Episode 71

Andrew Bernstein: The Truth About Climate Change

Published on: 31st July, 2023

In today's show, have a chat with Philosopher Andrew Bernstein, about his new pamphlet, The Truth About Climate Change. Tune in for an interesting show as we uncover facts that are routinely overlooked by the government and media.

Call-to-Action: After you have listened to this episode, add your $0.02 (two cents) to the conversation, by joining (for free) The Secular Foxhole Town Hall. Feel free to introduce yourself to the other members, discuss the different episodes, give us constructive feedback, or check out the virtual room, Speakers' Corner, and step up on the digital soapbox. Welcome to our new place in cyberspace!

Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:

Episode 71 (43 minutes) was recorded at 2200 Central European Time, on July 27, 2023, with Boomcaster. Martin did the post-production with the podcast maker, Alitu. The transcript is generated by Alitu.

Easy listen to The Secular Foxhole podcast in your podcast (podcatcher) app of choice, e.g., Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Gaana, Listen Notes, or one of the new podcast apps, on Podcast Index, supporting the Podcasting 2.0 initiative, and Value for Value by streaming Satoshis (Bitcoin payments). Oscar Merry is ahead of the game, with his Fountain app. Make a micropayment transaction with the new podcast app, Fountain. 

Rate and review The Secular Foxhole podcast on Podchaser. Your support will give us fuel for our blogging and podcasting! Thanks for reading the show notes! Continue the conversation by going to our digital town hall on Haaartland.



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Blair:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the 71st episode of the Secular Foxhole podcast, and we

Blair:

are live with philosopher Andrew Bernstein, and we're here to talk about his latest

Blair:

pamphlet, the Truth About Climate Change.

Blair:

Hi, Andy.

Andrew:

How are? Hi, Blair.

Andrew:

Hi, Martin.

Andrew:

I'm good.

Andrew:

How are you guys?

Blair:

That's right here's.

Andrew:

Good booklet. Truth About Climate change.

Andrew:

So thanks for having me on.

Andrew:

This is a topic that's fascinating for a long

Andrew:

time, so I appreciate the opportunity to discuss.

Andrew:

Good.

Blair:

All right.

Blair:

Yeah. So my first question why would a

Blair:

philosopher become interested in climate change or the whole spectrum of climate

Blair:

change?

Andrew:

Yeah, that's a fair question because I'm not a scientist, and I say that right from

Andrew:

the start.

Andrew:

In fact, some leftist supporter of the AGW

Andrew:

hypothesis anthropogenic global warming or man made global warming said to me, she said, why

Andrew:

should I listen to what a philosopher has to say about climate change?

Andrew:

Which is a reasonable question.

Andrew:

And I said to her, Well, I know as much about

Andrew:

climate change as.

Martin:

Does Al Gore, but he invented the right.

Andrew:

That's right.

Andrew:

Which has a lot to do with got he's got a

Andrew:

bachelor's degree in government from Harvard.

Andrew:

So he graduated from Harvard.

Andrew:

Two thumbs up for him.

Andrew:

But his degree is in government.

Andrew:

Greta Thunberg, a poor kid, seems paralyzed with fear.

Andrew:

I don't know how much she actually she's a kid.

Andrew:

I don't know how much she actually knows about climate change, but people seem to listen.

Martin:

And she had some spin doctor behind her.

Martin:

And that's another story that I could include in the show notes.

Andrew:

All right, but seriously, these questions are not decided by academic

Andrew:

pedigree.

Andrew:

My degree is in philosophy.

Andrew:

Al Gores is in government.

Andrew:

These issues are decided by evidence.

Andrew:

What does the evidence show? And I'm not a scientist, but I thought logic.

Andrew:

I know how to support a conclusion with evidence.

Andrew:

So I've been fascinated by this issue going back to 1988 when John Tanson at NASA started

Andrew:

talking about catastrophic man made warming.

Andrew:

And fortunately for us, climate scientists

Andrew:

write books, including for us, the Intelligent Layman.

Andrew:

And I've done a lot of research on this issue over the decades.

Andrew:

It's fascinating.

Andrew:

And so I thought that I'm having a rational

Andrew:

epistemology and knowing logic as well as I do, and having done a lot of research on the

Andrew:

specifics of climate science, I thought I could write an effective rational short

Andrew:

synopsis of what the truth about climate Change is.

Blair:

Well, having read it, I agree it's extremely cogent and very well laid out.

Blair:

So it's very much appreciated.

Andrew:

Well, one thing that's often overlooked in the discussion is a lot of the

Andrew:

Hew supporters like the IPCC and so on.

Andrew:

They focus on the last few hundred years,

Andrew:

which, okay, given the human life expectancy, but the Earth has a history of something like

Andrew:

4.5 or 4.6 billion with a b as boy billion years, and has a vast climate history.

Andrew:

And what I want to do.

Andrew:

Ein rand taught us.

Andrew:

I assume most of your viewers are familiar with Ein Rand, but maybe I should make that

Andrew:

assumption.

Andrew:

She's a famous novelist of The Fountainhead

Andrew:

and Atlas Shrug, developed a philosophic system of objectivism.

