Episode 245: “Climate Catastrophe, or Simply the Weather?” with Jay Richards

In this episode I’m joined by Jay W. Richards, Ph.D. to talk about “climate change.”  We are both skeptical about the claims that man is causing abnormal changes in the climate, mainly by adding CO₂ to the atmosphere, and that we need a political solution - fast! - to somehow arrest the spread of this toxic combination of molecules. We’re even more skeptical that the solution is for governments or the UN coerce us do it, and along the way essentially shut down the modern economy. There are a lot of breathless claims being made. Bryan Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America and a regular fixture at the World Economic Forum, directed his bank to produce a Global Research Report which claims the consequences of climate change will be dire and extreme. “This is the last decade to act,” they write. “Absolute water scarcity is likely for 1.8 billion people, 100 million face poverty, and 800 million are at risk from rising sea levels by 2025. Climate migration could reach 143 million from emerging markets, driven by extreme weather.” The amount of investment required they estimate to fully decarbonize the world? “$150 trillion over the next 30 years.” Before we get out our checkbook, here are some of the questions Jay and I believe demand an answer: Is the Earth warming in any meaningful way? If the Earth is warming, are we causing it?  If Earth is warming, and we’re causing it, is that bad? If the Earth is warming, and we’re causing it, and that’s bad, would any of the solutions being proposed make a difference? Jay Richards is the Director, Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation, Executive Editor of The Stream, and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute.  He is author or editor of many New York Times bestsellers and the soon to be released Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War (with James Robison)     “Are climate change concerns based on real scientific evidence and study and careful consideration,” asks Jay “or is this an ideology?  Every ideology in the modern world seems to claim that it’s based on science, because “science” has become the keeper of the public domain. In the Middle Ages, it would've been the church and the clerics. Now it’s Science, so everyone from Karl Marx to the President wants to appeal to science for their ideology. And so it is with climate.”  The IPCC (the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) produces dozens of different computer climate models predicting a climate apocalypse. The problem is that they are in significant disagreement with each other. And not only have they not made accurate predictions, they can’t explain the history of the earth's climate for the last hundred years. And they don’t encompass some basic essentials. For example, missing from virtually all of these computer programs are the effect of clouds. Al Gore’s movie assumed a cloud free earth when in fact the earth is shrouded in clouds up to two thirds over its surface area. The variation in the cloud cover is a 200 times more powerful factor than the small effect of CO₂, according to Nobel Laureate John Clauser.  The IPCC has not convincingly answered the questions we have asked (and neither has the climate science consensus). We do know this: a mass hysteria has been whipped up by people and organizations purporting to bring about so-called climate change solutions who are also big beneficiaries. Trillions of dollars have already been spent to no effect, yet they are demanding even more. Who benefits?  The climate change industrial complex, John Podesta, China, Goldman Sachs, Al Gore & John Kerry, the degrowth zealots, Blackrock and Klaus Schwaab. Who loses? most of the rest of us, developing countries, thousands of species & habitats, taxpayers, the average consumer and real science. The climate change agenda threatens our modern way of life. Listen in to arm yourself with the arguments we need to be making to resist it.