Episode 376 Scott Adams: Kamala Harris, Some Fake News You Think is Real, and Climate Update

Date: 2019-01-16 | Duration: 54:59

Topics

Kamala Harris video had persuasion powers It appealed to her base, showed her personality 4 Examples of normal explanations vs. batshit crazy ones Climate change, 2 bad skeptical arguments Climate change outstanding questions

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:13]

Hey Jake come on in here it's time for coffee with Scott Adams guess who I am you're right I'm Scott Adams probably didn't see that coming but I'll bet you do have your cup your mug your glass your Stein your chalice and I'll bet you filled it with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me please for the simultaneous
HP somebody said there's a explosion in Syria is that on CNN's page yet oh Isis cleans responsibility all right well that sounds like just more of Syria so let's talk about Kamala Harris first has everybody seen her video uh in which she talks about her favorite music and dances a little bit in her

[1:14]

music and dances a little bit in her chair and laughs and has a good time I think most of you saw it if you're watching this Periscope you probably watch that sort of thing and he was if you haven't seen it this won't make as much sense but you have to know that Kamal Harris is one of the top I know at least top five I think probably top one uh Contender for uh the nomination and you know that recently uh everybody who's a Democrat is sort of accidentally or unconscious trying to compete with rpos so rpos did her her little video live streaming where she's in her kitchen and she did a little dancing video and now apparently other Democrats think that they need to you know get on board with the casual fun hey I've got a personality I'm young uh kind of vibe Elizabeth Warren was the first to fail with her beer drinking video uh

[2:17]

fail with her beer drinking video uh then we also saw uh b b uh he I think he did okay with his cooking video it was a little derivative wasn't you know it wasn't original and and then he did he then he uh he jumped the shark by live streaming his dental appointment and I'm thinking okay you do not get it if if you are trying to associate your brand with dental pain you don't understand how anything
works so Kamal Harris is the latest to I'm guessing take some maybe some professional advice from from people who don't give good professional advice and it was to let her hair down and be a little less serious I think most of you had the same impression I did which is uh when you when you've seen her on TV especially she uh she seems a little too

[3:20]

especially she uh she seems a little too serious and so she needed to I think break out of that and show she had a personality and you know and all that so she does her little video I guess it was for the the late show and here's here was my impression as I watched it so as I watched it I cringed and I I almost felt embarrassed for her and then I realized it's probably perfect so so so let me let me ask you I think most of you had the same impression which is like [Music] oh
oh but do you think that her base had the same impression all right let me tell you what I saw uh if you're a man and some of you

[4:20]

saw uh if you're a man and some of you are have you ever been driving a car where there are two or more women in the car and let's say you're the only man in the car but but there are two or more women in the car and somebody turns on the radio how do all the women in the car start acting they start acting exactly like Kamal Harris in other words women by themselves talking about music listening to
to music look kind of exactly the way she looked to me so if you are trying to be the you know the standard Bearer for the the Democrat Party which I think we have to admit is primarily going to be chosen by women women are the dominant um members of the democratic party and they're going to decide who their candidate is so when you look at the Cala Harris thing do you say to yourself

[5:20]

Cala Harris thing do you say to yourself uh
uh cringeworthy well you probably weren't going to vote for her anyway that's my guess but if you you were a 20s something College woman and you looked at Cala Harris you know laughing and having good having fun with that music did you say to yourself my God that's cringeworthy or did you say oh yeah that's me yeah I do the same thing I like that music too oh yeah she's shown some personality it's it's just exactly the way you know my girlfriends and I act when we're getting silly I think were missing the power of that you know remember that when President Trump was doing his president Trump or his candidate Trump stuff what was the reaction on the other side the people who were never going to vote for him thought it was cringeworthy they're like oh I can't believe he's doing that it's

[6:21]

oh I can't believe he's doing that it's like ah is he really saying that ah and then you have to remember that he was only talking to his base they and they liked it and if you're looking at the uh the primaries you're not even talking to the whole base you can win the primaries by maybe getting 30% or whatever it is but it's something less than half if you can control 30% then all the other candidates sort of disappear because they're taking up you know 2% 3% 5% so when she does something that so clearly appeals to the dominant force in the Democrat Party In other words she Paces them she acts as silly as they they may imagine that they act in their personal time and I'm not going to judge it so so I'm not the one who's going to say she shouldn't act like that or people shouldn't act like that it's just the way people act it is the normal way I observe females from probably the age

