MFSA Debate at MIT Thursday Night: Is Decarbonization Worth the Cost?
MFSA Debate at MIT Thursday Night: Is Decarbonization Worth the Cost?
On Thursday, November 14 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, the MIT Free Speech Alliance hosted the fourth in our series of campus debates at MIT, partnering with a student group, the MIT Open Discourse Society, and joined by 20 co-sponsoring organizations. The resolution was:
Resolved, The total cost of global net-zero decarbonization by the latter half of this century is well worth the projected global benefits.
Moderating the debate was John Tomasi , President of Heterodox Academy and former Professor of Natural Theology at Brown University.The Affirmative Team was Kerry Emanuel, MIT Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science and co-founder of MIT’s Lorenz Center, and Robert Pindyck, MIT Sloan School Professor of Economics and Finance and past President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. The Negative Team was Steven Koonin, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former Under Secretary for Science, and Mark Mills, Executive Director of the National Center for Energy Analytics and faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s school of engineering.
The debate was recorded as well as live streamed to MFSA's YouTube channel. The recording is now viewable on MFSA's YouTube channel.
In all of our debates, the MIT Free Speech Alliance tries to select issues of interest to the STEM community and to involve participants who have a connection to MIT. This time, we have selected a debate topic around the costs and benefits of net-zero decarbonization, since climate science and policy is currently a core focus of research at MIT. We are also happy to have recruited two senior, eminent MIT scholars to defend one side of the resolution. MFSA is confident that we can look forward to a vigorous and informed discussion that should be worthy of attention from national and international audiences.
In all of our debates, the MIT Free Speech Alliance tries to select issues of interest to the STEM community and to involve participants who have a connection to MIT. This time, we have selected a debate topic around the costs and benefits of net-zero decarbonization, since climate science and policy is currently a core focus of research at MIT. We are also happy to have recruited two senior, eminent MIT scholars to defend one side of the resolution. MFSA is confident that we can look forward to a vigorous and informed discussion that should be worthy of attention from national and international audiences.