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March 13, 2024 54 mins

Climate Change Roundtable is now The Climate Realism Show. The same great climate news and analysis from The Heartland Institute's world-class climate and energy experts, but a snazzy new name that gets right to the heart of what it is about.

On episode 101 of The Climate Realism Show, we examine the folly of electrification of EVERYTHING that are chasing NetZero goals. It seems that not only is there a plethora of electric cars that fail regularly, but there are also battery powered trains and airplanes which also seem doomed to failure.

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, and the always sharp Linnea Lueken, provide expert commentary on ELECTRIC Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Plus, we will also have our regular weekly feature, Crazy Climate News - where we look at some of the most absurd climate alarmism stories of the week. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET (12 p.m. CT) to get the latest news and join the chat to ask questions of your own.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Biden (00:10):
And that's what climate change is about. It is
literally not figuratively aclear and present danger.

Greta Thunberg (00:16):
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.

Jim Lakely (00:20):
The ability of c 02 to do the heavy work of creating
a climate catastrophe is almostnil at this point.

H. Sterling Burnett (00:26):
The price of oil has been artificially
elevated to the point ofinsanity.

Jim Lakely (00:31):
That's not how you power a modern industrial
system. The ultimate goal ofthis renewable energy, you know,
plan is to reach the exact samepoint that we're at now. Yeah.
You know who's tried that?Germany.

H. Sterling Burnett (00:45):
7 straight days of no wind for Germany.
Their factories are shuttingdown.

Linnea Lueken (00:50):
They really do act like weather didn't happen
prior to, like, 1910.

Greta Thunberg (00:57):
Today is Friday.

Anthony Watts (01:01):
That's right, Greta, you pint sized
protagonist. It is Friday, andthis is our own personal Friday
protest. Climate realism show,the new name, episode 101,
electric trains, planes, andautomobiles going nowhere fast.
I'm your host, Anthony Watts,senior fellow for environment
and climate at the HeartlandInstitute. Joining us today are

(01:23):
regular panelists, doctor hSterling Burnett, director of
the Arthur b Robinson Center,and Linnea Lukin, research
fellow at the Robinson Center.
Welcome, guys, and happy Friday.

Linnea Lueken (01:34):
Happy Friday. And today is hat day.

H. Sterling Burnett (01:36):
Today is hat day, and I'm wearing my
Texas Rangers official worldchampionship,

Linnea Lueken (01:43):
the

H. Sterling Burnett (01:45):
the greatest team sports victory in
the history of mankind, and, ofcourse, everyone knows I don't
exaggerate.

Anthony Watts (01:50):
Well, you're certainly justified in wearing
that. You know, they did a greatjob. It really was a great great
thing. Anyway, we're gonna getto our regular topic, our main
topic, planes, trains, andautomobiles in just a little
bit. But first, crazy climatenews of the week, and, boy, have
we got some for you this week.

(02:10):
Scientists wanna build a 62 milelong curtain around the doomsday
glacier to basically contain allthat meltwater. $50,000,000,000.
A hail Mary. Yeah. Right.
That's gonna work. What do youthink? Charlie?

H. Sterling Burnett (02:31):
I'm almost at a loss as to have anything to
think. It's just so idiotic. Youknow? What, you know, what are
they is the curtain gonna beblack so it absorbs heat? Is it
gonna be white so it reflectsheat?
How did they tuck it under theglacier so it doesn't melt or
move? If it's translucent, well,it might magnify the sun's rays,

(02:55):
act as a, you know, like a a spythe the magnifying glass that
you used to, you know, burn upinsects with. It it's just it's
idiotic, and this is look.Glacier's it has melted in the
past. It has recovered, allwithout human intervention,

(03:19):
either in the melting or therecovery.
And this is just one morestupid, stupid.

Anthony Watts (03:29):
It's like really feel.

H. Sterling Burnett (03:31):
It's a kid's yeah. It's a kid's sign
it's a kid's science fictionstory is what it is.

Anthony Watts (03:37):
Yep. Yeah. It's it's it's not even good science
fiction.

H. Sterling Burnett (03:41):
Yeah.

Anthony Watts (03:42):
It's science fantasy. That's really what it
is. And and, you know, and thefirst time some sea mammal gets
trapped inside the curtain Oh.Yeah. Then what are they gonna
do?
Right?

H. Sterling Burnett (03:54):
Yeah. All your all your, your, your
penguins migrate over there, andthen they get trapped and can't
feed, and all their young die.That'll be climate change's
fault, by the way.

Anthony Watts (04:05):
Yeah. Right. That's climate change's fault,
not the idiocy of the so calledscientists. Alright. Speaking of
idiocy, historic dam removal inCalifornia.
Now there's been this issue withthe Klamath River in
Northeastern California, and theenvironmentalists have been
wanting to take out the dams foryears because, oh, no. The
salmon can't make it upstream.So we're gonna get rid of all

(04:28):
the dams. And in the process,getting rid of the dams, we're
gonna put 100, if not thousandsof people out of business, you
know, that are farming in thearea, livelihoods for families.
But we're not gonna worry aboutthat.
No. We're not gonna worry aboutthat at all. It's the salmon
that are important. River, andthey all got squished in the new

(04:54):
tube or whatever. Plus that,there's huge amounts of muck,
sediment, mire that's nowpolluting the main river.
It's an environmental disastercaused by environmentalists.

H. Sterling Burnett (05:09):
And, of course, a disaster in another
way. It's not just the Klamath.It's it's rivers all around the
northwest. They're taking damsdown. These dams weren't put
there for no reason, by the way.
They provide they providehydropower. Most of them have
ladders for salmon to go around.But so they're taking out the

(05:31):
only reliable, relativelyreliable renewable source of
power in the region, that keepsthe lights on in California and
elsewhere. They're taking thosedams out. They're killing the
salmon downstream, and they'redoing nothing about the sea
lions and seals that are,feasting at the mouths of the

(05:55):
rivers at the salmon come backbecause they're no longer
harassed or hunted by humans orprotected instead.
So it's one government createdproblem after another with the
solution never, well, let's fixthe initial problem. They just

(06:16):
make it worse.