[7:24]

I observe females from probably the age of 10 to 60 who act when they're in a car car and somebody turns on the radio they start singing along and dancing in their chairs and and laughing uh very loud it's just completely normal so be careful about judging Camala Harris for that cuz she did show her personality and she did Pace the dominant force that she was trying to get to so do not underestimate her um next I want to I want to really piss you off are you ready for that now I'm going to I'm going to go out on a limb today I'm going to go out on the limb and I'm going to say some things that I guarantee you're not going to like I guarantee it but it's part of the reason you watch my periscopes because I think you have a little bit of trust

[8:24]

think you have a little bit of trust then I'm not going to say just what you want to hear all right and here it is and we start with a little setup let's say let's say you have a roommate and your roommate is the only other person who has access to your home and you're pretty sure of that this is a a fake fake situation but just imagine that you you know your roommates the only one who has access to your house besides you and you come home and uh all of your all of your food has been eaten out of your refrigerator the food that you were saving for yourself and you go to your roommate and say why the hell did you eat all my food food and your roommate says I didn't eat you food and you say you're the only person who has access to the house besides me and your roommate says that's what you think but you did not account for alien technology because I was here and I saw several of them you know beam into the kitchen eat your food and then beam back to their ship which version of reality do you accept do you accept the

[9:25]

reality do you accept do you accept the version of reality that's completely normal your roommate ate your food and light about it completely normal or do you accept the version where it's hard to believe on its surface that aliens beamed into your kitchen and ate your food right so generally speaking let us agree that if there are two um fully capable explanations of the same situation one is completely normal and the other was just batshit crazy you should go with the normal one shouldn't you I'm going to give you four examples that fall into this pattern two of them you're going to love two of them you're going to be really pissed off at me are you ready number one president Trump is Accused by CNN of praising white supremacists marching in Charlottesville there are two explanations for the story explanation

[10:28]

explanations for the story explanation number one the event in Charlottesville was about Confederate statues which he' talked about a number of times and he was on the side of thinking that they were okay to leave them I'm not but that's besid this besides the beside the point so when he said there were good people on both sides one version of the story is well he means both sides of the statue question some people like them some people don't that's it that would be the most normal explanation he went in public and said well the statute question there are good people on both sides they just disagree on the on this point CNN turned it into this that the president of the United States the sitting president of the United States went on television this is their version and praised Neo-Nazi white nationalists who were marching and and yelling and they were chanting anti-semitic things the president's daughter

[11:29]

things the president's daughter is Jewish his her his son-in-law his grandkids are Jewish many of his top advisers Israel loves him he's the first person to move the you move the uh the capital or the embassy to Jerusalem do you think that Netanyahu and Israel had not noticed anti-Semitism do you think they're not good at that I'm pretty sure that they can can pick up anti-Semitism when they see it they're really good at it so one version of reality he was just talking about the statues cuz that's what the event was about normal the other version batshit crazy absolutely batshit crazy the idea that he went in public and intentionally praised the people who were carrying you know racist symbols whatever they were doing and enchanting anti-semitic stuff couldn't have possibly been true here's

[12:31]

couldn't have possibly been true here's another one and I'm going to give you the two you might like first one version is that Representative Steve Steve King 69-year-old representative from Iowa Iowa I think um so here's CNN's version of events oh well let me give you the normal version the normal version of events is that he wandered aloud in a New York Times interview why the words Western Civilization had had turned into a bad thing when he had gone to school to learn that Western Civilization had done some good stuff now does that sound extraordinary or completely normal it's it's the sort of thing he said before lots of times right he likes Western Civilization independent of race because remember Western Civilization includes all kinds of races you know we

[13:32]

includes all kinds of races you know we are the Melting Pot Western Civilization is a Melting Pot that's the most normal thing you would say about it when he was in school like me he learned that we're a Melting Pot but that our culture produce some good stuff all right so completely normal how did CNN report that they reported because they conflated something he said in the beginning of a sentence with with an entirely different point at the end of the sentence they conflated two things and they decided that he went on television and praised white supremacists they literally reported that his sitting representative with many years of experience went or went on a major New York Times interview people he knows to be the enemy essentially and that he said yeah white supremacist love them or some version of that now that version of

