's likely to lead to big negative impacts on human welfare.

Where we tend to disagree is on what to do about it.

And that is definitely the case with my guest today, climate scientist Kate Marvel.

But the good news is she turns out to be a really fun person to disagree with.

She's got a new book. It's called Human Nature, Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet.

As the title suggests, it's a book about feelings, but it's deeply informed by facts.

We are tied to the planet. If we all move to another planet, first of all, that wouldn't be

fun because all of the other planets that we know about are garbage. But we would still

be tied there to our environment by the laws of physics. We all

have to obey those laws, whether we want to or not. And what I was trying to do is explore the

feeling of being alive on this earth as it changes.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

As I read the book, I was surprised that she spent so much time justifying the existence

of human-driven climate change.

I thought that by now, just about everyone had come

around to accepting that climate change is real. But after doing a quick Google search,

I was stunned to discover that while over 99% of scientists working on the topic believe

climate change is real and primarily driven by human activity, only about 60% of Americans think that's true.

I started our conversation by asking Kate how she feels about statistics like that.

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