Anthony Watts (06:18):
Yeah. I know. The the environmentalist movement

Linnea Lueken (06:25):
Oops. He's been taken out.

Anthony Watts (06:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And then they don't look around as
to what the, you know, therepercussions might be. And it
it's it's the we see the samething again and again and again,
like, with offshore wind powerin Wales. You know?

H. Sterling Burnett (06:42):
Renee, do you have something to say about
this?

Linnea Lueken (06:45):
Oh, me on the salmon? Well, I don't know. I my
only commentary was going to bethat it's not hard to build a
fish ladder. Most dams, I think,do have them at this point. They
do.
Apparently, the the fish weresucked through the tube and they
were, killed by the increasedwater pressure, which is

(07:06):
something that they had to havehad engineers on this. And so
the engineers must have toldthem that this was going to
happen, and they just didn'tlisten, I guess. They're they're
now putting the fish downstreammanually from what I understood
in the articles, to avoid thisfrom happening again until

(07:26):
they're able to fully remove thedam. But it's still it is kind
of insane that, you know,hydropower is a very good
renewable in the areas that itworks. It works very well and
consistently for the most part,far more consistently than wind
or solar do.
And yet this is the one thatthey don't like. Starting to

(07:48):
think that maybe inefficiency isthe goal. You know?

H. Sterling Burnett (07:52):
Of course. And if they're putting them
downstream, that's just well,they could have put them
downstream with the dam stillthere.

Linnea Lueken (07:58):
Right.

H. Sterling Burnett (07:58):
There was already a stream, folks. Just
put them there if that's wherethey're gonna go in the first if
you're gonna put them in thefirst place. It's it's like

Anthony Watts (08:05):
Yeah. It Yeah. Well, once again, there they go.

H. Sterling Burnett (08:09):
I think, Linnea, may be too charitable.
She thinks they hired engineersfor this. My suspicion is they
hired environmental engineerswho who studied the new math
where 1 and 1 doesn'tnecessarily equal 2. It's
subjective. It depends on yourfeelings, and, this is the
result.

Anthony Watts (08:26):
Yeah. Once again, they put the mental in
environmentalism. Alright. Let'sgo to the next one. We've got,
this guy who's smugglinggreenhouse gases.
This is hilarious. This is likesomething out of the Babylon
Bee. This guy is smugglingrefrigerant from Mexico into the
United States. And instead ofjust simply saying there he's

(08:49):
smuggling refrigerant to keepthe old refrigerators working
because there is a market for iteven if it is a black market,
they say, no. He's smugglinggreenhouse gases.
Oh my goodness. It just it it'sand, again, this is what
happens. Environmentalism says,oh, the ozone hole. The ozone
hole. We gotta save it.
We gotta save it. And so we godown this path of getting rid of

(09:10):
these refrigerants, which somepeople suspect had absolutely
nothing to do with the ozonehole, but had to do with the
patent expiration that DuPontheld for the refrigerants of the
time. So then we gotta createnew refrigerants to save the
ozone hole, but we got a patenton those that last for another
17 years. So there you go. But,anyway, so now they're smuggling
of greenhouse gases, and, Ican't wait for someone to be

(09:33):
arrested for driving a carbondioxide tanker.
That's gonna be great.

H. Sterling Burnett (09:39):
Well, you know, the black market in, in
CFCs and others have been aroundfor a while. I hadn't heard
about the smuggling from Mexico,but, you know, he was he was not
very smart because if it's noteasy, I I I've noticed on my
border, it's not easy to getillegal things across the border

(09:59):
of Texas. I mean, it's not hard.Things people come across daily.
And if a cartel wanted to getinto this, they could put a c a
CFC tube in everyone's backpackas they come across.
And and DPS,

Anthony Watts (10:12):
you know, they're Greenhouse gas mules.

H. Sterling Burnett (10:13):
Yeah. Greenhouse gas mules. And and
the and the government's ideawould be hands off. We gotta
let's ship them to Chicago, viaplanes, because we certainly
can't arrest them for breakingthe law. You can rob people.
You can kill people. We don'tarrest you for breaking the law.
So are they really gonna bearrested if they're smuggling
greenhouse gases? I suspect not.

Anthony Watts (10:34):
Yeah. No. Naleya, you've been awfully quiet during
this crazy part of the show.

Linnea Lueken (10:41):
I'm keeping up with our

Anthony Watts (10:42):
for you to comment on?

Linnea Lueken (10:43):
I'll almost. I'm keeping up with our fantastic
audience here. We, we have a lotof comments today. Everyone's
having a good time. I don'tknow.
I guess he was just that guy wasgonna was suspected of
committing a, or planning tocommit an ozone attack. So

H. Sterling Burnett (11:06):
An ozone attack. There you go.

Anthony Watts (11:08):
Oh my goodness. Alright. Let's move on to
cartoons. There've been a numberof cartoons the last couple of
weeks. Apparently, now, youknow, there's a mandate for,
eating lemons with the UAW.
And, more expensive, lots range,less gobs. That's all good for
the planet, but not so good forthe UAW. But, apparently,

(11:30):
they're going along with itbecause must be some kickback in
there somewhere. That's howthose guys operate. Alright.
Next cartoon. We've got, oneabout the electric Daytona 500.
Yes. Indeed. They wanna make theDaytona 500 electric.
Wow. The thrill, the speed, thenoise, the recharging wait. It's

(11:52):
all fun.

H. Sterling Burnett (11:52):
Yeah. The recharging wait and and then
when they have a crash they

Anthony Watts (11:56):
can't put the fire up.

