8-16-25 The Weekend Hour 3: Department of Energy Declares Climate Change Not Catastrophic!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tonight, Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director
of talk show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie, You're
doing a heck of a job the Weekend with Michael
Brown broadcasting Life from Denver, Colorado. You've tuned into the
Weekend with Michael Brown, and I'm really glad that you've
done that. I appreciate you joining the program today. Text
line is always open whether you're listening live, delayed or
on a podcast. That message number is three three one

(00:23):
zero three. Keyword Mike or Michael. Do me a favor,
Go follow me on X. We have a lot of
fun on X. It's at Michael Brown USA. Go do
that right now at Michael Brown USA. One of the
subtle changes that is occurring within the country that we
will see the fruits of you know, perhaps well, I think, well,

(00:48):
we're already beginning to see the fruits of it. But
how long it will last will depend on how well
we do in the midterm elections and who wins the
president see in twenty twenty eight. But setting that aside,
that even if we lose the midterms, and assuming that

(01:09):
I think as I think, we will, you know, who knows.
Twenty twenty eight is a long ways off, but assuming
that there's a Republican president, even if we lose the
House or the Senate or both in the midterms, these
subtle changes will continue. I would even make the argument
that if we lose the presidency, we lose in the

(01:33):
House in the Senate, that at least seeing these changes
occur now will have two positive effects. Those who feel
beaten down, like we've lost everything, we're losing all the arguments. No,

(01:54):
we're not what Trump Regardless of what you think about
him individually, I really don't care whether you like the
way he dresses his hair, the way he speaks, I
don't care about any of that. What I see in
Trump two point zho is a man on a mission,
a guy who is trying to change those things that

(02:17):
we know intuitively are wrong, and that in turn starts
to change public policy, and it starts to change how
many people look at public policy and those It's kind
of like COVID. When you go back to COVID, those
of us who believe that you know the stars. COVD

(02:39):
two shot the so called vaccine was ineffective, that it
was rushed, that the mRNA technology wasn't quite ready, or
maybe wasn't appropriate for a virus as opposed to a
bacterial infection or something else. All of the questions, all
the doubts, all the stupid policies put in place. You

(03:03):
can't go surfing, you can't go out and sit on
the beach, you can't walk, you can't go to a park.
It's okay to walk into a restaurant with a mask on,
or actually it's required to walk into a restaurant with
a mask on, but you can take your stupid mask
off once you sit down. Have you ever thought about
just how insane that was? Well, Similarly, I would argue
that when the Endangerment Rule was adopted during the Obama administration,

(03:29):
which allowed the EPA to determine that COE two, what
I'm exhaling right now is a pollutant, is a greenhouse gas,
which it is. It means a greenhouse gas, But greenhouse
gas in and of itself isn't dangerous, But that this
greenhouse gas that I'm exhaling is a pollutant that's going
to kill mankind and is a direct causal link to

(03:50):
climate change. You and I knew that was insane. And
then when based on that singular rule. Then when you
start adopting policies like we have in Colorado, and I'm
sure you probably have some something similar in your state too,
where we have this stupid gold that the Democrats keep
shoving down our throat about net zero. They want to

(04:13):
get to net zero by twenty thirty, meaning net zero
CO two emissions by thirty two by twenty thirty. Well,
stop and thinking about what that means. So to do that,
do we have to kill off a certain number of people?
Do we stop stop driving internal combustion engines? Do we
have to start transporting stop transporting food from farm to market.
I mean, it's insane when you stop and think, you

(04:35):
stop and actually think about the logic of what they're
trying to accomplish. I'm here today to tell you that
it's not the end of the world, and the subtle
changes are starting to take a foothold in our body politic.

