Global Heating 101: Rapid-Fire Answers to the Biggest Climate Questions with Stefan Rahmstorf
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2024
⏱️ 101 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Conversation recorded on July 30th, 2024)
The science surrounding our planet's dynamic and complex climate can be difficult to understand, and perhaps even more challenging to decipher what the actual realities and trajectories are among so much media coverage. Yet the study of Earth's systems has been ongoing for decades, with a majority of scientists reaching a consensus on the realities of human-driven global heating.
In this episode, ocean and climate physicist Stefan Rahmstorf joins Nate for an overview on the most common questions and misconceptions concerning the state of the climate, including the nuances of what our future planetary home might look like.
How can carbon dioxide – which makes up such a small percentage of the atmosphere – have such a large effect on the temperature of the whole planet? Why does warming have such huge ripple effects across the biosphere – from ocean currents and wind patterns to extreme weather and wildfires? What do projections for the future tell us about the survivability of some of Earth's most populated regions – and how can communities and nations prepare and mitigate these challenges amid many other converging crises we face?
About Stefan Rahmstorf:
Stefan Rahmstorf is Co-Head of the Research Department on Earth System Analysis of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Potsdam. His research focuses on paleoclimate, ocean circulation, sea level, extreme weather events and Earth System modeling.
After working at the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute and the Institute of Marine Science in Kiel, Stefan Rahmstorf joined PIK in 1996. From 2004 to 2013 Stefan Rahmstorf advised the German government as a member of its Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). He is not only an outstanding and highly cited scientist but also a sought-after science communicator and speaker, winning the Climate Communication Prize of the American Geophysical Union in 2017.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We have to have the awareness that we are homo sapiens, we are one species on one earth, which is our common home, |
| 0:10.0 | and we shouldn't be fighting each other. We should work together to secure our survival and our well-being on this planet. |
| 0:18.0 | We now have to all unite to find this threat to our civilization |
| 0:23.2 | and our future on Earth. |
| 0:28.3 | You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. On this show, we describe how |
| 0:34.2 | energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together |
| 0:38.9 | and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to |
| 0:44.3 | inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 0:55.7 | A few days ahead of Climate Week in New York City, where I will be next week, I am joined |
| 1:01.9 | by renowned climate scientists and communicator Stefan Romsdorf for a conversation on |
| 1:08.1 | all things related to global heating and ocean issues. |
| 1:12.7 | Stefan is the co-head of the Research Department on Earth System Analysis for Potsdam |
| 1:17.9 | Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany, which I learned from the last |
| 1:23.2 | episode is not a suburb of Berlin. |
| 1:26.4 | He is also the professor of physics of the oceans at the |
| 1:29.3 | University of Potsdam. Stefan's research focuses on paleo-climate, ocean circulation, sea level, |
| 1:37.0 | extreme weather events, and Earth systems modeling. This episode is a factually dense overview of all |
| 1:43.8 | things climate, including a speed round on frequently asked questions by people outside of this growing choir of climate-aware humans, including how we understand so much about the past and present climate. |
| 1:57.8 | What are the risks for the future? |
| 1:59.9 | What does a three degrees Celsius world look like? |
| 2:03.7 | And some corrections of common misunderstandings of climate science. |
| 2:08.6 | Stefan is at the top of this field and there's perhaps no better expert to answer these complex questions. |
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