Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me now the author of the Irrational Fear substack,
doctor Matthew Willicky. He is an earth science professor in exile.
As he says, and he covers all of the news
about climate science and so much other stuff on his substack.
I highly recommend it. It is one of the ones that
I subscribe to, and I'd love for you to do
the same. Today we're talking something big. First of all, Matthew,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks anddy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is kind of huge what's happening right now at
the EPA. And I'm going to let you lay out
what the EPA did yesterday and then we'll get into
the long term impacts of this.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But this is I think it's.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Like a lead story of the day kind of thing,
and it is flying under the radar in the news.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So what did the EPA do?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
So, under the direction of League Zelden, the director of
the EPA, they have taken the first steps of overturning
what is essentially the found dat keystone for the entire
foundation for keeping climate regulation going. This was a rule
that started under the Obama administration. It actually started in
(01:10):
two thousand and eight, but was finalized in two thousand
and nine, so it's kind of taken this the nomenclature
of the two thousand and nine in daygerment finding. And
what the EPA did was they used the Chevron Doctrine,
which allowed these three letter agencies to kind of reinterpret
the laws if the if Congress wasn't very specific. So
what they did was they reinterpreted the Clean Air Act,
(01:33):
that is meant to regulate pollutants in the air that
we all support and I think everybody thinks has been
a pretty beneficial thing. They interpreted that Act to also
include greenhouse gases like CO two, And so as I
speak to you right now, I'm exhaling forty thousand parts
per million of CO two. That's about one hundred times
(01:53):
that's right, about one hundred times of what's in the atmosphere.
But just recently this year, the Chevron Doctrine was down
because of a case in dealing with fishermen in New England.
And so the EPA now is really starting to step
back and say, wait, do we really have the scientific
basis to identify something as CO two one of the
(02:17):
major gases that allows life to exist, if not the
major gas that allows.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Life to exist.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Are we going to do we have the basis to
regard that as a pollutant. Let's go back and take
a look at this, because if we don't really have
the foundational scientific basis to consider this a pollutant, then
we don't have the foundation to regulate, we don't have
all of the rules that have been put into place
to reduce CO two emissions kind of start to go
(02:41):
out the window. So this is a huge decision. It's
going to be fought in the courts, but this is
the first step we're really dismantling the climatehouse of cards.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I started reading the report this morning. I didn't have
time to read the whole thing, but they specifically attack
some of the scientific underpinnings of that endangerment finding, and
some of them were really kind of pathetic.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I mean, just on cursory review, the.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Science that led to that endangerment finding is sort of absurd,
some of it. Again, I haven't read the whole thing.
What are your thoughts on the way that they are
explaining this decision.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I guess it is it. It's completely unscientific.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It's it's perfect for legal doctrine because it uses all
these very loose legal words could be might include possibility
of it. But it basically throws away all of the
actual uncertainty in science, which is what makes science very
unique and interesting, is because we always get things wrong
(03:44):
and we always kind.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Of work closer to the truth.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
It throws all of that uncertainty out, and it basically
just makes the decision that the it's you know, puts
the flag in the on the mountain that says CO
two is to blame, and we can ignore everything else.
We don't have to worry about any sort of benefits
that CO two may provide us.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We're just going to focus on reducing CO two.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
And it's clear that in the new findings and the
new DOE report that also came out yesterday, this is
going to be the basis for getting rid of the
endangerment finding.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That Department of Energy came out with a new climate.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Report yesterday and it really puts questions a lot of this.
The societal impact of the CO two that the Ngagement
Finding assumes is significantly more than what we're finding. It
actually CO two costs something like an order of magnitude,
So they expected all of these negative impacts to happen
all this extreme weather and all these other events, but
(04:39):
those just aren't coming to fruition, and so they overestimated
this significant cost of CO two and they use that
as justification to regulate all of these industries, and we're
finding that those costs just aren't coming out.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
One of the biggest industries that's been affected by this
rulemaking is the auto industry. And the auto industry has
been told you must sell x amount of cars that
are electric, even though consumers don't want to buy electric cars. Right,
we had a quick uptake of early adopters, people that
were excited to buy electric cars. That is over and
the numbers are terrible, and our auto industry is losing
(05:15):
billions of dollars with these cars that nobody wants to buy.