(04:56):
There's a new Department of Energy report out that in
this climate where we're told we have to conform, actually
dar's to acknowledge both the reality of human driven global
warming and actually opening the door for we ought to have.
In fact, we have a critical need for open debate

(05:18):
about the consequences of the claim that global warming is
human driven, and an open and honest debate about is
it really and the solutions that you're proposing are they realistic?
Have you done a cost benefit analysis? Is it really
worth our while to pursue this pipe dream of net

(05:42):
zero enters. No, it's not, it's not logical, and it's
not cost beneficial. Yes, the report concludes that the Earth's
climate is changing. Oh my gosh, there's a headline. Really,
if we understand, I'm not a geologist, but I know

(06:07):
enough to know what I don't know, honestly, But I
also know enough to know that the climate on this
planet has changed since God said let there be liked,
because that's the physical system he put in place. And I,
as I've said before, and you know, I was on

(06:32):
Tavis Smiley. Tavis Smiley is a talk show host out
in Los Angeles, and I was on his program, I
don't know, once or twice a year. He asked me
to come on. And it's always funny because he and
I are one hundred and eighty degrees apart. If we
could be further than one hundred and eighty degrees apart,
we probably are in terms of our political beliefs, our
political philosophies, and our stance on things like climate change.

(06:56):
So I said to him during that interview that, oh,
I think that humans probably play a role in climate change.
It's inevitable because we're carbon beings just like the animals,
and yes we pollute. But the causal link or the

(07:17):
degree to which we have in effect on climate change,
I think is dominimous. And even if it is a
large effect on climate change, what would you have us do?
Tavi us? You want you want us to just get
rid of human beings and just let you know, plants
and animals besides humans roam the earth. And of course

(07:39):
you know he takes he takes offense to it, but
call somebody that cares. But if we admit that the
Earth's climate is changing, and then we might play a
deminimous role, then no, this is not necessarily unfolding catastrophe
that we've all been warned about and continue to be

(07:59):
warned about on a daily basis. In any other political era,
an agency like the Department of Energy taking such a measured,
evidence based approach would have made headlines. But in this environment,
in fact, I would say, just to be a smart
ass in this heated environment. It almost feels like it's

(08:23):
a revolutionaire. It's a revolution of some sort. I don't
think it's a revolution, but I tell you what it is.
It's an effect of having different people with an open
mindset putting together policy papers that will down the line
affect public policy. And for the first time, we're being
honest and open about it. Just look at where we

(08:44):
are discussing. Climate science has become so polarized that even
if you're somewhere in the middle, those who may admit that, oh, okay,
maybe we have a problem, but let's question the severity
of the problem. If that's you, you're going to get
attacked from every side. If you don't pair it the

(09:05):
most alarming predictions, then you're climate denier if you don't
dismiss all the warnings out right in your naive Is
there any room at all anymore for an honest inquiry
and a rigorous debate, Because isn't the upside of solving
the issue If there's an issue to be solved, truly
understanding risks and benefit, a best course of action isn't

(09:34):
if there's room for honest inquiry and rigous debate. Isn't
the upside of solving an issue, any issue, I don't
care what it is. Isn't that too great to leave
to politics? And I'm not saying exclude politics, but we're
leaving everything right now exclusively to politics. Travis Fisher from

(09:55):
the Cato Institute helped organize the Department's Independent Climate Working Group,
an independent Climate working Group, and what did they come
up with? Text the word Michael Michael to three three
ONNESAYO three. Go follow me on x at Michael Brown. Ussay,
I'll tell you next. Hey, so the Weekend with Michael Brown.

(10:22):
Thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you being here. You
know you do me. Do me a great favor. Go
follow me on x at Michael Brown USA, and on
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(10:42):
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the weekday program plus the weekend program. So let's go
back to this report, the Travis Fisher from the Cato
Institute to help the department organize a independent climate working group.

(11:05):
Lots of executive departments and agencies will do this. We
had a post nine to eleven. We had a working
group that I was a part of that work together
to try to put together the policies that we would
need to deal with nine to eleven. So this is
not unusual, but oftentimes these working groups filter out into

(11:30):
other departments and agencies with policy recommendations, and this is
one way that you start to change the culture and
you start to change the policy perspectives throughout the federal government.
So the fact that they've done this within DOE under
the guise of Chris Wright, I think it's fantastic. Now,

(11:53):
Like a lot of you that read widely skeptically with
a jaundice, I Travis Fisher had become, I think, really
frustrated because he started seeing those who would question the
climate so called crisis narrative. They would get shut down

