Making Climate Policy Sane Again - The Climate Realism Show #142 - Environment and Climate News Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Biden (00:03):
And that's what climate change is about. It is
literally not figuratively aclear and present danger.

Greta Thunberg (00:10):
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.

Jim Lakely (00:13):
The ability of c 02 to do the heavy work of creating
a climate catastrophe is almostnil at this point.

Anthony Watts (00:20):
The price of oil has been artificially elevated
to the point of insanity.

Sterling Burnett (00:24):
That's not how you power a modern industrial
system.

Myron Ebell (00:27):
The ultimate goal of this renewable energy, you
know, plan is to reach the exactsame point that we're at now.

You know who's trying that? Germany. 7 straight
days of no wind for Germany.Their factories are shutting
down.

Linnea Lueken (00:43):
They really do act like weather didn't happen
prior to, like, 1910. Today isFriday.

Jim Lakely (00:54):
That's right, Greta. It is Friday. It is the best day
of the week, not just becausethe weekend is almost here, but
it's also the the day that theHeartland Institute broadcast
the Climate Realism Show. Myname is Jim Lakeley. I'm the
vice president of the HeartlandInstitute and your host.
And, you know, there is nothingelse quite like the Climate
Realism Show streaming anywhereonline, so I hope you will like,

(01:17):
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(01:40):
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(02:01):
single week. Any support thatyou could give is warmly
welcome, greatly appreciated,and also deductible on your
taxes. So before we get goingwith a very big show today, we
also wanna thank our streamingpartners, those being junk
science.com, CFACT, ClimateDepot, What's Up With That, and
a new streaming partner, the c02 Coalition. So, all of our

(02:22):
allies are coming together, tomake this show possible, and we
appreciate their work with us aswell. Let's get rolling.
So we have with us today ourusual crew, Anthony Watts. He's
the senior fellow for he's asenior fellow at the Heartland
Institute and the publisher ofthe most influential climate
website in the world, what's upwith that? Doctor h Sterling
Burnett, he's the director ofthe Arthur b Robinson Center on

(02:44):
Climate and Environmental Policyat the Heartland Institute, and,
also, Linnea Lukin, researchfellow for energy and
environment policy at Heartland.And we are so happy to welcome
to the show for the first timeour old friend, Myron Ebel. He,
well, he's semi retired, Iguess, from driving the
environmental left nuts.
He's a proud climate criminal,and he used to work at the

(03:06):
Competitive EnterpriseInstitute. Now he is chairman,
of the American Lands Council.So, and he was also and which is
why we're so happy he's on theshow today. He was the leader of
the EPA transition team for thewell, the transition team for
the Environmental ProtectionAgency during the first Trump
administration. So there'sreally nobody else we can have

(03:28):
on that could better talk aboutthe flurry of executive orders
that, Donald Trump has issuedwhen it comes to climate and
energy.
So welcome, everyone, especiallyyou, Myron. Thank you.

Good to be back.

Jim Lakely (03:41):
Linea, it's actually good to see you at all, just
before we get into the show.Linnea, you went to Washington
DC for the inauguration. You,you smoked some cigars. You you
put on some nice clothes, andyou had a really nice time. And,
then you got stuck becausewinter arrived.
Well, let's just say Midwesternwinter arrived into, South

(04:04):
Carolina and all across theSouth, and so you were stuck in
DC a lot longer than you wantedto be.

Yeah. I I mean, regarding the cigars, Mark Mark
Marano was nice enough to sharea pipe with me. So it was a
pipe. It wasn't a

Jim Lakely (04:16):
service price.

We have photographic evidence.

Yeah.

We we have photographs.

Yeah. I, I had the most frustrating travel
experience I've had in a verylong time. I was supposed to fly
back home Wednesday morningearly. That flight got canceled,
but I booked for another one,you know, and later in the
afternoon. You know, hopefully,Charleston Airport would thaw
out, and I'd make it home.
I'm sitting at the airport. Thatone gets canceled. Thursday

(04:44):
morning, I go to the airport or,no. It was Wednesday that I was
sitting in the airport, and itgot canceled. And then I went to
a hotel for the night thinking Iwas gonna catch a flight
Thursday morning, and I'mgetting ready for bed at the
hotel.
And my Thursday morning flightgets canceled. And then I hear
from United that they're notgoing to have flights into South

(05:04):
Carolina until, Saturday. And hesaid, nope. I'm going home now.
So I rented a car and drove.
It's just the 8 hour drive. Itwasn't too bad. And the roads
were clear all the way until Imade it to Charleston. And then
as soon as I hit Charles, andwent to the airport to pick up
my car and drop off the rental,and it was like I have I have

(05:26):
some interesting pictures of,that I probably shouldn't have
taken while slowly creeping downthe highway, but I just had to
share the highway covered insnow because they have no snow
removal whatsoever. So there'sjust, like, a pair of tire
tracks going down the highway inwhite.
And, it it was, yeah, of it wasa very interesting time, and my

(05:49):
house is covered in snow. Sothat's fun, for my my tropical
island paradise has beendestroyed.

Jim Lakely (05:56):
Aw. Well, you said like, you you lived in Northern
Illinois for a long time. Youjust Yeah.

You just crazy. I know. And Wyoming.

So And Wyoming. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just just wait 10 years. Linnea won't know what
snow is.

Yeah. Exactly. I keep getting I'm never gonna see
snow again, and it's followingme. I can't you know, this joke
has been made a bunch of times,but I'm gonna make it again
anyway for the for the benefitof our audience. But I'm really
pretty ticked that Trump didn'twait until after I got home
before he canceled globalwarming.
So

Jim Lakely (06:22):
That's right. That's right. The the all powerful
Donald Trump. And we'll get tothat in a moment because one of
our topics is the snow acrossthe southern states. But having
said all that, thanks thanks,Elaine.
Glad you're safe. Glad you'rehome. Let's start off as we
always do with Anthony Watts'very favorite segment. That is
the crazy climate news of theweek. Hit it, Andy.

(06:55):
Alright. Yes. Thank you. Thankyou very much, Bill Nye. You
could use some of that heat downin in South Carolina right now,
but, it'll come eventually.
It's called spring. Anyway, ourfirst item here is, from
Facebook. Actually, it's from aa local news report out of,
Wilbraham, Massachusetts, whichis near Springfield. Anthony
Watts had, shared this with usin our, group Slack here at the

(07:19):
Heartland Institute. And, well,there's really no need to
explain anything more.
If Andy displays the video,you'll see that there was a
problem with the electric schoolbuses in Massachusetts.

Speaker 6 (07:30):
At home now and new this morning, an investigation
is underway in Wilbraham todetermine how multiple school
buses caught fire earlier thismorning. Take a look at this
video. This is how the scenelooked when first responders
arrived at the Lower PioneerValley Educational Collaborative
Garage in William Wilbraham.You're looking at about 4 to 5
buses engulfed in flames.Fortunately, no one was inside

(07:53):
any of those buses when ithappened.
According to the Wilbraham firedepartment, the first reports
came in a little before 2 thismorning, and the flames were out
before 3. A message from theschool district superintendent
sent out this morning says thebuses that caught fire were new
electric buses that have not yetbeen placed in service.

Jim Lakely (08:11):
Well, well, well. Well, you know, you know,
fortunately, guys, you know, thebig yellow school bus fan,
Kamala Harris, is not president,so we don't have to witness her
crying on camera about thiscalamity. But, again, you found
this for us, Anthony. And, yes,it's fortunate that there were
no children on those buses. Theywere just brand new, never used
electric school buses chargingovernight, and poof, now they're

(08:33):
all gone.

Yeah. Well, you know, if you're a parent and you
see that, would you wanna putyour child on one of those damn
things? I sure would not. Thewhole idea of electric school
bus is just for it's virtuesignaling. That's all this is.
You know? We're saving theplanet because we're using
electricity instead of, youknow, gasoline or whatever,

(08:55):
diesel fuel. But the bottom lineis is that once again and again
and again, we see these thingsjust don't hold up. And, you
know, when they're brand new andthey get fire, I mean, what kind
of warranty have they got, Iwonder? Is there are are
electric cars and buses nowgoing to have a no fire clause
built into their warranty?
Oh, if it catches fire, that'snot under warranty. I I don't

(09:17):
know. But this has become socommon. It's laughable.