So what does this mean for them?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, this is I mean, this is this is the
underpinning for all of those types of mandates, all of
the incentives for green energy that really are all underpinned
by the idea that if we don't lower CO two,
we're going to pay a big cost as a society.
And that's where it's a danger to the health and
(05:42):
environment of the public. So that's why it was found
as an endangement. But if that's not the case, and
we have all this data. This came out in two
thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now we have.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Sixteen years of extra data that we can put on
top of this, and it's clear that they were completely
overestimating what was going to happen. And if you don't
really have all of these negative impacts, then what are
we doing all of these mandates for? Why are we
doing all of these these tax incentives. This cost taxpayers money,
and this is money that could be going to a
(06:10):
lot of other places to do a lot of good.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Right, it was sold, is this.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Is going to be some benefit by lowering CO two.
It's clear that's not the case. Now we're just really
just throwing money out the drain.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
You know, yesterday matthew I talked about the fact that
China actually funds a lot of the green organizations here
in the United States, and at the same time China,
which is funding green organization saying carbon, you know, carbon
has to be brought down and fossil fuels are bad.
They're building, you know, four hundred and fifty coal mines
right now. They're production of coal fired power plants is
(06:41):
at the highest that it's been in ten years.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What do they know that we don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
They know that the future is energy intensive, and that's
going to be whether it's manufacturing AI data centers. The
future is energy intensive. You need all hands on deck.
Build solar, you build some wind where it's necessary, but
you keep going with all of your other baseload infrastructure.
China's also building the most nuclear energy out of any
(07:09):
nation currently, so they're going to be basically building our
solar panels from their nuclear power plants and then selling
them back to us at an inflated cost. Because we've
thought that that would be our future, we really need
to have all hands on deck. I think solar and
wind could be part of the solution, but we can't
forget that we get something like seventy eight percent of
(07:30):
our baseload power, which is the underlying power that we
consistently produce from fossil fuels and from nuclear energy, and
that really has to be the primary focus. It seems
like that's where the Department of Energy and Secretary right
are kind of pushing the country at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So last question, you said, this is going to be
held up in the courts. Who's going to sue on
what grounds and do they have a case to make
in if this ever goes to the court room.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So climate law fare is the new weapon of choice
from these green green technology groups and these green environmentals groups.
They really see that if this underpinning disappears, their funding
will dry up. And so there is a big push
right now, and I think a lot of lawyers are
getting involved to try to find any legal loophole to
(08:16):
try to skirt around this and keep this endangerment finding
in place, because it's really built up an entire I
call it the climate industrial complex, and there's a huge
industry that now is really supported by this one finding.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And so I think you're going to see a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Of fighting in the legal system, but the science really
supports that we get rid of the finding.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So and that was going to be my next question.
So is it feasible that a judge is going to
make a decision about whether or not carbon dioxide is
it should be, you know, should get that endangerment finding.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I think that what he would have to do is
kick it back to Congress, or she would have to
do is kick it back to Congress, and to make
sure that Congress specific.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He puts in the Clean Air Act and.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Has an amendment in there that states greenhouse gases and
specifically which ones.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Because the Chevron doctrine.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Really says that these EPA and these other three letter
agencies can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
The judges aren't supposed to do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
What they're supposed to do is kick it back to
Congress and make Congress be very specific about what's considered
a pollutant, which I'm all for because we can kick
our politicians out, but it's a lot harder to kick
out these career bureaucrats and career judges. And so if
we kick it back to Congress and we make those people,
while they're exhaling forty thousand ppm of CO two, stand
(09:38):
up there and say that CO two is a pollutant,
I think that will be really where we have to
go with this.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
You know what I You know, whether or not you
believe in God, it doesn't really matter or how you
think the Earth, God here, whatever it is. One thing
we do know is that every living thing on this
planet exudes CO two in form some form to think
that it is now going to be poisoned. For the
very planet that we've been inhabiting since the beginning of
time is absurd. I mean it just it's laughable, and
(10:07):
yet here we are. Doctor Matthew Willicky's a substack Irrational
Fear is excellent. I put a link to it today
on the blog. Good to see you again, Matt. We'll
talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Thanks maby all right, thank you sir. We'll be right back.