H. Sterling Burnett (11:58):
Yeah. They have to cancel the race and and
restart 2 days later. You know,but I wanna go I wanna go back
just for a second to that guygetting arrested. We have
worried for some time about,people being declared climate
criminals and prosecutions. Hemay be the first example.
It it's not it's not paranoid.It's not paranoia if they really

(12:21):
are out to get you.

Anthony Watts (12:25):
Yep. Yep. Climate criminals. And finally, Greta,
can Leonardo da Vinci use oilpaint? This happens to be
something I found on theInternet.
It's true. Alright. Let's go onto our main topic, planes,
trains, and automobiles,electric version. Of course, we

(12:48):
all know that hurricanes andelectric vehicles don't mix,
particularly when the saltwatergets involved. And, you know, it
doesn't even take hurricane tocause electric cars to go k
boom.
No. They'll just do it on theirown. You know, they the movie,
planes, trains, and automobiles,it's all about these different
modes of transportation. Youknow? And they all fail badly in

(13:11):
the movie, leaving Steve Martinstuck with John Candy in these
hilarious situations.
And now with net zero being thelatest nonsensical climate goal,
we noticed that for quite awhile, there is different modes
of transportations nowelectrified are feeling just as
badly as what went on during themovie. In fact, we regularly see

(13:32):
electric cars standing by coldweather or out of charge or
spontaneously catching fire justlike what happened in the movie.
Let's roll this clip. Yeah.What?

(14:10):
That that's basically the sumtotal of it. You know? That we
see this with electric cars nowon a regular basis. In fact,
with the hurricane situation,hurricane Ian, one of the auto
junkers that has you know, thathauled all these things away
because they wouldn't runanymore decided he's going to
put them in this parking lot allby themselves and give them 50
foot spacing so that when onespontaneously But

Linnea Lueken (14:38):
But what about the grass? That's what I
thought. That grass looked alittle parched to me.

H. Sterling Burnett (14:44):
I was gonna say, it looked like a pretty
much a dirt lot, but but I'm notconvinced that for a, auto
junkyard, that is a veryefficient use of space. But
that's just me. I've been to

Anthony Watts (14:58):
a few

H. Sterling Burnett (14:59):
of them. They they seem to stack these
things up in most instances. Youyou you go and and pull out your
own thing. I'm not going therefor sure.

Linnea Lueken (15:10):
Well well, Sterling, I think it's probably
a better use of space thanhaving your entire junkyard
burned down.

Anthony Watts (15:19):
Yeah. Perhaps so. Well, you know, it is what it
is. But, planes, trains, andautomobiles, they're all being
electrified now. You know?
And, I don't I haven't seen thisvideo. What's this one? Oh,
there we go. There's one up inflames. Yeah.
Just along the side of the road.Just normal weather, normal

(15:41):
travel. That's incredible.

H. Sterling Burnett (15:43):
Saw that I saw that a couple years ago, on
my way back from Austin throughDenton. There was a an EV with
no apparent accident damage. Ithink that it was just it
overheated in in, rush hourtraffic, and they had to clear
the highway. Yep.

Anthony Watts (16:05):
Keeps the street warm. You know, electric claims
have yet to capture the publicattention mainly because given
what we've seen with electriccars and their track record, who
wants to be on an electricairplane? I mean, seriously, do
you wanna be on an electricairplane that might
spontaneously combust?

Linnea Lueken (16:24):
Mhmm.

Anthony Watts (16:25):
Yeah. And

Linnea Lueken (16:28):
I I'm I'm skeptical that that will ever,
you know, in terms yeah. Willever take off. Terrible. With,
especially when you it comes topassenger plane like, large
passenger planes and, cargoplanes and stuff like that. I
just don't see how that could beelectrified with current

(16:50):
technology, at least on batterybecause the battery itself would
have to weigh.
I don't know. I it it thenumbers aren't adding up in my
head when I'm plugging themtogether pretty roughly,
especially considering normal,road vehicles. The electric
versions of them are far heavierthan normal, and you have less

(17:11):
range. So I can't imagine thatan electric 747 would do very
much good for anyone even if itdidn't just spontaneously catch
on fire mid flight.

H. Sterling Burnett (17:22):
You just you just put solar panels on the
wings, and and I'm sure theywon't blow off. You can strap
them down. Of course, that addsextra weight. I'm just trying to
figure out how they think thisis gonna work. There may be a
new battery that comes along.
I have no doubt they'reimproving battery technologies,

(17:43):
but still not me. Thank you.

Linnea Lueken (17:47):
You might be able to come up with some kind of a
hybrid electric situation. Youknow, Formula 1 cars are part
electric, but still

H. Sterling Burnett (18:00):
train engines are are diesel electric.
Right? They're they're they'rehybrids. They have been for some
time.

Anthony Watts (18:08):
Yeah. Electric The diesel engine powers the
electric generator. The electricgenerator powers the trucks.

H. Sterling Burnett (18:14):
Right. So I I there it's not the case that
elect that electric, vehiclesare always in all time, a not
bad idea. You know, we talk thethe first notion was trains.
Right? Well, we got electrictrains everywhere.
And, but but they're powered adifferent different way. They're

(18:34):
not battery powered trains.Right. Hooked up to overhead
lines. Right.
They they they run alongspecific routes and corridors,
and they're taking a chargedirectly from, the power system.
That's a very different thingthan a battery powered, train.

Linnea Lueken (18:54):
I will say, though, a Boeing being at the
forefront of this doesn't giveme, at this point in time, very
much comfort.

H. Sterling Burnett (19:03):
Don't don't say that, Linnea. I have Boeing
stock. Don't don't don't trashBoeing.

Linnea Lueken (19:07):
I'm sorry, Sterling, but just today,
another set of, landing gearfell off another Boeing next
month.

H. Sterling Burnett (19:14):
You're killing me here. My portfolio is
suffering every every word youspeak.

Anthony Watts (19:20):
So after, Boeing and NASA worked together to
produce an electric plane, theydecided, well, you know what?
This ain't gonna work. So theykilled the plan, citing safety
concerns because the decisionnot to apply the, to fly it came
about because the agencydiscovered that the propulsion
system had the potential to failand put people at risk. Gosh.