[14:33]

some version of that now that version of events is batshit crazy that's just batshit crazy compared to the more normal one which by the way representative King you know presented the full context when you look at the full context it's pretty obvious that he was talking about Western Civilization being something that went from good to bad and he was not talking about white supremacist it's obvious when you look at the full context remember one story is completely normal he said the same thing he's always said yeah Western Civilization it's pretty good our Melting Pot worked out pretty well Basia crazy he went on he went on a New York Times interview this highly experienced guy and said yeah um white supremacy that's that's good that didn't happen that didn't happen all right those are the two you agree with probably cuz I I know my audience here you're more likely to agree with those two all right here's two you're going to

[15:33]

two all right here's two you're going to freaking hate me now remember how I always say that um a third of the world has no sense of humor and then when I first started saying that I think most of you said well that's not true I would have noticed if a third of the world didn't have a sense of humor and then you started noticing and you see it all the time now right until I said it you probably didn't even think it that was a thing you probably thought well everybody has a sense of humor we like different stuff but everybody has a sense of humor not true about a third of the public literally doesn't have a sense of humor and literally can't identify a joke all right you saw that with President Trump saying hey Russia if you've got those Hillary emails I'd like to see them those of us with a sense of humor said obviously that's a joke and those without a sense of humor said no that's obviously that's obviously

[16:33]

no that's obviously that's obviously true that's exactly what he's asking to do he's colluding right there but likewise similar to my point that people don't have a sense of humor there are a great deal of people in this country and maybe a third I don't know that I don't really know the percentage in this case but something like like a third of the public can't understand figurative speech they look at the words they look at the definition in the dictionary and they say now this these words tell me exactly what you're thinking because it's these exact words a third of the the public can't understand how words work in other words they don't understand that sometimes they're literal and intended to be that way and sometimes people are talking in a colorful way a casual way let me give you two examples number one Peter stro in his famous discover text

[17:33]

Peter stro in his famous discover text said that they needed an insurance policy possibility number one for explaining what he meant by the insurance policy he was talking about the the Russian collusion investigation number one totally normal explanation they they thought there was a genuine risk that the president was involved in something with Russia because that's an Evidence right we do know that people were legitimately concerned that maybe there was something there now I think they're wrong but they had enough sort of hints to say well we should look into it
it stro assumed that the president couldn't get elected like everybody else assumed like most people assumed not me but most people and so if president Trump didn't get elected then looking into his connection with Russia not all that important right they might still want to know but it's not going to affect the

[18:34]

know but it's not going to affect the country much but if he did get elected they would need an insurance policy meaning just in case he got elected and just in case there was some meat on this collusion thing which he didn't even think was necessarily much meat they better have an investigation just in case an insurance policy now what I described is a completely normal explanation of events they didn't think he'd get elected there's some suggestion May colluded with Russia well we might need an insurance policy just in case it gets elected and just in case there's something to that so we better look into it perfectly normal acceptable no problem that's one here's the other version that most of you have accepted which is just batshit crazy this is batshit crazy and most of you believe it you believe that a sitting

[19:35]

believe it you believe that a sitting FBI agent someone who understands the vulnerability of all of your messages wrote in a text message with that could easily be discovered and was that he was part of a plot to take down the president of the United States that's batshit crazy even if you think he believed it that that he was trying to take down the president and that it was just a a political plot cuz he didn't like this political leanings of this president he's not going to write that in a text message to his lover no freaking way it's not believable even a little bit it was just a use of words completely normal I'm sorry you know if you're if you're believing the batshit crazy version you bought into the whole deep stake collusion you know you know uh and you have to just own the fact that

[20:35]

and you have to just own the fact that you took the bad crazy version all right now if you say to yourself but wait a minute I'm not I'm not not relying on that one word look at all the stuff look at all the reasons that I know it's a deep state do you know that Max boot just produced a article with 18 pieces of evidence that the president the United States was definitely a puppet of Putin 18 of course if you look at all 18 they're all ridiculous but there are a lot of them same with the Deep State the Deep state is almost certainly a conspir well what would you call it a almost certainly not true but there's plenty of evidence right well there's a thing somebody said the way somebody acted on TV the somebody's got some money somebody's connected to Hillary there's lots of it it just isn't convincing all right here's the next one

