Steven Elliot Koonin (born December 12, 1951) is an American
theoretical physicist
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, ...
. He is also a professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at NYU's
Tandon School of Engineering
Tandon (or Tandan, Tanden, or Tondon) is a surname found among Hindu Khatris and Sikhs of Punjab, India. It is derived from a Khatri clan.
Notable people
Notable people include:
Activists
*Purushottam Das Tandon, ''Bharat Ratna'', Indian free ...
. From 2004 to 2009, Koonin was employed by BP as the oil and gas company’s Chief Scientist. From 2009 to 2011, he was Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy, in the Obama administration.
Biography
Born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...
, New York City, Koonin graduated from high school at the age of 16, received his
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
from the
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
and his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...
under the supervision of
Arthur Kerman
Arthur Kent Kerman (born May 3, 1929 – May 11, 2017) was a Canadian-American nuclear physicist, a fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. He ...
in the
MIT Center for Theoretical Physics
The MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) is the hub of theoretical nuclear physics, particle physics, and quantum information research at MIT. It is a subdivision of MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Department of Physics.
Research
C ...
. In 1975, Koonin joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...
becoming one of their youngest ever faculty, and served as the institute's provost from 1995 to 2004.
In 2004, Koonin joined BP as their chief scientist, where he was responsible for guiding the company's long-range technology strategy, particularly in alternative and renewable energy sources. He was tapped for the position of Under Secretary for Science at the
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, the
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philippin ...
, and the Department of Energy and its various national laboratories, such as the
JASON defense advisory group
JASON is an independent group of elite scientists which advises the United States government on matters of science and technology, mostly of a sensitive nature. The group was created in the aftermath of the Sputnik launch as a way to reinvigorate ...
, which he has chaired. Koonin's research interests have included theoretical nuclear,
many-body
The many-body problem is a general name for a vast category of physical problems pertaining to the properties of microscopic systems made of many interacting particles. ''Microscopic'' here implies that quantum mechanics has to be used to provid ...
, and
computational physics
Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics for which a quantitative theory already exists. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in scienc ...
,
nuclear astrophysics
Nuclear astrophysics is an interdisciplinary part of both nuclear physics and astrophysics, involving close collaboration among researchers in various subfields of each of these fields. This includes, notably, nuclear reactions and their rates as ...
, and global
environmental science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical ...
.
Views on climate change
Koonin became publicly involved in the policy debate about climate change starting with a ''Wall Street Journal'' opinion piece in 2017, in which he floated the idea of a
red team
A red team or team red are a group that plays the role of an enemy or competitor to provide security feedback from that perspective. Red teams are used in many fields, especially in cybersecurity, airport security, law enforcement, the military ...
/blue team exercise for climate science. In 2018, the
Environmental Protection Agency
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
(EPA) under the leadership of
Scott Pruitt
Edward Scott Pruitt (born May 9, 1968) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma. He served as the fourteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from February 17, 2017, to J ...
proposed a public debate on climate change to refute the 2017
Climate Science Special Report Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 2017/2018 is a 1,500 page two-part congressionally mandated report by the United States Global Change Research Program, U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)—the first of its kind by the Presidency ...
. According to a draft press release edited by Koonin and William Happer, Princeton physics professor and director of the CO2 Coalition, they planned "red team"/blue team exercises to challenge the scientific consensus on climate. The draft was never released, and the plans were not carried out.
In 2019, the
Trump Administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
proposed to create a "Presidential Committee on Climate Security" at the National Security Council that would conduct an "adversarial" review of the scientific consensus on climate change. Koonin was actively involved in recruiting others to be part of this review. The committee was scrapped in favor of an initiative not "subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee".
In 2021, Koonin published the book ''Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters''.
Criticism of Koonin's 2014 ''Wall Street Journal'' commentary
Raymond Pierrehumbert
Raymond Thomas Pierrehumbert is the Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. Previously, he was Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was a lead author on the Third Assessment Report of th ...
criticized Koonin's 2014 commentary in ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', "Climate Science Is Not Settled," as "a litany of discredited arguments" with "nuggets of truth ... buried beneath a rubble of false or misleading claims from the standard climate skeptics' canon."
Reception of 2021 book ''Unsettled''
Critics of Koonin's book ''Unsettled'' accused him of
cherry picking
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
data, muddying the waters surrounding the
science of climate change
There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...
, and having no experience in
climate science
Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of stud ...
.
In a review in ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'', economist
Gary Yohe
Gary Wynn Yohe is the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He holds a PhD from Yale University.
Yohe specializes in Microeconomic theory, Natural Resources, and En ...
wrote that Koonin "falsely suggest that we don't understand the risks well enough to take action":
Physicist
Mark Boslough
Mark Boslough is an American physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, research professor at University of New Mexico, fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and chair of the Asteroid Day Expert Panel. He is an expert in the study of ...
, a former student of Koonin, posted a critical review at Yale Climate Connections. He stated that "Koonin makes use of an old strawman concocted by opponents of climate science in the 1990s to create an illusion of arrogant scientists, biased media, and lying politicians – making them easier to attack."
Nonprofit organization ''
Inside Climate News
''Inside Climate News'' is a non-profit news organization, focusing on environmental journalism.Curtis BrainardInsideClimate wins a Pulitzer ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (April 16, 2013). The publication writes that it "covers clean energy, c ...
'' reported that climate scientists call Koonin's conclusions "fatally out of date ... and based on the 2013 physical science report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
Mark P. Mills, a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs, established in Manhattan in 1978 by Anto ...
, a conservative think tank, and faculty fellow at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Chart ...
’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, lauded the book in ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' as "rebut ngmuch of the dominant political narrative". Twelve scientists analyzed Mills's arguments and said that he merely repeated Koonin's incorrect and misleading claims. Koonin responded with an article answering these critics.