Episode 358 Scott Adams: Breaking Down the Climate Change Debate
Date: 2019-01-01 | Duration: 31:11
Topics
Comparing the strong points of climate experts and climate skeptics The need for a conversation between the two sides Bill Gates says the world needs to be working on nuclear power It’s the biggest news in the world Lower energy costs would allow reforestation of deserts President Trump’s personality allows him to do things others wouldn’t Stock market tanked 6% because Fed said market to hot, and slowed The economy is SO GOOD…the Fed had to slow it down
Rough Transcript
This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
Transcript
[0:05]
bah bah bah bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody I’m late this morning but that’s okay because most of you slept in I know you’re a partying bunch of people so you were probably hitting it hard last night New Year’s Eve yeah I stayed up until exactly midnight and then I don’t but I like to sleep in today and if I make you wait doesn’t it make the simultaneous sip all that much better you know it does I hope you save some coffee for me because it’s time to raise your glass your mug your chalice your stein your container of liquids make sure it’s filled with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous it oh if you haven’t seen the president’s New Year’s Eve tweets you really have to see him there’s some good
[1:07]
really have to see him there’s some good tweeting going on my favorite one I tweeted around today I don’t want to ruin the joke so just look at the tweet of the president’s tweets one of them about Elizabeth Warren and one of them in all caps walking with wishing us all a Happy New Year they’re both funny I don’t want to ruin them you have to just see them yourself all right now I’ve been having fun trying to understand the climate change debate and I’m gonna help you through it as well because one of the things that I’ve complained about since the start is that we unwashed citizens who are not scientists can’t really understand what’s going on it’s just complicated enough the debate over climate change that is it’s hard to get it you’re you know wrap your head around what should I pay attention to
[2:09]
what should I pay attention to matters what doesn’t matter etc so I thought I’d help break it down for you and consider this a process it’s a process where we’re going from not quite understanding what the heck’s going on to one until we’re giving a little bit of clarity I won’t be able to get you to a conclusion today but I’m gonna take you to a clearer place if that makes sense so I’m gonna get you you know moving move you up the chain a little bit and to do that I’ll be using my new double whiteboard system oh I’ll wait for the big reveal it’ll look like a regular whiteboard at first but just wait that’s not all it gets better so here you can see I’ve labeled this the climate non debate because it turns out people don’t really debate climate they just yell at each other so there’s not much of an actual debate let’s see if I can get the glare off of this but will will talk about it
[3:13]
off of this but will will talk about it anyway all right so I’ve got what the skeptics say and then I’ve got what the experts say to the skeptics because that’s the part that’s been missing right normally when you look at this topic you’ll see just the experts talking or you’ll see just the skeptics talking but you don’t see them talking with each other which would be useful so I’m gonna try to take the arguments and try to put them up next to each other so you can see and here’s my own judgement about how much credibility you should put in each of these arguments the subject to change everything is preliminary here so there’s the argument from the skeptics that that co2 is not the big driver of change that we’re seeing right now so because temperatures are apparently going up and some say it’s volcanoes or the Sun or I think there are a few other theories about other things I would say that those have been debunked because
[4:14]
that those have been debunked because it’s easy enough to attract those other things the volcanoes and the sunspots on the Sun for example and put them on a graph and you can see that they don’t match the direction of the temperature according to NASA now I’m going to say that this is probably solid meaning that they’re enough people have looked at the other the other possibilities that if they if there was if those effects match the trend line of temperature we’d know about it alright so when I look at just the skeptics they will produce a chart and they’ll say hey look at my chart it’s right here you can see it’s related to sunspots but if that were true I think the experts would have noticed I mean even if you assume that there you know influenced by money and everything else if it really was this simple Hey look at this Sun chart it matches perfectly I think they
[5:16]