(19:43):
Who would have thought

H. Sterling Burnett (19:43):
Imagine that. Yeah. Imagine that. Well,
you know, I forget it. Justforget it.

Linnea Lueken (19:56):
You're just beside yourself too today,
Sterling?

H. Sterling Burnett (20:00):
It's like, you know, the the the whole
we've got these, electric buses.Right? They're catching fire
left and right. Electricscooters burning down entire
buildings, killing people in NewYork. Why anyone thinks that
these are are a good idea?
Oh, yeah. The entire fleet getstaken out here.

Linnea Lueken (20:23):
Yeah. That old video. That's

H. Sterling Burnett (20:25):
I think it's not that I mean, it's it's
it's only a couple years old.And remember, this video, I
believe, is, is Connecticut is,is Bridgeport, Connecticut's
proud electric bus fleet thatthe day, before this fire took

(20:45):
hold, the the governor wasproudly proclaiming that they
were gonna go all electric intheir fleet in the state of
buses of public buses, and thishappens the very next day, and
they have to pull them all andsay, no. No. Woah. Woah.
Woah. You know, they areconstantly they are constantly
saying, we need to get out ofour cars. We need more public

(21:06):
transportation. We need more.And then what they wanna do is
put people in, in tender boxes.
Let's put them in in in ovensthat could go off at any second.
That's good for the public. Iguess they just don't care about
the poor and middle class whoare the ones that typically take
that. I don't see manymillionaires and billionaires on
electric buses, so maybe theyjust don't care. It's not their

(21:28):
kids.
Their kids are going to privateschools. Somebody don't care if
school buses spontaneously eruptor strand you in the middle of a
Maine winter on a back road.

Anthony Watts (21:44):
Yeah. It just the whole idea of electric cars was
killed over a 100 years ago. Imean, there were at the very
beginning of the automobilerevolution. We had a couple of
of electric cars, one called theDetroit Electric. It looked like
a, you know, an early version ofthe Model T, and it worked.
But it only had a range of,like, 25 miles or something,

(22:06):
which was fine for the timebecause towns were smaller.
There were no interstates orfreeways or whatever. But the
bottom line is even though thatcar worked for the environment
that it was built for, it wassurpassed by the internal
combustion engine driven carsbecause they were so much
better. And that's the wholething. We keep getting pushed
these, you know, these electriccars pushed on us, and they're

(22:29):
not better.
They don't have better range.They don't have better safety
records. They don't haveanything going for them. And yet
we're supposed to just, like,give up these habits of, you
know, driving a gasoline enginevehicle and go for these
electrics. And some people havedone this, and what they found
is, hey.
It doesn't live up to the hype.A lot of people who have owned
electric vehicles, me included,have, you know, gone through the

(22:54):
process and discovered they donot handle the long term or the
distance.

H. Sterling Burnett (23:00):
Let's you you know, Anthony, you mentioned
electric cars have been aroundfor, over a 100 years now. The
first electric vehicle, thistechnology, the government has
says, we need to finance windand solar. We need to finance
EVs. Why? Because they're orphantechnologies.
They're new technologies, and wegotta get them started. We've

(23:21):
just gotta get some initialfinancing. No. The first
electric vehicle was a train puton the tracks in 1837, nearly
200 years ago. It couldn'tcompete with steam, coal, and
steam engines.
Right? They said, well, it's thebattery is the problem. The

(23:43):
first electric renewablerechargeable battery was 1857 or
9. I wrote about this today inClimate Change Weekly. People
people think that these arerechargeable batteries, new
things, never happened before.
No. 1857 still couldn't compete.Then you had electric cars. They
had to compete with the internalcombustion. They failed.

(24:05):
These aren't new technologies,and they don't support they
don't merit government support,especially since they ain't
cleaning up the environment.They're dirtier than internal
combustion engine vehiclesthrough their manufacturer,
through their operation, itturns out, in a lot of ways.

(24:25):
They're not saving the planetfrom climate change as if it
needs saving, as if we have thepower to do that. There is
nothing to recommend thesethings other than, if you don't
get me wrong, if someone wantsto buy an electric vehicle, I'm
very happy for them to do so,but I shouldn't have to
subsidize them.

Anthony Watts (24:51):
Yeah. Well so here's the fun part. Now they're
talking about electriclocomotives, some company called
Wabtec. And last year, theyrevealed their 1st battery
electric locomotive. And guesswhat?
It's pink. I mean, if you're ifyou're producing something for

(25:11):
the very first time to show tothe world, what better choice
could you make for rejectionthan pink. Why in that?

H. Sterling Burnett (25:20):
Well, if they wanna get it accepted, they
should make it a rainbow color.Right? That's the age we live

Anthony Watts (25:25):
in. Oh.

Linnea Lueken (25:26):
Yeah. That's completely oh, man. I found
something the other day onlinethat I think I'll I'll read it
off for you guys. I I forgot tosend it in the chat, but it's
it's a good little example ofwhat we're talking about here.
It says, imagine we lived in aworld where all cars were
already EVs, and then alongcomes this new invention, the

(25:50):
internal combustion engine.
Yep. Think about how well itwould sell. A vehicle that's
half the weight, half the price,almost a quarter of the damage
done to the road. It can berefueled in 1 tenth of the time
and has a range of up to 4 timesthe distance in all weather
conditions. It does not rely onenvironmentally damaging use of
nonrenewable rare earths topower it and use far less steel

(26:13):
and other materials.
Think about how excited peoplewould be for such a technology.
It would sell like hotcakes.

H. Sterling Burnett (26:21):
Of course, they were excited in 1903 when
they did when they did competedirectly. That's true. You you
you need to send me that link.That's beautiful.

Linnea Lueken (26:31):
Okay. I will.