Andrew:

If you haven't read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugg, I strongly recommend you do so.

Andrew:

These are great novels, but she always taught us in terms of epistemology, the theory of

Andrew:

knowledge.

Andrew:

How do we gain knowledge?

Andrew:

See the big picture, integrate, go as wide as we can, show how a phenomenon fits in into the

Andrew:

big picture.

Andrew:

And to try to understand modern warming

Andrew:

without integrating it into Earth's climate history is like trying to understand the

Andrew:

cause, but analogous, I think, to try and understand the causes of World War II without

Andrew:

understanding the rise of totalitarianism in several European countries, early 20th

Andrew:

century.

Andrew:

When you plug it into this vast climb history,

Andrew:

then you see the Earth has cycled, sure, the warm periods, the colder periods, and there

Andrew:

have been many periods that are a lot warmer than today, long before human beings ever

Andrew:

appeared on the planet, never mind industrialized, which is an late 18th century

Andrew:

British development.

Andrew:

So once you put it in the big picture, I think

Andrew:

we could better discuss the causes, the effects of modern warning.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Blair:

What is the issue surrounding CO2 emissions?

Blair:

They claim it's a dramatic rise.

Blair:

What is the actual dramatic?

Andrew:

I'm sorry for laughing.

Andrew:

I think the scientists pretty much agree that

Andrew:

around the time of the Industrial Revolution, in the late 18th century, britain CO2 levels

Andrew:

were approximately 280 parts per million.

Andrew:

And today, 200, and some OD years later,

Andrew:

roughly 420 parts per million.

Andrew:

So there's no doubt that it's risen.

Andrew:

But you're right, when they say risen dramatically, it's a head scratcher, because

Andrew:

CO2 levels the truth is, CO2 levels today are lower and significantly lower than they have

Andrew:

been through much of the Earth's vast history.

Andrew:

I mean, during the go back into geological

Andrew:

time, great geologists write books.

Andrew:

Doug McDougall's book frozen Earth was one.

Andrew:

Know about the Ice Age is one I read and learned a lot.

Andrew:

He's a geology professor, one of the California universities in the what period was

Andrew:

that? Cambrian.

Andrew:

The Cambrian period.

Andrew:

Roughly 540,000,000 years ago, CO2 levels were

Andrew:

7000 parts per million, not 420.

Andrew:

There was 7000 parts per million.

Andrew:

And in keeping with the CO2 theory, the Earth was very warm.

Andrew:

Today they say it's roughly 59 degrees Fahrenheit, and I always forget to converge it

Andrew:

to Celsius.

Andrew:

But 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the Earth spectrum

Andrew:

historically over geological time, has been from 50 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 or 72 degrees

Andrew:

Fahrenheit.

Andrew:

Today, the Earth is roughly 59 degrees, so

Andrew:

it's by several degrees.

Andrew:

It's slightly closer to the cooler end of its

Andrew:

historic spectrum than toward its warmer end.

Andrew:

But in the Cambrian, when the CO2 levels were

Andrew:

that high, the temperature was 70 or 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Andrew:

The earth was very warm.

Andrew:

That's when tropical flora and fauna were

Andrew:

found north of the Arctic Circle and crocodiles lived that far north.

Andrew:

But at those levels, plant life must have just been abundant, you would think, because plants

Andrew:

thrive in warm weather and higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Andrew:

But in contrast to the contradiction to the CO2 theory, when the Earth was that warm, that

Andrew:

was the period known as the Cambrian Explosion, which was not a literal eruption.

Andrew:

It's not a volcanic eruption.

Andrew:

It's a metaphor for the enormous increase in

Andrew:

life forms, including animal life forms, that originated under those conditions.

Andrew:

So those conditions were very favorable to life.

Andrew:

The CO2 levels have been I'll give you one last data point.

Andrew:

100 million years later, roughly 440,000,000 years ago in the Orvation period, CO2 levels

Andrew:

were 4500 parts per million, about ten times what they are today.

Andrew:

The Earth was so cold it was in the grips of a severe glaciation.

Andrew:

It's the autofacial Ice Age, when CO2 levels were ten times higher than what they are

Andrew:

today.

Andrew:

So that raises questions about the power of

Andrew:

CO2 to cause the catastrophic warming that the alarmists talk about.

Blair:

Okay, you mentioned something that I think the left pounces on.

Blair:

They only use data from the Industrial Revolution, which you mean they want to smear

Blair:

capitalism and freedom, right.

Blair:

Instead of using genuine science of, as you

Blair:

say, the entire history of the Earth.

Blair:

You agree with that, right?

Blair:

Yeah.

Andrew:

We got to see the big picture.

Andrew:

We have to integrate when you're coming closer

Andrew:

to our day, not hundreds of millions of years ago, but just thousands of years ago, the

Andrew:

Minoan Warm Period, roughly 1500 to 1000 BC.

Andrew:

So roughly 3500 to 3000 years ago, dr.

Andrew:

Tim Ball, Canadian climate scientist, whose PhD in climate science, unfortunately passed

Andrew:

away not so long ago, in his early 80s.