chart it matches perfectly I think they would have noticed so I’m going to say that the experts have the credibility advantage for these simple alternatives because they can just put them on a chart and they say it doesn’t fit it doesn’t fit as well as co2 does according to them and one of the reasons it wouldn’t fit is because the rate of change these these other theories don’t I don’t think that they explain how quickly it’s going up and if you don’t explain the how quickly part the rate of change you haven’t explained anything because it’s the rate of change that’s important then there’s the Toni Heller argument that the data historical data has been fudged his argument goes that we can tell what the data used to be because they were published reports multiple published reports in which people were referring to the data as different than it is now and it is a fact the data has been adjusted historically but apparently there are reasons for it so and that it’s normal
[6:18]
reasons for it so and that it’s normal to make corrections I would put the credibility on this part of the argument add so far as zero so I would say the experts have zero credibility and Tony Heller so far again we’re in the middle of the game we’re not at the end in the game if we’re gonna score it right now Tony Heller has the clear advantage because he showed his work he showed you here’s the article that says NASA says it’s cooling or warming or whatever they’re saying and then here’s what they say now and it doesn’t match what they used to say and we know that data does get adjusted now one of the claims is that the data is only ever adjusted in one direction we don’t have an answer for that is that a coincidence that data is only adjusted in one direction to make it look like there’s more warming that’s suspicious so I’d give him the credibility on that because there’s no there’s no good explanation for that I
[7:20]
there’s no good explanation for that I believe there’s also an argument that some of the measuring stations you know some of them have gone out of production in the time that we’ve been measuring and I believe part of the argument is that all of the ones that have been operating continuously don’t show the warming it’s only when you throw in new ones and make adjustments that you can even see the warming now I’m not going to say that’s true or false I’m just going to say that the skeptic argument is strong because they show their work and the and the the response to the skeptical argument is non-existent or at least I can’t find it right now there’s the argument that the models are bunk and the experts would say that is not true some of those models hindcast well meaning that they would explain in the past and some of them but not all of them do a pretty good job of getting
[8:21]
them do a pretty good job of getting pretty close to the rate of increase in temperature not exact but in a directional sense they’re close enough that we should be worried is that credible well here’s here’s the first problem if you have lots of models lots of different models and and I think everybody would agree there have been hundreds of them some of them are going to be closer than others but it doesn’t mean that they have a model that predicts things it just means they have a lot of models see if you have a lot of models and some of them are somewhat close to the actual reality that doesn’t mean your models can predict it doesn’t mean anything it only means you have a lot of models and you discarded the ones that didn’t work so I would say that they critics have the stronger argument on the models and now wait for it wait for it I promised you the double whiteboard
[9:22]
promised you the double whiteboard experience oh yeah look at that double white morning all right yes I have upgraded my whiteboard so that there’s a whiteboard on the back of a whiteboard that’s right it’s a whiteboard but when you turn it around its another whiteboard oh yeah 20:19 coming at you hard all right so here’s continuing the debate the skeptics would say the economic forecasts are not reliable and they would say because economic forecasts over 80 years are never reliable it’s not even a thing there’s no such thing as an 80 year old 80 year financial forecast that’s useful that’s not a thing what do the experts say when people like me who have degrees in economics and experience making financial forecasts what do the experts
[10:24]
financial forecasts what do the experts say what do we say there’s no such thing as an economic model that’s useful over 80 years they say what that’s their right have you seen anybody argue this point have you seen anybody any experts say oh here’s a good reason why in this case only and not in any other case that has ever been known in the history of the world but in just this case with climate with all the variables this is the one time in all of human history with a financial model an economic model is reliable do they say that no they don’t they hope you don’t notice the people who understand modeling say this isn’t even a thing it’s ridiculous it’s just persuasion now let me pause to say I’ve been talking to you about persuasion for a few years now mostly about politics I’m in favor of
[11:24]
