Yes, you read that right.
Thanks to a series of very fortunate events, the Stanford professor has agreed (at my request) to answer some questions from resetera users about how we can address the greatest threat that we face as a species.
If you're unfamiliar with Jacobson, here are a few of his credentials:
You can learn more about Jacobson here:
I specifically requested this interview because Jacobson (out of all of the scientists I have been in contact with recently) has been the most forthcoming and is a leading expert on modeling projections for a world that is powered by 100% renewable energy, and there seems to be a pervasive sentiment in some circles that 100% renewable is not feasible/possible, so I wanted to use this opportunity to increase science literacy on ways to address climate change, whether that does or doesn't involve nuclear energy.
The interview rules are as follows:
1. Users who want to ask Jacobson a climate change-related question should post their questions in this thread, color-coded in green for better visibility.
2. Questions should be simple. No multi-part questions, leading questions, or questions unrelated to climate change.
3. Be respectful, both in the discourse through-out this thread and in the questions being asked to Jacobson.
Other notes about the interview process:
Thanks to a series of very fortunate events, the Stanford professor has agreed (at my request) to answer some questions from resetera users about how we can address the greatest threat that we face as a species.
If you're unfamiliar with Jacobson, here are a few of his credentials:
B.S. Civil Engineering, B.A. Economics, and M.S. Environmental Engineering (1988) Stanford University
M.S. (1991) and Ph.D. (1994) Atmospheric Science, University of California at Los Angeles
Mark Z. Jacobson's career has focused on better understanding air pollution and global warming problems and developing large-scale clean, renewable energy solutions to them. Toward that end, he has developed and applied three-dimensional atmosphere-biosphere-ocean computer models and solvers to simulate air pollution, weather, climate, and renewable energy. He has also developed roadmaps to transition countries, states, cities, and towns to 100% clean, renewable energy for all purposes and computer models to examine grid stability in the presence of high penetrations of renewable energy.
Jacobson developed over 85% of the coding for a 3-D urban air quality model coupled with meteorology, a 3-D global air pollution-climate model, and a unified nested global-through-urban air pollution-climate model, GATOR-GCMOM. He started this endeavor in 1990 and has been working on it ever since. The unified model treats mutual feedback to weather and climate of both air pollution gases and particles and nests from the global through urban scale. The review article of Zhang (Atmos. Chem. Phys. 8, 2895-2932, 2008) calls this model "the first fully-coupled online model in the history that accounts for all major feedbacks among major atmospheric processes based on first principles." Many features in GATOR-GCMOM are now mainstream in other models worldwide.
To date, he has published two textbooks of two editions each and almost 160 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has testified four times for the U.S. Congress. Nearly a thousand researchers have used computer models he has developed. In 2005, he received the American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Award for "significant contributions to modeling aerosol chemistry and to understanding the role of soot and other carbon particles on climate." In 2013, he received an American Geophysical Union Ascent Award for "his dominating role in the development of models to identify the role of black carbon in climate change" and the Global Green Policy Design Award for the "design of analysis and policy framework to envision a future powered by renewable energy." In 2016, he received a Cozzarelli Prize from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for "outstanding scientific excellence and originality" in his paper on a solution to the U.S. grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of wind, water, and solar power for all purposes. In 2018, he received the Judi Friedman Lifetime Achievement Award "for a distinguished career dedicated to finding solutions to large-scale air pollution and climate problems." In 2019, he was selected as "one of the world's 100 most influential people in climate policy" by Apolitical. He has also served on the Energy Efficiency and Renewables advisory committee to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and, in 2013, was invited to talk about his world and U.S. clean-energy plans on the Late Show with David Letterman.
You can learn more about Jacobson here:
I specifically requested this interview because Jacobson (out of all of the scientists I have been in contact with recently) has been the most forthcoming and is a leading expert on modeling projections for a world that is powered by 100% renewable energy, and there seems to be a pervasive sentiment in some circles that 100% renewable is not feasible/possible, so I wanted to use this opportunity to increase science literacy on ways to address climate change, whether that does or doesn't involve nuclear energy.
The interview rules are as follows:
1. Users who want to ask Jacobson a climate change-related question should post their questions in this thread, color-coded in green for better visibility.
2. Questions should be simple. No multi-part questions, leading questions, or questions unrelated to climate change.
3. Be respectful, both in the discourse through-out this thread and in the questions being asked to Jacobson.
Other notes about the interview process:
- While Jacobson has indeed agreed to answer questions, that does not mean that he is going to be able to answer every question. Please keep this is mind so that expectations are kept in check.
- I will procure questions until tomorrow, August 25th, 11:59pm CST. Any questions submitted after the deadline will not be forwarded to Jacobson.
- Once Jacobson has responded to the questions submitted, a new thread will be made, detailing the interview.