Joe Rogan Experience #1777 — Andrew Dessler Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. I'm the director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies. I've been studying climate and the atmosphere for about 30 years. clear that smoking is bad for you. And then the scientists started showing up and saying, no, Yeah. this is from 1989, and I think, is it going to show up there? Yes. So this is a quote from It comes and goes.

3:26 States alone, and much of this equipment will have to be replaced or modified to work well. We replaced them and none of that happened. And that eliminating fossil fuels will be devastating to those environments because these people are going to lose out on massive amounts of income. If we go to slide 33, this actually shows that. get with solar? Oh, wow. That's a great question. And I guess we'll just sort of let the conversation

6:17 Everybody knows that. I mean, some days in Texas, it's half our power. And you need some dispatchable power. Wind and solar are very cheap at this point. No, they really don't. You just need some sort of dispatchable power to balance the renewable. which is a few hours later. that are housed don't have batteries. I think I don't, I actually don't know the statistics. I think most people who have solar panels in their houses don't have batteries.

9:42 And the reason to do that is for safety of the power line workers. They don't want, if the power line workers think there's no power If you you certainly could do that. rely on anything. Like if the big freeze happens again and everything shuts off, you'll have a That's right. these windmills are enormous. Have you ever seen one? Yeah, I have. They're pretty crazy.

12:24 Yeah, no, didn't happen. I know that doesn't make any sense, but that's how big it is. Yeah, no, they're enormous. But I think the important point here is wind and nuclear are not We run as much wind and solar as we can, and anything else is made up with natural gas. And why was that? And so then the power started to go down. And this was very sudden. This was in the middle

14:47 and burst. I mean, it was an enormously expensive event, one of the most expensive events Texas has And we're just sitting here paying money year after year for these failures of fossil fuel systems. costs and benefits. for nuclear, these small modular reactors, things that hold the promise of better nuclear power. So there's no question in my mind that that's right,

17:31 What are the nuclear bros saying? And they're actually on Twitter right now searching for me. I don't read Twitter. Or are these trolls? Or are these people that work for some sort of a lobby and they're So, you know, your mileage may vary. impact on the earth is smaller or at least less significant than a lot of the alarmist would say? like a defense attorney for carbon dioxide.

20:29 footnotes for everything. And that's correct. It's what he's not saying. It's where he emphasizes And I can go in, I can explain that. Now, what changed? go on about it. Can you just expand upon what those economic damages would be and how it would affect people? He says it's 4% as if that's a perfect number. It's not wrong. the values of the economist, when they're doing

24:31 On January 20th, 2021, the decision issued Friday affects the interim figure in place now, as well as an updated metric expected to be issued later this month. I mean, this is not – I mean, my point is about the reliability of these economic estimates. And when you do that, there are certain rules about how an administration can change an Those are fossil fuel producing states. And, you know, the social a social cost of carbon

27:17 Now, unfortunately, this is in Celsius. To convert from Celsius change to Fahrenheit change, But is anybody even saying three degrees? Yeah, three degrees is where we're at and three degrees centigrade six five degrees Fahrenheit I'd never heard it that high. they were just soccer as well remember that's that is correct yeah so so three to be. Anybody who tells you that they know what three degrees is going to be like is either a liar

30:15 And so this idea that it's going to be nothing. then as you depart from that, And so that's one thing. you know they're made of metal and and stuff that expands when it heats up. And the slide on the right, which you can't see more, shows some train tracks. Like, what is that from? It's because there's a body under there that's decomposing. They never expected it to get to 120 degrees or however, 150, however it got that high.

34:02 My client's a great family man, and it's going to be, you know. I don't know. you're pointing out. Yeah. I mean, what know, what does a defense lawyer do? You know, my client is an upstanding family man. You know, CO2 is plant food. My client, you know, could not So the best estimate is that it's a hundred percent. It's all the warming. So let me, usual suspects, of course. And we know what's changed the climate in the past. And so we can

36:34 And then finally, you have greenhouse gases. So can you go to the next slide? You know, they said they were home playing their Xbox, but nobody saw them. trunk. Can you go to the next slide? So again, I don't know if you want to read this, but we have Yeah, I mean, let me, I could talk a little bit more about this. It's going up because humans are consuming fossil fuels.

39:20 infer them. There's obviously uncertainty in that. But you can see that in periods when the carbon So this plot, the bottom plot shows millions of years. CO2 and ice. But, you know, there are lots of other things that could be going on. You know, We see the lower atmosphere warming. So we're not looking at, we're not concerned with what's normal. How do we know that the temperature in the upper atmosphere goes down when you add carbon dioxide?