[21:37]

convincing all right here's the next one you think you hated that last one where do you see this one here's one you're really going to hate I know because I've been doing this all morning on on uh on Twitter so Mo many of you who are climate deniers buy into essentially most of the skeptical arguments okay that's crazy because I've been digging into the skeptical arguments now for a few months and most of them are ridiculous so if you said to yourself I think climate science is not true because of here all these 10 good reasons you're not really on strong ground there because there are not 10 good reasons there might be a few in fact I haven't gotten to the bottom of my research but I would say there are a few claims that work against the climate science claim that haven't been debunked as far as I can tell but that's only a a question about how How Deeply I've gone so so here's what many of you

[22:40]

so so here's what many of you believe you believe that climate gate proved there was a conspiracy to to be fraudulent you believe many of you do not all of you that M uh in a email to Michael man that another scientist who was working with him said that he was going to use Nature's trick you know a trick to hide the decline in other words hide a part of the climate record that didn't work with the current theory that things were getting warm so they were going to use a quote trick to quote hide the
the decline now people said my God it's a Smoking Gun it's a Smoking Gun it's right there the scientists who are closest to this say they're using a trick and they say they're hiding something that's not science science is not about using tricks science is not about hiding things Smoking Gun Smoking Gun you've

[23:40]

things Smoking Gun Smoking Gun you've got it somebody's saying that I'm blackmailed because because I'm saying this all right if you think that what I'm going to say next about this climate gate is because somebody got to me or because I'm blackmailed you're sort of in bad crazy area I'm whatever is the opposite of working for somebody I'm just losing money on what I'm doing all right so I'm doing everything wrong if I'm trying to pay money everything I've done on the topic of politics and the periscopes has done nothing but cost me money my income has suffered greatly and there's no other source nobody's paying me for this opinion nothing like that I promise you that here's the ordinary explanation and the bad sh crazy one the ordinary explanation for the the words trick and hide the decline are that these are scientists who are working in this field and they personally have seen all kinds of
of studies that confirm in their opinion

[24:42]

studies that confirm in their opinion now here's the important part their opinion right so what I'm going to say next is their opinion not mine so they've worked in the field and they have convinced themselves from all they've seen the climate change is real and it's going to it's going to be a gigantic problem for the world and because they're the ones who know it and they need to communicate it to the rest of the world there's sort of a marketing element to things right it's not enough that they do the science they've also got to Market it so when somebody is talking to somebody they know and they're using a technique in science would it be normal for somebody to say hey Bob I used your trick I used your trick on the numbers and it got me the result that's now consistent with the theory the most normal explanation is it's just casual language and that they're not speaking literally it's not a trick like a magic trick there's no hat there's no rabbit they're talking about a technique

[25:44]

rabbit they're talking about a technique which is published a published method it's just common language to say oh yeah I used your trick and it worked got it got us the numbers we expected and not the numbers that don't don't fit the the theory now when he used the method which is published which is widely viewed and people have looked at it everybody's looked at it and the people who looked at the trick which is really just a method the other scientists looked at it and they said oh that's okay that looks entirely appropriate even if it's wrong you showed your work you showed how it fit the theory it's whatever it is it's definitely not fraudulent because you showed you work all right now when they said they're going to hide the decline remember the context the context is scientists who legitimately believe that the Earth is warming and if they don't explain it to people in a convincing way we're all

[26:48]

people in a convincing way we're all dead I'm exaggerating we're not all dead but there'll be dire dire impact if they don't convince the world if you're trying to convince the world and there's one in convenient part of the data that you believe here's the key part that you the scientist believe is not accurate what would you say you might do with it well you might say you would adjust it but that's not the point of it the point of it is to is to have a package you can show the public in that case you kind of want to hide it so if I say to you my friend that I'm working with who knows the entire context hey Bob uh so I used your trick meaning your method to uh adjust the data meaning you know I hid that part that didn't make sense and now and now we can show it to the public because the part that they would have questioned we've we've used a method to figure out why that didn't make sense now it all makes sense and now we can explain it to the public that