Anthony Watts (26:33):
Yeah. I saw that too, Linnea. And you're right.
It just people would be thrilledif all the vehicles were
electric and all of a suddenthis came along. It, but anyway
so there's this.
We got this pink locomotive. Nowthe other company, EMD, is
making one that isn't pink. Winfor marketing. Right? Not pink.
I mean, who wants a Pepto Bismollocomotive? A little engine that

(26:56):
couldn't. Excuse me. But it'slike the electric locomotive is
fine if you're running fromCantonery wires. You know,
you're getting your power from acentral or distributed generator
network.
That's worked for decades, andit's worked great. It's been
wonderful for passenger service.But for freight service where
you gotta go through themountains, you gotta go through,

(27:19):
you know, huge grades up anddown and curves and things like
that, is an electric locomotivereally gonna cut it? I mean, how
do you put a charging station inthe middle of the Colorado
Rockies? Well, maybe they'll puta a a couple of tanker cars and
a diesel generator there torecharge the electric engine
once it gets up to that point.
I don't know.

H. Sterling Burnett (27:38):
You'll have to build you'll have to build a
whole new sidings so that whenone is charging, it's not
blocking the tracks or all theother rail traffic going
through. Right? Look. We alreadyhave diesel electric. It is
actually among the most fuelefficient transportation modes
in existence.
Why do they think they need toreplace it with look, I've I'm

(28:01):
not Superman. I've never triedto lift a diesel electric
motive, locomotive. My suspicionis they're pretty dead gum
heavy. But think how muchheavier a battery powered,
locomotive is. So how much ofthe the motive force, the power

(28:22):
moving that has to go just tohauling the, locomotive itself,
much less all the train carsthat it's supposed to be
hauling.
It's

Anthony Watts (28:33):
Yep. Yep. And and it just I don't think it's gonna
take off just like the electricplane. I mean, the first train
crashed with an electriclocomotive, well, that's gonna
be, you know, a fiery disasterthat they can't put out for
days, you know, unless they'reusing lead acid, but that's not

(28:54):
likely to be practical. And thefirst electric airplane crash is
gonna basically kill that justlike the Hindenburg killed
hydrogen powered airships.
Right?

H. Sterling Burnett (29:03):
Well, you'd think happen that. You'd think,
but if if that was gonna kill anindustry, this industry would
already be dead. How many peoplehave died from fires in
automobiles, electric files? Howmany houses have been destroyed?
How many tenement buildings inNew York?
From a scooter, from a dadgumscooter, not even a car, not

(29:23):
even a big truck. The scootercaught fire. It was just sitting
there. Burns the wholetournament down, kills the kids,
and yet they're still on theroads, and the government's
still pushing them. I'd like tothink that the first time this
happened x, it would be over.
But the evidence suggests thegovernment doesn't care how many
people these things kill.

Anthony Watts (29:44):
Oh, you have a point there. They don't seem to
care at all. We don't see thesemassive headlines that accompany
these kinds of tragedies, likewe would see, you know, from the
Hindenburg, for example. Didn'tsee that kind of a revelation.
So but, you know, that's what itit it the whole thing is is that

(30:06):
it's about a narrative.
You know, we have to do this tosave the planet. Yeah. And the
narrative is not about facts.It's about repetition. Right?
Yep.

Linnea Lueken (30:16):
Right. I think there's another element to this
that is usually not talked aboutby people in our area because we
tend to focus more on scientificand economic arguments, but I
think there's also a anaesthetic argument against these
electric trains compared to,like, a steam engine. And that
is that a steam engine is abeautiful piece of machinery.

(30:39):
And I think our friends inEurope would agree with me on
this. And that is that railtravel is is more beautiful and
better when it's a steam engine.
And, it's nicer to look at froma distance compared to the
sterile, you know, I don't know,kinda urbanite vibe of the of

(31:03):
the electric cars. It's not agood argument. It's not an
argument that I would presentthat I would present in a
official capacity, but it's onethat I think about all the time
is that, you know, these areokay. I I don't like them
though.

H. Sterling Burnett (31:19):
Lynette Lynette would have us all go
steampunk in all our technologybecause it's Yes.

Anthony Watts (31:25):
Yeah. Well, you know, there's an the worst
electrics train out there is theone that hasn't been built yet.
In California, they

H. Sterling Burnett (31:34):
have the

Anthony Watts (31:34):
bullet train. Oh, good. Right? The elect and this
thing has been going on for overa decade. They have originally
put to the voters who funded thebond, and then now it's gone,
like, 3 times the expense.
They still haven't got it built,and it isn't even practical,
though, because the the linethat they've set up for it
basically goes, just up and downthe San Joaquin Valley, just

(31:57):
south of Sacramento down toBakersfield. And then once you
get to Bakersfield, you have toget on a bus to go to Los
Angeles because they're notgonna build a rail line, you
know, from Bakersfield to LosAngeles. So what good is it? I
think

H. Sterling Burnett (32:09):
it was initially supposed to go from,
what, San Francisco to, to toLos Angeles or San Diego even.
You know? And and they'vethey've had to cut it back and
cut it back. Now the route thatthey're actually they they
promised they're gonna build. Itdoesn't matter the cost.
We just keep coming up with moremoney from taxpayers, if not
from the state the federalgovernment.

Linnea Lueken (32:28):
Right.

H. Sterling Burnett (32:28):
It's gonna be a route that that nobody
transverses. Right? You know,it's gonna be from one small
town to another small townrelative to California small
towns. It's not going from amajor metropolitan area to
another. It is not a it's true.

(32:50):
Not a single private companywould ever built this
boondoggle. Yep. If it weren'tfor government, this would not
get built. And why governmentdecided this is a good idea to
go from Bakersfield to where'dyou say? I got nothing against
Bakersfield.
You know? I think Buck Owenscame from Bakersfield and maybe,
Merle Haggard. So nothing'swrong with Bakersfield, but it's

(33:13):
not California's mecca.