Andrew:

But he points out the Minoan warmth period

Andrew:

just 3000 years ago, or a little more, was several degrees Celsius warmer than the Earth

Andrew:

is today.

Andrew:

There's a lot of proxy data to support that.

Andrew:

And you notice that the Earth cycle just even ignoring for the moment, the ice ages.

Andrew:

Over millions of years, the Earth gets colder and the ice advances.

Andrew:

The Earth warms and the ice recedes.

Andrew:

And very few people actually let me stay with

Andrew:

the Ice age for a minute.

Andrew:

Very few people seem to realize, even educated

Andrew:

people, that today, in 2023, the Earth is in the midst of an ice age.

Andrew:

The police just see an ice age.

Andrew:

We're fortunate enough to be living in the

Andrew:

Holocene Interglacial Warm Period, but the ice is going to return at some point in the next

Andrew:

1000 to 10,000 years.

Andrew:

But anyway, even if we just leave aside the

Andrew:

ice ages, that cycle over millions of years.

Andrew:

And just look, in the last few thousand years,

Andrew:

the Minoan War period, like I said, roughly 3500 years ago, followed by what's?

Andrew:

An unnamed cold period.

Andrew:

Now, that annoys me that it should be unnamed.

Andrew:

So I took it upon myself I took it upon myself to name it.

Andrew:

It's roughly, I think, 600 BC to 200 BC or somewhere in that ring.

Andrew:

So I named it the Biblical Cold Period.

Andrew:

And if scientists don't like the reference to

Andrew:

the Bible, fine, let them name it, because all these other periods have names.

Andrew:

And following that was the Roman Warm Period.

Andrew:

Following that was the Dark Age cold period.

Andrew:

Following that was the Medieval War Period, which we discussed a little bit before the

Andrew:

show.

Andrew:

When the Norse settled, Greenland grew.

Andrew:

Crops on Greenland, thought even to naming Greenland Greenland because things grew there,

Andrew:

which I don't think they can today.

Andrew:

So the Medieval Warm Period, roughly 900 to

Andrew:

1300 Ad, was at least as warm as it is today, maybe slightly warmer than the Little Ice Age.

Andrew:

And today, the Modern Warm Period, just within the last 3500 years, we see the Earth cycling

Andrew:

between warmer and colder periods.

Andrew:

And we should point out it's in the warmer

Andrew:

periods where life has flourished, not in the cold.

Blair:

Okay? Now, one of the things you mentioned that I

Blair:

also liked is there seems to be a debate, climate versus weather.

Blair:

What's the difference?

Andrew:

As I understand it, climate, to put it simply, climate is long term, weather is short

Andrew:

term.

Martin:

So, Andy, if you can't predict the weather next week, how could you then say what

Martin:

the climate will be?

Andrew:

Not today? And the leading climate scientists, Richard

Andrew:

Lindsen from MIT, patrick Michaels, University of Virginia, fred Singer, passed away in his

Andrew:

mid 90s.

Andrew:

They all point out climate is so complex.

Andrew:

There's so many factors that go into making up the climate at any given period.

Andrew:

And there's so many factors that go into bringing about climate change that it is

Andrew:

factions or simple to try to reduce it to one factor, such as carbon dioxide, and only to

Andrew:

man made carbon dioxide at that, overlooking the enormous amounts of CO2, is spewing it to

Andrew:

the atmosphere by natural sources.

Andrew:

That's one of the things, if I was going to be

Andrew:

a scientist see, I like the big picture.

Andrew:

That's what drew me into philosophy.

Andrew:

If I was to be a scientist, climate science may be the field because there's so many

Andrew:

factors involved.

Andrew:

It's so complex, the variations in the

Andrew:

emission of solar radiation.

Andrew:

The sunspot side is one fact.

Andrew:

Henriks Fenzemoth, Danish astrophysicist, established that cosmic rays impacting the

Andrew:

atmosphere are largely responsible for cloud cover.

Andrew:

And the more cloud cover, of course, the cooler the Earth's surface.

Andrew:

The oscillations of Earth's ocean cones, volcanic eruptions beneath the ocean floor,

Andrew:

which warm the oceans, and then by evaporation, warm the atmosphere, god knows

Andrew:

what else.

Andrew:

It's little understood.

Martin:

Yeah. And Andy, I have to interrupt you there.

Martin:

I mean, you have done so much research on this, and when I read about the volcano, I got

Martin:

a bit scared.

Martin:

How prepared should we be that something is

Martin:

boiling under Earth.

Andrew:

Okay, great.

Andrew:

The question was yeah, you have done.

Martin:

So much research, and you have your footnotes.

Martin:

But when I read about the volcano and what could happen, the outburst of the volcano and

Martin:

lava, I got a bit scared.

Martin:

How do we prepare for know we should be

Martin:

scared?

Blair:

You move.

Andrew:

Me. Let me start answering your question by picking on the beautiful actress

Andrew:

Gwyneth Paltrow, who I like.

Andrew:

She's a beautiful woman.

Andrew:

She's a very good actress.

Andrew:

I respect her.

