Joe Rogan Experience #1777 - Andrew Dessler

1. 0:00 – 0:06

   Intro

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

2. 0:06 – 1:01

   Setting the stage: Dessler’s credentials and Rogan’s goal of balancing Koonin’s claims

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      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.

   2. ADAndrew Dessler0:20

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:33

      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?

3. 1:01 – 4:46

   “Merchants of Doubt” playbook: tobacco, ozone, and recycled arguments in climate debates

   1. ADAndrew Dessler1:01

      Yeah. Well, let me start with a little context.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:03

      Okay.

   3. ADAndrew Dessler1:03

      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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:31

      Mm.

   5. ADAndrew Dessler1:32

      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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:43

      Have you seen the documentary, uh, Ministers of Doubt-

   7. ADAndrew Dessler1:46

      Merchants of Doubt.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:46

      Oh, I'm sorry. Merchants of Doubt.

   9. ADAndrew Dessler1:46

      Yeah. In fact, I was gonna say-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:48

       Yeah.

   11. ADAndrew Dessler1:48

       ... 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?

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:36

       Yes.

   13. ADAndrew Dessler2:37

       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?

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:49

       It didn't happen.

   15. ADAndrew Dessler3:50

       The economic apocalypse didn't happen. We replaced them-

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:52

       Right.

   17. ADAndrew Dessler3:52

       ... and none of that happened.

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:54

       Yes. What did they replace them with?

   19. ADAndrew Dessler3:55

       With other CFCs. There's, so the-

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:58

       And then-

   21. ADAndrew Dessler3:58

       ... 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?

   22. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       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?

4. 4:46 – 5:53

   Are fossil fuels really cheapest? Wind/solar cost curves and the economics of transition

   1. ADAndrew Dessler4:46

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan5:41

      Is it possible to replace all of the fossil fuel energy that we get with solar?

   3. ADAndrew Dessler5:47

      Oh, wow. That's a great question. And, um, uh, I guess we'll just sort of let the conversation flow as it winds.

   4. JRJoe Rogan5:52

      Sure.

5. 5:53 – 12:24

   What a carbon-free grid looks like: intermittency, firm dispatchable power, and limited need for storage

   1. ADAndrew Dessler5:53

      So, yeah. So, let's talk about what it takes to, to re- what would, what would a grid that's carbon-free look like?Okay. So, everybody who's capable of tying their shoelaces knows that wind and solar are intermittent. So solar doesn't produce energy at night, wind doesn't produce energy when the sun's not blowing. So everybody knows that. Okay? Every-

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:14

      When the wind's not blowing.

   3. ADAndrew Dessler6:15

      When the wind's not blowing, yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:17

      Yeah, yeah.

   5. ADAndrew Dessler6:17

      Everybody knows that. So, if you wanna pro- uh, create a, a reliable, carbon-free grid, you have a grid that's about, on average, produces 75% of its power from wind and solar, and then the other 25% is what we call dispatchable firm power. So, it could be nuclear, could be geothermal, could be hydro. It's a power source you can turn on and off to balance the variability of wind and solar. So, when, when the wind stops blowing, you turn up your dispatchable, uh, uh, and when the wind's- when you're getting lots of wind and solar, you turn it off and you let wind and solar run.

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:51

      Um, I, I was under the impression that wind was not very effective, that these windmills don't produce that much power.

   7. ADAndrew Dessler6:59

      I mean, some- in some days in Texas, it's half our power.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:02

      Half of our power comes from wind?

   9. ADAndrew Dessler7:03

      Yeah. Yeah, if it's a- if it's a windy day-

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:04

       Really?

   11. ADAndrew Dessler7:05

       ... we get an enormous amount of power. Yeah, Texas has an enormous amount of power-

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:08

       So-

   13. ADAndrew Dessler7:08

       ... that we get from wind on windy days. Some days, you don't get a lot of power, but you do.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:11

       That's incredible.

   15. ADAndrew Dessler7:12

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:12

       I did not know it was half of our power.

   17. ADAndrew Dessler7:14

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:14

       So conceivably, with solar and with wind, we could power the entire state.

   19. ADAndrew Dessler7:20

       And with- you need some dispatchable power.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:22

       Right.

   21. ADAndrew Dessler7:22

       You need- you need some nuclear, you need some geothermal, you need some high- you need something that you can balance the, the renewable energy with.

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       But much less than we're currently using.