Well, it's it's not laughable if you junked
all your diesel buses as soon asyou got your new ones. As a lot
of these, contracts require youto do, you can't just set resell
them. You actually have to getrid of them and make them
unfunctional, And then suddenly,you don't have a bus to take
your kids to school. Not thatyou'd want your kids on these
buses. It's, it's a stupidstupid idea that only government

(09:46):
could force the market to take.
You know, there would be noelectric buses were it not for
the government. There wouldn'tbe the huge influx of windmills
or or solar panels were it notfor government pushing them.
They don't make sense on theirown. They can't compete on their
own. And, of course, there werestories this week that showed

(10:07):
that, you know, one electric vanmanufacturer, another one
declared bankruptcy.
Wind turbine manufacturer hassaid it's going to cancel, even
before the subsidies disappearjust because Trump's in office
and he says no more windturbines. It's like, well, we
can't compete on our own. Wecan't we can't sell our wares in

(10:29):
the marketplace without thesubsidies and support. So we're
just closing the doors despitethe fact that I'm told
constantly wind and solar arecompetitive. They're cheaper
than the other forms of energy.

We're never going to see a reliable electric
vehicle until we get away fromlithium based batteries. It's
just that simple.

Jim Lakely (10:47):
Yeah. It's true. It's true. Alright. Let's move
on to our we'll keep an eye onthat.
We do like to, highlight howoften and how, prominently
electric vehicles just catchfire spontaneously in the worst
places possible, and then thatwas one of them. So stick
around. Maybe this madness willend now in the next 4 years. We
shall see. Alright.
Our second item today comes tous from that commie newspaper,

(11:09):
The Guardian. And, a little selfindulgence here, but this is a
feature story and expose theydid on the Heartland Institute
titled, revealed, US climatedenial groups working with
European far right parties.Yeah. So the lead says that,
climate science deniers from aUS based think tank have been

(11:29):
working with right wingpoliticians in Europe to
campaign against environmentalpolicies. The Guardian can
reveal.
The thing that they're talkingabout is us, the Heartland
Institute. And by revealed, theymean that, stuff that you can
find on the Heartland Institutewebsite, things we put out in
emails to the public and to themedia. But, you know, they're a
bunch of clowns, and so theycall that being revealed.

(11:51):
Anyway, the upshot here, is thatthe story reveals that we now
have green ministers of EuropeanParliament, MEPs, spreading,
quote, the rise of the HeartlandInstitute in Europe. Though this
part here might be my favoritepart.
I'm just gonna read from it.Kenneth Haar from the Corporate
Europe Observatory added, quote,it is really bad news to see the

(12:14):
Heartland Institute moving toEurope. At this point in time,
we should be scared that we willsee a revival of grotesque
climate denialism. The theirpresence in Brussels and
European politics is bad news.The coming years were looking
difficult enough with corporatelobby groups pushing
successfully to roll backclimate policies.
The Heartland Institute islikely to become one of the

(12:35):
helping hands to create a closepersonal alliance between
conservatives and the far rightthat will be very destructive.
Well, we can only hope so. Ijoked earlier this week with
Lewis Perry, who is theexecutive director of Heartland
UK slash Europe, that we shouldsend the authors of this piece
in The Guardian a gift basket.Well, she did. So wherever you

(12:57):
are and if you're watchingtoday, Helena Horton, Sam
Bright, and Claire Carlyle, Ihope you're enjoying the gift
basket that was sent to TheGuardian's newsroom in London
this week.
Guys, to me, this shows that weare winning. We are winning, and
they are running literallyscared from, climate realism.

I I like how they tried to portray this as
some breaking news frominvestigative journalism that
they discovered something thatthey hadn't been writing about,
by the way, for 3 weeks since welaunched Heartland UK Europe
back in mid December.

Jim Lakely (13:34):
Right?

They've already had articles on it. The
Telegraph ran articles on it.The, Sun ran on it. You know,
multiple, multiple articles havebeen running on this. And as you
say, we've been putting it out.
We haven't been hiding our lightunder a bushel on this matter
anywhere. We're talking about toanyone who ask us a question and

(13:58):
but it reveals something. Well,you know, boy, the Guardian is
on top of things.

Jim Lakely (14:06):
That's all

I can say. They're on top of the fact that,
you know, climate realism worksin the US, and increasingly, it
looks like it might work inEurope. They they might get it.
They might understand thatthey're destroying their
economy. They're putting theirpeople in, shivering in the
winter and molting and sweatingin the summer.

(14:26):
And, they don't like it any morethan anyone else would.

Jim Lakely (14:31):
No. Myron, you're smiling. But, you know, I was
thinking you might be jealous. Imean, you know, usually, you're
the biggest climate criminal Iknow, you and Molloy. So, you
know, maybe next time.
No.

You you, you know, you guys are doing great work,
and I'm I'm glad that you'reentering the fray in the
declining continent of Europeand and, the UK. You know, they
have they are so far in denial,of what what they've done to
their economy and what what thecause of it is, namely moving

(15:03):
from reliable, affordable energyto squirrels running in, little,
you know, wheels. Treadmills.Yeah. Treadmills.
And and so anything that you caninject in terms of actual facts
and and what the reality is isit can only help, but, you know,
they're they're very far gone.You guys have a lot of work to

(15:26):
do.

Jim Lakely (15:28):
Yeah. Well, we're we're ready for it. That's for
sure.

Yeah. You know, given the fact that we're now
given the sort of nefarious,image by the Guardian, I think
we need, like, a pirate flag orsomething for

for us,

you know, that we can fly proudly, you know, put
on our cars and so forth.

I'll try and get a a an eye patch and a tri
corner hat, a black tri cornerhat to wear next time.

We should just do an edit of the black beard flag,
the Edward peach flag with the

Yeah.

Wine goblet and the yeah. We should do that.
Alright. I'm already Donnie, doit.

Jim Lakely (16:03):
Oh, yeah. Donnie, our graphic designer, and,

you can get on that. Know.

Jim Lakely (16:07):
Yeah. Put Sterling's face on, captain Jack Sparrow,
and we're off off to the race.

We we have a lot of viewers from the UK here, on
the Climate Realism Show, and II wonder what their thoughts are
on us invading their space and,coming to I don't know. Would
this be like a liberationcampaign to save them from from
climate crazies in their owncountry?

Jim Lakely (16:30):
Well, what I what I announced when we announced this
and I wrote the press release, II said that the harless dude was
establishing a beachhead in theUnited Kingdom in in, in Great
Britain to then eventually takeover Europe, much like, US
forces in World War 2 werestaged from the UK to liberate
all of Europe. So, it's coming.You guys gonna have to be
patient.

We we should call our effort the normalcy
invasion.

Jim Lakely (16:53):
Yeah. We know the Normandy invasion.

There you go.

Jim Lakely (16:56):
Man, again, there has to be a secret hand signal
when you have a good jokecoming, Anthony, so we can get
the rim shot ready for you.Alright. Alright. Let's move on.
Let's move on to our our 3rditem here because we got a lot
to talk about.
And this one is about the snowin the southern states. There's
gosh. There were so much tochoose from. And, Linae, I
apologize for not grabbing someof your wonderful photos. Maybe

(17:18):
we can share one before the showis out.
But I did come across thispretty funny, ex post from
former West Virginia led statelegislator Derek Evans. It's a
little video he took. He said,Trump has been in office for one
day, and he has already saved usfrom global warming. And I do I
must say that this is myfavorite executive order from
Donald Trump in that globalwarming is canceled. Signs his

(17:40):
signature on it, and then that'sthat.

There you go. Yeah. We had, I think I sent a
photo. I don't know if y'allhave it. I sent a photo.
We we actually had the beachesin Galveston covered in snow.

Jim Lakely (17:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all across Houston, everything.
Yeah. So, Anthony, I know youwrote, you know, the companion
website to this show is climaterealism.com.
And, Anthony, of course, thiswas a pretty big, weather event
that is being blamed on climatechange that it snowed so much in
the south, but it's hardlyunprecedented.

Oh, yeah. Well, the media media immediately
jumped on this and said, oh, youknow, the polar vortex is
getting deeper and more and moreoften and because of climate
change. You know? And I wrote anarticle on climate realism that
completely destroyed theseclaims. Peer reviewed research
basically says there's no signalwhatsoever, and there's
contrasting information aboutthe polar vortex.

(18:36):
And the only reason that they'retalking about this is because it
became popularized when we had abig cold break outbreak in 2014.
And so, you know, the media justjumps on this, and they keep
repeating the same thing overand over again. They don't learn
anything. They just repeatmemes. I mean, they're that
dense.
And so, yes, the polar vortex isgetting worse because of climate

(18:59):
change. There's absolutely noevidence in the available
science that suggests that thisis happening. It's a giant load
of crap. I'm sorry. That's whatit is.

