EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,108 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Alright, we're up. Well, thank you very much for being here, Andrew. I appreciate it. Uh, why don't you tell everybody, if you would, uh, what you do and what your credentials are.
- ADAndrew Dessler
So, I'm a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. I'm the director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies. Uh, I've been studying climate and the atmosphere for about 30 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. And, uh, I, I ... Thank you for being here. And I brought you on here to counter this book. Uh, Steve Koonin, who was my last guest, and, uh, I'm trying to do this and, and balance things out. He has a very different take on what the science says about climate change than you do. So, let's, uh ... I guess we should start ... I know you've read the book. What do you think about his book?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah. Well, let me start with a little context.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Like some historical context. So, um, for decades on a number of problems, there have been scientists who show up and say, "The consensus is all wrong." So, it started in the '60s with tobacco. So, you know, the, the evidence was very clear that smoking is bad for you, and then these scientists started showing up and saying, "No, you know, we don't really understand. Uh, there's, there's all these problems with the science." And what the tobacco companies figured out very early is that having a scientist advance that message was much better than having a PR person.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ADAndrew Dessler
So, they would go out and hire scientists to say, "Hey, we need you to push this message." And they went out, and it was very effective. They delayed the recognition that smoking is bad for you for decades.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you seen the documentary, uh, Ministers of Doubt-
- ADAndrew Dessler
Merchants of Doubt.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, I'm sorry. Merchants of Doubt.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah. In fact, I was gonna say-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ADAndrew Dessler
... you know, that's the fanta- a fantastic book, uh, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway that really goes over this, all the way into climate change, about how science is used to try to undermine policy action. Um, so then, you know, fast-forward to the '80s and you have fluorocarbons and ozone depletion. And in fact, uh, the exact same thing happens. The, the science was really well-established, but these scientists started showing up and saying, "The scientists have it all wrong." And in fact, the arguments they're advancing are almost exactly the same as the arguments that Dr. Koonin is advancing. If you take a Word document and you just do a global word replace, ozone depletion for climate change, you have exactly the same argument. In fact, I have a slide with a quote that ... I normally don't (laughs) make people read a paragraph, but I think this is actually really useful. If you go to slide 52, this is from 1989, and I think ... Is it gonna show up there?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Um, it's worth ... So, this is a quote from, um, uh, something that was said about, about fluorocarbons, and it just says, "The current situation can be fairly summarized as following. The CFC ozone theory is quite incomplete and cannot yet be relied on to make predictions. The natural sources of stratospheric ozone layer have not yet been d- delineated, theoretically or experimentally. The Antarctic ozone hole is ephemeral. It comes and goes. It seems to be controlled by climatic factors outside human r- control, rather than CFCs." That's exactly the same argument. You know, "We don't understand it. It's natural variability." It's, it's, it's identical argument. And, uh, can you put it back up? Uh, in the next paragraph, "New York Times reports talks about the disadvantages of CFC substitutes. They may be toxic, flammable, corrosive. They certainly won't work as well. They'll reduce the energy efficiency of appliances. They'll deteriorate. Uh, 135 billion dollars of equipment use CFCs in the United States alone, and much of this equipment will have to be replaced or modified to work well. Eventually, that will involve 100 million home refrigerators, air conditioners in 90 million cars, central air conditioning plants in 100,000 large buildings. Good luck. The total costs haven't even been added up yet." And again, you know, windmills don't work. Uh, you know, the costs are gonna be extraordinary. And, and, you know, you were around in the '90s. Do you remember the economic apocalypse that happened when we replaced CFCs?
- JRJoe Rogan
It didn't happen.
- ADAndrew Dessler
The economic apocalypse didn't happen. We replaced them-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ADAndrew Dessler
... and none of that happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. What did they replace them with?