Andrew:

But I don't know if you saw recently she said something like, I don't think anything natural

Andrew:

can be bad for you know, why don't you try eating feces?

Andrew:

Don't try this at home.

Andrew:

But volcanoes, nature you're right, Martin.

Andrew:

Nature has this whole arsenal volcanoes and earthquakes and tidal waves and the bubonic

Andrew:

plague and other diseases, and one that gets recognized only in science fiction films bow

Andrew:

lead impact comet or asteroid smashed into the Earth, which has happened.

Andrew:

And it's very dangerous.

Andrew:

A lot of stuff to be scared of.

Andrew:

And natural forces of man made climate change isn't one of them.

Andrew:

What are the rational risk assessed? People do that for a living.

Andrew:

Rational risk assessment guys, they say very nicely, people are afraid of all the wrong

Andrew:

things.

Andrew:

I had an old girlfriend who wouldn't fly.

Andrew:

She wouldn't fly, but she spoke like two packs of cigarettes.

Blair:

Oh, boy.

Andrew:

She drove from Houston to New York.

Andrew:

It's not particularly dangerous, but it's much

Andrew:

more dangerous than Know, one of the major airlines.

Andrew:

People are afraid of all the wrong things.

Andrew:

So we're afraid of man made warming.

Andrew:

But, yeah, volcanoes.

Andrew:

Massive volcanic eruption has caused terrible

Andrew:

global cooling in the past because they spew so much gazillions of tons of dirt and grit

Andrew:

and stuff into the atmosphere.

Andrew:

Blocks the sun's rays for up to a year or two

Andrew:

years at a time, which kills off a lot of plant life, which is the foundation of the

Andrew:

food chain.

Andrew:

That's vastly more dangerous.

Andrew:

Cooling is much more harmful than warming.

Andrew:

Warming is generally good to life.

Blair:

It's the cooler periods that are know.

Andrew:

Volcanoes are one cause of that.

Andrew:

Martin, you're right.

Blair:

Agreed. Agreed.

Blair:

Now, this is an old term, but the IPCC and all

Blair:

the government paid scientists use computer modeling, and I think it's basically just

Blair:

garbage in, garbage out.

Blair:

What do you think?

Andrew:

That old term.

Andrew:

Right?

Blair:

So you agree with.

Andrew:

The the basic premise of the IPCC and of the AGW theorists more broadly.

Martin:

What do they stand for, this acronym?

Andrew:

Yeah. IPCC. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Andrew:

It's a body, a group of scientists under UN jurisdiction.

Andrew:

AGW is anthropogenic warming or anthropogenic global warming or man made global warming, the

Andrew:

IPCC.

Andrew:

The basic premise is that human CO2 emissions

Andrew:

is what drives rising temperatures.

Andrew:

So that's how they program the computer.

Andrew:

And notice the premise is programmed.

Andrew:

And then notice a couple of points.

Andrew:

Since over the last 140 years, since the 1880s, I think scientists generally agree the

Andrew:

Earth's temperature has risen by roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius, which is not very much.

Andrew:

Historically, it's very mild warming.

Andrew:

And today, the satellite data, the most

Andrew:

reliable data we have, shows us that the Earth is warming at roughly the clip of zero point

Andrew:

15 degrees Celsius per decade, which is, again, zero point 15 degrees Celsius per

Andrew:

decade is mild.

Andrew:

Historically, there's been much more, much

Andrew:

wider swings than that.

Andrew:

Anyway, 1.2 degrees Celsius over 140 years,

Andrew:

according to the IPCC projections, given the rising CO2 levels, the Earth should have

Andrew:

warmed by roughly 2.3 degrees Celsius, which is almost twice the observed warmth they

Andrew:

project.

Andrew:

CO2 levels continue to rise.

Andrew:

The Earth should be accelerating in warming, and it's not.

Andrew:

It's still the same gentle zero point 15 degrees Celsius per decade rate.

Andrew:

It's not accelerating the way it should, given the IPCC's basic parameters.

Andrew:

Your rising CO2 levels cause an accelerating rate of rising temperatures.

Andrew:

So the computer models are simply false.

Andrew:

They're mistaken.

Andrew:

Their projections don't match real world observations.

Andrew:

And what do you do with a theory who's consistently at odds with the observed data?

Andrew:

The theory is wrong.

Andrew:

Yeah, but CO2 is only one issue in warming.

Andrew:

There is a greenhouse effect, but it's only one issue.

Andrew:

And I think when we discussed the Odovich and Ice Age, when you had CO2 levels at 4500 parts

Andrew:

per million and the Earth was in ice age, that raises questions.

Andrew:

Maybe CO2 is a factor, but maybe it's not the most powerful factor.

Andrew:

Maybe there are other factors that are more powerful that at times overpower it.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Martin:

So then, as Claire has written, here a question when we, in a way, should maybe be

Martin:

proud to say that we are not climate change denier because it changes.

Martin:

But that's the smear tactics.

Martin:

Do you want to discuss that a bit?

Andrew:

Yeah, that's a good point.

Andrew:

If the alarmist says and if AGW theorists were

Andrew:

honest, they would simply call us skeptics.