[27:48]

now we can explain it to the public that we believe we're convinced by all of the science not just the stuff we're doing but all of the science has convinced us that this is real and we need to package it better so you know the the the way to understand the climate models I think is the marketing of the science the models aren't really the science the market the models are the marketing it's the part they hope the public looks at and goes oh my God we got to do something now which is the point of it so here's the point if you assumed that the scientists were bad then those words would confirm it but you have to start with the assumption that they're bad for those words to be bad if you start with the assumption that they believe the science because most climate scientists are on the same side so if you believe that they believe what the other scientists believe that's the most normal explanation do you think it is normal to say that there are some climate scientists who totally don't believe in

[28:49]

scientists who totally don't believe in climate science do you think that's a normal like routine thing it's not but it's normal and routine to call a method a trick and it's normal and routine to say if you've got something that doesn't make sense you'd like it to go away you'd like to hide it all right so those are four four cases where you can easily compare the normal explanation to the batshit crazy one in this case there is a secret cabal of scientists who are working to hide the truth for reasons we don't know they're they're trying to uh oh and then and then the reasons get given for why the scientists would try to hide the truth intentionally right because remember the the climate gate is the assumption that they're doing it intentionally there's a whole other argument that says maybe they haven't done the work right that's a different level of skepticism but the people who say no it's intentional and we found the we found it do you

[29:52]

we found the we found it do you think do you think that uh all of these scientists working in climate science that their secret reason for doing it is that they want to uh uh move resources around in the world and and that it's something about socialism because that's just bad crazy it's batshit crazy to think that thousands of climate scientists were all in on a on a secret a secret you know plot there isn't the slightest chance that's true not the slightest chance that's true now people are saying grants you know the grant money follow the money that part I'm not disputing all right be be be very clear about what I'm saying I'm not saying that the money has no influence on decisions but there's no evidence that they're taking money and just lying that's not an Evidence all right

[30:54]

lying that's not an Evidence all right now if it becomes an Evidence I'll change my mind let me give you some some examples of questions that I as a I'll say a climate idiot this the best way to describe myself in the climate science topic would be idiot right um so here are the questions that I don't know how oh here I'm going to start with two bad skeptical points here's a bad one somebody on Twitter today said well Scott can you tell me what level of CO2 is Optimum for humans to survive cuz if you don't know what is the right amount of CO2 how can you say we're not at the right amount how can you say that Scott okay that's the worst opinion all right nobody is arguing at least I've never heard it nobody's arguing about the level of CO2 being the problem the problem is that CO2 is alleged to cause clouds to do what they do which is alleged to cause warming and it's the warming stop asking me what the

[31:58]

it's the warming stop asking me what the right amount of CO2 if the problem is heat you could at least ask well what what is the right level of temperature that would be a fair question but it wouldn't be on the point because the point is that it's going up and we don't know how to stop it so it doesn't matter if we are below the level we'd like to be it doesn't matter that the better temperature is the one above us that's not a point because the point is we're going to go right past that all right so stop saying we don't know how much CO2 is the right amount it's a stupid freaking thing to say because if the point is that it's changing and we don't know how to change it it wouldn't matter if we knew it was the perfect amount because we're not going to stay there for more than a day here here's a uh here here's another arguments that's that's terrible that uh somebody says all believe in climate science when the sence scientists themselves you know

[33:00]

the sence scientists themselves you know start being more energy conscious humans are humans people are going to use their cars and they're going to make up reasons why it's okay for them and how their car use isn't going to change the world and you know whether I drive a Prius or a SUV you know my personal decisions as a climate science are just not going to change the world all right and and nobody's going to copy them just cuz the scientist is driving a Prius so stop arguing about what the the scientists are doing in their real life stop talking about Al Gore stop talking about rich people having you buying homes on the coast do you know where else rich people buy homes in Hurricane places in flood places in Wild Fire places and in earthquake places I'm a rich guy and I bought my I built my house in California biggest you know earthquake risk around right I mean I'm not on a fault line but um rich