   23. ADAndrew Dessler7:32

       That's right. And so, so you might say, you might ask, reasonably, you know, "Why use wind and solar at all? Why don't you just build 100% nuclear?" And that would work, and I would actually support that. But that's much more expensive. The- uh, wind and solar are very cheap at this point. And in fact, the marginal cost of wind and solar energy is zero. They produce energy, an extra joule of energy, w- at no cost, 'cause they don't have any fuel.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:54

       Right.

   25. ADAndrew Dessler7:54

       So, if you wanna pay the least amount for energy, what you wanna do is you wanna have a grid that's mainly wind and solar, but then you have to have this firm power, the- uh, that makes up for it when the power- when wind and solar don't produce. 'Cause the- 'cause there are gonna be times when they don't produce. You- we know- we know that's gonna happen.

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:12

       So, wind and solar, uh, also rely on- there's- there has to be some sort of battery that collects the energy, correctly?

   27. ADAndrew Dessler8:20

       No, no. So, so that's a different-

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       Solar doesn't, right?

   29. ADAndrew Dessler8:23

       No, they really don't.

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:24

       No?
6. 12:24 – 15:34

   Texas wind reality check and the 2021 freeze: why the backup system failed

   1. ADAndrew Dessler12:24

      Yeah, no, they're, they're, they're enormous. And, but the, I think the important point here is wind and nuclear are not exactly, uh, substitutable powers. Again, they, they play different roles in the grid. Um, and, and this leads ... You, you mentioned the Texas freeze. Let's talk about the Texas freeze because I think that was really a great example of how the grid is supposed to operate and why it didn't operate. And, and so, uh, you know, Texas, we have a lot of wind and solar. We also have a lot of natural gas. So in Texas, natural gas is the power source that backs up the renewables. When the renewables are not producing, natural gas is supposed to step in and back it up. I mean, that's the way our grid actually works. We, we, we run as much wind and solar as we can, and anything else is made up with natural gas. There's a little coal, little nuclear. Um, and so during the Texas freeze, uh, the renewables went down. The, they were not producing very much power. And again, this, people play this up like this is a problem with renewables. This is not a problem with renewables. We know renewables stop producing some of the time. And when that happens, you rely on your firm, dispatchable power to make it up. And that was the failure. The gas system did not back up the renewables.

   2. JRJoe Rogan13:35

      And why was that?

   3. ADAndrew Dessler13:36

      Oh, that's a really excellent question. So it didn't back up because, um, uh, the gas supply essentially was choked off. So in, uh, especially in West Texas, a lot of the gas that comes out of the ga- ground has a lot of condensates in it, things that condense and freeze.

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:51

      Mm-hmm.

   5. ADAndrew Dessler13:51

      So heavier hydrocarbons, um, water, and at the very cold temperatures, uh, the s- it actually froze the wells so the gas couldn't get out. It plugged the wells up. And then what happened is ... So, so you get this reduction in natural gas flow, and so then the power started to go down. And this was very sudden. This was in the middle of the night on February 15th, 2021. Um, the power started to go down. And then what happened was, a lot of the natural gas infrastructure is powered by electricity. They have these compressors. They have valves. And once the electricity started to go down, all of the rest of the natural gas infrastructure started to fail. And so you lost even more natural gas. So it was really this, this, this cascading problem with the natural gas system, or the dispatchable power. And, you know, that event cost about $200 billion, uh, between, uh, how much we had to pay for gas plus all the damage, all the pipes that froze and, and burst. I mean, it was an enormously expensive event, one of the most expensive events Texas has ever experienced. For that $200 billion (laughs) , which is all going to repair pipes, it's going to these 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.

7. 15:34 – 19:01

   Nuclear power today: risk tradeoffs, modern safety, and “nuclear bros” culture

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      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?

   2. ADAndrew Dessler15:56

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:43

      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.

   4. ADAndrew Dessler16:55

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan17:03

      Right.

   6. ADAndrew Dessler17:03

      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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan17:31

      What are the, what are the nuclear bros saying?

   8. ADAndrew Dessler17:33

      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-

   9. JRJoe Rogan17:38

      They're n- ... You call them nuclear bros?

   10. ADAndrew Dessler17:39

       Yeah. (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       Why do you call them nuclear bros?

   12. ADAndrew Dessler17:40

       They're usually sort of aggressive, youngish men. They probably watch this show. They're probably-

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:45

       (laughs)

   14. ADAndrew Dessler17:45

       ... steaming angry right now and are, are on Twi- uh, they're actually on Twitter right now searching for me to-

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:50

       So there's like nuclear fans? Is that what you're saying?