- ADAndrew Dessler
With other CFCs. There's, so the-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then-
- ADAndrew Dessler
... the original F11, F12 got replaced with these things we call HCFCs that are less damaging to the ozone layer, and none of that happened. And that, that ... Those people are the true alarmists in the debate, the people that say we can't do it, because we can do it. And all th- And they're just trying to scare people into not taking action. So ... Uh, you have a question?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I was gonna say, I think Koonin's take on replacing things is essentially that there's so many people in third-world countries, in impoverished areas, that rely on fossil fuels, and that eliminating fossil fuels will be devastating to those environments because these people are gonna lose out on massive amounts of income and economically, it's going to affect them in a disastrous way. That's his take, right?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Uh, y- I mean, I'm n- I, I don't wanna put words in his mouth. Certainly, he argues that it's difficult to transition. I think he said at one point during his interview with you that fossil fuels are the cheapest energy source, which is not true. In fact, um, let me ... I have a slide on that. Um, if we go to slide 33, um, this actually shows the ... Now, so your viewers may not know this. Uh, and in fact, a few years ago, uh, fossil fuels were the cheapest energy source, but the prices are plummeting. So, this is a plot from Lazard, what they call the levelized cost of energy, and you can see the le- on the left side, it's the price in 2009. And you can see the top dot is solar, and it was extremely expensive in 2009. And then, as you go down, 2019, wind and solar are now the cheapest energy sources. Gas is close, but, but wind and solar are, they are the cheap energy sources now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it possible to replace all of the fossil fuel energy that we get with solar?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Oh, wow. That's a great question. And, um, uh, I guess we'll just sort of let the conversation flow as it winds.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Now, people have a…
- ADAndrew Dessler
really rich natural gas guys, we could essentially build enough nuclear power to replace most of our gas power if we had just done that. But instead, we're spending all that money, uh, you know, rep- rep- repairing houses that were destroyed because the natural gas system failed. I mean, it's, it's crazy to me that we still rely on these systems that, that, you know, we can talk about fossil fuels, but you know, fossil fuels have many huge disadvantages, not just climate change, but many others. And, and you know, we could fix this if we wanted to, but we're not, and we're just sitting here paying money year after year for these failures of fossil fuel systems.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, people have a fear of nuclear power based on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and Fukushima and the like. What, what is the current technology? Like when, when you're looking at nuclear technology in 2022, how much safer is it? How much more effective and efficient is it? And like, what's the best example of a, a new, modern nuclear power plant?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, so let me just say right off the top, uh, I, I'm not an expert on, on the details of nuclear power. Certainly, people are worried about nuclear power, meltdowns, et cetera. The way I look at it is you're, you have to trade off costs and benefits, and you look at climate change. You lo- ... I mean, we can go over the litany of terrible things about fossil fuels, and I'd be happy to do that, and if you look at all of those and you say nuclear u- is ... Uh, uh, my view is I'm willing to take some risk with nuclear power to avoid all of these other really terrible impacts. Now, I do know that there's a lot of work being done on new technologies for nuclear, these small nu- modular reactors, things that hold the promise of better nuclear power. Um, and maybe those will come out. But even with kind of existing technology, from what I understand, I'm willing to take the risk.
- JRJoe Rogan
My understanding of technology, uh, the nuclear technology rather, is that in 2022, there's many more fail-safe measures than were when they designed, like say, the Fukushima system, for instance.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, I mean, every time you have a disaster, people go into it and they say, "What went wrong?" And then (laughs) you learn lessons and you incorporate those into the new plants. I mean, you do that with plane design.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ADAndrew Dessler
You do that with any kind of big industrial thing. So there's no question in my mind that that's right, that they're safer today than they were in the past. And, and you know, uh, uh, but, but let me say, while I support nuclear, and if, if Republicans came out and said, "We will solve climate change by building nuclear," I'd be 100% gung ho. Uh, you know, by no means am I one of these nuclear bros that you might see on Twitter who, you know, "Fusion's 10 years away," and, uh, you know, I would also take geothermal.
