As warnings grow more dire, Nobelist emerges as leader

Steve Chu keeps up with all the latest news on climate change, and he knows it’s bad.

The Nobel-winning physicist can tell you the projected meltdown rates for the snowpacks of Tibet and the Sierra Nevada. Rivers drying up and millions of people on the move looking for a drink of water? That future, a fantasy just a few years ago, has entered the realm of the possible.

But Chu isn’t just talking.

As head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he is focusing all divisions of the most intellectually diverse of the U.S. Energy Department’s national labs on a campaign to stand and fight.

“These are serious predictions,” Chu, 59, said in a recent interview. “It’s prudent risk management. It’s like saying, ‘Your house will burn down in the next 10 years — 50 percent probability. By the way, do you want fire insurance?’ ”

San Francisco Chronicle