   16. ADAndrew Dessler17:53

       Oh, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:53

       Oh, okay.

   18. ADAndrew Dessler17:53

       Oh, yeah. You should ... Here's a test. Go on your Twitter feed and say something like, "I hate nuclear."

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:57

       (laughs)

   20. ADAndrew Dessler17:57

       Just say that and tweet it out and see what the reaction is. Um ...

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:01

       I don't read Twitter.

   22. ADAndrew Dessler18:02

       All right, well.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:02

       Fortunately.

   24. ADAndrew Dessler18:03

       Yeah, okay.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       But, uh, I just post and ghost.

   26. ADAndrew Dessler18:05

       All right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:05

       I get out of there.

   28. ADAndrew Dessler18:06

       Yeah, that's, tha- that's a good way to do it.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:08

       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. ADAndrew Dessler18:29

       Uh, you know, I think they're honestly enthusiastic about nuclear power, and-
8. 19:01 – 30:29

   How Koonin persuades without “being wrong”: selective uncertainty and shaky economic damage estimates

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:01

      And when you looked at Steve Koonin's assertions about the impact of, uh, fossil fuels on the environment and carbon in the ... in, in the environment and what about human use, uh, i- r- is responsible for that. Like, he put a bunch of percentages, like how much of it is agriculture, how much of it is transportation. Do you, uh, eh, dispute his positions on those that w- th- the amount that humans, like, with fossil fuels in particular, have an impact on the Earth is smaller or at least less significant than, uh, a lot of the alarmists would say?

   2. ADAndrew Dessler19:43

      No, I think the numbers he gave are pretty accurate. And let me just sort of preface this by saying I think that the facts that Steve Koonin gives are largely accurate. Um, I could dispute one or two, but the things he says are right. But you have to understand that he's really acting like a, a, a defense attorney for carbon dioxide, and a defense attorney, that ... d- they don't lie. They get disbarred if they go in front of a court and lie. But what they do is they give you this carefully curated picture of reality. Just like, you know, you sit down with a defense attorney and he explains why his, why his, um, uh, client is innocent, you're gonna walk away thinking, you know, that, that person is getting railroaded.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:19

      Right.

   4. ADAndrew Dessler20:19

      Of course he didn't do it, because you're not hearing the whole thing. And, and so, and so it's not that what he said was wrong. In fact, many times, he said, "No one's ever been able to prove anything I say is wrong. I have footnotes for everything." And that's, that's correct. It's what he's not saying. It's the, it's, it's the, the where he emphasizes his uncertainty and lack of certainty, that's really what's misleading, I think, in the argument. So-

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:41

      Can you give me an example of that?

   6. ADAndrew Dessler20:42

      Oh, sure. So he spent five minutes ... Well, maybe not five minutes. Two minutes talking about climate models and how hard it is to do, and, you know, it's like, "Climate models are very uncertain." Um, and then, uh, uh, at another point, he talks about the economic models. He says, "A warming of ... " Uh, and again, I don't know the exact quote, but, "Warming of two or three degrees? Why, that's 4% of GDP. That's nothing." And, you know, economic models are terrible. If you don't (laughs) believe the climate models, the economic models are absolutely awful, and I can go in ... I, I can explain that. In fact, let me tell you a story about economic models, about ... And why you should not believe them, and we'll get back to how he doesn't talk about the uncertainty in those at all. So in the 2010s, the Obama administration put out this thing called the social cost of carbon, and that's basically the cost of the damages from one ton of carbon added to the atmosphere. So they say if you emit one ton of carbon, uh, we have our economic model and, and it's gonna cost $35 of damage. And (laughs) they have a way of doing it. I won't go into details. Then the Trump administration comes in, and they redo the calculation, and they get $3. Now what changed? It wasn't the science. It was the assumptions going into the economic model. The Trump administration didn't put very much value on future people and didn't put any value on people outside of the US, and so what that means is, uh, the difference came down to a value judgment. Do we care about damages to the rest of the world? Do we care about damages to future generations? That's not a scientific question, that's a moral question, and these economic estimates are completely suffused with value judgments, and they're really ... I mean, I could go on about this.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:21

      Could you ex- just expand upon what those economic damages would be and how it would affect people?

   8. ADAndrew Dessler22:26

      Sure. So, you know, damages of, um ... Okay, so let's talk about the impacts of climate change. Actually, let me get that in a say. Let me just wrap up what I'm saying.

   9. JRJoe Rogan22:34

      Okay. Sure, sure, sure.

