Steven Koonin is a theoretical physicist and a leading voice calling for what he describes as “climate realism.” Koonin was on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology for almost three decades. For five years he was the chief scientist at BP, exploring renewable sources of energy. From there he served in the Obama administration as under secretary for science at the Department of Energy. In recent years, he has engaged in policy debates about how much the climate is changing and what to do about it. He is the author of the book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. Here he discusses what caused the L.A. fires, and what they portend.
Emily Yoffe: Los Angeles is burning. President Joe Biden has said that climate change, which he just called the “single greatest existential threat to humanity,” is the cause. Many climate scientists agree with him. What do you say?
Steve Koonin: Nonsense. While climate might be playing a minor role, by far the greatest factor affecting how much damage results from a fire is the fuel available to it. Have you cleared the brush and other vegetation or not? Also, there’s the infrastructure that you’ve built. Are the houses fireproof? How close are they together? If we want to avoid the kind of disasters we’ve just seen in the Los Angeles basin, there are so many things we could be doing much more directly and easily than trying to reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions.
EY: You lived in Altadena—much of which is now ash—for almost 30 years when you were at Caltech. When you were living there, did you think something like this could happen?