about politics I’m in favor of persuasion even when they use hyperbole even when the facts are not accurate as long as the direction that you’re persuading people is positive that it’s for the greater good and I see a lots of examples of that with say president Trump climate change I’m gonna give them the same benefit of a doubt which is this if they’re persuading us in the correct direction let’s say to save the world to improve improve our economy to make things better for the poor if that’s what’s happening then you know being a little loose with the facts it’s okay as long as they’re right but what if they’re not right if they’re being loose with the their thinking and loose with the facts and they’re not right that could be a problem but are they right hard to know the other the other point is that the I
[12:25]
the other the other point is that the I guess was the IPE see see the economic forecast was that over 80 years climate change might take off 10% from our GDP and that was reported by people who don’t do economics as catastrophe you know just it’s a dire problem because we’ll lose 10% of what we could have had over 80 years to which everybody who can do math says 10 percent over 80 years we wouldn’t even notice literally we wouldn’t notice it’s being called the biggest problem on earth and yet their own numbers say it’s no big deal now how do they explain that there are own numbers say it’s not that much of a big deal and let me put it in this context if I told you right now that the current GDP is 10%
[13:26]
right now that the current GDP is 10% lower than it could have been if we’d made different decisions 80 years ago would you say to yourself my god it’s a catastrophe or would you say to me huh I don’t even notice yeah I wish things were better but I don’t I don’t even register it as a problem I didn’t know it could have been 10% better so what do the experts say when you point out that their own numbers say it’s not that big a deal I think their response is something like hmm right yeah so I mean I’m in favor of being directionally accurate as opposed to as opposed to you know precisely accurate as long as you’re in the right direction but we don’t know that or at least we unwashed masses don’t know that so
[14:27]
unwashed masses don’t know that so here’s here’s an offer I’d like to make I don’t think there’s any chance that this can happen but I would love to host a public debate with a good representative of both sides but it wouldn’t be a debate in the normal sense because I don’t think that’s useful rather it would be a conversation in which I would grill both of them and I would control the conversation so it wouldn’t be them talking about anything they want to talk about it would be me directing the conversation directed specifically at the the skeptical arguments so that we could have an answer now I’ve heard state your terms so I will do this for free so it won’t cost me anything I would need a studio if somebody like Dave Rubin he’d be a perfect wants to host something like that maybe we could work that out but we would need
[15:27]
we could work that out but we would need some pretty serious experts on both sides and if we could bring them together I will and I probably I think I would also preview it with both of the experts ahead of time so in other words I’d have them exchange enough information through me that they both knew what the other was going to say so I wouldn’t want either expert to show up and deal with any questioned that they had not been prepared for so in other words the only questions that would be our base questions would be ones that both experts saw before the event and then they’d know they’d have there they’d have their responses ready as best they can but once they’re in the same room I might drill down a little bit make sure that you know we’re really getting to it nobody is avoiding any questions so that’s my so that’s my offer to the world for free if I can find a you know a venue and two experts
[16:30]
find a you know a venue and two experts I will host a conversation not a debate I I do have sympathy for the experts who don’t want to get on stage with somebody who’s in that case all right if somebody’s just in that case you don’t want to really get on the stage with them and and and treat them like they’re serious but we don’t have to worry about that because we’ll vet all of the questions ahead of time and nobody has to get on stage until they’re happy that these are useful questions dude on my tennis court that would not be good for a sound my tennis court is very echoey and I don’t know that we need an audience although that would be fun it’d be more fun to have an audience but not necessary I don’t think all right so if climate change is the biggest risk to humanity then I say let’s treat it like it is let’s try to convince all the sceptics
[17:31]
let’s try to convince all the sceptics and by the way who would do a better job of convincing skeptics to believe in the risk of climate warming than me I’m really kind of the perfect person if you can convince me I can convince other people but so far I’m I’m almost exactly on the fence right now I’m exactly on the fence between I don’t know should I be worried about this or it looks like a bunch of BS to me I’m right there so I’m sort of perfectly well nobody is unbiased but I’m as close as you’re gonna get I think now there’s other good news that’s related to this topic I tweeted this yesterday apparently Bill Gates has said that 2019 and beyond what the world needs to be working on is nuclear power and Bill Gates argues that it’s really our our only good solution
