Today I interviewed Pushker Karecha, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who co-wrote a paper with one nation’s most vocal climatologists - Jim Hansen - called “Implications of “peak oil” for atmospheric CO2 and climate change”. The report says the coal-fired generation without sequestration of carbon dioxide needs to be phased out beginning in 2025 or sooner to avoid the most severe possibilities of climate change. The report suggests that industrial countries begin the phase out in 2025 and that developing countries begin ten years later. During the interview which by the way was on the phone, I was stuck by the complexity of climate science and Pushker’s ability to communicate the details in a readily understandable manner. He also came off as a good guy who is genuinely concerned about the future of life on the planet. I was surprised by his candor, even ultimately admitting that the tag “climate chaos” was in some senses very appropriate. He also said that global trade as we know it now will diminish and more localized economies will emerge in the post-fossil fuel future.

He concluded that the new reports that forecast lower total recoverable coal could be very detrimental if they lead to complacency in the sense that climate mitigation policies no longer address coal and with the thought that we need proactive action now. I couldn’t agree more. Many thanks to Pushker for a great interview!

Stay tuned for the interview itself…