But the media is, is schizophrenic on the
matter. Right? Because everycouple of years, they polish a
new article, often not veryoriginally named called the end
of snow where they're telling uswhat we won't see any soon.
Children won't know what snowis. You won't see snow.
There's there's no no snow forChristmas And then they get

(19:32):
massive snow for Christmas forthe first time in a decade. And
they say, oh, let's see. Thatclimate change is really mucking
up the weather. It's, you know,it's they they do the same thing
with monsoons. Do you have a badmonsoon season?
And they'll say, oh, climatechange making monsoons worse.
Then you have a monsoon seasonthat's not so bad, and they say

(19:53):
climate change is taking awaythe monsoons, which is gonna
kill people because they won'thave water for to grow their
crops. Every year, it's, climatechange is doing this. And then
the next year or sometimes thenext month, climate change is
doing just the opposite. It's,climate change is sort of
amazing thing.
It's it's, if you were sellingit on TV, it'd be Ronco product,

(20:14):
and it could do everything. Itcould open a can. It could, it
was a it would be a floorcleaner. It would start your
car. It'd be amazing.

Jim Lakely (20:25):
Hey, Sterling. At least the pocket fisherman
works. You can catch a fish withthat.

I have one I have one in my garage.

I but, you know, as as Anthony is part of saying,
the you know, just as justbecause there's a heat wave
doesn't mean that we'reexperiencing, you know, that it
that it's proof of, like,accelerating warming or
something. So too, you know, Idon't want people to get too
excited jumping on the cold downthere and start saying, you
know, this is evidence thatwe're headed into an ice age,

(20:56):
actually. Now a a cold spell isa cold spell just the same way
that heat spells a heat spell.As Anthony likes to point out,
it's weather. It's not climate.

Exactly. And it's happened before. It's happened
before. New Orleans, forexample, they got 10 inches of
snow, and the climate craziesare up. Oh, no.
It's global warming. It'sclimate change. It's polar
vortex. Well, a 130 years ago,they had 10 inches of snow, and
it was tied by this researchstorm. So what was causing the,

(21:29):
you know, the the thesnowmageddon a 130 years ago?
Was it climate change? No. It'sjust weather. Weather is a part
of a a chaotic system of theplanet. The planet the planetary
weather systems are chaotic, andthey will occasionally burst out
in large amounts in one area oranother.

(21:50):
You know, super dry, super wet,super snowy, super dry again,
whatever. It's natural for ourchaotic system to do these
things, to have these outbreaks.There's nothing abnormal going
on.

Jim Lakely (22:03):
Right. If if carbon dioxide emissions by humans
caused, you know, this weatherin New Orleans, then what's the
excuse in 18 95 when they got 10inches then? These are these
things happen.

I mean, I would say that it is abnormal, but
it's abnormal in the scope of,like, things that can happen.
It's abnormal, not impossible,and certainly not unprecedented,
which is probably Okay.

Imprecedented is the right word here. It's not
unprecedented.

Yeah. It's it's not it's not unprecedented is
probably my biggest pet peeve injournalism today. It is so it's
probably the most abused word inthe English language right now
other than literally.

Yep. That's right. Climate change is
responsible for all 90 90% ofclickbait headlines. You know?
It it's just it's amazing thelengths that the media will go
to to make a headline thatlooked like disaster is just
looming right around the cornernext week.
And if you don't do somethingnow, like buy an electric car,
you're doomed.

I suggest everyone go back and watch the
old, South Park episode, the daybefore the day after tomorrow.
Oh my god. It's today, andthere's a big shadow coming down
the street, climate change.

Jim Lakely (23:15):
Very good. Alright. Alright. Let's get to our main
topic today, lady and gentlemen,and that is, Donald Trump making
climate policy sane again. Now,the lead essay for Climate
Change Weekly this week, thatSterling Burnett, produces for
us is, dominated by the I thinkby your count, Sterling, at

(23:36):
least 47 executive orders Trumphad signed, dealing with climate
and energy policy.
And and most of these thingswere expected, you know,
previewed from, stories orthings that he had done in his
first administration. Andthat's, you know, exiting the
Paris Climate Agreement, endingthe electric vehicle mandate, no
more all of government approachto stop climate change, no more

(23:57):
restrictions placed on federalinfrastructure, buildings and
repairs to ensuresustainability, reversing the
offshore oil drilling ban,offices of environmental justice
in every federal department,gone. See you later. Opening up
ANWR, the, Alaska NationalWildlife Refuge, to energy
exploration and extraction onceagain, lifting the ban on liquid

(24:20):
natural gas exports. And, ofcourse, the, coup de grace,
Trump instructed the EPA torevisit the endangerment
finding.
Oh, and ending the wanna focuson that.

Ending the EV mandate. Ending the EV mandate.

Jim Lakely (24:34):
Oh, yeah. I had that was second one I said. You must

have missed it. Sorry.

Yeah. The one the one that doesn't exist, but it's
good that it's there and it'sterrible that he's getting rid
of it. Exactly.

Jim Lakely (24:45):
Right. Right. Right. So so I wanna go so I wanna go
around the horn. Like I said,there's 47 of them.
I wanna start with you, Myron.And and I do wanna we can save
the discussion of of, you know,vacating the endangerment
finding by EPA. Aside from thatone, I assume that's everyone's
favorite, what what are the onesthat stuck out to you that was
that were terrific that, Trumpdid with his EOs?

Oh, well, it's a long list. And, as you said,
there's there's a bunch of them,and, you know, everybody ought
to look at them. They're on onwhite house.gov, the the
official, president's website.And, you know, there's a lot of
detail there. Some of them arevery complicated, unleashing
American dominance and declaringan energy emergency, and they

(25:28):
they interact in various ways.
But I would say, in the shortterm, you know, he stops
offshore wind development. He,says you can't use the social
cost of c o two or the socialcost of carbon in regulatory
rule making, so you can't addclimate into every policy

(25:50):
decision and every permittingdecision. He reopens up the
north slope of Alaska to oil andgas production and makes a huge
number of changes to, the way,energy is going to be handled.
More of it is gonna be producedin Alaska by removing a bunch of
obstacles, some of which werevery surprising. And,

Jim Lakely (26:13):
the

the funniest thing, is, of course, that Trump undid
a lot of what Obama did. Bidenthen undid everything that Trump
did, and now Trump has undoneevery single thing that Biden
did, plus a lot more. He's gonemuch further than the first
time. So some of these things, II think have problems, but I

(26:37):
think by and large, if thisreally is just a revolution. I
mean, it's it's without I meanand he's gonna go to congress
for more more changes becausethe EV mandate is baked into
into the so called inflationreduction act.
So that's a big. There's a lotmore to do, but he's he's he's
made a pretty good start.

Jim Lakely (26:57):
People talk about a president's first 100 days. He
did more in the first 100 hoursthan any president I can imagine
doing in in a 100 days or amonth.

And a lot more than the first the first Trump term,
they dragged it out over manyout over more than a 100 days.
So

this is

he this is much better.

He learned a lot. Right? Yeah. You know, he
came in wanting to drain theswamp his first term, and he was
sincere about that. But to befair, he was he was not a
politician.
He'd never been in politics. Andhe had no idea what the swamp
really meant. What was involvedin overcoming that bureaucracy?
He was a businessman. He wasused to being able to say,

(27:37):
you're fired and it stick.
You know?

You're He was You're right about that,
Sterling. But remember, onething you haven't said is there
were a lot of swamp people inthe first Trump administration,
including the White House. Andit took the president quite a
long time to figure that out,that he was getting bad advice
from his White House chief ofstaff and many of his closest

(28:02):
advisers in the White Housebecause they were really not
with the Trump agenda.

Yeah.

I think it's different this time.

Yeah. No. I think he he he learned his he
learned his lesson. He's a smartguy. He he saw, the problems
that he confronted, and he hadgood people to work with, while
he was out of office.
It's hard to believe he couldget any work done with all the
lawsuits and the criminal, youknow, the investigations, but he
did and they came in with thesethis massive number of well,

(28:33):
bought out executive orders. I'mwith I'm with Myron. I think
there are 2 or 3 that won'tstick that will not just be
challenged, but be successfullychallenged. I think there are
some that he just has to hasCongress go in and change laws,
to prevent some of these, thereally awful things that say
Biden did like his banningoffshore oil in all these areas.

(28:57):
The law gives the president thatauthority.
It's not clear it gives thepresident the next president the
authority to withdraw it.

Yeah. And another good thing is that he's learned
is, you know, Myron pointed outabout these people that were
swamp critters that were stillin the administration. Well,
Trump is cleaning house now.He's basically saying, get out,
and he's replacing them with hisown people. So he's not gonna be
in the situation where some ofthese people are are kinda like,
malingerers, you know, and andsabotaging his efforts.

(29:26):
So he's getting those saboteursout, which is a good thing, and,
he has a much higher chance ofsuccess by cleaning house and
getting out the potentialsaboteurs first.

