This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Got a minute?

On December 9th during the climate talks in France,

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Scientific Americans David Biello, met to talk about the role of technological innovation in meeting the climate challenge.

Here's a brief portion of their conversation.

How can, I guess, doubts about climate change... of their because people will tell me that they have senators.

There are such statements made by a narrow slice of the population.

It happens to be an important narrow slice of the bunch.

Look, I think public opinion is clearly evolving to understand and to support the idea that we need to act on climate change.

We are seeing all kinds of constituencies of relevance, military, religious leaders,

businesses, labor, you know, all saying we got to act and, you know, and guys, it's probably better if we could

just get some certainty about where we're going now.

I just don't believe the noise in the system will be

sustainable much longer and it's just time that we don't debate what's not debatable and just get down to the business of what's the

What's the scope the scale of the pace at which we address it.

And I would say, you know, that's a legitimate discussion to have.

So I think the innovation agenda pursuing climate risk mitigation, pursuing energy security issues.

I mean, I don't mean just for us, I mean for everyone, pursuing the issue of satisfying our social responsibilities to help 2 billion people get some

semblance of appropriate energy services.

That's all wrapped into this innovation agenda.

A transcript of the full conversation between Secretary of Energy

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