- JRJoe Rogan
What are the, what are the nuclear bros saying?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Oh, you know, there are, there are people on Twitter who will say, you know, "We're, fusion's right around the corner." And, you know, they-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're n- ... You call them nuclear bros?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do you call them nuclear bros?
- ADAndrew Dessler
They're usually sort of aggressive, youngish men. They probably watch this show. They're probably-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ADAndrew Dessler
... steaming angry right now and are, are on Twi- uh, they're actually on Twitter right now searching for me to-
- JRJoe Rogan
So there's like nuclear fans? Is that what you're saying?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Oh, yeah. You should ... Here's a test. Go on your Twitter feed and say something like, "I hate nuclear."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ADAndrew Dessler
Just say that and tweet it out and see what the reaction is. Um ...
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't read Twitter.
- ADAndrew Dessler
All right, well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fortunately.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, uh, I just post and ghost.
- ADAndrew Dessler
All right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I get out of there.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, that's, tha- that's a good way to do it.
- JRJoe Rogan
But when you're, when you're saying l- like nuclear bros, and so is your impression that these are real people that are just enthusiastic about nuclear power, or are these trolls, or are these people that work for some sort of a lobby and they're enthusiastic about getting nuclear pushed forward because they're a, a part of the industry?
- 30:00 – 45:00
Sure. The ... Every…
- JRJoe Rogan
isn't it also unique in that Texas has its own grid?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Sure. The ... Every event is unique in its own way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ADAndrew Dessler
But the point I'm trying to make here is how vulnerable we are, uh, to these climate impacts. You know, we're extremely vulnerable to, to these changes. And so this idea that it's gonna be nothing, it's gonna s- you know, instead of, uh, you know ... You won't even notice it. I mean, nobody can tell you if that's right or not. And in many ways, that's the biggest reason to act on climate change-
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- ADAndrew Dessler
Because we don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this, uh, raise in temperature and the associated cost that's involved-... um, what would that cost be because of? Would it be flooding near the coasts? Would it be, uh, drought? Like, what, what would be the added costs?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Oh, it's everything. I mean, we live in a world that is optimized for the temperature range that we are in.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ADAndrew Dessler
So, when you build a bridge, for example, the engineer says, "Okay, what's the temperature range that this bridge can experience?" Because bridges expand and contract, and you have to make sure that it's, it's like, okay, this is the range. And then as you depart from that, um... I have some slides on that, um, which I will, I will look up as I'm talking. Um, uh, could you go to 46? Um, uh, it's w- we're just now getting to the point where we're beginning to depart from the range of infrastructure. So, for example, you can see on the left, heatwave made this bridge too small to function. And so that's one thing. You say, well that, okay, that one thing by itself, not a, not b- it's probably a bridge that, that opens. Would it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, oh, right, right, right. And then, yeah, it looks like it is. And then the other one.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Does it look like it is?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Well, I don't know the details of that bridge, to be honest. I'm sure, I'm sure in the comments.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's got the lights.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are th- are those lights the ones that they use when they-
- NANarrator
That's in Chicago. I can check real quick.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, check that.
- NANarrator
Ducey Bridge.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause that, that seems weird.
- ADAndrew Dessler
But in any event, no, I've seen this many places where bridges, it gets too hot, and the bridges, they have to close the bridges because they-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, it's because of the asphalt, and-
- ADAndrew Dessler
It's their, they expand. You know, they're made of-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ADAndrew Dessler
... metal and, and stuff that expands when it heats up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ADAndrew Dessler
And, um, uh, the slide on the right, which you can't see anymore, shows some train tracks. And again, when you build train tracks, you assume a temperature range. And, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
So it does lift, yeah.