[18:36]
it’s really our our only good solution for everything from climate change to you know powering the economies in the future because there’s no other technology that will get close here’s what’s special about that i-i’ve said that’s the most important news in the world the most important news in the world is that Bill Gates has decided to push for more nuclear power in the United States mostly in the United States I think he’s talking about but I would assume it applies globally as well and here’s why Bill Gates is not a Republican so that’s the first thing so somebody who’s not a Republican and not a conservative and very clearly not pushing for nuclear power okay so that’s that’s already man bites dog so that makes it a story and it also gets your attention number two Bill Gates is one of the
[19:37]
number two Bill Gates is one of the smartest people in the world period and unlike other smart people everybody agrees with that statement you could say what you will about Bill Gates you can say you know when it is younger days he did anti-competitive things you can criticize them all you want but here’s where you can’t criticize him he’s one of the smartest people in the world here’s the other thing about Bill Gates nobody bought him off nobody bought him off how many people can you say that about with complete complete confidence there’s no skeptic that you can really trust isn’t getting money from somebody there’s no scientist that you could really trust isn’t getting money from some industry but Bill Gates doesn’t need any more money in fact he’s trying as hard as he can to give it away when he says there’s
[20:37]
give it away when he says there’s something outside the box of where you would expect him to go which is nuclear power in this case when he says something like that do you have any doubt that that’s a sincere opinion you don’t that’s unique if he were a politician you’d say yeah it’s the politician if you were in the industry or in any way trying to make money you’d say oh I don’t know if I could trust that he’s just taking a side but he’s not he’s bill freakin Gates he’s richer than God right he doesn’t need your money and he doesn’t need anybody else’s money he has dedicated the whole second half of his life to helping the world and he’s demonstrated that with the Gates charities so there’s no question where his self-interest is his self-interest is the interest of the planet very clearly you wouldn’t even say it’s just you know United States
[21:37]
say it’s just you know United States centric because he’s working you know around the world to better the world it’s not even a us-centric opinion he is the most independent opinion maybe in the world and I say that because he’s also the richest the richest person can have the most an independent opinion that’s one of the things you get with money nobody’s buying you and we know it then you add that to how smart he is and then you add that to the fact that he doesn’t talk about stuff until he’s really looked into it here’s the other question do you doubt the Bill Gates has looked into the question of nuclear power you don’t doubt that you know he’s done a deep dive he’s probably spent years looking at it and he’s finally decided after all that study and with all of his intelligence and all of his lack of bias that that’s the place we ought to put our attention it’s a big deal it’s a big big big deal because if
[22:40]
deal it’s a big big big deal because if you can change the energy footprint of the planet you’ve changed everything you’ve goosed economies you’ve saved the planet you’ve you’ve really you know you’ve just changed everything so when I say that’s the biggest news in the world it really is because the fact that he’s committed to it in public and he is Bill Gates love him or hate him he is he is the smartest guy that we know who’s not influenced by politics smartest person in the world who’s not influenced by politics so you take that seriously all right yeah the deserts would become habitable if energy costs were low so just think about this imagine imagine if you could
[23:41]
about this imagine imagine if you could desalinate water as much as you want for almost free which is what fusion power would get you or even nuclear power would get you closer because it would be cheaper energy so the only problem with desalinization is that costs a lot in terms of power if you take that power number down you have all the water you need for anything you want and suddenly you can start reforesting deserts and what happens when you can reforest a desert economically you can actually decrease hurricanes so apparently hurricanes form at least the Hurricanes they hit let’s say florida they form around the deserts in northern Africa because it’s hot at a certain time of year and that’s what causes the high temperatures that kick starts the Hurricanes you could actually reduce the power of hurricanes if nuclear power became more practical think about that nuclear power would