Jim Lakely (29:37):
Yeah. Well, Myron, you know, with you being head of
his EPA transition team, backin, you know, in 2017 2016, 2017
as he entered his first term,you know, I was extremely
hopeful because I've seen wantedposters by the climate left with
your face on them. And so that'sthe guy I want leading the EPA
transition team, somebody who'swanted by the environmental left

(30:00):
for, crimes against the Earth orsomething. I don't know. Or, you
know, blasphemy to Gaia.
But, you know, I I I will justconfess, you know, you and I,
you know, we talk a lot, and wehave in over the years about
these things in groups and in inperson. And, I think it's safe
to say a lot of people in our inthe climate realist movement,
while hopeful, very hopeful whenTrump first came into office,

(30:23):
were frankly pretty disappointedwith what he was able to do, how
dedicated he was to to enactingclimate realism and sensible
energy policy. And it you know,people have talked about a vibe
shift, you know, in the countrythat the election was reflective
of. I feel like if there's avibe shift that's going into
everything right now, and Ithink his vibe has shifted on on

(30:43):
climate realism, and he's takingit way more seriously. Because
if you read the language of alot of these executive orders,
they are very precise.
They seem designed from thebeginning and carefully edited
to survive legal challenge.

Yes. That's right. Absolutely, Jim. You know, this
time, instead of assemblingwhatever he could to to get
ready and and then get into thenew administration, this time,
he he had his own think tank,the America First Policy
Institute. And, they have beenworking on this ever since you
know, for the last 3 years tomake sure that that president

(31:21):
Trump, Mark 2, is betterprepared and that he has a much
stronger agenda and a and a muchbetter team.
And so, you know, I think, we'reall sorry that he didn't get
reelected in 2020. We wouldn'thave had all the damage that the
Biden administration and theDemocrats in Congress have done.

(31:44):
But on the other hand, he's comeback with all the energy of a
1st term president, but havinglearned, what what works and
what doesn't work and what heneeds to do. So he he's he's got
a lot more energy and a lot moredirection this time.

Yep. There's almost Go ahead.

Sorry. No. Go ahead.

Jim Lakely (32:07):
I was

gonna say there's almost a a feeling of, like,
unreality that this hashappened, that we got president
Trump back. And he's, like, youknow, the first second after he,
is done with his initialspeeches after the inauguration,
he's, you know, signing them 200executive orders on things. As
one of our, commenters said, andI believe as Chris said

(32:29):
yesterday, though, it would Imean, we as the executive orders
are really good to get thing theball rolling, like, right now
and to get your foot in thedoor, but we really need a lot
of this stuff to be passedlegislatively. And we only have,
like, 2 years to do thatprobably. Right?
Myron, would you

Well, you know, it's gonna be hard to get
anything through Congress that,the Democrats in the Senate
don't like, and they they don'tlike anything that Trump is
trying to do because of the ofthe cloture rules, the so called
filibuster. But, you know, we'vegot the reconciliation process,
which is a way around that.Budget reconciliation only

(33:10):
requires a simple majority inthe senate. So, you know, Biden
got through the so calledinflation reduction act with all
the subsidies for EVs andwindmills and solar panels and
carbon capture and storage andeverything else. He got that
through budget reconciliation.
So the Republicans are gonnahave to bear down in congress

(33:32):
and get this get all this stuffundone and then do the new
things through budgetreconciliation. And, you know,
they have a very tight margin inthe house, and I think Trump is
gonna have to be the leaderthere. He is going to have to
tell the speaker of the houseand their house Republicans what
to do. And he's and then he'sgonna have to tell the senate
Republicans what to do, and theybetter march because if if this

(33:57):
agenda isn't successful, theTrump administration isn't going
to be successful, and theRepublicans are going to get
wiped out in the next election.So I I think this is very
important that that he show alot of leadership in telling the
congress what they have to do.

Jim Lakely (34:15):
Yeah. You know, we we talked about this other,
executive orders from thepresident on yesterday's show in
the tank seen Thursdays at thisvery time, 1 PM EST and 12 PM,
central time where we are here.At least, I am here in Chicago.
And we we wanted to save theclimate and energy ones for
today's show. But, I think it'simportant to to know that and

(34:38):
what's it's amazing that therewere, I think, 200 executive
orders, at least, that he hadsigned within the first not even
12 hours of his of his, newadministration.
He had a he had a signing deskset up at his rally at his
celebration rally on stage, forcrying out loud. That's some
that's some WWE style, you know,Vince McMahon stuff there. That

(34:58):
was pretty funny. But, you know,the important thing is that
there needs to be followthrough. The the idea that a new
president can come in andbasically change the law of the
land with the stroke of a penfor 200 different aspects of our
life and policy, it seems crazyto me.
And we need a congress that isgoing to follow-up. We need
legislation that is going tomake these things actual law
that would need to be repealedby a future congress instead of

(35:20):
being just, you know, flip,flip, flip, flip, you know,
every time a new administrationcomes in.

Yeah, we may not have weather whiplash, but
we do have policy whiplashoften.

Absolutely true.

And, I know we want to talk about the
endangerment finding and it maybe the most consequential
portion of a single bill of asingle order. But I want to talk
about one thing before we moveon to that. And that is we talk
about Paris, right? So hewithdrew us from Paris. That was
probably his biggest signature,achievement in the sense of very

(35:52):
visible during his first term.

Jim Lakely (35:57):
Oops. Sterling is frozen. Mhmm. Sterling

entered the frozen.

We're out in a rule. We're out in a year now.
But he he went a step farther.It wasn't just getting us out of
Paris. He passed.
He signed an executive ordercalled Putting America First in
International EnvironmentalAgreements. And that's a bigger
thing because there's a lot ofenvironmental agreements. And,

(36:27):
when it comes to the climateagreements, Paris isn't the only
one we've signed. Under Clinton,we signed on to something called
the Kyoto Protocol. Now it'sit's it's come and gone.
No one met their conditions ofthe protocol, but we've signed
on to a variety of them sayingwe're going to do this kind of
funding. This gets us out of allof them. Just getting out of

(36:49):
Paris wouldn't have done that.This order because they were not
treaties. None of them since theUN Framework Convention on
Climate Change was a treatysigned by the Senate.
Everything else has just been apresident saying, Yeah, yeah,
we're gonna send you some money.Yeah, yeah, yeah. We agree to
these this language. Well, he'snow said, no. No.
No. We're out of them all. Wewe're not gonna call any of

(37:12):
them. We're gonna take the moneyback, and we're not giving you
any more. I just assume him notgo to another climate
conference, him or any of ourpeople waste resources there.
But this order, I think, wasimportant.

Absolutely, Sterling. I think, all the it it
it explicitly says we're out ofthe Paris Climate Treaty, and
we're out of the internationalclimate finance mechanisms of
which there are several. Now wethe US has never put much money
into those climate financemechanisms compared to what was
promised, but still we'retalking about a a a whole lot of

(37:47):
international UN bureaucracythat that we're not gonna be
part of. I think also it opensthe door to getting out of the u
the underlying treaty, the UNFramework Convention on Climate
Change or the Rio Treaty of 1992because it directs the the
Secretary of State and others tolook into, what what our

(38:09):
international environmentalcommitments are and what ought
to be done about them. So itit's as you said, it's much
deeper than just getting out ofthe Paris Climate Treaty.

Jim Lakely (38:18):
Yep. Yep. Alright. That's very good very good
point, and and that's somethingwe can talk about on the show
moving forward for sure as wekeep an eye on these things.
Anthony Watts, you shared acouple of, links in our private
chat here, you know, maybe withsome proof of policy change
already.

Well, not quite proof yet, but I would like to
see president Trump cut the headoff of the climate snake. And
and and the head of of theclimate snake is NASA Goddard
Institute For Space Studies.These are the guys that started
it all. Back in June of 1988,doctor James Sampson went before

(38:54):
congress on the hottest day ofJune, which they scheduled in
particular to be the hottest dayof June. When they called the
weather service ahead of time,said, what's gonna be the
hottest day over the next coupleof weeks?
That's when they scheduled theirhearing. Then they went in the
night before, sabotaged the airconditioning, and opened the
windows so that the people weresitting in there sweating for
the cameras while they talkedabout the dangers of global

(39:14):
warming. That is the mostdishonest piece of policy in
science I've ever seen. Youknow, if your if your science is
so strong, why do you need thisstagecraft bullshit? In any
event, NASA GISS was gonna be onthe way out.
It was formed as a planetaryresearch group for the Apollo
landings, also for potentialMars landings, Venus landings,

(39:36):
the whole works. But, basically,once the Apollo program got
canceled in the seventies, theydidn't really have a mission
much anymore, and they werelanguishing. They were in danger
of losing funding. And untilthey came up with, oh, no. We're
all gonna die of climate changeunless we do something right now
in June of 1988, they basicallywere, you know, they were just

(39:57):
getting scraps of funding.
And then all of a sudden, ofcourse, congress freaks out and
says, oh, well, we better throwsome money at this. Boom. They
threw 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 ofdollars at NASA guests, and
these guys basically set thetone for all the other climate
alarmism down the pike. DoesNASA GISS have to exist today?