Andrew:

We're skeptical about their theory, but

Andrew:

deniers that, I think, is a deliberate attempt to link us to holocaust.

Martin:

Yes.

Andrew:

And that's dishonest.

Andrew:

So, yeah, I made the point in the pamphlet

Andrew:

here and the truth about climate change, that I'm looking at the big picture historically

Andrew:

and seeing endless climate change.

Andrew:

Endless.

Andrew:

In fact, I raised the question, climate periods, are they always changing?

Andrew:

Nature's dynamic.

Andrew:

Are the climate periods always changing?

Andrew:

And my guess is that they are certainly has changed a lot over millions and millions and

Andrew:

millions of years.

Andrew:

So I am a big time climate change.

Blair:

Affirmative.

Andrew:

I am affirming natural climate change without any human input.

Andrew:

Massive climate change long before the Earth, roughly 4.6 billion years old.

Andrew:

Our earliest ancestors, roughly 5 million years ago, with an M, as in Mary.

Andrew:

And it's been massive climate change, including ice ages and the end of ice ages and

Andrew:

then more ice ages, long before our earliest ancestors ever appear in the fossil record.

Andrew:

So we can definitely say without a doubt there's a lot of things about climate change

Andrew:

that we don't know.

Andrew:

One thing we can say without a doubt is there

Andrew:

is a natural climate cycle that goes on without any human input and we need to

Andrew:

understand the natural climate cycle before we can discern any human input.

Martin:

I hear you and Blair will come with that also.

Martin:

But then maybe the root is about religion in a way, a new type of religion like

Martin:

environmentalism.

Martin:

You can't say something about it.

Andrew:

Yeah, it does.

Andrew:

It is akin to religion in that it's terribly

Andrew:

authoritarian and they will not tolerate know, I see it in the United States and I think it's

Andrew:

just as bad, maybe worse in parts of Europe.

Martin:

Yes, it.

Andrew:

Historic.

Andrew:

There's not an amendment to the Constitution

Andrew:

protecting freedom of speech as there is in the United States.

Andrew:

But even so, you see people deplatformed off of social media platforms because they're

Andrew:

skeptical of AGW or other things.

Andrew:

But including AGW, people get cancelled from

Andrew:

their professorships in the university or from their jobs in corporate America because they

Andrew:

disagree with the left's take on leftist orthodoxy, on climate change and or other

Andrew:

issues.

Andrew:

And the most terrifying thing to me of all is

Andrew:

the censorship that we're starting to see in the you know, including on climate change.

Andrew:

Let's establish a disinformation governance board at the Department of Homeland Security,

Andrew:

which is a criminal justice agency.

Andrew:

So if I dissent from what the government says,

Andrew:

does that mean armed federal agents are going to show up at my door and arrest mean why else

Andrew:

have it at a criminal justice organization? But it's censorship.

Andrew:

We see the FBI, the Twitter file show, the FBI coaching Twitter and probably other social

Andrew:

media platforms on who can speak and who will be suppressed.

Andrew:

And part of the suppression is of AGW skeptics.

Andrew:

So it's authoritarian like Christianity at its worst thousand years ago, judaism several

Andrew:

thousand years ago, when the Orthodox Jews completely suppress over Islam.

Andrew:

In our day, it is authoritarian like religion and another religious element which is not

Andrew:

only ironic, but it's scary and heartbreaking.

Andrew:

This is supposed to be based on science,

Andrew:

right? And yet scientists or the presentation of I'm

Andrew:

not a scientist, but I have evidence and if I get to be known on this, they'll probably

Andrew:

cancel me like they have any number of other people evidence.

Andrew:

Doesn't matter if you have the evidence, in fact maybe worse because then you're a greater

Andrew:

threat to them and they will cancel you or censor you.

Andrew:

So it is like a religion.

Andrew:

Make it science and accept the science, trust

Andrew:

the science, follow the science.

Andrew:

And the truth is, no, science isn't something

Andrew:

to be trusted or followed.

Andrew:

It's something to be questioned.

Andrew:

Richard Feynman let me one last point.

Andrew:

I know you had another question.

Andrew:

The great Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner who worked on I just saw the movie Oppenheim,

Andrew:

and Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project when he was, like, 21 years old or something.

Andrew:

But Feynman had a great quote.

Andrew:

He died a long time ago, was 1980.

Andrew:

But yeah, the Feynman said, I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers

Andrew:

that can't be questioned.

Andrew:

Now, that's science.

Blair:

My follow up question is a philosophical one.

Blair:

Then how did science become so politicized?

Andrew:

Yeah.

Blair:

Richard Salzman pointed this out in one of our episodes where he said, know the powers

Blair:

that be took advantage of the American people's trust or love of science to basically

Blair:

fool us into thinking about the COVID vaccines and about this, that, and the other.

Blair:

I can't remember the exact quote, but it was in other words, the American people were taken

Blair:

advantage of and that because of their I'll use the word trust in science.

Blair:

But I guess, again, how does it become so politicized?

Andrew:

That's a very good question.

Andrew:

There's a couple of things that I wanted to

Andrew:

say on this.