Joining me now the author of the Irrational Fear substack,
doctor Matthew Willicky. He is an earth science professor in exile.
As he says, and he covers all of the news
about climate science and so much other stuff on his substack.
I highly recommend it. It is one of the ones that
I subscribe to, and I'd love for you to do
the same. Today we're talking something big. First of all, Matthew,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks anddy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is kind of huge what's happening right now at
the EPA. And I'm going to let you lay out
what the EPA did yesterday and then we'll get into
the long term impacts of this.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But this is I think it's.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Like a lead story of the day kind of thing,
and it is flying under the radar in the news.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So what did the EPA do?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
So, under the direction of League Zelden, the director of
the EPA, they have taken the first steps of overturning
what is essentially the found dat keystone for the entire
foundation for keeping climate regulation going. This was a rule
that started under the Obama administration. It actually started in
(01:10):
two thousand and eight, but was finalized in two thousand
and nine, so it's kind of taken this the nomenclature
of the two thousand and nine in daygerment finding. And
what the EPA did was they used the Chevron Doctrine,
which allowed these three letter agencies to kind of reinterpret
the laws if the if Congress wasn't very specific. So
what they did was they reinterpreted the Clean Air Act,
(01:33):
that is meant to regulate pollutants in the air that
we all support and I think everybody thinks has been
a pretty beneficial thing. They interpreted that Act to also
include greenhouse gases like CO two, And so as I
speak to you right now, I'm exhaling forty thousand parts
per million of CO two. That's about one hundred times
(01:53):
that's right, about one hundred times of what's in the atmosphere.
But just recently this year, the Chevron Doctrine was down
because of a case in dealing with fishermen in New England.
And so the EPA now is really starting to step
back and say, wait, do we really have the scientific
basis to identify something as CO two one of the
(02:17):
major gases that allows life to exist, if not the
major gas that allows.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Life to exist.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Are we going to do we have the basis to
regard that as a pollutant. Let's go back and take
a look at this, because if we don't really have
the foundational scientific basis to consider this a pollutant, then
we don't have the foundation to regulate, we don't have
all of the rules that have been put into place
to reduce CO two emissions kind of start to go
(02:41):
out the window. So this is a huge decision. It's
going to be fought in the courts, but this is
the first step we're really dismantling the climatehouse of cards.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I started reading the report this morning. I didn't have
time to read the whole thing, but they specifically attack
some of the scientific underpinnings of that endangerment finding, and
some of them were really kind of pathetic.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I mean, just on cursory review, the.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Science that led to that endangerment finding is sort of absurd,
some of it. Again, I haven't read the whole thing.
What are your thoughts on the way that they are
explaining this decision.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I guess it is it. It's completely unscientific.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It's it's perfect for legal doctrine because it uses all
these very loose legal words could be might include possibility
of it. But it basically throws away all of the
actual uncertainty in science, which is what makes science very
unique and interesting, is because we always get things wrong
(03:44):
and we always kind.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Of work closer to the truth.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
It throws all of that uncertainty out, and it basically
just makes the decision that the it's you know, puts
the flag in the on the mountain that says CO
two is to blame, and we can ignore everything else.
We don't have to worry about any sort of benefits
that CO two may provide us.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We're just going to focus on reducing CO two.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
And it's clear that in the new findings and the
new DOE report that also came out yesterday, this is
going to be the basis for getting rid of the
endangerment finding.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That Department of Energy came out with a new climate.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Report yesterday and it really puts questions a lot of this.
The societal impact of the CO two that the Ngagement
Finding assumes is significantly more than what we're finding. It
actually CO two costs something like an order of magnitude,
So they expected all of these negative impacts to happen
all this extreme weather and all these other events, but
(04:39):
those just aren't coming to fruition, and so they overestimated
this significant cost of CO two and they use that
as justification to regulate all of these industries, and we're
finding that those costs just aren't coming out.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
One of the biggest industries that's been affected by this
rulemaking is the auto industry. And the auto industry has
been told you must sell x amount of cars that
are electric, even though consumers don't want to buy electric cars. Right,
we had a quick uptake of early adopters, people that
were excited to buy electric cars. That is over and
the numbers are terrible, and our auto industry is losing
(05:15):
billions of dollars with these cars that nobody wants to buy.