   10. ADAndrew Dessler22:34

       So the economic estimates are, are absolutely unreliable, in my view, and, and Dr. Koonin, he, he didn't even mention that there was uncertainty in it. He says, "It's 4%" eh, eh, as if that's a perfect number, and that's exac- that's a classic merchant of doubt strategy. Uh, this number over here, which convicts my ... which is not good for my client, that's a terrible number. Let me tell you why. This number, this supports my client, it's perfect. Uh, uh, and so that's a classic merchant of doubt strategy, and, and, you know, he does that repeatedly. It's not wrong. I can't say what he said was wrong, but I can say that it was a choice he made to bolster his, his client. Now ... Uh, which is carbon dioxide. Now, um, let's talk about the impacts of climate change, is what you're asking. So let's talk about the i- so when you warm the climate, you do a bunch of things.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:20

       But not just the impact of climate, but you, you're saying that he is not looking at it in terms of, like, how it affects the world.

   12. ADAndrew Dessler23:27

       Well, the, um ... That was an example of the Trump administration-

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:30

       Right.

   14. ADAndrew Dessler23:30

       ... how the assumptions that go into these economic models can make a factor of ten difference in what you estimate. And if, if the assumptions that an economist makes when he's ... Uh, the value judgments, the values of the economist when they're doing a calculation can make a factor of ten difference. Now you can't look at that as a reliable number. That's my, uh, you know, that's, that's my opinion. In fact, I have a slide that shows the damages. Um, let me find out where that one is.

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:57

       So in your opinion, he's, he's looking at it leniently.

   16. ADAndrew Dessler24:01

       Oh, here we go.

   17. NANarrator24:01

       I just Googled that, and yesterday this happ- uh, this is a news article from (clears throat) , uh, a federal court decision.

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:07

       It says, "Federal Judge Halts Biden Administration from Using 'Social Cost of Carbon'." Can you scroll up so I can read what it says? "Federal judge is barring the Biden administration from using the 'social cost of carbon' put into place 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." Huh.

   19. ADAndrew Dessler24:34

       Right. And so he, it says there, uh, uh, "$51 per metric ton." So that's the value. Uh, if this were the Trump administration, they would put $5 per metric ton on that. And again, uh, you know, which value is right? And this shows you that there's huge uncertainty in the, uh, in the estimates.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:49

       And so it says here, "The case, brought up by 10 states including Le- Louisiana and West Virginia, challenged the interim metric, arguing that it was arbitrarily set and would increase the cost of energy production and other activities." So, how much of an effect does this have on what you're saying?

   21. ADAndrew Dessler25:08

       Uh, this is, uh, noise. I mean, this is not... This, I mean, my, my point is about the reliability of these economic estimates. And these reliabilities, uh, we have no, we have no idea what the cost of climate change is gonna be. And I think-

   22. JRJoe Rogan25:20

       So when he's saying, when the, the, they're ruling that you can't use that, that term, the cost of, like-

   23. ADAndrew Dessler25:27

       No, this, this is-

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:27

       What exactly, what exactly ... They're saying put it, put it back up again so I can see it one more time?

   25. ADAndrew Dessler25:30

       Yeah. I think this is actually a lot less than what you're trying to... This is probably some-

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:34

       Well, sc- scroll back up to the top so I can read the, the headlines again. So it's saying the federal judge halts Biden administration from using the social cost of carbon.

   27. ADAndrew Dessler25:44

       They're not, they're not, they're not, uh, they're not, uh, stopping people from using that. What they're saying is the Biden administration reversed the Trump administration. And when you do that, there are certain rules about how an administration can change a, a, an executive order from a different one. And what they're saying is they didn't quite follow the right procedures. That's my... I haven't read this, but that's my interpretation of this.

   28. JRJoe Rogan26:06

       It says here, "The plaintiffs did not challenge a particular use of the Biden administration's social cost figure, but rather its potential applications." So I guess what they're saying is that they, they don't want the Biden adminis- administration applying this i- idea of social cost.

   29. ADAndrew Dessler26:24

       Right. And, and if you look at it, it's Louisiana and West Virginia. Those are fossil-fuel-producing states.

   30. JRJoe Rogan26:29

       Mm.
9. 30:29 – 35:02

   Real-world costs of warming: infrastructure stress, heat buckling, and adaptation bills

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:29

      ... 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?

   2. ADAndrew Dessler30:44

      Oh, it's everything. I mean, we live in a world that is optimized for the temperature range that we are in.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:51

      Mm.

   4. ADAndrew Dessler30:52

      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?