Andrew:

Trust in American people's, trust in and also

Andrew:

the because I just wrote a book on education.

Andrew:

We discussed it on your show.

Andrew:

Right.

Andrew:

Why Johnny still can't read or write or think

Andrew:

you read or write or understand math and what we could do about it.

Andrew:

The science curriculum has been terribly diluted for 100 years now.

Andrew:

Today, a lot of what passes for science in the American schools is basically global warming.

Blair:

Oh, yeah.

Blair:

I can vouch for that because our dog walker,

Blair:

she was spouting some stuff the other day, so I'm going to get her.

Andrew:

Yeah, students, good kids.

Blair:

She's a great kid.

Blair:

And it's just like, all right, I'm going to

Blair:

buy Andy's book for her.

Andrew:

I know I have Studently when this comes up in class, I have students who say,

Andrew:

well, the Earth's warmer today than it ever has been.

Andrew:

Right? And I have to stop myself from laughing.

Andrew:

CO2 levels are higher than they ever have.

Andrew:

No, but this is what they're being taught or

Andrew:

dogmatized with in the school system.

Andrew:

So the ignorant stuff.

Andrew:

But the scientists here's some good news here.

Andrew:

There's good news and bad news.

Andrew:

The good news is that many scientists are not politicized and they'll tell the truth.

Andrew:

And a really good book on this is Lawrence Solomon's book, The Deniers.

Andrew:

He interviews several dozen, like, world class scientists on these issues, and they express a

Andrew:

great deal of skepticism about AGW.

Andrew:

Some of them are IPCC reviewers and IPCC

Andrew:

scientists and questioning the IPCC's methodology.

Andrew:

The Deniers is a terrific book by Lawrence Solomon.

Andrew:

It shows how many scientists anybody who's been brainwashed with that 97%.

Andrew:

97% of scientists or 97% of climate scientists agree with AGW read they could read Lawrence

Andrew:

Solomon's book, The Deniers, and they'll say, My God, how many leading scientists reject

Andrew:

various aspects of the whole thing of the AGW theory.

Andrew:

The IPCC is heavily politicized.

Andrew:

They're under the leftists.

Andrew:

The goal here isn't for them it isn't to get at the truth about climate change.

Andrew:

The goal here is to push us into socialism.

Andrew:

Because if we can blame catastrophic warming

Andrew:

on the emission of CO2, we could take over the UN.

Andrew:

It gives us plausibility moral argument to take over the energy industry, to take.

Blair:

Over industrial policy.

Andrew:

Yeah, to socialize major industries.

Andrew:

And I think those guys are heavily

Andrew:

politicized.

Andrew:

Here's one data point that people don't know,

Andrew:

but Tim Ball points out by the way, Dr. Tim Ball, the Canadian climate scientist, wrote a

Andrew:

really good book.

Andrew:

Just get the title.

Andrew:

It's human caused warming.

Andrew:

The biggest deception of history.

Andrew:

Well, everybody's very thin book.

Andrew:

I think everybody should read it's got a

Andrew:

chocolate block within.

Blair:

Hopefully it's still in print.

Andrew:

But I think it is.

Andrew:

He died recently.

Andrew:

I think it is.

Andrew:

But here's how the IPCC operates.

Andrew:

And this is the 1995 report.

Andrew:

I don't think their methodology has changed

Andrew:

since.

Andrew:

He quotes from the IPCC gets some of the

Andrew:

leading scientists in the world, thousands of them, to investigate the issue.

Andrew:

Then they write a massive science report, which nobody but a few scientists reads, and

Andrew:

then somebody at the hierarchy of the IPCC writes the summary for policymakers, the SPM,

Andrew:

which is only thing that's read by journalists, politicians and so on.

Andrew:

Well, the scientists in the 1995 report, I remember the exact wording, but said we need

Andrew:

to understand the natural climate cycle in order to discern any human element.

Andrew:

That was part of their conclusion.

Andrew:

Well, Ben Santa, one of the head guys at the

Andrew:

IPCC, inserted into that chapter that unquestionably the warming is caused by human

Andrew:

being.

Andrew:

How many times have we heard since 1995 it

Andrew:

comes from the IPCC? And these are the scientists investigating

Andrew:

climate change? Well, no, it doesn't.

Andrew:

As a scientist said, there's natural forces we need to understand in order to discern any

Andrew:

human causation.

Andrew:

Ben Santa inserted it's unquestionably human.

Andrew:

He completely contradicted what the scientists wrote.

Andrew:

It's just breathtakingly designed.

Andrew:

And I don't think the IPCC's methodology has

Andrew:

changed over the last 28 years.

Blair:

I know one of the things I found funny, but and astonishingly terrible, was that

Blair:

there's a group of scientists or a particular scientist that denies the sun has anything to

Blair:

do with or something like that.

Blair:

Remember that?

Andrew:

Yeah. I won't mention names, but one of the colleges where I teach, the chair of

Andrew:

the Environmental Science department was got a PhD in environmental science.

Andrew:

Said to me that's the exact quote when I was talking about the sun.

Andrew:

He said, quote the sun has nothing to do with it.