[34:02]

fault line but um rich people will will build their house anywhere they it I'm sorry they'll build their house anywhere they want and if they lose their house they will build another one it completely is no point that rich people are building in nice places because you know they might lose their house I build it right here in California and I might lose my house to Earth earthquake I might but it didn't stop me from building it doesn't mean I don't believe in earthquakes do I you know I know personally somebody who lost a mansion in the uh the Malibu fire now if somebody builds a house in an area where you buy or people buy fire insurance they know they're in a fire zone and they know that their house could burn up right but they do it anyway because they like living on the beach what did this rich person say when he lost his mansion in the Malibu fire I'll build another one that's it I

[35:06]

fire I'll build another one that's it I just build another one because he's Rich right so stop asking why rich people are acting like rich people they're not like other people rich people can afford to lose their mansion they can lose a couple of mansions it's fine and if you're not going to lose your Mansion for 30 years you're going to enjoy the beach for 30 years all right here are the questions that I have not heard the answers to but only because of my ignorance not because answers do not exist about climate change um number one is it true that I think uh Linden is the skeptic who says this that our current rate of temperature increase is precedented in other words has happened in the last 100 years so is it true that our current increase is very simil similar to one that we measured within this Century true or not and if it is true why are we talking about the rate of increase being the thing all right I I

[36:09]

increase being the thing all right I I can't get a confirmation to that now it could be that it's not the rate of increase alone but it's how long that rate of increase has has run so it could be that earlier in the century we had the same rate of Rise but it didn't last long versus the same rate but it lasted longer so is that the argument I don't know but I can't make a decision until I know here's another one can you really measure measure as you like to say can you really measure the temperature of the ocean in an average way obviously you can me measure it in one place but do you think the science can really get some kind of an accurate reading of the average temperature of an ocean now I'd love to think that they can that would be to me that would be a technological Marvel and quite a quite an accomplishment of science I mean that

[37:09]

an accomplishment of science I mean that would be way up there on things that would impress me but I haven't heard anybody who who really is close to how it's done that can make a case that I a non-scientist would find even slightly persuasive like that the the whole idea that we can measure the average temperature of the ocean and going back for
for years doesn't even sound slightly persuasive but I would like to be talked into it I've never heard the argument for
for it
it um uh there's a question how do you here's my other question how do you measure the temperature millions of years ago to the level of precision that would be useful now I understand you can do the ice cores and you can look at tree rings and stuff like that but are those things precise and if they're not precise I think there are about 10 different ways

[38:10]

think there are about 10 different ways to to measure temperature historically you know different proxies which one of them is the best and if there is one that we know to be the best how do we know that how would we know what was the best one cuz in order to know it's the best wouldn't you have to compare it to something so are you comparing it to the second best one or is it true that when we measure these proxies let's say in the last 100 years they hold up pretty well so therefore we we figure well it's probably good for a million years that doesn't sound persuasive I can't believe this you know looking at your ice score samples I'm just making this part up but if you looked at your ice score samples or your tree rings 100 years years ago and maybe that was someplace you had a good temperature meas measurement too so you say oh yeah look ice score physical measurement very similar so we we got it but that doesn't really mean that that holds up for a million years does it I

[39:13]

holds up for a million years does it I mean uh I have I have trouble believing that there's any way we can measure temperatures within the small range of you know several degrees up or down a million years ago but maybe I'd love I'd love to know that we could do that I'm not saying we can't do it I just can't imagine it and so I'm having trouble you know believing the historical numbers then there's a question of where all the temperature adjustments to the land measuring devices were they all in one direction I've heard the following argument that most of the land ones were in the same direction I don't how to explain that but that most of the ocean ones were in the other direction when those measurements were adjusted I don't know what's behind that I don't know why they would be measured in the same direction why one would be more in One Direction one would be the

[40:13]

more in One Direction one would be the other if the ocean is 90% of the temperature problem because that's where 90% of the the temperature impact is doesn't it only matter what the ocean was doing shouldn't we just throw away all the landbased measurements because it's only 10% of the planet and almost all of our measuring devices are in the United States and apparently the United States hasn't had a temperature increase like the rest of the the world so shouldn't we just throw away all the land-based measurements because if we can measure the
the ocean that's the better one right uh
let's see here's a question I'd love to know so so the uh the belief is that there are many thousands of climate scientists who are in who are on the same page that they're all largely say