Anthony Watts (33:17):
Yeah. I'm

Linnea Lueken (33:18):
at your hip about that's where the oil field is.

H. Sterling Burnett (33:23):
It is. The oil field the oil field the oil
field which will not be powering

Linnea Lueken (33:29):
this Right. This train.

Anthony Watts (33:32):
Right. So here's the interesting thing about this
whole concept of this, you know,bullet train that's supposed to
speed up travel between SanFrancisco and Los Angeles. Yeah.
I don't know if you guys haveever watched the Mythbusters
program. But several years ago,the Mythbusters did a, a test to
find out, is it faster to drivebetween San Francisco and Los

(33:53):
Angeles versus flying.
And they ran this test. They rana parallel test. One team went
on, you know, planes, and theother one took the automobile.
The automobile won. Why?
Because you have to get to theairport. You have to park your
car. You have to go throughsecurity. You have to check your
luggage. You have to go throughall of this preparatory stuff to

(34:15):
get on the plane.
And then, you know, the planeitself is actually faster for
that short distance, but thenit's the same reverse thing. You
have to get out of the LosAngeles, airport, and that takes
a long time. You gotta get yourbaggage and all this other
stuff, rent a car, and thendrive to the location you wanna
go to. The car team beat theairplane by several minutes, and

(34:37):
so it's gonna be the same thingwith the bullet train. It's
still gonna be faster to take acar and drive interstate 5 or
even highway 101 going from SanFrancisco down to Los Angeles.
So what have we gained? Nothing.

H. Sterling Burnett (34:54):
We've gained our green virtue. Green
green in this in this instancemeans dollars, right, because
1,000,000,000 of dollars havebeen wasted. And speaking of
1,000,000,000 of wasted dollars,let's get back to automobiles
because Okay. You know, wetalked about planes a little

(35:16):
bit. There's not much to say.
We've talked about trains. Weprobably said more than than it
merits. Automobiles is where theaction is at. And, the one of
the wealthiest companies in thehistory of mankind, Apple, this
week canceled after spending1,000,000,000 of dollars waste
not spending, wasting. How doyou know it's wasted?

(35:38):
They didn't create a singleelectric vehicle that worked,
and now they're canceling theproject. That tells you they
took stockholders money. Theytook money from their profits,
and put it into a project thatfailed. And so now they're
pulling out. No no AppleElectric Vehicles.
Rivian gotten infusions fromgovernment. Its, its stock has

(36:02):
tanked. They're firing, layingoff workers. Fisker has already
gone through bankruptcy once.It's now a penny stock.
2nd the second iteration is nowa penny stock, and it's probably
gonna go under. And Tesla,thanks to Joe Biden, is getting
a lot of competition from China.So, yeah, environmentally, we

(36:28):
can get into that later, butphysically and economically,
these don't make sense.

Anthony Watts (36:37):
I agree.

Linnea Lueken (36:38):
Yeah. It's kinda too bad too with those Fiskars.
I think it's a very pretty car.

H. Sterling Burnett (36:43):
I like the first iteration of Fiskars. You
know, I looked into buying aused one. You know how long it
was it the the the used Fiskarsare not electric. They were
electric hybrids. Do you knowhow do you know how far they
could go on a charge without thegas?
28 miles.

Linnea Lueken (36:58):
Mhmm. Yeah. That's not ideal.

H. Sterling Burnett (37:01):
And then and then you gotta bother with
the fact that, well, they hadleaked. You know, it it would
rain, and it would leak. Theywere like the DeLoreans of their
day. Really good looking.

Linnea Lueken (37:10):
Yeah.

H. Sterling Burnett (37:10):
But but not very functional.

Anthony Watts (37:15):
Yeah. So, you know, the thing is I was an
early adopter of all electricvehicles way back around 2004,
2005, And I thought, this isgreat. I really did at that
time. I've actually owned 3electric vehicles. They were
revolutionary for the time, andthey were great for around town.

(37:38):
But they all faced one fatalflaw, and that is the batteries
would die. And, I I admit, Icarried a small generator with
me. Right? Because I didn'twanna be stuck somewhere. There
was no place to charge it, andit's still almost that way
today.
I mean, yes, you've got them.You got chargers and so forth

(37:58):
at, you know, places like,Target, or you've got chargers
like, you know, along thehighway and so forth. But, you
know, they're still few and farbetween. And the problem is is
that people just don't want toworry about that range anxiety.
They don't wanna worry about,you know, losing a charge.

(38:18):
They don't worry they don'twanna worry about the cold
trying to get over the SierraNevada affecting the battery
performance and basicallymeaning they can't get from San
Francisco up to the ski resort,which has happened. There's been
lots of vehicles towed off ofInterstate 80 in the Sierra
Nevada because they couldn'tmake the trip in cold weather.
So what have we really gainedhere other than virtue

(38:39):
signaling? I mean, that's reallyall this seems to be. Right,
Sterling?

H. Sterling Burnett (38:42):
Well, they built I'll say this. They built
a lot of infrastructure. We haveabout a 160 1,000 gasoline
stations, filling stations inthis country. We already have a
180,000 chargers, and yet thegovernment says we need to build
500,000 more government finance,but the estimates are we need

(39:04):
1,200,000 more. That's howeffective, electric vehicles
are.
We've got 200,000 more, and wecan't keep them on the road
still. The you talk about rangeanxiety. The problem with
electric vehicles, there aremultiple problems, but two main
problems are range and costs.And you know what? That hasn't

(39:28):
changed in nearly 200 years,because why did they first
detect your locomotive notcompete?
It didn't have range, and it wastoo expensive, you know, when
compared to the steam engines.So that hasn't changed. All this
investment, all thesetechnological innovations, and
the fundamental problem that's,that was around nearly 200 years

(39:52):
ago is still around today, rangeand cost.

Anthony Watts (39:57):
Yeah. It just like the MRI metal has taken out
the dams, they're they'refocused on this one tunnel
vision aspect of it withoutlooking at all the other things
around it, the things that don'twork, and they're not paying
attention to that.