Andrew:

That's part of the dogma.

Andrew:

The IPCC decided back in the they hold to it

Andrew:

to this day.

Andrew:

We're not concerned we the IPCC.

Andrew:

We're not concerned to investigate any natural causes of warmth.

Andrew:

We're concerned only to find the man made causes.

Andrew:

And that's that's what they look.

Andrew:

They, they simply know ein Rand might say

Andrew:

evade.

Andrew:

So what about all the climate change of the

Andrew:

past long before human beings ever industrialized blank out.

Andrew:

We just ignore that.

Andrew:

See, that's an impossible methodology.

Andrew:

We know there's a natural climate cycle that's unquestionable at this point.

Andrew:

We would give it ice ages and everything else.

Andrew:

We need to find out what are the natural

Andrew:

causes of climate change in order to be able to identify any human element, if there is any

Andrew:

that now exists.

Andrew:

It's impossible to discern the human element

Andrew:

if we don't know the natural causes of you don't have the information from the whole

Andrew:

examine in a vast vacuum.

Andrew:

It's dumb.

Andrew:

I mean, if these guys were honest, you just say this is stupid.

Andrew:

As a teacher of logic, I would say this is the fallacy of stupidity.

Andrew:

You're overlooking all this massive cause natural.

Blair:

Well, they have to keep the taxpayer money rolling in, I guess.

Blair:

Government fund, grants and stuff, that's it.

Blair:

That's the only reason.

Andrew:

Exactly.

Andrew:

But one reason is that's the way to get the

Andrew:

grants and the other reason is with communism.

Andrew:

We want to push the political climate into

Andrew:

communism.

Andrew:

And supporting your point about the money

Andrew:

rolling, dr.

Andrew:

Judith Curry, climate scientist at.

Blair:

Georgia Tech, I remember that she got thrown out of Georgia Tech, or.

Andrew:

She said what she said was really poignant.

Andrew:

She said, I'm working with my graduate students and in order to teach them to be

Andrew:

effective scientists, I have to teach them to question the AGW hypothesis.

Andrew:

But in order to help them gain employment and grants, I have to teach them to not question

Andrew:

the hew.

Andrew:

And that tension, that contradiction, I can't

Andrew:

live that out.

Andrew:

And she resigned, which I thought was a real

Andrew:

act of right.

Blair:

Good for her then.

Blair:

Yeah, that was longer than a couple of years

Blair:

ago, but yeah, I remember that.

Blair:

So Indy, I got one final question then.

Blair:

So what can one person do to counter the religion of environmentalism?

Andrew:

Well, here's what I think.

Andrew:

My little booklet is helpful because they

Andrew:

don't have to read all these books written by climate scientists, although people can

Andrew:

certainly do that too, because you pointed.

Blair:

Out incorporated a lot of that great information in the book.

Andrew:

Yes, and if they're going to read one or two books in addition to my small book,

Andrew:

lauren Solomon's, the Deniers fred Singer, great climate scientist, passed away a few

Andrew:

years ago in his mid 90s, wrote an excellent book, Unstoppable Global Warming every 1500

Andrew:

Years, about the natural climate change cycle, again filled with data.

Andrew:

You can read my book or read a couple of books on this.

Andrew:

Get the information and then speak out.

Andrew:

Speak up any form available to us.

Andrew:

Whether you have a podcast or whether you just talk to neighbors, family members or best

Andrew:

friends, they say the truth will out.

Andrew:

Well, it won't if we don't speak up.

Andrew:

But if we do, we speak up and speak, educate ourselves first and then speak up and speak

Andrew:

out.

Andrew:

We have the evidence.

Andrew:

The evidence is very strong that the natural climate cycle is at work.

Andrew:

Yeah, we can't it's much stronger than the AGW.

Blair:

Let's throw a plug in for Alex Epstein's book Fossil Future as well.

Andrew:

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Andrew:

Yeah. Alex Epstein's, a moral case of fossil

Andrew:

fuels.

Andrew:

A very good book which is called.

Blair:

Fossil Future why We Need More Coal and Oil and nuclear Power.

Andrew:

Yeah, Alex Epstein is a very good source of information on these.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Martin:

And yeah.

Martin:

And at the end of the book, you mentioned also

Martin:

you had lots of resources and notes and you had some websites also, one with the witty

Martin:

URL.

Martin:

What's up with that?

Andrew:

Anthony Watts is a meteorologist.

Andrew:

He has a very valuable website.

Andrew:

W-A-T-T-S watts up with? That is very Spencer.

Andrew:

You know, the NASA.

Andrew:

He's a PhD in meteorology.

Andrew:

He's a great NASA scientist.

Andrew:

His website DrRoySpencer.com.

Andrew:

In fact, it was from Roy Spencer that I learned another data point here that at least

Andrew:

95% of the CO2 spewed into the atmosphere annually comes from natural sources, not man

Andrew:

made ones.

Andrew:

And then Tim Ball said more like 96% to 97% is

Andrew:

natural.

Andrew:

So we're not just focused on CO2, which is one

Andrew:

factor of many, but on the tiny fraction of Mannate CO2, which is a fraction of a

Andrew:

secondary cause in the first place.

