The Salem Center in collaboration with the Steamboat Institute invites you to a debate on the resolution: “Net Zero by 2050 is Both Achievable and Necessary to Address Climate Change” The Debate features two top experts in the field, Steven Koonin, and Daniel Schrag.
Steven E. Koonin is a university professor at New York University with appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics. His current research focuses on climate science and energy technologies. His bestselling book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters was published in 2021. Koonin served as under secretary for science in the US Department of Energy from 2009 to 2011, where he led the inaugural Quadrennial Technology Review. Before joining the government, he spent five years as chief scientist for BP. For almost thirty years, Koonin was a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where served for nine years as vice president and provost, facilitating the research of more than 300 scientists and engineers and catalyzing multiple research initiatives.
Daniel P. Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard University, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Schrag studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history. From 2009-2017, Schrag served on President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Among various honors, he is the recipient of the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union and a MacArthur Fellowship. Schrag earned a B.S. in geology and geophysics and political science from Yale University and his Ph.D. in geology from the University of California at Berkeley. He came to Harvard in 1997 after teaching at Princeton.
Please register for the event here.