So what does this mean for them?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, this is I mean, this is this is the
underpinning for all of those types of mandates, all of
the incentives for green energy that really are all underpinned
by the idea that if we don't lower CO two,
we're going to pay a big cost as a society.
And that's where it's a danger to the health and
(05:42):
environment of the public. So that's why it was found
as an endangement. But if that's not the case, and
we have all this data. This came out in two
thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now we have.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Sixteen years of extra data that we can put on
top of this, and it's clear that they were completely
overestimating what was going to happen. And if you don't
really have all of these negative impacts, then what are
we doing all of these mandates for? Why are we
doing all of these these tax incentives. This cost taxpayers money,
and this is money that could be going to a
(06:10):
lot of other places to do a lot of good.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Right, it was sold, is this.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Is going to be some benefit by lowering CO two.
It's clear that's not the case. Now we're just really
just throwing money out the drain.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
You know, yesterday matthew I talked about the fact that
China actually funds a lot of the green organizations here
in the United States, and at the same time China,
which is funding green organization saying carbon, you know, carbon
has to be brought down and fossil fuels are bad.
They're building, you know, four hundred and fifty coal mines
right now. They're production of coal fired power plants is
(06:41):
at the highest that it's been in ten years.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What do they know that we don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
They know that the future is energy intensive, and that's
going to be whether it's manufacturing AI data centers. The
future is energy intensive. You need all hands on deck.
Build solar, you build some wind where it's necessary, but
you keep going with all of your other baseload infrastructure.
China's also building the most nuclear energy out of any
(07:09):
nation currently, so they're going to be basically building our
solar panels from their nuclear power plants and then selling
them back to us at an inflated cost. Because we've
thought that that would be our future, we really need
to have all hands on deck. I think solar and
wind could be part of the solution, but we can't
forget that we get something like seventy eight percent of
(07:30):
our baseload power, which is the underlying power that we
consistently produce from fossil fuels and from nuclear energy, and
that really has to be the primary focus. It seems
like that's where the Department of Energy and Secretary right
are kind of pushing the country at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So last question, you said, this is going to be
held up in the courts. Who's going to sue on
what grounds and do they have a case to make
in if this ever goes to the court room.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So climate law fare is the new weapon of choice
from these green green technology groups and these green environmentals groups.
They really see that if this underpinning disappears, their funding
will dry up. And so there is a big push
right now, and I think a lot of lawyers are
getting involved to try to find any legal loophole to
(08:16):
try to skirt around this and keep this endangerment finding
in place, because it's really built up an entire I
call it the climate industrial complex, and there's a huge
industry that now is really supported by this one finding.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And so I think you're going to see a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Of fighting in the legal system, but the science really
supports that we get rid of the finding.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So and that was going to be my next question.
So is it feasible that a judge is going to
make a decision about whether or not carbon dioxide is
it should be, you know, should get that endangerment finding.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I think that what he would have to do is
kick it back to Congress, or she would have to
do is kick it back to Congress, and to make
sure that Congress specific.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He puts in the Clean Air Act and.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Has an amendment in there that states greenhouse gases and
specifically which ones.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Because the Chevron doctrine.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Really says that these EPA and these other three letter
agencies can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
The judges aren't supposed to do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
What they're supposed to do is kick it back to
Congress and make Congress be very specific about what's considered
a pollutant, which I'm all for because we can kick
our politicians out, but it's a lot harder to kick
out these career bureaucrats and career judges. And so if
we kick it back to Congress and we make those people,
while they're exhaling forty thousand ppm of CO two, stand
(09:38):
up there and say that CO two is a pollutant,
I think that will be really where we have to
go with this.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
You know what I You know, whether or not you
believe in God, it doesn't really matter or how you
think the Earth, God here, whatever it is. One thing
we do know is that every living thing on this
planet exudes CO two in form some form to think
that it is now going to be poisoned. For the
very planet that we've been inhabiting since the beginning of
time is absurd. I mean it just it's laughable, and
(10:07):
yet here we are. Doctor Matthew Willicky's a substack Irrational
Fear is excellent. I put a link to it today
on the blog. Good to see you again, Matt. We'll
talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Thanks maby all right, thank you sir. We'll be right back.
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