December 13 – An Analysis of the UN Climate Deal Just Agreed to in Paris; The Post-Carbon Era and the Retreat of Global Warming Deniers; The Author of “Arctica: The Vanishing North”

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of the U.N. climate deal which 195 nations just agreed to in Paris, and speak with Robert Stavins who is just back from Paris. He is a Professor and the Director of the Environmental Economics Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and a lead author of three reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We assess the likelihood of greenhouse gas reduction targets being met to keep the earth’s warming below 2 degrees Celsius and discuss complaints by critics that the deal does not go far enough.

Part 2

Then we speak with Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University and the author of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines”. He joins us to discuss his belief that we are now entering the post-carbon era and that global warming deniers will become less and less relevant as the world moves to deal with the growing threat of climate change, even though key Republicans like Lamar Smith of Texas, the Chairman of the House committee on Science, Space and Technology, are climate-change deniers.

Part 3

Then finally Sebastian Copeland joins us in the studio. He is an award-winning photographer, extreme athlete, filmmaker and environmental activist and the author of the new book “Arctica: The Vanishing North” which provides an extraordinary portrait of a seldom travelled pristine wonderland that both pays homage to the beauty of one of nature’s last true wildernesses, while drawing awareness to its perilous plight.