(40:17):
No.
And I wanna tell you why. Let'sgo to the next page. They have,
of course, their GISS tempgraph, which they is the one
that is the highest sloping one,out of all of them. It just just
it it it is sloping high and,have a higher magnitude because
they're still using a baseperiod of data from 1950 to

(40:37):
1980. They refused to change it.
Why? Well, if they changed itlike everybody else does, like
UAH, RSS, all these othergroups, it would go down a
little bit. It wouldn't be quiteas dramatic. Oh, they're keeping
that up there for stagecraftagain. But here's the thing.
NASA GIST doesn't even gathertheir own data. They get all

(40:57):
their data collected by NOAAfrom the GHCN network around the
globe. It gets collected inAsheville, North Carolina. NASA
GISS takes that raw data,applies their own secret sauce,
and comes up with the worst casescenario graphics for, you know,
increase in temperature. So thethe need for having a global

(41:18):
temperature, which isn't allthat much important anyway,
isn't even necessary with NASAguests.
They're just a hanger on. Theymake their own stuff with their
own secret sauce. My advice topresident Trump, get rid of
them. They are these head of thesnake. I wanna go to one other
thing, and that is Noah, theNCEI.

(41:41):
These guys talk about$1,000,000,000 disasters. This
is their $1,000,000,000 disasterpage. These guys are also doing
something very unscrupulous.They're calculating
$1,000,000,000 weather andclimate disasters without taking
into account, you know, thegross domestic product,

(42:01):
inflation, and all these otherthings. They're using raw
unadjusted data, you know, andwhich is funny because they're
all big about adjusted data whenit comes to temperature.
But when it comes to billioncalculating $1,000,000,000
weather and climate disasters,we're no. No. We're not gonna
look at any of this other GDPstuff and percentages of GDP and
all this other thing. DoctorRoger Pilkey junior has been a

(42:21):
strong advocate for saying thisis wrong. It's wrong because it
gives a false picture of what wereally have in terms of
disasters.
My advice to president Trump,shut these guys down. Alright.
Rant over.

Jim Lakely (42:36):
Rant over. Anthony rant. That's usually my dig.
Well done. Well done.
Yeah. And so we'll keep an eyeon that. Actually, I as you were
going through that, Anthony, Iremembered that in the first
Trump administration, I thinkvery quickly within a few days,
a lot of the climate climatealarmist narrative pages and
stuff from, from EPA and otherplaces were taken down. We'll
have to I didn't even think tolook to see if that's that,

(42:58):
alarmist BS was taken off of thegovernment sites or not, but
we'll check it out, for you. Butbefore we get to q and a, I
wanna dive a little bit deeperinto the endangerment finding
because this really is, in a lotof ways, kind of the, you know,
the holy grail.
It's it's the linchpin of theregulatory state when it comes
to carbon dioxide. And intoday's climate change weekly

(43:18):
from Sterling Burnett, he cites,section 6 f of 1 of Trump's
climate executive orders. And itsays, quote, within 30 days of
the date of this order, so thatclock is already ticking, the
administrator of the EPA incollaboration with the heads of
any other relevant agenciesshall submit joint
recommendations to the directorof the Office of Management and

(43:40):
Budget on the legality andcontinuing applicability of the
administrator's findings, quote,endangerment and cause or
contribute findings forgreenhouse gases under section
202 a of the Clean Air Act,final rule 74, blah blah blah
blah. And that was from Decemberof 2009. So this I'll leave it
to you guys to tell me if myassumption is correct, but this

(44:02):
does read to me that theendangerment finding that EPA
has has depended upon toregulate every molecule of
carbon dioxide admitted by humanactivity is itself now
endangered.

Well, Sterling, Jim, I I let's go back a little
and explain what the what whatendangerment means. In the
Supreme Court in Massachusettsversus EPA in 2007, ruled that,
yes, the EPA did have authorityunder the Clean Air Act to

(44:41):
regulate c o two emissions fromvehicles, and and there was an
implication from stationarysources like power plants, coal
coal and gas power plants. Ifcertain conditions were met.
They didn't say you have toregulate it. They had they said
you have to look at it under thelaw and see if c o two qualifies

(45:06):
as a pollutant and if you havethe tools in the Clean Air Act
to regulate it.
So the Bush administration tooka pass on doing on doing
anything either one way or theother. The Obama administration
in 2009 made the endangermentfighting, and that's what
started all these efforts toregulate cars, trucks, coal

(45:29):
plants, gas plants, and otherthings to to reduce c o two
emissions. Well, the fact isthat the the Clean Air Act is
not designed to regulate c 02.It's designed to regulate air
pollutants. And so it's a it's atotal mess.
It has a huge cost. It'spointless. But even if you don't

(45:50):
think it's pointless, even ifyou believe that we should be
reducing c o two emissions, thiscan't possibly be the way to do
it. And so, I think, what yousaid about the, you know, the
the administrator of the EPA inconsultation is ordered within
30 days to look into this. Ithink they've got it ready to
go.

(46:10):
My guess is that they theyalready have the, the repeal or
the revocation of theendangerment finding ready to
publish in the federal register.That's that's my guess. So I I
think we're gonna see some Ithink Trump wants to act much
more quickly this time than hedid last time. He learned a
lesson, which is it takes a longtime to to undo and redo

(46:33):
regulations, and he's not gonnamess around. So I I think it's
all ready to be published.

Jim Lakely (46:38):
Yeah. Lee Zeldin was asked about that in his, in his
hearing for confirmation. He waspressed by, I believe it was
senator Markey, or maybe it wasAngus King. Can't remember.

No. Yeah.

Jim Lakely (46:49):
Whatever. He was pressed on that on that
question, though. He's like, youknow, basically, he was he was
asked, do you believe in theendangerment finding and that
you have to enforce it? And hegoes, it says we may we may. So
he was hinting that what he saidwas in trouble.

Markey said that you have to you're
obligated to. And he said, no,we are authorized to.

Jim Lakely (47:10):
Right. Right. Huge difference. Huge difference.
Yeah.
So this so he signaled this wascoming. And and, again, you
know, that was one of the topagenda items I I know of of you
guys at EPA transition was totackle that idea, and it was
basically ignored. It was justnot touched. They figured what
they did was enough. And what welearned of the the last 4 years,
in the interregnum between thetwo Trump administrations is

(47:32):
that it was necessary to dothat.
That that, you know, you had togo as far as he's going now and
maybe even farther in order to,as Anthony put it, you know, cut
the head off the snake orstrangle, you know, strangle
this this this whole thing andand get back to having science
based policy, not alarmist, youknow, BS fake science based
policy.

Yeah. That's right. I I, you know, I I have a little
inside knowledge in the firstterm. The administrator was
Scott Pruitt, he who had comefrom, the Oklahoma attorney. He
was the Oklahoma attorneygeneral before he was appointed,
and he was very tied into theRepublican attorney attorneys
general association and also theFederalist Society.

(48:15):
And these are all goodconservative lawyers, but he
asked some of some he asked thewrong people his contacts
through the Federalist Society.He asked the wrong people
whether he he should or neededto take on the endangerment
finding, and he was told, no.It's not necessary in any way.

(48:38):
It's way too much work. And so Ithink you can see that the
thinking has changed and thatthere's a lot more ambition and
a lot more energy and a lot morefight in president Trump and the
team that he's putting together.

Jim Lakely (48:56):
That is fantastic news. We seem to have lost,
Anthony Watts here. Hopefully,he'll come back, probably have
some technical difficulties.That's why it's nice to have so
many people on the show at once.So it's, it's good to cover our
bases.
I think unless, anyone I thinkwe've covered that pretty well.
We will keep an eye on this forsure. We We will probably have
updates on this as we go along.Sterling, one last word before

(49:17):
we get to Yeah.

One last thing about why the endangerment
signing is, finding is soimportant. One little rule.
Right? One little rule. But itserves as the foundation for
every regulation, everydepartment.
The clean power plant, the EVmandates, the, the social cost

(49:40):
of carbon, everything that'sbeen built, the whole edifice of
climate, policy and rules andregulations depend upon carbon
dioxide being considered, anendangerment under the EPA. So
if it goes, there's nojustification any longer for any
of the other things built uponit.

Jim Lakely (50:02):
Yeah. Kicks the legs out from under it, and then it's
not getting back up. So that's,that's pretty big. So we will
keep

an eye on that.

Jim Lakely (50:08):
We'll be reporting on this on this show, so stay
tuned. Come back every Fridaywhere we will talk about this.
Well, let's take some of yourquestions and comments, from the
always lively chat here. Linea,please take it away.

You got it. Alright. Well, first, once
again, as usual, we have a veryfunny audience. The, we have
this great comment from Kite ManMusic, which I would like to
highlight. Hello, Kite Man, whosays with the arrival of Trump
back again, does this mean wehave reached a tipping point
with the fake climate changeagenda?

