Aug. 3, 2016 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
05:14
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unidentified
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[MUSIC PLAYING] | |
| There's an idea out there that 97% of climate scientists agree that man-made climate change is real. | ||
| I did a little digging on this 97% and surprise, surprise, depending on what websites you go to and what sources you trust, the answer actually isn't so clear. | ||
| What is clear for sure, however, is that the overwhelming amount of climate scientists, the very experts in this field, do agree that the climate is changing and it has something to do with what humans are putting into our atmosphere. | ||
| atmosphere. Whether or not the exact number is really 97 percent or 86 percent | ||
| or 75 percent is largely irrelevant. The point is that the vast amount of people | ||
| who study this for a living believe it to be true. We haven't discussed a ton on | ||
| climate change since we've started the Rubin Report, but I've said several times | ||
| on the show that since I'm not a scientist, I have to go on what the | ||
| majority of scientists say. | ||
| Thus, I accept man-made climate change as fact. | ||
| I'm basing my belief on the best information that I have in front of me. | ||
| You don't just get to pick and choose when you believe in science. | ||
| It either is fact or it is not. | ||
| So, if the vast amount of scientists that are professionals in this industry believe something to be true, then I have to base my opinion on that, rather than just guessing, or hoping, or picking the random scientists that see the world the way I want it to be. | ||
| At the same time, we should always be skeptical of who funds what scientific study, if there are political aims behind the research, and especially if there's money to be made by claiming something is fact when the truth remains more elusive. | ||
| A simple example of this, of course, is that if a tobacco company funded studies on smoking and human health, we'd all be a bit more leery of it than a truly independent study done for purely research purposes. | ||
| So with all this in mind, I do believe from all the people I've talked to, such as Dr. Michael Mann, the creator of the hockey stick theory, or my own science guru, Cara Santa Maria, as well as the information in front of me, that man-made climate change is real. | ||
| I also believe that the national conversation around climate change is mostly idiotic, usually vacillating between people who think we're on the brink of a catastrophic, climactic disaster and those who hide their head in the sand to the realities of the changing environment. | ||
| Like most things, and I always say this, right, the answer is probably somewhere in between, and that's where we have to start having these important conversations. | ||
| My guest this week is the president for the Center for Industrial Progress, Alex Epstein. | ||
| The Center is a non-profit think tank which believes in creating a new industrial revolution through technology to improve the planet. | ||
| Alex's book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, lays out the argument that fossil fuels have not only been an incredibly positive and important piece for the advancement of mankind, but even now, in 2016, they are still the best source of energy for humans to make the most of this world. | ||
| His book also tackles many of the myths surrounding fossil fuels, and even has me challenging many of my own assumptions of how much fossil fuels are truly affecting the environment, and if we've demonized an energy source that still has a lot of great potential to help mankind. | ||
| Now, before I continue, and before people start freaking out, let me stop those of you who are going to say, ah, Rubin's a climate change denier for even talking to this guy. | ||
| No, that really is not the case, but who I am is someone who is willing to have the provocative and complex conversation that surrounds it. | ||
| You guys know that I've made this show about the battle of ideas, and Alex's ideas are considered basically heretical in some elite circles. | ||
| He's had a public spat with Al Gore, and he's been subpoenaed in a lawsuit that the Justice Department has brought against ExxonMobil, even though he himself has done nothing wrong Other than share his ideas. | ||
| In a truly free society, we must allow all ideas to flourish because sunlight is the best disinfectant. | ||
| If Alex's ideas are bad, the only way we can truly refute them is by proving them to be so, not by banning the discussion altogether. | ||
| This is why the Twitter ban of Milo Yiannopoulos a couple weeks ago was so awful. | ||
| Even if it was within Twitter's right to do so. | ||
| Surely Milo's ideas weren't the worst of all the ideas on Twitter, but he had gained influence that they couldn't control, so they shut him down while Nazi sympathizers and ISIS supporters remained there freely. | ||
| You think Milo's ideas are bad? | ||
| Yeah, well then use your voice on social media to call him out on it. | ||
| You think Alex's ideas are bad? | ||
| Well then write a book refuting them. | ||
| The risk we face is that banning those who we disagree with and suing those who say something we don't like will eventually become the norm. | ||
| This is why I think the new battle in front of us is about authoritarians versus libertarians. | ||
| People who want to tell you how to think versus people who want you to think on your own. |
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