[41:14]

same page that they're all largely say CO2 is driving temperature it's going up too fast we're in trouble thousands and thousands of scientists and that whether you say that you know whether you say 60% of them agree or 97% most most of you would agree it's the majority or on the same page so here's my question how many of those thousands of scientists were personally part of the measurement Gathering and the you know how many of them were actually like there measuring things like how many of them actually know how the data for the temperature was measured I got to think it's only a handful right wouldn't you imagine that in the entire world there might be I'm just guessing five people who are close enough to all of the different measuring methods especially the good ones that

[42:15]

methods especially the good ones that they they have a like a real good idea what's happening there I can't believe it's more than five people so when you're talking about thousands of people agree are you really saying thousands of people people trust five people now that's a question not a statement I'm not saying that's the situation but aren't there maybe only five people who really are close enough to the measurements to really know what's going on maybe five worldwide I'm guessing maybe one which is possible maybe one maybe no one is let's take it from a legal perspective chain of custody right if you're in a legal trial and somebody's got some evidence you need to um the defense will make you prove that you know exactly who had the evidence and you where was it checked in how was it gathered and that you can you can describe with great credibility the

[43:16]

describe with great credibility the entire chain of custody of of the evidence does science have something like that and again I'm not stating that they don't it's a it's an ignorant question from a citizen who would like to know am I going to be on a planet that's that's self-destructing and without that knowledge I don't know what to think of the fact that thousands of scientists are on the same side CU it sounds like they may have gotten all of their most important information from the five people again just guessing maybe it's 20 maybe it's 100 I don't know people who actually are close to the data all right then there's this question of whether Michael man has released his temperature data and this is that uh two movies on one screen situation so so there are two versions of reality and they both look equally credible to me so one version is that Michael man has uh

[44:19]

one version is that Michael man has uh data about temperature that he's not showing anybody which would be amazing right like if that were true that that the the author of the hockey stick graph showing temperatures going up that his data he wouldn't show to other scientists well that would sort of sound fraudulent to you right most of you believe that's true don't you do you believe that's true most of the Skeptics believe that's true that he has secret data and he hasn't showed it to anybody the other movie is he has showed it to everybody it's public he made it available he and and the public record clearly shows that he made his data available the party did not make available is apparently some of the the way his model works you know some of the algorithm and the model or something like that but one of the most basic core beliefs in the skeptical world for climate change is that Michael man did

[45:22]

climate change is that Michael man did not release his temperature data but you can also look at the letter in which he said here's my here's my data and you can talk to the scientist and they'll say yeah we all have access to it it's public so both of those things can't be true but if he had to ask me what's reasonable all right which of those two stories sounds normal and which s which one of those sounds just bad crazy all right normal would be people wanted his data he's a scientist everything in his credibility depends on making that data available to other people and so he did that's the most normal thing in the world right the data the data was made public and people looked at it and they ran their own models against it and they got similar conclusions and that but he didn't want to release some proprietary things about his model but that's not important

[46:23]

his model but that's not important because people use the same data use their own model got kind of the same shape of of a hockey stick roughly that sounds completely normal here's what's badshit crazy that the most important name let's say famous famous name in climate science the creator of the hockey stick is hiding his data does that sound do you do you think that the other scientists would let him get away with that do you think that the other thousands of scientists would look at the sort of the let's say the brand image bearer of their cause and say and and and therefore say uh no it's fine that he keeps a secret we don't care what his data said it's not really believable is
it uh no peer review well if it's been released publicly I'd say that's pretty peer

[47:25]

publicly I'd say that's pretty peer reviewed now suppose I suppose if we dug down we'd find issues with what was the raw data and which was the adjusted data Etc so here's another question I've asked so there's an allegation that uh I think this is the Tony heler point that many of the landbased measurement devices had been adjusted and they were adjusted for good reasons meaning that sometimes they moved them from you know they were originally in the light and they got moved to the shade or vice versa so they have to adjust for shade versus light and there's heat islands and then there's they at some point they started taking temperatures at different times of day so they have to adjust for that so there are good reasons for adjustments um and and you know they the scientists presumably have showed their work here's why we adjusted it there's how much we adjust it but I have to ask what did they calibrate their adjustments