- NANarrator
Oh, there it is, yeah.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Right. …
- ADAndrew Dessler
"It wasn't, humans aren't having an effect." And then, as those ide- arguments became increasingly ridiculous, now he actually has quite ... In, in many respects, I think we actually agree on a lot of things. He agrees the Earth is warming, he agrees humans are having influence. He's always playing up uncertainty to get to a conclusion that his client is ... He's trying to create reasonable doubt. He's doing what a defense lawyer does. Reasonable doubt is his product. In fact, there's a memo, uh, from a tobacco executive which explicitly says, "That's our goal. We're not trying to win the debate. We're not trying to convince people that smoking is safe. We're trying to create doubt in the mind of the general public." And that's exactly the goal here. It's not to prove that, uh, uh ... You know, 'cause he can't prove that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ADAndrew Dessler
... that carbon dioxide's not ... He's just trying to create doubt. He's trying to slow down action. At least, that's, that's gonna be the net effect, if he's successful. And again, I don't understand ... I'm not gonna say why he's doing it. I don't, I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, when he talks about it and he shows these charts of, you know, a period of, uh, many hundreds of years, and the temperature of the Earth over that time, it does seem to be having this fluctuating effect which mirrors what we're seeing now.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Um, not really. Well, it depends exactly what you're talking about. So if you look at the last thousand years, uh, there's no period like the last 100 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
In what way?
- ADAndrew Dessler
There, I mean, I wish I had a slide of it. I don't. But I mean, the last thousand years, the temperature was basically pretty flat, and we've had a one-degree rise in temperature in the last ... You know, it does look like a hockey stick. You've probably heard of the hockey stick?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ADAndrew Dessler
It does kind of look like a hockey stick. And, uh, you know, so, so the, the, the paleo record doesn't really support ... The, the pale- or the historical record doesn't show anything like the last century. Now, let me be clear. The argument in favor of carbon dioxide is not that you can't go into the historical record and ever find anything like that. That's not the argument. The argument, as I laid it out, is, we know carbon dioxide traps heat. We know that. That's fundamental physics. We know we're adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That's fundamental physics. We know the Earth is warming, and it's warming about as much as our theories suggest. So, a lot of what this is, is it's just kind of a shiny object to, to distract you. Like, let's talk about, uh, Greenland melting in 1930. That's a distraction. It doesn't take away from the fact that humans are warming the climate, and that as the climate warms, Greenland's going to melt a lot more.
- JRJoe Rogan
So there are these aberrations in, when you look at long periods of time, where it does get unusually warm or it does get unusually cool. But what you're saying is make no mistake about it, the, what's happening right now is unusual and it's caused by humans.
- ADAndrew Dessler
I wouldn't say it's unusual. I mean, if you go back 60 million years, uh, there was no ice anywhere on the planet. There were palm trees in Wyoming, there were alligators in the Arctic. It was a different world. Uh, uh, and it was also a high CO2 world, by the way. And that's not a coincidence. So what we're ... So I wouldn't say it's unusual. What I say is, humans are driving this warming. And you know, modern human society, with millions of cities of millions of people and trillions of dollars of architecture, uh, of infrastructure, that's maybe 100, 150 years old. We've never experienced the kinds of warming that's coming. And it is go- it could be a terrible, terrible ride. Nobody really knows. And you know, my ... And let me be clear. I'm speaking now as a parent, as a citizen, not as a scientist, 'cause science doesn't tell you this. My opinion as someone who knows a lot about this is I don't want to run the experiment.... I don't wanna see if Dr. Koonin is right and the impacts are small. I think we should take action. And, and the key thing is, we can take action at very low cost. Because, and we haven't talked about it, uh, fossil fuels are incredibly expensive. Not the price you pay at the well, but the cost to society is extremely high. So, uh, you know, we can take action at low cost. It's a risk. We should do this. I'm speaking, again, that's my personal opinion, not as a scientist, 'cause science doesn't tell you that. That's my personal opinion as a citizen.