Martin:

Yeah, we don't talk about the cows.

Andrew:

The cows, right.

Andrew:

Well, does Bill Gates say we have to stop

Andrew:

eating beef for that bugs and stuff?

Martin:

So we have to get rid of the so called Smog.

Martin:

That was also a site.

Martin:

It was a Norwegian scientist that you're

Martin:

mentioning the book and he was mentioned in D Smog website.

Andrew:

Was that Tom Segelstadt? You're talking brilliant.

Andrew:

He's a brilliant geologist.

Andrew:

He was an IPCC reviewer and he's sharply

Andrew:

critical of IPCC's knowledge of one geology or earth processes.

Andrew:

And two of them funny.

Blair:

You don't hear any of that stuff in the media.

Blair:

It's very sad.

Andrew:

Not from the lion leftist media.

Blair:

It's very sad.

Martin:

But you hear it here.

Martin:

You could then support our work and our

Martin:

podcast and send us donation through real money bitcoin satushis and yeah.

Martin:

Please plug your book again, Andy.

Andrew:

Well, thank you, guys.

Andrew:

Yeah. The Truth About Climate Change booklet.

Andrew:

It's available from Amazon.

Andrew:

Something like was it like $2 as Kindle and

Andrew:

maybe $8?

Blair:

It's $8 as a paperback.

Blair:

And I think 499 is the kindle that's well

Blair:

worth every penny.

Martin:

Wouldn't that be a great thing? Like buy your paperback and send out different

Martin:

institution and places, high places, your book?

Andrew:

Oh, yeah.

Andrew:

There's a way thank you.

Andrew:

More.

Andrew:

There's a way to fight.

Andrew:

What is it now? $8. That's not a lot for many people.

Andrew:

And you can buy dozens or even hundreds, scores or hundreds of copies and send them to

Andrew:

people who you think are irrational and honest, who are open to it's senseless to send

Andrew:

it to alexandra Cavio cortez AOC or people who are just committed to the AGW hypothesis but

Andrew:

people who have some influence in the culture, have some voice and whom you think are

Andrew:

basically honest.

Andrew:

Yeah, you could get as teachers, professors,

Andrew:

writers, journalists, filmmakers, even some politicians.

Martin:

And here I have an idea.

Martin:

Maybe that could be like a children's version.

Martin:

Also like you have done this about reading Rand's literature.

Martin:

What do you call it? Black and yellow books.

Andrew:

Oh, cliff notes.

Andrew:

Iron man.

Martin:

And do a similar one on your book for children.

Martin:

And maybe like Bosch Fossman could illustrate them or something like that.

Martin:

Could be something for future project.

Andrew:

See if we get into the school system, there are still some very good classroom

Andrew:

teachers in the school system.

Andrew:

There's still honest people.

Blair:

Hope so.

Andrew:

That's a good idea, Martin.

Andrew:

Thank you.

Blair:

All right, well, great.

Blair:

We've been talking with Andrew Bernstein, who

Blair:

my dear friend calls the Arthur Fonzarelli of objectivism.

Andrew:

The fonts. The Fonz.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Andrew:

I love the fonts.

Blair:

And thanks for manning the Foxhole with us today.

Andrew:

Well, thanks, guys.

Andrew:

Always good to be in the Foxhole with you.

Andrew:

And I look forward to getting the link and I will paste it across.

Blair:

Social right, well, give us your website and all that other good stuff.

Andrew:

Andrewburnstein net WW dot andrewburnstein.

Andrew:

Net you can reach me on my Facebook page, on Twitter.

Andrew:

So I am very modern, very on LinkedIn.

Andrew:

I'm very plugged into social media.

Andrew:

Great.

Andrew:

The Fonz would have to hey, you have to get it

Andrew:

out there.

Blair:

Right.

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for The Secular Foxhole

About the Podcast

The Secular Foxhole
Separation of Religion and State
As a freethinker, are you looking through binoculars out at the world in the safety of a foxhole? Get fuel for your soul and intellectual ammunition by listening to The Secular Foxhole podcast, in order to fight for the separation of religion and state.

Blair chose this name (The Secular Foxhole) to dispute the myth that there are no atheists in foxholes, but also as a place to share ideas and defend Free Speech. The co-hosts both advocate the separation of Church and State, but also Economics and State. In short, Liberalism, Individualism, and Capitalism.
Support This Show

About your hosts

Blair Schofield

Profile picture for Blair Schofield
I'm a 'lapsed' blogger who turned his blog into a podcast. Now the task is to keep both up to date! My co-host Martin Lindeskog and I have already celebrated our one year anniversary, with the podcast.

Martin Lindeskog

Profile picture for Martin Lindeskog
Creator, ✍🏻 Tea Book Sketches. Indie Biz Philosopher ⚛️ & New Media 📲 Advisor, TeaParty.Media. Blogger since 2002 and podcaster🎙since 2006. First podcast: EGO NetCast. Latest podcast: High Five for Hemp. Support 💲My Work and 🗽 Freedom of Expression: https://bio.link/lyceum