43:07 it basically just traps heat. This is fundamental physics. it so he's never going to talk about the co2 fingerprint because that doesn't people, he's not the first person in climate change to say this. What is kind of interesting is over time, the Kuhnen-like person has changed their views quite a bit. In the 1990s, the people I'm not going to say why he's doing it. I don't know. Now, when he talks about it and he shows

46:20 I don't. We know that. That's fundamental physics. We know we're adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. and it's caused by humans. I wouldn't say it's unusual. I mean, if you go back 60 million years, Nobody really knows. Fossil fuels are incredibly expensive, not the price you pay at the well, but the cost to society Yeah. Oh, can you go to slide 37?

50:20 You can see nobody's hooking fossil fuels up to the Texas grid. Yeah, no, so fossil fuels have already lost. blah, blah, blah. 290 gigawatts of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels, I mean, they're everywhere. It's rooftops, it's large solar plants. Are you talking about in that don't affect use at all, rooftops, parking lots, canals.

52:52 Yeah, I have one. I have a Tesla. some solution. So I don't know the exact- I think they've scaled it though. This is I mean look, I would be very skeptical of that. the engineers are smart. Right. China controls 90% of their supply. how to make a battery without that compound, The history of environmental regulations causing advances in technology.

56:53 not a battery person so I really can't speak on what the cutting edge of Yeah, but they're very expensive. Like if somebody wanted to go and buy an electric car and they were on a very tight budget, cheapest car. No, but you're right. Most of the electric cars are, they're aimed at a market for And did you see the new commercial they had during the Super Bowl of the Chevy Silverado

59:03 looks amazing. You have lower maintenance issues. 60 in 1.9 seconds. I had my kids in it the other day. I'm like, are you ready? I'm like, let's go. Whee! I mean, I'm sure it's great, but I've done it a couple times just to show people like, Not enough. And I used to use it for that reason because I was tired. But even then, when you see someone acting weird. Yeah. Like you want to, you know, sometimes you want to drive defensively.

1:01:47 drifting a little bit. Yeah, I know. I think, you know, I'm sure he's thinking about it. just too, I mean, you have to go somewhere, get the asteroid, bring it back, mine it. It's a hard problem. decarbonize. My personal view is that this is sort of a multi-decadal problem that you probably just, you know, I think it's not unreasonable to shut down all the coal now, but the other stuff

1:03:58 You know, clean coal. In addition, it releases the most amount of greenhouse gases per unit of energy you generate. you'll have heart attacks more frequently, you know, strokes, all these health impacts I had never heard that. Yeah. That's exactly right. Is there an area in North America most polluted by coal? Can you go to slide 50? I know someone from Evansville.

1:07:32 It was all over the kids' playset. I think these conflicts aren't going away anytime soon. Down. according to a nine-month Center for Public Integrity Investigation. I mean, if you're looking at what these people are saying, where they've got a fine dust fuel. Let me show you a I have a good slide that shows that you go to 48. And just I mean, just in Texas, there are two bills.

1:10:49 So they said you cannot drill in the city limits. And effectively, that's what happens. So the state won't work with a nuclear company, a company that's making solar? that divest, they're making business decisions. They're saying- Yeah. My theory is that these people care about getting reelected. And I think that one of the taking place? Yeah. I mean, certainly people are... You saw that march. I mean, people are mad about

1:15:10 I don't have a slide of it. Very good. Imagine living there and seeing that pumping into the air where you're You know, if you go to Houston, you look around like the Ship Channel, the most polluted places are the poorest places. Those people have no political power at all. And, you know, they could go talk to their representative and he doesn't give a crap.

1:17:33 and the pollution and what it's doing to people's health. Not in the U.S. Can you scroll down, Jamie, so we can see what this says? millions of people. It also is bad for the economy because of the price swings. I mean, you don't know what the price is, so it's hard to do it. drove down the price of oil. The price of oil, the oil futures actually went negative here for a few days. And that

1:20:49 Absolutely not. You know, people have done the studies. I mean, that seems insane. It seems like there They couldn't get him to vote on it, to vote for it. these kind of power plants? Yeah. So the Build Back Better plan had a lot of climate policy. And they probably haven't. I know. I'm with you. has never really manifested. And when they get elected,

1:24:43 gerrymandering is a classic thing. You know, if they gerrymander correctly, your vote doesn't count. I mean, they've literally taken You're like, how are you so rich? And it turns out he made a slight. fuels. I mean, this is, as I said before, this is a political problem. It's not a technical problem. Well, I would imagine like in Evansville it would be non-profitable.