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:31

      Oh, oh, right, right, right. And then, yeah, it looks like it is. And then the other one.

   6. ADAndrew Dessler31:36

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:36

      Does it look like it is?

   8. ADAndrew Dessler31:39

      Well, I don't know the details of that bridge, to be honest. I'm sure, I'm sure in the comments.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:42

      It's got the lights.

   10. ADAndrew Dessler31:43

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Are th- are those lights the ones that they use when they-

   12. NANarrator31:46

       That's in Chicago. I can check real quick.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:48

       Yeah, check that.

   14. NANarrator31:49

       Ducey Bridge.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       'Cause that, that seems weird.

   16. ADAndrew Dessler31:51

       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-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       So, it's because of the asphalt, and-

   18. ADAndrew Dessler31:59

       It's their, they expand. You know, they're made of-

   19. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       Right.

   20. ADAndrew Dessler32:00

       ... metal and, and stuff that expands when it heats up.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:03

       Mm-hmm.

   22. ADAndrew Dessler32:03

       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-

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       So it does lift, yeah.

   24. NANarrator32:14

       Oh, there it is, yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       So it got too small from... That's wild that they lift like that. Um, so it got too small and then it wouldn't, uh, disconnect.

   26. ADAndrew Dessler32:22

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       And, and separate.

   28. ADAndrew Dessler32:23

       Exactly.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:24

       And then the one on the right, that looks really old. Like, what is that from?

   30. ADAndrew Dessler32:28

       Um, you know, I don't know exactly when that picture was taken, but-
10. 35:02 – 49:20

    Attribution: why Dessler says humans caused ~100% of recent warming

    1. ADAndrew Dessler35:02

       And there's videotape of him stabbing the client. And I'd be happy to go over why we're so c- I mean, twice, you asked him what fraction of the warming is due to humans, and he basically blew you off several times saying, "Uh, we have no idea." And that is abso- that's one of the things that's absolutely wrong.

    2. JRJoe Rogan35:17

       Okay, so what fraction of the warming is due to humans?

    3. ADAndrew Dessler35:20

       So the best estimate is that it's 100%. It's all the warming.

    4. JRJoe Rogan35:24

       What?

    5. ADAndrew Dessler35:24

       So let me, let me explain why that's the case. So, so begin with, let's be cl- clear, we're talking about the warming over the last century plus, last 150 years. So if you could go to slide 23, and let me explain, and I'm gonna give you kind of a cartoon version. This is actually how I teach my undergrad class, uh, uh, uh, what we call detection attribution. And the first thing you have to realize is that if the climate changes, there has to be a physical reason. You have t- you know, how... If a, if a house is burglarized, somebody did it. And if the climate is changing, there has to be a reason. So we can list the suspects. So this is from The Usual Suspects, of course.

    6. JRJoe Rogan36:00

       Mm-hmm.

    7. ADAndrew Dessler36:00

       And we can l- and we know what's changed the climate in the past, and so we can investigate. And so we know that continental drift, the fact that the continents are moving, that can change the climate.

    8. JRJoe Rogan36:10

       Mm-hmm.

    9. ADAndrew Dessler36:10

       Uh, we know that the sun's output, the, s- the sun is the ultimate source of energy for our climate. If the sun gets brighter, that could cause climate change. Uh, orbital variations, that's what actually drives the Ice Ages. It's the fact that the Earth's orbit varies over, over long time scales. Uh, ocean cycles, that's what he said, uh, like things like El Nino. He said, w- you know, "We don't under-... That could be it." And then finally, you have greenhouse gases. Uh, so can you go to the next slide?... and so, we can exclude all the suspects. We can exclude continental drift. It's too slow. The continents haven't moved in the last century. Uh, orbital variations, also too slow. That's a 100,000-year process. Uh, the sun. We have observations. We measure the output of the sun. It's not getting brighter, at least since we've been measuring them from the '70s. Uh, ocean cycles. That one actually is the hardest one to exclude, but we don't have any evidence to support it. So imagine, you know, someone was on trial, and the only evidence that they did it was that they didn't have an alibi. There was actually no evidence that they did it. If you were on a jury, you wouldn't convict them. You know, they said they were home playing their Xbox, but nobody saw them, and so they're obviously, they obviously murdered that person. You would not convict somebody for whom the only evidence is absence of an alibi. And that, for ocean cycles, that's the only thing you can point to.

    10. JRJoe Rogan37:28

        Mm-hmm.