(50:42):
This this may be one of thetipping points that actually are
real.

Yeah. No. It's it's a golden age. We've entered a
golden age. I I say that sort ofsomewhat tongue in cheek, but
the president is determined toto make this more than a tipping
point.
There's he he this time, hedoesn't wanna make it possible
to go back to the, the rubbishpursued during 12 out of the

(51:10):
last 16 years.

Yeah. We've got, we we we're we're exiting
the winter of our discontent.And, it's my hope, you know, we
we discussed earlier. It's nicethat Trump is doing this. It's
clearly they they thought itthrough and it's well thought
through.
They have a series of thingsthat build upon each other, but

(51:34):
some of this stuff needscongressional action. He needs
to

Jim Lakely (51:37):
be able

to find stuff Whether they are, congressional
review act things, and and hecan sign some of those now that
congress will pass some forrules that were enacted since
August. But they need to changesome laws fundamentally. They
need to change the NEPA law.They need to change the,
antiquities act. They need tochange wetlands law, and they

(52:01):
need to change some of thisother climate stuff.
So he needs some help. Let'shope that, Congress gets the
message that he is the leader ofthe party, and they should
follow his standard.

Jim Lakely (52:13):
It's only been a 100 hours, Sterling. Just calm down.
Just have some patience. It allhappened.

Right. But, you know, the the, I would
definitely like to see morerepeals than new bills go
through. I think repeals goingwould do a lot more for us than
new legislation.

I think you said something like, I'm going
to get rid of 10 regulations forevery new regulation. Last time
it was like 3. But I'd like tosee 10 laws gone for every law
enacted.

Alright. So we have this good question from
Chris Shattuck who says, canTrump impose sanity upon
California? My take, and itlooks like Anthony's take too,
is no. But he can make it sothat California's insane
disease, does not infect otherstates quite as badly as it
currently does.

Well, that's correct. The the the the exec
one of the executive orders saysthat they have to review
everything and they have to getrid of the EV mandate. What is
the bait the worst part of thethe leading edge of the EV
mandate is the Californiawaiver. And I don't wanna get

(53:23):
technical, but what what wasdone first under the Obama
administration and then redoneunder Biden was to grant
California the authority to makevehicle policy. What kind of
cars and trucks can people buyto make California's policy the

(53:45):
national policy?
So this is sort of a kind ofperversion of federalism. We
want the states to have a lot ofauthority to decide how they
want to run things, but we don'twant one state to be able to
control how all the other statesdo things. That's that's federal
policy. That's not state policy.And so revoking the California

(54:07):
waiver is gonna take some time.
It's it's gonna take some legalaction, and it will be it will
be litigated. There will bepeople, California and all their
allies in the in the climateenvironmentalist movement will
will defend it. But until theCalifornia waiver is revoked,
California is essentiallyrunning the auto industry, and

(54:31):
that that cannot persist. Yep.

Well, I've got a different way of getting rid
of it. Let's let's let's allpush clicks it. California exits
from the United States. The theseveral they have to they
actually have to show an ID tocome into the rest of the United
States.

Yeah. Sterling, I I love California, and it's got
more going for it than any otherplace in the world, and it's
just been politically ruined. Wecan't give up on it. You know,
politics is shifting sands as wefound it dramatically in the
last few decades. And so don'tgive up on California.
It it sanity the it things whenthings get bad enough, sanity

(55:17):
will set in. And I think thesefires in Los Angeles are are,
you know, are are really bad,and that that might that's
already causing some some verywealthy people in LA to start
rethinking their politicalviews.

I I, you know, I hope you're right, Myron. I
hope I hope your optimism iswarranted, but I was long a
person who believed realitywould make politicians change
their mind about things. About15, 18 years ago, I was talking
about coal fired power plantsand how coal they need base load
power. You have to have youwon't be closing these coal

(55:54):
plants. They'll they'll come totheir senses on wind and solar.
And man, was I wrong. Realityslapped them in the face, and
they turned the other cheek, andthey said, we don't care. We're
gonna keep building wind. We'regonna keep building solar, and
we're gonna keep closing coal.And the and the grid and the
grid is amazing.

Kicking the butt has happened in California,
though.

Jim Lakely (56:12):
I'm not just

talking about California. I'm talking about
nationwide.

Yeah. But Sterling, the the look. The problem is
that the people who operate thegrid, the are much too clever,
and they the we should have hadcatastrophic black cats all
around the country for yearsnow. That will change people's
mind, and it is coming unlessthe Trump policies are
successful. So, and I don'tthink there's enough reliance in

(56:35):
the Trump policy so far on thegrid.
There's too much on oil and gasproduction and not enough on on
on the power plants, but I hopethey will turn I hope Doug
Bergamas, the National EnergyStar, will turn his attention to
the grid and how to what needsto be done to save it because
the the grid operators are veryclever at keeping it get up and

(56:57):
running, but we've reached thepoint now that people are gonna
be without electricity for longperiods and quite frequently.
And I don't think I at somepoint, the American people are
not gonna take it.

I would point out, Sterling, you know, you're
talking about that politiciansdon't pay attention to the
reality. That's mostly true. Butwhen it really comes down to the
nitty gritty, it's happened inCalifornia, and a gruesome
Newsome actually changed hispolicy, because they were gonna
shut down the Diablo Canyonnuclear power plant. And then
when everyone said, hey. Look.

(57:30):
This thing is providing, youknow, such a big chunk of
California's baseloadelectricity. If you shut that
thing off, we're toast. And he'slike, oh, oh, in 1922, he's
reversed his position on it. Nowthey're letting that thing stay
open. They rescinded

their possible. They rescinded their
rules on on trucks, you know,large vehicles, for for
electrification. But I thinkit's tinkering around the edges.
I'm sitting here. I'm in Texas.
This is not a blue state. Thisis not a blue state.

Except for Austin.

Except for Austin. But Austin does not run
the state. And yet 200 peopledied in the middle of winter 3
short years ago, because thepower system did fail. And a lot
of bad decisions were made bythe regulators as to how to
manage the power system. But thelargest reason for the failure

(58:25):
was the reliance on wind andsolar.
And we had a legislature thatcame in, vowing to fix the
problem and didn't. And so now,every day this week, I'm getting
warnings that the power systemmight fail. Now, there's no
reason. This is Texas. We havecoal and we had coal plants
until we closed them.

(58:46):
We have lots of natural gashere. There's no justification
for us to continue down the pathof wind and solar, but they
haven't halted it. And peopledied. It's not

Jim Lakely (58:56):
it's not esoteric for us.

It's much worse in Texas than you're making out,
and it's all due to startingwith governor George w Bush in
1999 and the influence of KenLay of Enron and the fact that
the utilities and thelegislature are now controlled
by wind and solar because Texasis now the largest producer of

(59:18):
both wind and solar, and youguys are the leading edge of
disaster in terms of electricreliability. It's you you know,
it it's because you have allowedbig money from wind and solar to
to essentially buy the statelegislature that you're in this

(59:38):
fix. And I don't you know?Again, you may have to have some
more blackouts. I hope they'rein the summer, not in the winter
because people a lot more peopledie when it's cold.

Jim Lakely (59:48):
Yep. Alright, Lanae. Let's get some more questions in
here because we're running shorton time.

We are are yeah. Our our question our answer
period there went so long. Iforgot who asked that last
question. I was gonna type inthe chat saying thanks a lot for
that question that led to thewhole discussion. I think it was
Chris Shattuck who asked, ifCalifornia is gonna be crazy
forever.
Okay. Let's see. I have,actually, I have a couple of
science questions that I wannapitch to Anthony, and I wanna

(01:00:14):
preface it by saying, right offthe bat that this is a it's a
it's an area that's up fordebate, I think. And so, while
Heartland does have studies oror rather does platform people
who take this position, noteveryone of goodwill on the

(01:00:36):
climate issue does. So thequestion is, this person made
comments about how we're goingto enter into a grand solar
minimum, and we're gonna have anew ice age, that kind of
commentary or at least a coolingperiod.
He asks, has Hartland donestudies on this? And I think if
someone else also asked, let'ssee. It was a similar kind of a

(01:01:00):
question regarding ah, okay.From our friend Albert who says,
on the Tom Nelson podcast,people like Willie Soon and Will
Happar all say by 2031, we willbe in a significant cooling
period. So what does the panelthink about that?
And, Anthony, I'd like to pitchit to you because these are our
friends. I mean, we love WillieSoon and Will Happar. They've
come to our climate conferences.We platform their research. But

(01:01:23):
there is a difference of opinionin this area.
And I want to emphasize to theaudience before we get your
answer that if there'ssignificant disagreement, it
doesn't mean that you are, like,in opposition to them or
they're, you know, there's likesome kind of contention or
something. There's not. It'sthat there's legitimate

(01:01:44):
scientific disagreement in theseareas that are not, like,
corrupt. You know?

