In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Fran Moore, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. Moore discusses a paper she recently coauthored that expands the way we model the future of the climate system. The model examines how human behavior, political decisionmaking, and technological progress can interact with one another to speed or stall efforts to limit climate change. Moore and Raimi discuss the range and likelihood of outcomes the model has produced, and how these possible pathways are impacted by the complex systems that have been taken into account.

References and recommendations:

“Determinants of emissions pathways in the coupled climate-social system” by Frances C. Moore, Katherine Lacasse, Katharine J. Mach, Yoon Ah Shin, Louis J. Gross, and Brian Beckage; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04423-8

“Why Trust Science?” by Naomi Oreskes; https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179001/why-trust-science

“The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science” by Michael Strevens; https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631491375