    11. ADAndrew Dessler37:28

        We don't have ... We, we can't rule it out.

    12. JRJoe Rogan37:30

        Okay.

    13. ADAndrew Dessler37:30

        But we don't have any evidence that it did it. And then, you have greenhouse gases. So I like to call greenhouse gases the world's dumbest criminal. It dropped its wallet at the crime scene. It ... uh, you have fingerprints, there's videotape of it committing the crime. It was bragging to its friends that it did it. Um, you know, when they arrested him, all the stolen stuff was in the trunk. Um, can you go to the next slide? So, uh, again, I don't know if you want to read this.

    14. JRJoe Rogan37:54

        Okay.

    15. ADAndrew Dessler37:54

        But we have massive amounts of evidence that carbon dioxide is responsible for the warming of the last 100 years. And there's no other explanation. And you put it all together, uh, the scientific, uh, consensus is that, uh, we're responsible for all of the warming. 100%.

    16. JRJoe Rogan38:12

        So there's, so there's a lot of people that are just, uh, listening to this, so we'll read this off. Theor- um, the, uh, different, um, things that you highlighted are-

    17. ADAndrew Dessler38:18

        Oh, sure.

    18. JRJoe Rogan38:18

        ... theoretical reasons why adding CO2 will warm the climate. CO2 is going up. Geologic record shows correspondence between CO2 and temperature. Fingerprints and climate model support this also.

    19. ADAndrew Dessler38:30

        Yeah, let me, let me ... I can talk a little bit more about this.

    20. JRJoe Rogan38:32

        Sure.

    21. ADAndrew Dessler38:33

        Um, so we've known since the 1800s that if you add a gas, a greenhouse gas - those are gases that absorb infrared radiation - if you add that to the atmosphere, it's going to warm the climate. We've known that since Arrhenius in the 1890s. Um, we, we also know that carbon dioxide is going up, all right? I mean, I, I don't think there's any dispute about that. It's going up because humans are consuming fossil fuels. That's the main reason. Um, and so you put those together, and in the 1890s, people were predicting that we would see global warming. And that was 1890. They said, "We can't see it yet, 'cause we don't have measurements, but this is going to warm the climate." So indeed, it is w- when you see the climate going up, you think, okay, that makes sense. If you look back at the paleo record, we have good, we have reasonable estimates of what the climate was back a billion years. Uh, not super good, and you have to infer them. There's obviously uncertainty in that. But you can see that in periods when the carbon dioxide was low, there was a lot more ice on the planet. 'Cause you can tell if there's ice covering regions of the planet. And you can, and so you can see this correspondence between low CO2 and lots of ice. It's not perfect, and if you want to, you can point out a period, well, high CO2 here and ... but, but it's a pretty good correspondence. Um, can you put that slide back up so I make sure I don't forget?

    22. JRJoe Rogan39:45

        Is there any instances of high CO2 but low temperatures?

    23. ADAndrew Dessler39:49

        Um, you know, I have ... Let me, I actually ... Can you go to slide 26? Actually, I, I can show you the data. So this plot, the bottom plot shows millions of years, uh, and the, uh, left-hand axis, which goes with the orange line, is atmospheric CO2. You can see atmospheric CO2 varied from 2,000 parts per million, which is about four time- five times as much as there is today, to 250 parts per million, which is about 60% of what it is today. And the, the blue shows how far down ... That goes with the right-hand axis. That shows how far down the ice went. And you can see that in periods when the CO2 is low, um, there was, um, you know, there was a lot of ice. Now, you can also see there's some variability that doesn't necessarily reflect itself with ice. So, uh, if you go back 400 million years right before the CO2 line starts, you can see a period that might have high CO2 and ice. But, you know, there are lots of other things that could be going on. You know, the, a single outlier like that, you don't want to use to contradict the overarching picture of the trend. Um, and, and then, um, going, and so going back that line, next one is called fingerprints. So what, what a fingerprint is, is it's a way to separate various forcing agents. So, for example, if the sun were causing climate change, we would expect the entire atmosphere to warm. That's a prediction that you can work that out, uh, just theoretically. If cli- if greenhouse gases are causing the warming, the lower atmosphere warms, the upper atmosphere cools. So that's a fingerprint, and indeed, that's what we see. We see the lower atmosphere warming, we see the upper atmosphere cooling. That's a fingerprint of carbon dioxide. That's-

    24. JRJoe Rogan41:32

        What, what would it normally be? If, if there wasn't, there wasn't the amount of greenhouse gases, wh- how, how do you determine? Like, is there a percentage in terms of, like, what's warm in the lower atmosphere versus cool in the higher atmosphere?