Sterling Burnett (01:01:50):
I I wanna before Anthony answers the
question about the science, Iwant to say one thing because
the first question was, have wepublished anything on this? And
so I've been here for, I think 9years now. And, we publish, we
republished one book, that wasout of Europe by Veron Holt on
the Sun, but we haven'tpublished other things on the

(01:02:13):
grants were minimum. We haven'tpublished studies or anything.
We republished one book.
It was called, the the somethingsun the something sun.

Myron Ebell (01:02:23):
Something sun.

Yeah. And, that was a few years ago, but it
was republished. And, but that'sthe only thing we I won't say we
haven't published stories or opeds, but we haven't published
another study. I'll leave it toAnthony. I just wanted to answer
that.
I didn't know if you'd knowthat.

Anthony Watts (01:02:37):
Okay. So on the question of, Williston and Will
Happer say it'll be cooling by2031, well, I'm gonna refer to
Yogi Berra. It's difficult tomake predictions, especially
about the future, and I thinkthat falls into that category. I
mean, it could go either way.The bottom line is is that I've
looked at solar a lot.
I used to be a big proponent ofthe idea that sunspot numbers

(01:03:01):
indicated cooling periods and

so

forth, But, my resident, amateur scientist,
Willis Ettrenbach, has doneseveral publications on whats up
with that dot com about thecorrelation or very the lack of
correlation between sunspots andcooling weather around the
planet. And he's done some very,very, very robust analysis of

(01:03:25):
this stuff. And from myperspective, there is not a
clear connection between sunspotnumbers and, cooling or warming
of the planet. There are somefalse starts to some of this.
You know, way back when westarted, the famous Maunder
Minimum, we also had somevolcanic eruptions that started
that around that time, and thenwe had the famous year without a

(01:03:46):
summer.
And so the volcanic eruptionscooled and obscured the skies.
And so it's possible thatsunspot numbers, went down
naturally, but were also, andthe the drop in numbers was
enhanced by the fact that someastronomers couldn't see them
anymore due to the haze and soforth. There's that possibility.
But the bottom line is thatevery time we go and look for a

(01:04:08):
statistical a a correct, Ishould say, statistical
correlation between sunspotnumbers and global climate
change, it just does not holdup. Now that's not to say that
the sun has no effect onclimate.
By far, that is not what we'resaying. The sun does fluctuate
in its output of of, solar,irradiance, TSI. And so there is
fluctuation involved there, butwe've also got other mechanisms

(01:04:30):
going on. You know, we've gotglobal sulfates, we've got
clouds, got all kinds of thingsgoing on on the earth itself,
which can actually factorlarger. And then, of course,
we've got the crazy thing withthe temperature stations where,
you know, we're getting warmerand warmer because the
temperature stations are next toheat sinks and heat sources.
So all this figures in. Whetherwe're gonna cool, you know,
around 2031, it's anybody'sguess.

Linnea Lueken (01:04:54):
Thank you very much. That was very thorough. So
that Yeah. That works for me. Ihope the audience appreciate
appreciates it.

Jim Lakely (01:05:01):
Just one last thing. Just quick thing. The the book
is The Neglected Son by, FritzBaerndold and Sebastian Loening,
and and we've yeah. You probablyhave a copy there, Linae.

I I sent a link to the, to the to the page.

This one.

There it is. Yep.

Yeah. And that was 2015. That was the year I
came on board, I believe. So

Yeah. Heart Heartland has probably
distributed a 1,000 maybeseveral 1,000 copies of that
book around the world to topeople, and we've always had it
at our climate conferences. Soyeah.

It's a good one. It's very interesting. And it's
not too bad of a read either forfor people who aren't super well
educated in some of the sciencethey're talking about. It's it's
very accessible as well. Let'ssee.
We have we can answer thisquestion really fast from above
us only sky. Wasn't Chicago onceunder 3,000 feet of ice? Yes.

(01:05:49):
And then some. It was more than3,000 feet of ice, on top of the
East Chicagoland area.
Let's hope that that never everhappens in anybody's lifetime.
That would be pretty that wouldbe catastrophic climate change.
I'll tell you that.

I would say that if an ice age occurs naturally
through changes in precession orother thing about Earth's orbit
or other factors, there's notone damn thing we can do to stop
it.

If if if we could get all the right
politicians there at the sametime, I'd almost be willing to
sacrifice.

Put them all on ice.

Instant yeah. Instant glaciation. Okay. You'd
have to get, like give you,like, a Batman villain, like
like mister Freeze.

Mister Freeze. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go.

What a good movie, Batman and Robin. And I
say that with sincerity eventhough it's famously one of the
worst. I love it. Okay. FromChristine Laurel, she asks, how
hard will it be for the newadministration in congress to
untangle all the horrible energypolicies from the last 4 years.
Myron, I'll pitch it to you.

Well, it's a lot of work, and, unfortunately, I'm
not really that fond of of,masses of lawyers, but it takes
a lot of really smart regulatorylawyers because undoing
regulations and then redoingthem, you have to go through the
processes of the AdministrativeProcedures Act. And there's a

(01:07:14):
lot of a lot of obstacles,including public comment periods
and then once the rule goesfinal, lawsuits. And so there
will be a lot of lawsuits, andthe left has an awful lot of
lawyers and a lot of very cleverlawyers. And I think just to say

(01:07:34):
something encouraging, Trump'spick for EPA administrator, the
head regulator of all this, isLee Zeldin. And Lee Zeldin does
not have experience in these inin the Clean Air Act, the Clean
Water Act, Superfund, and so on,but he is a very sharp lawyer.

(01:07:55):
He's a regulatory lawyer. He'svery energetic, and he's a very
he's very enthusiastic aboutderegulating. So, I think
starting with the top at theEPA, they're going to assemble a
very strong team. And, also, atthe Department of Justice, we
haven't heard who's who's goingto be the assistant attorney

(01:08:17):
general for energy and naturalresources. I hope they they
can't get anybody as good aslast time, Jeff Clark.
But last time, Jeff Clark didn'tget confirmed until 2,000 18 in
the in the fall. It took a yearand a half. He was so
controversial. So I hope I hopethat there's going to be a a

(01:08:37):
really strong team to go throughall the regulatory, legal hoops.

Alright. Thank you. Let's see. We have a we
have a lot of questions that Istart. Some of them that we will
probably not be able to get to,but because we're already a
little bit over time, but Iwanna get to a good chunk of
these.
So I'm trying to pick and choosewhich ones follow each other the
best. Here's one from Donald,who says, what do you think

(01:09:08):
about Trump's statements at DaveDavos suggesting the National
Energy Emergency Declaration wasdone to facilitate the energy
production needed for theStargate AI infrastructure plan?
Likewise, there's anotherquestion here that kind of
relates to this, which says,when will slowing the energy
hogs happen? Can we allow 10fold energy electricity demand

(01:09:31):
by data tech, AI, and EVmanufacturing and Bitcoin
mining? Can we stop these hogs?
Conservation used to be a word.And to that, I would say, I
don't think the Bitcoin miningthing is so much of of an energy
hog anymore. I think that's kindof died off. Andy would know
better than me, but I don't Idon't think that's quite as big
of a demand, but the AI stuffdefinitely is a big energy

(01:09:51):
demand. So I pitch it to anyoneon the panel that wants to weigh
in on those.

I'll just say that on yesterday's In the Tank
podcast, that which you can findon our YouTube channel, we did
cover this, on on that program,so definitely check that out.

Yeah. And I would add, I was at a an all day
seminar last week on gridreliability and and whether AI
data centers are going to beanother hit on grid reliability.
And the answer is, well, yes,sort of, but mostly not. And the
reason is because the big techcompanies do not have the

(01:10:28):
patience to wait for utilitiesto to 2 or 3 years to get the
permits to build a a power plantand then a 2 or 3 more years to
build it. They are veryimpatient, and they have a lot
of money.
And they're gonna build theirown power plants to run their
own data data centers. And thesethese power plants will not be

(01:10:49):
on the grid, and and so the Ithink to I think the answer is
data centers are not going tothreaten the grid, but the grid
is in such deep disrepairbecause of the closure of coal
fired power plants and thebuilding of wind and solar that,
you know, thank god that AIisn't gonna add very much to

(01:11:10):
that. But but, you know, there'sa lot of work to do anyway.

It may be a blessing. You know, we debated
this a while ago when we had ashow just after Microsoft said
they were going to restart thenuclear plant with
Constellation, 3 Mile Island andwhether we like the idea of AI
getting their own power. And Iasked at the time and I still
believe it. Look, if they're nolonger drawing power from the

(01:11:38):
grid, the a that's benefits us,it benefits average folks. But
B, they should also no longer belobbying for certain types of,
energy production and grid.
No. You take care of yourself.The rest of the country will
take care of ourselves, andwe're gonna do what you did.