- JRJoe Rogan
What I'm saying about it being unusual, not that it's n- not unusual in terms of, like, historically over the time that the Earth has existed, but I mean that there's this moment where it's very clear that human beings are doing it.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's-
- ADAndrew Dessler
... yeah, if you mean unusual that way-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ADAndrew Dessler
... that's, yeah, I would agree with that.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, and that this is very measurable. So-
- ADAndrew Dessler
Absolutely. There's-
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- ADAndrew Dessler
... there's no, there's no debate in the scientific community about this.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, what can be done in terms of having an impact on, on f- the fossil fuel consumption and w- what would that do to this overall model of, uh, global warming? Or climate change, I should say?
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, well, okay, so we know, we know basically how to decarbonize our economy. I mean, we can do it. And in fact, um, let me find a good slide which I think really, uh, I think probably up front, which really shows this. Um, da, da, da. Uh, I will keep talking while I look for this. Um, so yeah, we, we know how to decarbonize. Oh, could you go to slide 37? So, you know, fossil fuels have already lost, so they're already on their way out. Um, this plot is the ERCOT, so ERCOT is the Texas grid, and this shows the power that's getting connected to the Texas grid, uh, by w- by source. And, and, uh, the, uh, the horizontal line shows the different sources and the bars are different years. Don't worry about the different years. You can see, nobody's hooking fossil fuels up to the Texas grid. There's a little bit of gas, but it's mainly wind and solar, and there's actually a little bit of battery. You know, it used to be, if you looked at older years, they had coal as a separate category, but nobody's hooked coal up to the grid in so long that they just lumped it in with other, which is zero.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can't believe how big solar's impact is.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, no, I mean, this, that-
- JRJoe Rogan
I would've never guessed that.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, no, th- so fossil fuels have already lost, and the reason they've already lost is they're expensive. You know, people don't want ... you know, if you're building energy, if you're an energy producer, you're gonna build the cheapest energy source, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ADAndrew Dessler
So, it's wind and solar, and that, they're, the m- they're winning in the marketplace, and if you go to, um, uh, if you go to the previous slide. So, um, you know, uh, at this point it says, "Renewables will account for 95% of the growth in global power generation capacity."
- JRJoe Rogan
Says, "Renewable energy has another record year of growth," says IEA, and then, "Anoth- another record year for renewable energy despite COVID-19," blah blah blah. "Two hundred and ninety gigawatts of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels-"
- 1:00:00 – 1:11:00
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
it's like y- when you accelerate on the highway, it's literally like you're on a, a rollercoaster.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can't believe it's that fast.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's silent.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So like when you pass people, you don't even feel like a douchebag.
- ADAndrew Dessler
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like if someone's ... (laughs) If you need to like ... If you m- need to merge in traffic, you don't ... It's not making a loud noise. You're just going, "Whee."
- ADAndrew Dessler
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a much less aggressive way of like merging with traffic.
- ADAndrew Dessler
So do you drive with full self-drive on?
- JRJoe Rogan
No. I don't trust that.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That seems a little sketch.
- ADAndrew Dessler
I ... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, I'm sure it's great, but I've done it a couple times just to show people. Like, "Watch this." Do-do. And then like, "Look, it's driving." But no.... I keep my fucking hands on the wheel.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah. I- I think that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
I- I don't-
- ADAndrew Dessler
... that's smart.
- JRJoe Rogan
It just doesn't... I mean, I get it. I get it works, but it's like, you don't want to be a statistic.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Right. Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um-
- ADAndrew Dessler
And th- and it works 99.9% of the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not enough. (laughs)
- ADAndrew Dessler
But it's that 0.1.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's also, it's like, I wanna... If I see someone acting weird up there, I want to slow down. You know, if I see some guy who looks like he's drunk, I want to move over. You know, I want to be... I don't want to just zone out.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I used to use it when I'd come home from The Comedy Store when I lived in LA, and I used to use it for that reason, because I was tired. Because, you know, I'd come home. It's like 12:30 at night. I'd just get on the highway, go too-too, and just, for 10 minutes, just relax.
- ADAndrew Dessler
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:12:05
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