[24:42]
think about that nuclear power would reduce hurricanes and we already know how to do it suppose you had a problem with building machines to draw co2 out of the air should we ever decide to do that there’s a there’s a decent argument that says we could have a lot more co2 and everything wouldn’t be fine but suppose you got the point where you did decide to do it what you need is a lot of energy so you need nuclear power so nuclear it gets you almost everything you need that takes this world to the next level and I think that’s a powerful and important thing all right yes we all know plants and trees need co2 and greenhouses use it too to fertilize them essentially do you want a reactor in your backyard no I do not but do we have to put nuclear reactors next to people is there a compelling reason
[25:44]
is there a compelling reason that nuclear reactors have to be in inconvenient places such as earthquake fault lines and such probably not right there’s got to be there’s got to be some way to put them where they’re not in populated areas and still get the power to populated areas so there’s I think there’s much to be done on power transmission somebody says do I believe in ghosts no simple answer no somebody’s talking about the reactor in their pants okay well I’m not sure you’re on the same topic but good for you yes so there’s lots of technology that we don’t all quite understand from thorium reactors to whatever so it does seem to me like we have a way forward if we can get through the red tape now what what
[26:44]
through the red tape now what what president would be the best president to work with Bill Gates on removing regulations and restrictions and getting nuclear power going in this in a seifish way who would be the best president in the world to work with Bill Gates on that very thing president Trump here’s here’s the argument that I’ve been making about President Trump from the start he’s not president Trump is not an inexpensive president meaning that he comes with some rough edges we all know what they are they’re they’re well reported you know as the the things that give people Trump derangement syndrome or well documents so that part’s definitely a cost but don’t we see that he seems to do things that another personality could not have done for example the progress in North Korea and and again kim kim jungeun just
[27:47]
and again kim kim jungeun just pronounced for New Year’s he is reaffirmed in public his desire to be completely nuclear free he just wants to make sure the States does its part as well I’m not sure another personality could have got us that I’m not sure another personality would have cut regulations as much I’m not sure another personality could get us to a good place in the Middle East there’s something unique about this president that although it comes with some cost he does things that I think another president just could not get done and we may be glad about that in the future one of those things might be that he could work with Bill Gates in a way that another president just couldn’t couldn’t make something happened so I think that’s another one of his superpowers is who he can work with and how bold he can be in doing things you didn’t think he was going to do like moving the capital to Jerusalem
[28:49]
do like moving the capital to Jerusalem removing the embassy to Jerusalem so there’s just some things this president does that other people just wouldn’t do and sometimes we need those things to get done but it’s not free you know let’s talk about the stock market for a moment the news is reporting that’s a big ol black eye for the president because the stock market went down what six percent this year but I would argue that all of that is from the Fed and the reason that the Fed raised rates to slow down the economy is because it was too hot if you had a problem like if you could if somebody said here’s a portfolio of problems I want you to pick one of these problems there you have to live with you know but you have to pick one you can’t pick no problems you have to pick a problem from this basket the problem so you reach him and you pick one that says the stock market’s down 6% because the Fed tried to slow it down
[29:50]
because the Fed tried to slow it down because the economy is so good the economy is so good the Fed had to slow it down that’s your problem is that a problem probably not because it argues that in the long run the stock market will be fine you shouldn’t be in the stock market unless you’re in there for the long run so the fact that it goes down 6% a year after being on a tear is actually good news because it’s only being slowed down artificially because it was too hot that’s the best news in the world all right somebody says that’s a correction well you can label it any way you want but the fact is it is not a negative sign and it’s only bad if you wanted to sell all of your stocks this year which would have been a bad strategy no matter what I how many hot dogs could I eat in a row
[30:56]
I how many hot dogs could I eat in a row still zero vegetarian I’m a pescetarian actually all right I think I’ve said enough for today get back to your holiday and I will talk to you later