Which is

build baseline reliable power.

Yeah. Yeah. Once they have to build their own,
they're gonna build gas turbinesand and, nuclear is a long ways
away except for reopening thisone plant. But I wanna point
out, reopening an an existingplant, which is a lot cheaper
than building a new one,Microsoft is still going to pay
more than twice the going ratefor electricity, and they're

(01:12:21):
willing to do that.

Got it.

Yeah. We we've brought it up a few times that
we're a little bit worried abouta, like, a tiered electricity
system where big tech gets tohave their own private nuclear
and gas and and maybe even coalin some cases. There's a coal
plant in, I believe, Iowa that'sthat was allowed to remain open
longer, beyond when it wassupposed to be shut down because

(01:12:45):
oh, Kansas. Okay.

Well, I

was on the right side of the Mississippi anyway.
It doesn't narrow it down toowell, but I knew it was
something like that. But they'rethey're being permitted to keep
that power plant open because ofa data center that's going in,
into that area. So that's we'rea little we're keeping our eye
on that. But, if they did stoppetitioning, you know, and

(01:13:09):
lobbying for, unreliable energyfor the rest of us, that would
be fine.
I I can't see anything wrongwith someone having their own
personal power plant. Let's see.This is a question from one of
our viewers on Rumble. BSCIPeony. I don't I'm not even
gonna try.
Sorry, friend. Can the EPAsubmit endangerment evidence

(01:13:33):
based on the flawed models?

That's all they've ever done. I mean,

that's what they did. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what they do. We're hoping we're
hoping that the the new newregime under Lee Zeldin will
say, hey, we're only going totake actual climate science, not
fantasy, and not, you know,models. You can get any answer
you want out of a model.

When when they did the endangement finding
initially, they did 2 things.They looked at models and they
looked at the IPCC summary forpolicymakers, and they said this
is the gold standard. And theysay it's a danger and the model
say it's a danger. So it's adanger.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Rhys Reid asks, how can we make sure
repealing the inflationreduction act gets through
reconciliation?

Well, support all the groups that are pushing for
it, like the HeartlandInstitute. You know, I I've been
we we've been talking about thisever since the Inflation
Reduction Act got passed throughreconciliation. Not a single
Republican senator voted for it,which is surprising considering
where some Republican senatorsare. And then the next year,

(01:14:46):
every Republican in the housevoted to repeal it. So so
there's very strong support, andnow all of the industry
lobbyists who get handouts, andthat includes the American
Petroleum Institute, not justwind and solar, they are all
going up to the hill and tellingthe Republicans, oh, no, we

(01:15:07):
can't repeal the whole thing.
We just need to make surgicalcuts and be really sensible and
just take out the bad stuff.Well, everybody who's getting a
handout thinks that what they'regetting is good. So every you
know, it's some other guy'shandout that's bad. So we have
to get unite, and we need topush the Republicans. And Trump

(01:15:28):
has to lead it.
But, groups like Heartland andand others in in the coalition,
the cooler heads coalition, needto be pushing to say the whole
thing has to go, and it willsave so much money that that we
used to pay for the the taxcuts. So, this is a huge issue,
and I'm glad it was brought up.I mean, it's a it's a colossal

(01:15:51):
issue, and it's gonna be acolossal fight.

Yep. Thank you. Here's a good question from
Chris Nisbet who says, will anyof these executive orders have
any impact on state basedpolicies like the New York drive
to destroy their electricitygrid and bans on gas stoves and
buildings, or can they continueregardless? Anybody?

Who wants to answer? I Yeah. This is gonna be
a big fight. I mean, that somethings if you look at the
executive orders, some thingsare already the states are
already being pushed, or they'regonna they're gonna try to push
them. And in the the theexecutive order that says that
declaring an energy emergency,It particularly calls out

(01:16:39):
problems on the West Coast,California, Oregon, and
Washington, and in thenortheast, New York and New
England and Alaska.
And it says, there are there isthere are going to be attempts
to break the the 3 governors onthe West Coast. Their, the way

(01:16:59):
they have stopped coal portsbeing built to ship coal from
Wyoming and and also pipelines.New York has stopped pipelines
that New England wants, gaspipelines so that they they
don't have to import LNG fromRussia. And so, I think there's
gonna be a concerted effort todo whatever is possible, but

(01:17:22):
let's face it. And we I think Iagree with this.
The states have a lot ofauthority on their own, and we
shouldn't we shouldn't trampleit, but we shouldn't let let
them try to get away with makingnational policy.

It it could be the case where you have a sort
of a energy apartheid in theUnited States to some extent.

We already have this.

Yeah. Well, you know, that's true. You know,
but I mean, where where you getsome real reforms pretty quick,
you get pipelines built in someplaces and not in others. And
not because, like I said,Trump's executive order energy
emergency should reduce some ofthat. But in the end, it's not
like some of these states wheretheir Executives, their AGS,

(01:18:05):
their environment heads, theirheads live firmly in the sand,
or, you know, their pocketbookslive firmly in the pocket of,
green energy, politicallyconnected green energy elites.
They're not going down quietlyfor these rules. They're going
to keep fighting. Some statesmay have to withdraw from, for

(01:18:28):
instance, RGGI to get moresanity in their states. So that
they're not doing this tradingstuff, which only harms them.

In some states, some states have already
announced that they will keeptheir the United States's
commitments under the ParisClimate Treaty to reduce c o two
emissions. They will keep themin their state. I think Wait.
Let me ask

you about that, Myron, because I've never
understood how a state or a citycould do that because it's very
clear that only the UnitedStates may be party to
international agreements that,that, you know, it's not just
interstate commerce that'scontrolled by Congress
supposedly, but it'sinternational agreements. And so

(01:19:14):
how can a state say, no. No.We're going to do what what the
UN wants, not what the UnitedStates government wants. I've
never understood that.

Well, they're they're not saying that they're
a party to the treaty. They'rejust saying that the the United
States under the Bidenadministration and

the Obama administration made

commitments to cut US emissions. Commitments to cut
US emissions and that Californiashare is x%, and they will keep
the commitment to cut by thatpercentage. That's, so that's
that would be something thatthey would adopt through
legislation or regulation. It'snot it's not that they're a part
of the treaty. However, RGGI I'mglad you mentioned RGGI.

(01:19:53):
California is, and maybeWashington and maybe Oregon are
part of a a an emissions tradingscheme with certain Canadian
provinces. And that seems to beclearly unconstitutional because
you you can't make these kindsof compacts without the approval
of congress. And so the firstTrump administration, Jeff Clark

(01:20:15):
and and John Breitbull, sued incourt to stop this, to having a
deal with Quebec or Ontario. Andthey they lost the 1st round,
and then they lost went out ofoffice. And so the the case was
lost, but this needs to berefought.
It's very important that statescan't can't mess around

(01:20:39):
internationally.

Yes. Yes. Appreciate that, Myron. And, yeah, I mean,
there's so much that we wentover on this show. There's gonna
be so much more to go over inthe future, as the Trump
administration.
It god. It feels like it'salready been in place for
months, not hours. It's amazinghow much has been done. You
know, you get a second chance,and he is taking advantage of it
in every single way. Rightbefore we go here, because you

(01:21:04):
can hear the music as we'releaving, I wanted to show some,
some funny stuff that we didn'tquite get to earlier in the
show.
This meme has been going aroundwith us and our climate realist
friends. If you're cold, they'recold. Bring them inside. And the
image of a alligator in thesnow, it's pretty funny. And we
mentioned in the beginning ofthe show that, Linnea Lucan was

(01:21:25):
enjoying herself with a pipe ata, inaugural ball in DC.
So the story is true. Look howmuch fun that was. I really wish
I did not miss it. And she alsomentioned her, her pork
chickens, and they are alive.Here they are, enjoying their
self their themselves in thesnow.
Chickens are pretty tough birds,and they will live through this.

(01:21:47):
That is for sure. I wanna thank,as we as we wrap up here, I
wanna thank Myronie Bell, fromAmerican Lands Council, and
formerly of CEI, one of thenumber one climate criminals on
Earth. Hopefully, you willremain out of climate jail, and
you can come back on the show inthe future. Appreciate that.
Thank you, Sterling Burnett.Thank you, Linnea Lukin. Thank

(01:22:08):
you, Anthony Watts, who had tobug out a little early, and
thank you very much to ourproducer, Andy Singer, in the
background. Always visitclimaterealism.com.
Visitclimate@aglance.com.
Go to what's up with that.com,and always go to heartland.org
where you can subscribe to getthe Climate Change Weekly,
newsletter. Thank you all in thechat and everyone watching and

(01:22:29):
listening today. Bye bye.

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Making Climate Policy Sane Again - The Climate Realism Show #142

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Making Climate Policy Sane Again - The Climate Realism Show #142