[48:25]

adjustments to yeah this this is the the dumb non-scientist question if you had a measuring device and and you had to adjust it because you thought it was wrong because of whatever reason what would you use to adjust it because if you have something that's a better measurement shouldn't you just be using that thing shouldn't you just use the thing that you use to adjust the other thing if there's something that's so good you can use it as your standard for adjusting maybe just use the other thing and if they just adjusted it by math or something yeah i' want to know that uh so here's the question I asked what would the trend look like for just the the measurement devices that have been in in place for a long time the ones that didn't need any adjustment because I think I believe there are hundreds of them 451 um somebody says so what would what

[49:26]

451 um somebody says so what would what would happen if I looked at just the ones that never had a reason to be adjusted what kind of trend would they have now apparently say the Skeptics it would show that we've been getting cooler instead of warmer but say the scientists that doesn't matter because most of these me measurements are in the United States like I don't know 90 95% of them and the United States could be getting cooler while someplace El in the world is getting warmer and that wouldn't mean anything because you you expect some you know give and take in individual regions and even over long periods of time you know it might be 30 years that one continent is a little extra cool but it wouldn't tell you what the average is and the average is the important thing so I would love to see just for my own education the the measurements that are the most dependable and have never been adjusted for as far back as we can get them because if it turns out that the

[50:26]

them because if it turns out that the United States is not getting warmer and all that's happening is we're having fewer hurricanes uh CU I think that's that's what happened this year uh I don't know that that might adjust my
my thinking that might adjust my thinking on what is what is real all right uh that's my current thinking on climate I see people signing off which means that this topic has less interest keep in mind that when I'm talking about climate change first of all I'm a genuine uh I don't want to say skeptic because that makes you look like you're in one Camp I'm undecided Skeptics have sort of decided you know at least the way it's the way we use that word in political context um so I'm not one of them I'm more undecided because the the further I dig into this the more confusing this

[51:28]

dig into this the more confusing this but I will tell you that the majority of what the Skeptics say is ridiculous it's just ridiculous but there's a lot of what the climate scientists say that doesn't pass the sniff test not even close like the tree ring stuff doesn't pass the sniff test the ability to measure temperatures accurately and to even know what the history is honestly it might be true but it doesn't pass the sniff test the the idea that the models using all these many variables are are accurate enough even to be directionally useful is ridiculous all right I think the best way to look at the models are as the marketing part of the science so they've got the science they need to convince the world there's a problem how do you do that the public won't understand the science but they might understand this cool graph so the Michael man

[52:31]

cool graph so the Michael man breakthrough wasn't scientific only if let's assume that he got everything right for this conversation it wasn't a scientific breakthrough as much as a marketing breakthrough because he found a way to put it V put it into a visual form that was compelling and would cause people to do what he assumed are the right things all right predictions of the future are they right or not well my understanding and again you know I'm I'm the climate idiot so everything I say has to be taken with a grain of salt and some lot of factchecking but my understanding is that you know back in the 80s there was a climate scientist and Hansen who made some predictions that didn't come even close to being true but science has progressed a great deal since the 80s and scientists I believe I believe not not sure about this but I believe they would say yes that's true in the 80s we made some

[53:32]

that's true in the 80s we made some predictions and they did not come true but we have refined all our methods we've done you know countless number of studies and tests and measurements since then and now we took what was kind of a bad preliminary process that did not predict well and we've fixed all those things so we've gone just like everything else does I mean your first iPhone was terrible right with you know if if I judge the future of smartphones by the first iPhone I would say it's a complete step backwards I can't even make a phone call on this thing it keeps dropping calls but if I just say well what happens if you wait 10 years and then the iPhone's pretty awesome so what happens if you wait 10 years in creating climate models couldn't it be perfectly true that they used to be terrible and that they figured out how to make them pretty good I doubt it but but it's not none of that is eliminated by the fact that we

[54:33]

that is eliminated by the fact that we used to have bad models the fact that they used to be bad and they did not predict in the past doesn't tell you anything about the new stuff because the new stuff presumably is better right yeah some some people are saying not likely I think it's not likely in the sense that nobody can make predictions with that many variables all right for now I'll talk to you later