(12:14):
by activists on one side while seeing real concerns about
if there is climate change and that climate change is
global warming, then it gets dismissed. So as I walk
through this, I want you to think about something. If
you believe, as I do, that the climate really does change,

(12:37):
and we go through warm periods, maybe really hot periods,
cool periods, are really cold periods, then the question becomes,
if that is something that's going to occur, and it
naturally occurs, irrespect to you, how many humans are on Earth,
or whether we're driving an EV or an internal combustion engine,

(12:58):
If it's going to occur regardless of what we do,
then what should we do? I think that's the way
to approach the issue that most people tend to ignore
during the During the break, Michael asked me, have you

(13:19):
did you see the hurricane? Yeah? I heard about it
this morning. I heard there's a there there's a big
hurricane that's developing off the out in the Atlantic somewhere. Well, duh,
that's what happens during hurricane season. So rather than hurricanes

(13:41):
which naturally form, tornadoes, which naturally form this is all weather, right, blizzards, floods,
heat waves, droughts. What should be our response to that?
Our response should be how do we mitigate against the

(14:01):
effects of those weather events? Well, in Florida, they adopt
new building codes that require that if you're going to
build a new building that it needs to be hurricane
proof to the extent that you can make anything hurricane proof.
But it increased the building code standards so that the

(14:21):
damage would not be as great. That's called mitigation. If
you live in a flood zone, you know we have
the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina coming up. Well we
know that New Orleans exists in a fish bowl. Now
what we ought to do is, as long as people
are going to live in New Orleans, you ought to

(14:42):
learn to mitigate against floodwaters. The Netherlands has done that,
we ought to do it in New Orleans. If you
live in an earthquake prone area, California adopts building code
standards to allow, you know, high rises to sway and
so that they're not so stiff that the slightest hurricane,

(15:04):
you know, a boom brings down a high rise. That's mitigation.
Well go back to Travis Fisher from CATO. He didn't
want to go back into government, and I don't blame him,
but he kept being persuaded by Chris Wright, the Secretary
of the Energy. He kept being persuaded by Secretary rights

(15:26):
commitment to prioritizing real data over ideology and then creating
a space where you could have rigorous open science debate. Well,
Secretary Rights plan was simple and radical. Elevate the debate.
I take that to mean put together a team of credentialed,
independently minded scientists. So they did. They put John Christy,

(15:50):
Judith Curry, Steve kun and Ross mccittrick, Roy Spencer. Now,
if you study climate change at all, you recognize that
those are all independent thinkers. Those who are not independent
thinkers would look at that list and go, oh, those
are all climate deniers. No. Roy Spencer's not a climate denier.

(16:10):
He's a realistic. He's a realist. And their object their
mandate to review the state of climate science absence spend
political pressure, and then publish your findings for everybody to read.
So those five scientists were given complete intellectual freedom, no

(16:31):
marching orders, no political filters. Whether or not you support
every aspect of the Trump administration's energy policy, you cannot
dismiss the integrity of a process that allows independent scientists
to reach independent conclusions. So what does the report find?
As Fisher himself writes, climate science, let alone climate policy,

(16:57):
is far more nuanced than the SUMMARYCE for policy makers.
Would have you believe that alone is the starting point
where you can actually have a rigorous debate about can
we really do anything to affect climate change? And if
we can or cannot, what should be public policy about that?

(17:19):
And if we can do anything, should there be a
public policy that says we ought to learn to mitigate that,
we ought to learn that, Oh yeah, it's going to
we're going to go through a warm period, or we're
going to go through a cool period, or we're going
to have, you know, increase CO two which may have
a diminishm effect. But what should be a public policy?