1:27:21 give you an example. So if you look at where, for example, solar panels, China dominates the market in solar panels. going to be buying from china or france now we're not buying from france but we are buying them from U.S.? It's sort of that level of economic activity that we're giving away by not acting. In addition, previous guest, he basically said something like, you know, eventually we'll take care of this,

1:29:59 That's a big deal. Excuse me, one step at a time. So, in other words, the amount of algae that grow is limited by one certain nutrient. And in a lot of places, it's nutrient limited. So in other words, the amount of algae that grow is limited And how much iron would we need and where would we get it? I am pro tree. Are you a tree hugger? Yes, I would hug a tree as long as it's, you know.

1:32:36 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so half the carbon we add doesn't stay in the atmosphere. where it was, where they had essentially a skyscraper sized air filter that they were going year and inject it deep So think about all of the wells, all of the power plants, exactly. like you were talking about solar, how solar was far more expensive They could use it for things.

1:36:04 So I think we can— and we know how to drill. Yes. And, you know, in Europe right now, natural gas is extremely expensive. has gotten so good because of fracking actually the How deep do you have to go to do that? 5,000 feet's a mile, right? Isn't that what it is? And there's a lot of innovation going on in that space. Or they don't vent it. Oh yeah, they're releasing a lot of carbon dioxide and fugitive methane so not all

1:40:05 a couple hours, and that helps you shift solar energy from when you get it at noon to the evening. One of the things we found out doing this podcast is that most of the plastic that you think you're recycling doesn't really get recycled. We do create too much. Yeah, I know. I don't. beginning to affect humans oh here it goes despite claims about hemp plastics

1:43:27 bisphenol, bifenol rather, bifenol A, BPA plastics are carcinogenic, Well, I mean, they're using a lot of power for— sorry i meant i mean easy yeah no i mean he's a bitcoin i meant i mean bitcoin bros are on the Yeah, yeah, yeah. like a farm that's a carbon-neutral farm that grows plants and animals and does so in this sort of symbiotic matter where you could feed large-scale populations, but it's a carbon-neutral

1:46:06 saying it's not solvable, but with energy, with power, there's a real clear path. We know the So everybody who wants to be elected president has to go to Iowa and say, I'm in favor of blending ethanol into gas. Is there, I mean, have you ever studied this? Is there like a long-term solution to a viable of animals because it's horrific. all the different things that could possibly consume your crops, all the different bugs. You have to kill a lot of stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think that you got to realize that

1:49:05 we haven't done probably as good a job. And that's because there are people out there that are sort Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. and cook a steak. Yeah, that's right. and everything is sort of like feeding into the soil. right thing if you financially incentivize them to do it. And that's the key. giving lots of money to politicians and supporting, you know, dark money groups who run ads against

1:52:55 Yeah. I agree. ice age amount of warming. We're going in the opposite direction, obviously. Ice age is down, That I look at that and I look at my kids and I think, holy crap, this is we can't we you know, if this happens, I don't know how bad it's going to be. Confidence. When Kuhnen was talking about global warming and climate change, one of the things that he said was

1:55:53 So eventually, agriculture will move into Canada. fine, that should not give you any reassurance. You've never had gravy on fries? agriculture is the one I think is probably the most likely we'll be able to adapt as well as possible. When you say the north, what are you talking about? Exactly. Right. of dollars. I mean, we're going to get to our, you know, my worry is we're going to get to a situation where we're spending all of our money just trying to stay alive, building stormwater

1:59:27 You know, a lot of people are concerned about the freedom aspect of this, as I am. So I have, so, okay, so I have not debated anybody about this. Actually, I take it back. I debated without the ability to fact check people. So, so let's say, why couldn't you fact check them in of finish what I was saying that, you know, the, you know, the scientific system of peer-reviewed papers

2:02:21 what the science is. And he said the science is not nearly And I heard Steve Koonin say this. understand the power of a scientist saying, you know, X is true. Y is, Y is not true. And so, afraid. Well, there's I think being called a climate science denier, being called a conspiracy I mean, how great is that? Well, all right. That's not true. course I would have. Well, all right.

2:05:17 But I most certainly would have had you on anyway. Make them write down their things and give citations and stuff. And, you know, that's why you look in the peer reviewed literature where people write stuff. First of all, the particulate matter in the air that's caused by power plants that are fueled by coal, That's where it gets confusing because I feel like I read his book and it was pretty fascinating.

2:07:52 This is not very simple. But I've heard people dismiss it. you can't just only look at one aspect of that. Is it leaking into the atmosphere? And, you know, so if you live next to it, there are lots of stories about people who live near these big industrial plants and suffer really horrific, you know, carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere,

2:10:20 that there are these free, you can throw, you know, it's like you walk over your fence, Is there anywhere online? There is a climate change rapper who's actually quite good. No, okay. It was very enlightening. Well, hopefully he'll respond and maybe we can get something together.