We welcome your reviews of books that • were published within the past three years • do not advocate for a political party or politician • do address issues supported by the League, and • intrigued you enough that you want to share them. Please submit your review at any time to Margan and Thad Zajdowicz (Margan.Zajdowicz [at] gmail.com ()).

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Use, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

By Steven E. Koonin

First, a confession: I read this book so you didn’t have to. Published in 2021, Unsettled is meant to inject uncertainty in the minds of laypeople concerned about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) or, as many people put it, human-caused climate change. The title and book cover imply that the science at work is unsettled.

Koonin is an accomplished, well-credentialed theoretical nuclear physicist who makes his bona fides quite clear at the beginning. His qualifications appeal to those who want not to believe that AGW is a massive problem. Koonin starts with his long experience with computer modeling in theoretical quantum physics. After setting the stage, he proceeds to pick apart climate models in a clever way. After saying that the role of science is to inform and not to persuade, he cherry-picks data to send the message that we ought not to be persuaded, that the science behind AGW is unsettled.

There are graphs and figures aplenty in Unsettled, but Koonin’s interpretation obscures the data more than it clarifies it. Examples are his section on record high and low surface temperatures. One need only look at the graph to see the trend of rising temperatures while he focuses on their variability. He states that fires globally are decreasing without pointing out that it is man-made agricultural burns that have decreased while wildfires on multiple continents are increasing in number and size. He has a “let’s look at each issue as a discrete problem” approach instead of accepting that the data from multiple channels of investigation all converge on AGW and do indeed support that humankind, by burning fossil fuels, bears responsibility.

While Koonin nitpicks climate computer models, he seems at the end of the book enchanted by economic computer models for growth that he declines to be picky about. This is odd, because all computer models, as he makes plain, must incorporate assumptions about poorly understood parameters. His argument that we do not have enough reliable data now to warrant mitigation of AGW is problematic. Yes, we can and should gather more data and improve the modeling of AGW and its impact on attendant AGW. But what is the risk of doing nothing? Koonin seems to dismiss that risk. He is among the 3 percent of scientists who have studied and written about climate who do so. He reminds me of the scientists that Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway describe in Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Degrees from prestigious universities, academic appointments to those same universities, and prior good work in science should never of themselves be criteria for accepting an argument or opinion. I doubt that Koonin is malignant, but this book is a thinly veiled work of sophistry. The author is human, fallible, and in this case wrong.

—Thad Zajdowicz, Co-editor, Book Corner