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Richard Lindzen joins Alex Epstein to talk about perspectives on climate change:
- Questions about climate
- “Balance” in nature
- The goals of environmentalists
1:45 Alex: Whenever I read one of his papers I get almost emotional just by the level of clarity and diligence and utter lack of any kind of appeal to authority.
I remember he was on this show last time, despite all his credentials the number one thing he encouraged was for people to do the research, look into things themselves. ... and I really consider that a very good indication for the quality of scientist and the quality of person someone is. ...
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3:05 Lindzen: What bothers me about this issue is the intrinsic obtuseness of the questions. For instance in these public consensus statements and so on, it's always is there agreement that CO2 plays a roll, or climate changes and so on. These are things which in fact everyone agrees on.
Those are not the questions in dispute.
And yet it's presented as though if there's agreement that climate has changed, ahh, we should do something about it.
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This is superficial silliness. The issue has nothing to do with "climate has changed" - the consensus statements are about our manmade emissions of greenhouse gases significantly altering our atmosphere.
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Why we need to talk about the scientific consensus on climate change
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The agreements acknowledge the obvious: If we warm up our Earth's global heat and moisture distribution engine it will create more intense weather and disrupt natural systems that have been tens of thousands of years in the making. This will lead to increasing problems for humanity and everything else.
As our climate changes, the risk of injury, illness, and death from the resulting heat waves, wildfires, intense storms, and floods rises.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-effects/health.html
Scientists and economists are beginning to grapple with the serious economic and environmental consequences if we fail to reduce global carbon emissions quickly and deeply. The most expensive thing we can do is nothing.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-effects/economy.html
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Lindzen: The real questions are, you know change is normal, it always occurs, is there anything unusual,