    25. ADAndrew Dessler41:44

        Right, right. So we're just looking at trends.

    26. JRJoe Rogan41:46

        Right.

    27. ADAndrew Dessler41:46

        So we're not, we're not looking at, we're not concerned with what's normal. We're just concerned with what's, what's been happening over the la- you know, we've been measuring upper atmosphere maybe 50 years on balloons. And over that 50 years, uh, you can see temperatures going down. Actually, probably not 50 years, maybe 30 years. You can see temperatures going down, uh, uh, in, in agreement with what you would expect from adding carbon dioxide. And there's some other things going on. There's ozone depletion, which is also affects the trends in the, in the stratosphere?

    28. JRJoe Rogan42:14

        So- Sorry. How do we know that the temperature in the upper atmosphere goes down when you add carbon dioxide?

    29. ADAndrew Dessler42:20

        Oh, okay. That's, uh, that's a good ... You know, I, I often ask that question to graduate students. Um, so basically, you, um ... let me think. What's a, what's a good way to think about it? So, so, um, when you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, um, eh-... I'm trying to think about a way to say, you increase the emissivity of the stratosphere. Um, so basically, probably the best way to say it is, when you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, if you add it to the lower atmosphere, uh, you're basically trapping heat. If you add it to the upper atmosphere, you actually increase the ability to radiate to space. And so by adding to the upper atmosphere, it's radiating directly to space, and so it actually can cool the atmosphere. In the lower atmosphere, you're, you're, uh, it doesn't have the ability to radiate directly to space, and it basically just traps heat. Now, I'm gonna get angry emails about that, 'cause that's not ... That, that's a great simplification of it, but that's basically the way to think of it. But, the, the important thing is, this is really firmly established, theoretically.

    30. JRJoe Rogan43:18

        Okay. So-
11. 49:20 – 1:02:46

    Decarbonization pathways: renewables growth, where to put solar, EV scaling, and supply-chain constraints

    1. JRJoe Rogan49:20

       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?

    2. ADAndrew Dessler49:38

       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.

    3. JRJoe Rogan50:38

       I can't believe how big solar's impact is.

    4. ADAndrew Dessler50:40

       Yeah, no, I mean, this, that-

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:41

       I would've never guessed that.

    6. ADAndrew Dessler50:42

       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?

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:55

       Mm-hmm.

    8. ADAndrew Dessler50:55

       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."

    9. JRJoe Rogan51:12

       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-"

    10. ADAndrew Dessler51:28

        Wow.

    11. JRJoe Rogan51:28

        "... has been installed around the world this year, beating the previous record last year. On current trends, renewable energy generating capacity will exceed that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026." I would've never guessed that.

    12. ADAndrew Dessler51:42

        Yeah, I mean, this is new. So I'm not, I mean, th- this is-

    13. JRJoe Rogan51:45

        Where are these, um, solar panels located that are gathering up this much power?

    14. ADAndrew Dessler51:49

        I mean, they're everywhere. It's, it's rooftops. It's large solar plants. Are you talking about in Texas or the world?

    15. JRJoe Rogan51:55

        Yeah, I mean, anywhere. Let's just-

    16. ADAndrew Dessler51:56

        Yeah, I mean-

    17. JRJoe Rogan51:56

        ... say Texas.

    18. ADAndrew Dessler51:56

        ... it's just, it's, it's everywhere. Um, you know, in California, they're about to put, um, solar panels over a canal. There's lots of space to put solar panels. So for example, I would love it if they put solar panels on the parking lot outside my building, 'cause when I, you know, you walk out in July and get in your car and it's, you know-

    19. JRJoe Rogan52:13

        Right.

    20. ADAndrew Dessler52:13

        ... 300 degrees in there. Not literally-

    21. JRJoe Rogan52:15

        Right.

    22. ADAndrew Dessler52:15

        ... but it feels that way.

    23. JRJoe Rogan52:16

        Yeah.

    24. ADAndrew Dessler52:17

        And so I would love to have, you know, there are lots of places to put solar panels that don't affect use at all. Rooftops, parking lots, canals.

    25. JRJoe Rogan52:24

        Mm-hmm.

    26. ADAndrew Dessler52:25

        Um, and so there's lots of space to put this. And, you know, it's, it's already, uh, uh, uh, as cheap, I mean, you can make an argument that maybe, maybe it's not cheaper th- than the cheapest fossil fuel, but it's very close, and if you look at the trend, the trend is so steeply down, you know that in a few years, fo- uh, renewables are gonna wipe out fossil fuels.

