He was awarded the prestigious Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2023.[16]
Cold fusion
Koonin played a major role in the 1989 national controversy around cold fusion sparked by the research of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. After the explosive announcement of their research at Utah University, excitement for the potential of fusion as an energy source quickly gave way to skepticism among the scientific community as scientists across the world raced to replicate Utah experiment.[17] Steven Koonin and his Caltech colleagues, Nathan Lewis and Charles Barnes (who became known as the "Caltech Three") headed up a research group to investigate cold fusion.[18]
The scientific skepticism around cold fusion came to a head at the meeting of the American Physical Society in Baltimore later in 1989.[19] At the conference, Steven Koonin, and Nathan Lewis gave devastating presentations based on the work of the Caltech cold fusion research group.[18] During his presentation, Koonin called the Utah publication of the Utah research a result of "the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann," which was met with a standing ovation.[20] These presentations of the Caltech group revealed serious deficiencies in cold fusion research and ultimately led to mainstream science's rejection of cold fusion.[18]
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/blue team exercise for climate science. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the leadership of Scott Pruitt proposed a public debate on climate change to refute the 2017 Climate Science Special Report. 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.[21][22][23]
In 2019, the Trump Administration 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".[23][24][25]
2014 Wall Street Journal commentary
Koonin wrote a 2000-word essay, "Climate Science Is Not Settled," that was published in an issue of The Wall Street Journal.[26][27] The main points of the article were that:
the limits of climate measurement data make it hard to untangle the planet's response to human influences, from natural changes that are poorly understood.
The results of various climate models disagree with or contradict each other.
Press releases, summaries, headlines, and news stories often don't accurately reflect the consensus among scientists.
The science is not mature enough to make useful projections about the future of the climate, nor what effects past or future human actions might have on it.
In an article in Slate,[28] climate physicist Raymond Pierrehumbert criticized Koonin's essay 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."
2021 book Unsettled
In 2021, Koonin published the book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters.[29] Critics accused him of cherry picking data, muddying the waters surrounding the science of climate change, and having no experience in climate science.[30]
In a review in Scientific American, economist Gary Yohe wrote that Koonin "falsely suggest[s] that we don't understand the risks well enough to take action":
The science is stronger than ever around findings that speak to the likelihood and consequences of climate impacts, and has been growing stronger for decades. In the early days of research, the uncertainty was wide; but with each subsequent step that uncertainty has narrowed or become better understood. This is how science works, and in the case of climate, the early indications detected and attributed in the 1980s and 1990s, have come true, over and over again and sooner than anticipated...
[Decision makers] are using the best and most honest science to inform prospective investments in abatement (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to diminish the estimated likelihoods of dangerous climate change impacts) and adaptation (reducing vulnerabilities to diminish their current and projected consequences).[29]
Physicist Mark Boslough, 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."[31]
Mark P. Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science,[32] lauded the book in The Wall Street Journal as "rebut[ing] much of the dominant political narrative".[33] Twelve scientists analyzed Mills's arguments and said that he merely repeated Koonin's incorrect and misleading claims.[34] Koonin responded with a post on Medium.com answering these critics.[35]
On August 21, 2023, an interview with Koonin was released via the Stanford University Hoover Institution video series, Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.
Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters. Dallas: BenBella Books. 2021. ISBN9781953295248.
2024 edition: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters (Updated and Expanded Edition). Dallas: BenBella Books. 2024. ISBN9781637745250.