(17:42):
I applaud this, and let me explain why I applauded.
So Weekend with Michael Brown. Text lines open thirty three
one oh three, keyword Micha or Michael. Be right back tonight.
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of
talk show host Michael Brown. Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing

(18:03):
a heck of a job. The Weekend with Michael Brown. Hey,
So the Weekend with Michael Brown. Thanks for tuning in.
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you listening,
I really do. So we're talking about this department of
Energy working group that was put together to look at
climate change and no politics, just you know, study it,

(18:24):
tell us what you think, solovie can have an honest
debate about it. And they start out with one basic conclusion,
and that is that climate science, let alone the policy
that emanates from climate science, is a lot more nuanced
than policy makers want you and I to believe. Now,
I believe that they had policy makers want us to

(18:48):
believe that it's catastrophic, it's inevitable, which I do. I
do believe the climate change is inevitable, that this catastrophe
that we're about to experience is inevitable because that fits
their political agenda, which if you look at key now,
I know there are always exceptions, but if you were

(19:10):
to look at a large group of people that believe
in climate change, and then you look at, you know,
across section, you do an overlay of their politics, you'll
find that, generally speaking, they're progressive, leftists, Marxist. Well, why
would they be so adamant that climate change is catastrophic

(19:36):
and that we must do something about that because that
fits perfectly with their political agenda. Because their political agenda
is one of the destruction of individual liberty and individual freedom,
replacing that with the state the government, and the government

(19:58):
starts making more and more decisions, a planned economy, determining
how you live, where you live, how you get yourself
from one place to another. It's all part of the
Marxist design to take over and destroy the United States.
Oh well, what was that guy's name. He had a phrase,
the fundamental transformation of America. That's what they're engaged in.

(20:23):
And climate change is one of their mechanisms which they
will fundamentally transform this country. I mean, when you think
about the logical conclusion of where they want us to go,
we might as well just all, you know, a gigantic
you know, a gigantic offing of humanity. Well except for them,

(20:45):
I mean that'll want to stick around because well but
what will they do, How will they live without all
of us, you know, shlubs and pleabs to go out
and produce all the stuff so they can live in
their mansions and fly their private jets and do everything else.
But that's just how stupid they are. That's just how
stupid Marxism and communism is to begin with. That's why
a planned economy has never worked. China, we're looking at you, Russia.

(21:09):
We're looking at you Venezuela. It's already in the crapper now.
The report, being objective, does affirm basic physics greenhouse gases
do warm the planet, but it actually interrogates questions, doubts,

(21:31):
all of the extreme claims that get parroted by the Cabal,
because they found almost no convincing evidence that hurricanes, tornadoes, flouds, floods, droughts,
whatever you want, whatever you want to list, none of
those have become more frequent or intense in recent decades.
In fact, it's contrary to the impression that you would
get from the Cabal itself, from almost any headline. We're

(21:55):
always told this is gonna be the worst hurricane season ever,
the droughts are, the wild land fires are worse than ever. Well,
I don't know. We got four or five fires burning
in Colorado right now. We got some out west, we
got some up north to us, we got some in Canada.
And there, you know, as I think I talked, I
don't remember what I talked about the on the national program,

(22:16):
of the local program. But in Nova Scotia, you can't
go out, I mean, in essence, cannot go into the
forest anymore because of forest fire. So what do we
do to prevent forest fires? Oh, Smokey Bear would be
very very happy. You just can't even go to the forest.
You might snap a twig and somehow that's gonna create
a spark. You're gonna be on your hiking boots and

(22:38):
your rubber sold hiking boots and you're gonna step on
a twig and it's gonna break and that's gonna somehow
create a spark that's gonna create a forest fire. I mean,
it's insane what we do now. I think the debate
should continue. But at least these findings out of this
working group, from these well qualified experts, perhaps won't get

(23:00):
round out and we'll start seeing some water tossed on
this alarmist narrative. And the report goes beyond weather extremes.
They found that the projections of economic devastation from warming
are likely exaggerated. In fact, I would argue that they
indeed are exaggerated. I think there are actually benefits to
the biosphere. You know, if you look at satellite records,

(23:24):
this shows sustained increase in global leaf area, and with
that comes increased agricultural productivity. With increased CO two fertilization.
Those benefits are well welfare relevant, and you've got to
include it in a calculus. If you normalize for population

(23:46):
and wealth, losses do not show from disasters, do not
show an upward trend. Climate related mortality has fallen as
energy access, housing forecast is all improved. Those are all
mitigation efforts. Treating every bad weather year is proof of
somehow it's endangering the entire world. Population is not risk assessment,

