Superfreakonomics_ global cooling, patri - Steven D. Levitt [80]
Myhrvold, who is fifty years old, has been smart for a long time. Growing up in Seattle, he graduated from high school at fourteen and by the time he was twenty-three had earned, primarily at UCLA and Princeton, a bachelor’s degree (mathematics), two master’s degrees (geophysics/space physics and mathematical economics), and a Ph.D. (mathematical physics). He then went to Cambridge University to do quantum cosmology research with Stephen Hawking.
Myhrvold recalls watching the British science-fiction TV show Dr. Who when he was young: “The Doctor introduces himself to someone, who says, ‘Doctor? Are you some kind of scientist?’ And he says, ‘Sir, I am every kind of scientist.’ And I was, like, Yes! Yes! That is what I want to be: every kind of scientist!”
He is so polymathic as to make an everyday polymath tremble with shame. In addition to his scientific interests, he is an accomplished nature photographer, chef, mountain climber, and a collector of rare books, rocket engines, antique scientific instruments, and, especially, dinosaur bones: he is co-leader of a project that has dug up more T. rex skeletons than anyone else in the world. He is also—and this is hardly unrelated to his hobbies—very wealthy. In 1999, when he left Microsoft, he appeared on the Forbes list of the four hundred richest Americans.
At the same time—and this is how Myhrvold has managed to stay wealthy—he is famously cheap. As he walks through the IV lab pointing out his favorite tools and gadgets, his greatest pride is reserved for the items he bought on eBay or at bankruptcy sales. Though Myhrvold understands complexity as well as anyone, he is a firm believer that solutions should be cheap and simple whenever possible.
He and his compatriots are currently working on, among other projects: a better internal combustion engine; a way to reduce an airplane’s “skin drag” and thus increase its fuel efficiency; and a new kind of nuclear power plant that would radically improve the future of worldwide electricity production. Although many of their ideas are just that—ideas—some have already started saving lives. The company has invented a process whereby a neurosurgeon who is attempting to repair an aneurysm can send IV the patient’s brain-scan data, which are fed into a 3D printer that produces a life-size plastic model of the aneurysm. The model is shipped overnight to the surgeon, who can make a detailed plan to attack the aneurysm before cutting through the patient’s skull.
It takes a healthy dose of collective arrogance for a small group of scientists and engineers to think they could simultaneously tackle many of the world’s toughest problems. Fortunately, these folks have the requisite amount. They have already sent satellites to the moon, helped defend the United States against missile attack and, via computing advances, changed the way the world works. (Bill Gates is not only an investor in IV but an occasional inventor as well. The mosquito-zapping laser was a response to his philanthropic quest to eradicate malaria.) They have also conducted definitive scientific research in many fields, including climate science.
So it was only a matter of time before they began thinking about global warming. On the day we visited IV, Myhrvold convened roughly a dozen of his colleagues to talk about the problem and possible solutions. They sat around a long oval conference table, Myhrvold near one end.
They are a roomful of wizards, and yet without doubt Myhrvold is their Harry Potter. For the next ten or so hours, fueled by an astonishing amount of diet soda, he prodded and amplified, interjected and challenged.
Everyone in the room agrees that the earth has been getting warmer and they generally suspect that human activity has something to do with it. But they also agree that the standard global-warming rhetoric in the media and political