H. Sterling Burnett (40:12):
For Jim, I'll say dadgummit. Dadgummit? I
only said dadgummit because Iwas about to say something that
probably I shouldn't say on thisshow.

Linnea Lueken (40:26):
So Right. Well, that's where all the best
southernisms come from too.

H. Sterling Burnett (40:32):
Exactly.

Anthony Watts (40:33):
Yeah. So here's the only thing I can really see
valuable about electric cars inthe future. This is me in 2050.
I I don't know if I've showedyou a picture of my 19, 50 hot
rod. It's not this one, but, youknow, I've got a 1950 Chevy 31
100 hot rod, which I intend tokeep until the day I die.
And this is gonna be me in 2050outrunning the cop waiting for

(40:57):
his electric battery to die.Just wait. I can't wait. It's
gonna be fun.

Linnea Lueken (41:03):
I think, I think so my sister and I, we used to
go visit my grandparents inCalifornia. I think California
has the most car chases I'veever seen shown on the news,
like, on television. If you'reanywhere near Los Angeles,
you're getting Los Angeles news.There's just a car chase, like,
3 times a day to watch. And sowe used to watch these things,

(41:25):
and they would be soanticlimactic most of the time.
They would be going on and onand on. They would be driving
for, I don't know, maybe like anhour sometimes. You know, it's
not like the cops are trying toram him off the road or anything
like that. It would just bethey're following him at a
reasonable distance until theystopped. And I imagine that in
an electric car scenario, thosethose cops better hope that

(41:48):
their car is, charged fullybefore they get on the road
there, especially in LosAngeles.

H. Sterling Burnett (41:53):
You know, the OJ Simpson chase would have
been a lot more anticlimactic ifhe if if he had been in an
electric vehicle himself. Maybewhat we should do is ban
internal combustion engine forcriminals. Only give them
electric vehicles. Say, youknow, are you a bank robber?
Here's the car that will allowyou to do your getaway in.

Anthony Watts (42:20):
Yeah. Well, it'll be just like guns when the
internal combustion engines arebanned. Only, criminals will
have internal combustionengines.

H. Sterling Burnett (42:28):
Yeah. But that's a lot harder to I I'll
say this. That's a lot harder tohide or, you know, it's much
more visible than, than afirearm.

Anthony Watts (42:37):
That's true. That's true. Alright. Let's go
on to our question and answerperiod to see what some of our
viewers have come up with forquestions or comments today.
Linnea, take it away.

Linnea Lueken (42:48):
Alrighty. So first, right away, I want to say
our audience is really funny.I'm bringing this up again. We
could have the dukes of firehazard. That's.
This is one of my favorites oftoday, but you guys are all
very, very funny. Alright. Sofor questions today, we only

(43:09):
have 3, but first, we're gonnago for Alan Griffiths who gave
us a 10 pound super chat. Hesays Tony Heller has a 124,000
subscribers compared to yours,57 1,000 conservative political
commentators such as LiberalHivemind have over 1,000,000.
Why are climate skeptics gettingsuch little traction?

(43:30):
Well, I can answer that. Face orpretty much everyone, Facebook,
also Twitter still. If yousearch for the Heartland
Institute's tweet, like Twitteraccount or x account, it does
not come up. You have to findsomeone who has the Heartland
Institute, linked page in theirbio or something in order to

(43:53):
find the Heartland Institute.YouTube hates us very, very
much.
And so pretty much anything thatis climate related that is not
towing the official narrative isheavily suppressed. It's part of
the reason why so manyconservative commentator
organizations that are biggercompanies almost never talk

(44:16):
about the climate issue. It'sbecause it is poison for
viewership, because the sensorscome down so hard on you for it.
So Yeah. We're we're shadowbanned still pretty much
everywhere.
That's part of it.

H. Sterling Burnett (44:31):
It's not just us, of course. LinkedIn is
another one that shadow banspeople. Look. If I'm on Facebook
and I wanna share something onFacebook, I could I could go
through my list and start clickclicking. But, typically, when I
wanna share something onclimate, if it's not just
vacation photos, I I'm limitedto 5 shares.

(44:51):
Someone passes me alongsomething. It's limited to 5
shares. Now that that affects,by the way, my vacation photos
because when you get shadowbanned for a while, even those
gets limited to 5 shares for awhile. But the point is, it's
harder we have less access. Wedon't control the media source.

(45:15):
They're supposed to be, I'mtold, that they are not
publishers. They're just neutraloutlets for people to exchange
ideas and converse. I believethat's what Facebook and them
are have sold themselves as toget their exemption from from,
you know, being sued for what'sposted on their site. They said,

(45:38):
no. No.
We didn't post this. We we'renot arbiters of content. We're
just a neutral site where peoplepost what they want. We know
that's a lie.

Linnea Lueken (45:48):
Right.

Anthony Watts (45:50):
There was a comment there about censoring
something only validates it, andthat's true. I mean, we've had a
number of our articles with theHeartland Institute attacked by
fact checkers and so forth, andthey really don't deal with the
facts. They they can't disputethe facts. They just get some
people with opinions on and say,well, we don't think that this
is valid, or we don't subscribeto that or whatever. They don't

(46:13):
actually get and and knock downthe facts we presented because
we present factual information,and we make sure it's backed up.
I mean, I can't ever recall atime when we've gotten one of
our facts that we've publishedwrong. But the the sensors and
the fact checkers out there,they just throw opinion and mud
at it in order to try to smackit down.

H. Sterling Burnett (46:33):
Yeah. We we we present data.

Linnea Lueken (46:35):
A good point from Jim as well that this show is
also on Rumble. We're we and weare starting to get more
viewership there, he says, butwe need YouTube because it's by
far the number one place thatpeople watch shows like this. So
we're going to be on here untilthey kick us off, which who
knows, in the tank in the tankhad to move to a different

(46:56):
channel so that we didn't get,both of us knocked down if one
of us did. So, it's a little bityeah. We're we're playing we're
threading the needle on it.
We don't self censor in terms ofour content at all, so you don't
have to worry about that. But,yeah, it is, it's always a

(47:16):
struggle. Okay. Let's see.William says, I saw a post on
social media.
So it must be true thatatmospheric o two is falling. Do
you agree? If so, why?