(24:11):
it's not a cost benefit analysis. It's just pure, unadulterated
religion climate religion. You think about sea level rises. Global
rise has always existed, but it's modest. And then when
you look at localities, you realize that local outcomes when

(24:33):
they scream about, oh, sea level rise in Miami Dade County,
or sea level rise on Cape cod or sea level
rise you know, out in seattles wherever it might be well,
local outcomes are shaped by vertical land motion, subsidence, groundwater extraction,
sediment that gets compacted coastal engineering. So any effective policy

(24:59):
begins with a local diagnosis and then targeted mitigation, targeted
protection rather than some broad national carbon mandate and extreme events.
You know we're told that, oh, we got more and
more extreme events, Well, the trends are mixed. Global cyclone

(25:19):
counts don't show a persistent increase. Burned area has actually
declined since the nineteen nineties. Heavy precipitation changes are almost
always regional, and then the detection and attribution methods are
always dependent upon the model that's used, and that's sensitive

(25:40):
to the design that the study design that you use
to study those things. I think you ought to be
very cautious before linking emissions to every hazard metric. Adaptation
when we think about adaptation or mitigation, that always performs

(26:05):
better than trying to control climate change. Forecasting, building codes,
intelligent sighting of where you're going to build something, heat
and fire management, emergency responses. That delivers measurable risk reduction
because if you buy the assumption based on all the

(26:28):
historical data, that the climate does and will always change,
and even if mankind increases that change or precipitates that change,
or accelerates that change, because wherever it can go one
way or the other. Right now, they're claiming that CO
two is increasing global warming. Well wait a minute, if

(26:50):
that is all true, then what would you do to
decrease that because if you do, like in Colorado where
they want to what they want doing in Colorado, I'm
sure it's true. I know it's true. In California, it's
true in New York, it's true in Illinois. Well, they
want us to get out of internal combustion engines. Well
there's not a market for that, but you have you

(27:12):
have to produce the electricity, and nobody wants to use
nuclear to produce electricity. So what are we gonna do?
Solar and wind is unreliable. I saw a great article
a couple of days ago about a gigantic solar farm
that was just completely destroyed by a hailstorm. Hmm, how

(27:35):
reliable is that going to be? And what's the cost
for fixing that? And then you have the problem with modeling.
You know, many models that are used by the activists
and the congruts and the Church of the Climate activists,
almost all those models run warmer than observationally constrained ranges.

(27:57):
The social cost of carbon depends heavily on the discount rate,
damage functions, assumptions about adaptation, and whether values are global
or domestic. You know, the EPA ought to present a
domestic range with transparent sensitivity and actually include the biosphere
of benefits. But they're not going to do that because
they don't want to show any benefit because then that

(28:19):
destroys well, even if it doesn't destroy, it causes rational
people to go, well, wait a minute, there is a
benefit to CO two in the atmosphere. Yeah, life is
the essence of life. CO two absolutely necessary. So you

(28:40):
go back to the study and you realize that, well, yeah,
there are risks, but should we silence the risks? No,
we ought to actually debate the risk. That's the point.
Science needs scrutiny. And when you declare that the science
is settled, well, that doesn't just stifle dessent. That threatens

(29:01):
the integrity of science itself. Let me tell you one
thing that Judith Curry said in this study, because I
think it's fascinating. Hangtight, I'll tell you that next. Hey,
welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. You know,

(29:22):
every every time I come into the studio or broadcast
from a remote location on Saturday, you don't know how
much I appreciate all of you that tune in, because
I really do. It's the weekend and I know that
you take time out to listen to this program, either
live or depending on your affiliate, maybe they play it
later in the day or tomorrow, or you listen to

(29:43):
it on the podcast. But regardless, you listen to the program,
and the numbers show that, and I appreciate it. And
many of you have come over and listened to the
local program, and I greatly appreciate that. So I always
wanted to make sure that you understand that. I know
that you take time out to listen to the program,
and I appreciate that. So do me a favor besides