    27. JRJoe Rogan52:45

        Now, what about when it comes to automobiles?

    28. ADAndrew Dessler52:48

        Well, I mean, un- uh, electric cars are much better than internal combustion cars, if you've ever driven one. Um-

    29. JRJoe Rogan52:53

        Yeah, I have one.

    30. ADAndrew Dessler52:53

        ... I don't know what you dr-
12. 1:02:46 – 1:29:49

    Coal’s human toll and “sacrifice zones”: Evansville example, pollution deaths, and political protection

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:02:46

       Yeah. Okay. So, um, that's automobiles. Um, the elimination of coal-powered plants and these other things that are putting CO₂ and particulates into the environment, like, what- what can be done about those things, and how long do you think it would take to implement them, and what kind of a impact would that have on the, uh, the overall effect that human beings are having on the climate?

    2. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:10

       Right. So, let me begin by saying nobody talks about shutting all this stuff off tomorrow. It's like-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:03:16

       Right.

    4. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:16

       ... you know, "We're gonna shut this off tomorrow." Uh, there's debates about how fast to decarbonize. Uh, my personal view is that this is sort of a multi-decadal problem that you probably, um, just, you know... I think it's not unreasonable to shut down all the coal now, but the other stuff you probably want to let run out until it wears out, and then you just don't replace it with fossil fuel infrastructure. And, you know, that's, uh, certainly achievable. I mean-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:03:38

       What are the offenders in order? Like, what's the...

    6. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:40

       So, um, coal is the worst greenhouse- or the wor- worst fossil fuel. Uh, you know, uh, someone I know calls coal, "the enemy of the human race." And-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:03:48

       Do you remember when Trump called it clean coal?

    8. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:51

       Yeah. So, they've-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:03:52

       (laughs)

    10. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:52

        ... you know, there's some people on Madison Avenue that's like, "How do we rebrand this?" Um, you know-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:03:57

        Clean coal.

    12. ADAndrew Dessler1:03:58

        ... clean coal. It's, it's alliterative. Um-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:03:59

        But it's like the least clean thing you think of. You think of like-

    14. ADAndrew Dessler1:04:02

        Hm.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:02

        ... grabbing coal, you're getting it everywhere.

    16. ADAndrew Dessler1:04:04

        Right.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:05

        You think of it being in the s- in the air.

    18. ADAndrew Dessler1:04:07

        Yeah. So, coal actually kills millions of people from air pollution around the world, uh, every year, tens of thousands of Americans. Uh, in addition, it releases the most amount of greenhouse gases, uh, per joule, per unit of energy you generate. So, it's really... So, so that's the worst, that's the worst fossil fuel, and we want to get rid of that as soon as we possibly can.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:28

        And the Americans that are dying from it, they're dying from the actual coal, from the poisoning in the air? Like-

    20. ADAndrew Dessler1:04:33

        No. It's, it's, it's... So, coal puts out, uh, these chemicals, these small particulates. They often are referred to as PM2.5s, particulate matter with a, a size less than 2.5 microns, and if you breathe those in, those actually go deep into your lungs and get into your bloodstream. And there's lots of studies which show that, that coal, that when you d- when... If you live in very polluted air and you're breathing it in, uh, you'll have heart attacks more frequently, pr- you know, strokes. All these, all these health impacts uh, are associated with that. And, uh, you know, it's, it's tens of thousands of Americans every year from coal. And, uh, you know, this is something, again, the, the anti-climate people, they don't talk about it.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:05:14

        Mm-hmm.

    22. ADAndrew Dessler1:05:14

        It's just, it's not something that supports their case, so-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:05:16

        Okay.

    24. ADAndrew Dessler1:05:16

        ... they just leave that out.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:18

        Where is this happening the most in this country? Like, where, what's the most polluted by coal?

    26. ADAndrew Dessler1:05:22

        Um, you know, that's a good question. I don't know exactly where it is, but it's anywhere that's downwind of a coal-fired power plant, and so-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:05:28

        Let's, let's find that out. Like, um, places in America most polluted by coal. Um, I'd never heard that. I didn't know that that many people-

    28. ADAndrew Dessler1:05:36

        Yeah. You know-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:05:37

        ... were dying from coal poisoning every year.

    30. ADAndrew Dessler1:05:38

        Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't call it coal poisoning. (laughs) I would call it air pollution, because it's really-

Episode duration: 2:12:05