Anthony Watts (47:31):
You know, if it is, and I've seen some hints of
this. If if it is, it's verysubtle. Some atmospheric oxygen
escapes into space, just simplyby the action of the sun
knocking molecules off intospace from cosmic rays and solar
wind and so forth and so on. ButI don't think we're actually in

(47:51):
an oxygen depletion problem,particularly since carbon
dioxide has increased over thepast several decades. We've got
a greening of the earth goingon.
And so there's morephotosynthesis going on. And
that in fact, NASA satelliteshave measured an area the size
of the United States increase ingreening throughout the world

(48:13):
since about 1990. So what doesthat mean? More oxygen.

H. Sterling Burnett (48:18):
And I've got no idea. I I haven't heard
that. So

Anthony Watts (48:23):
Yeah. It doesn't seem like it's an issue.

Linnea Lueken (48:28):
Right.

Anthony Watts (48:29):
Go ahead.

Linnea Lueken (48:31):
Okay. So we also have this one from Energy
Colonizer. Why were so manyclimate clockers dissatisfied
with the Copenhagen Accords inthe era when the UN and others
actually tolerated debate. Andmy question to you, Anthony,
would be, do you think that theyreally did tolerate debate or

(48:52):
that they just hadn't figuredout yet that they could clamp
down, as severely as they donow?

H. Sterling Burnett (48:58):
That's that's that's what they were
dissatisfied about. In that era,they still had debate, and they
weren't happy about that. Sothat's why they were
dissatisfied. Yeah. I I just

Anthony Watts (49:10):
went out. When I first started doing blogging
about climate change back in2,006, 2007 era, there was
actually a fair amount ofdebate, and my articles would
get picked up, you know, wherewe I would point out something
factual. But today, that doesn'thappen because there's just this
universal clampdown by the mediaand the media, platforms to

(49:34):
basically say, oh, well, they'rejust deniers. Don't listen to
them. It doesn't matter what theargument is or how factual it
is.
They're more interested in justsimply not allowing it.

Linnea Lueken (49:49):
Yep. And, it's it's the same it's the same
thing with all the social mediagroups. And if you spend any
time around conservative mediain general, then you know that
we've got something of asituation here where our, social
media and the Internet's, kindof gatekeepers have really gone

(50:12):
hard the last couple of yearsacting like a 4th branch of
government, enforcing whateverthe federal agencies want them
to enforce, when it comes to theunnamable virus that we don't
want that we don't wanna bringup on this particular show
because it's, except in the,situation where we talk about

(50:37):
how carbon dioxide levelsdropped, but not as much as
anyone was expecting during thattime. And it's, anything you try
to say about that obviously getscensored very abruptly, and very
harshly too. And if you look onour video right now, I do not
have the YouTube link pulled uplike I normally do at the

(50:58):
moment, but I'm sure that wealready have a Wikipedia link
underneath the description ofthis video, trying to fact check
climate change on us.
So, you know, it's it's the wayit is. And we, as people are
talking about in the comments,people get unsubscribed even
from our channels all the time.It's just it's an uphill battle,

(51:22):
but I think that we're doingpretty well considering, all the
challenges that we have. Oh,yeah. There it is.
Yeah. No. We don't have

Anthony Watts (51:29):
uphill battle every day.

Linnea Lueken (51:31):
Wow. We're actually not getting fact
checked yet. Well, we'll seewhen the video goes up what
happens.

Anthony Watts (51:38):
Alrighty. So it looks like that's all the
questions we have today. And,we're gonna move on and, let
everyone have a fantasticweekend. So, that guy on the
left is really good looking.What's that?

H. Sterling Burnett (51:52):
That guy on the left is really good looking.

Anthony Watts (51:55):
Yeah. As you're facing screen surprised.

H. Sterling Burnett (51:58):
Yeah. Except for the Google, you know,
the AOC, what's his name? MattAdam Schiff Eyes. He is It

Linnea Lueken (52:07):
is Adam Schiff eyes. Yeah. It is Adam Schiff

H. Sterling Burnett (52:09):
eyes. That's

Anthony Watts (52:10):
a that's a song. You know, if we could just get
that, what was the name of thatsong? Betty Davis eyes?

H. Sterling Burnett (52:16):
He she's got Betty Davis eyes. Yeah.

Anthony Watts (52:20):
Oh my goodness. So I wanna remind everyone to
visit our website, climaterealism.com, where we daily
scoot down the media. We impalethem with facts, and we point
out where they're wrong everyday. Visit that. Climate
ataglamps.com, where we have allthe facts correlated in simple 1

(52:40):
or 2 page summaries aboutparticular climate topics.
We do that on a regular basis.We have 1 or 2 new articles per
month getting into the differentclimate topics, and we've
already got dozens up there thatyou can use for reference to
factually cheat down some of thearguments that you encounter on
the Internet. We also haveenergy at a glance dot com, and

(53:02):
energy at a glance.com isLinnea's big project that talked
about all the different aspectsof energy from fracking to
electric generation, to naturalgas, to everything else. And, of
course, my own namesake, what'sup with that dot com, the it is
the leading climate website inthe world, and we have survived

(53:23):
and outlived all of the othernaysayers out there and continue
to flourish even despite theodds. So I want you to visit all
those.
So Sterling and Linnea, thanksfor joining us today. Thanks for
your expert commentary. I'mAnthony Watts, senior fellow for
environment and climate at theHeartland Institute, wishing you
a great Friday and a fantasticweekend. Bye bye.

H. Sterling Burnett (54:05):
Who's your lying dog face point, Joshua?
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