(30:04):
listening to the program. So be sure and follow me
on x at Michael Brown USA, and don't forget to
download that subscribe and download the podcast on your podcast app,
search for the Situation with Michael Brown, hit that subscribe button,
leave a five star review because that helps helps with
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(30:25):
five days of the weekday program and the weekend program.
And I do appreciate it to show you how this
whole climate thing is just it's really it truly is
a bugaboo with me because I don't see it so
much as an issue about the climate as I do
an issue about control. Because I'm adamant that the only

(30:48):
reason this country has survived for the two hundred and
fifty years that we will celebrate next July, but that
we may continue to survive in the future, is because
we relish dual liberty and freedom. And I see one
of the greatest threats, in addition to threats against free
speech or the Second Amendment or any of the Bill

(31:09):
of Rights, is this idea that somehow government is going
to control the climate. The only way to control the
climate is to control us. Leave me alone, leave you alone.
We'll figure out ways to mitigate it, because the climate
is going to change. I you know, I'm just old

(31:32):
enough to remember the cover of Time magazine about the
coming you know, Oh my gosh, we're the coming ice age,
and then it changed to you know, we're going to
have global warming and we're all going to burn to death.
Remember al Gore and the stupid hockey stick, all of
which is designed one to put fear in the uninformed,

(31:55):
to make the uninformed malleable, so that we can impose
these government controls on how we live our lives. Don't
leave me alone, leave you alone. But then you've got
people like you know, this could have been the nation's
first step daughter. Kamala's stepdaughter Ella I think is her name,

(32:18):
Ella m Hoff's Doug Emov her husband's daughter. She was
out talking about how she's really struggling. I think one
I experienced a lot of climate anxiety, like a lot
of us do. It's not funny. It's just like it's

(32:38):
one of those things. It's not funny. Oh, she's really
struggling with climate anxiety. That could have been the first
step daughter. Yes, struggling with climate anxiety. It shows that
they have an effect. It shows that they can pull

(32:58):
it off. And what we have to do is push
against it every opportunity that we get, which is why
I go back to Judith Curry in the report or
in response to the report from the Department of Enters,
she says, quote any scientist that is not skeptical. Skeptical

(33:21):
isn't doing their job. The mainstream attempt to enforce a
full consensus to support political objectives is anesthetical to science.
Close quote. So this report, which you've got to really
dig to find any any reporting about it in the
mainstream media, in the cabal, is already making ways the EPA.

(33:46):
And this is my proof about how these subtle changes
filter out into the rest of the executive branch, which
then affects public policy. The EPA has cited it in
their own proposal to reconsider the designation of greenhouse gases
as a threat to public health. Well, that's going to
trigger all sorts of legal battles, but that's fine. You

(34:09):
want to fight it out in the courts, We'll go
fight it out in the courts. But it will also,
i believe, lead most importantly to more scientific debate. And
that's good because that means we're finally starting to have
a real conversation about climate change and not just one
way dialogue. It reminds us that it's still possible to

(34:32):
actually challenge dogma, to challenge the orthodoxy, the gospel of
the congregants in the Church, of the climate activists, to
prefer that we talk about facts and not fear, and
then to craft public policy that reflects the full complexity
of our choices, not just those in the church, not

(34:54):
just those true believers. It's good to have scrutiny, it's
good to have debate. There are not easy answers. As
we become more and more deluged with information, then the
more important it is that we learn to take that

(35:17):
information with nuanced, jaundiced, skeptical questioning. I don't care what
you know, agitive you, or adverb you put in front
of it, but it's good to have that debate. They
want to stifle the debate. You should think to yourself

(35:39):
that anytime someone wants to stifle debate by telling you,
for example, that the science is settled, run because they
don't want you questioning their orthodoxy, their gospel. And if
that's the case, I mean put it in put it
in religious terms. If you're unwilling, incapable, or scared of

(36:05):
defending your faith, then hmm, maybe you're not as faithful
as you believe. I want us to have the robust
debate because without it, they'll win, and they'll start imposing
their will upon us in the political realm. And when
they impose their will in the political realm, that's one

(36:26):
more notch that they are entightening the noose around the
way we live our lives. Do not let that happen again.
Thanks for tuning in. It's always great to be able
to talk to you. So good to see you this Saturday.
And guess what I'll see you next Saturday take Care