 Obviously, the climate debate is highly polarized on one poll or the extremists, the alarmists, you could say, the catastrophists. And on the other poll are those who are called the deniers. That is an epithet that already implies that that side is wrong. So I prefer to say the skeptics, which is not to say that I agree with them necessarily. But I'd like to use relatively neutral terms to describe each side because in any polarized debate, what I've discovered is that the most important information and the key to resolving the debate is to be found in the hidden agreements that all sides share and in the questions that nobody's asking and the assumptions that are just taken for granted. So here we have, well, there's a few assumptions that are shared by both sides in the climate debate. One of them is that the most important thing to worry about if there is anything to worry about is global warming. So the skeptics say, and global warming isn't a problem, therefore, there's nothing to worry about, therefore, full steam ahead. No problem. And the alarmists say climate change is a terrible problem, a serious crisis. So we have to change our society. We have to change our economy. We have to change our industrial system. We have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. So both of them are agreeing to frame the entire conversation about the environment first and foremost in terms of global warming. And what does that leave out? It leaves out all of the things that I think are actually more important that have to do with the living Earth viewpoint. So that's one thing that they share, an agreement to focus the bulk of the environmental conversational climate change. Another thing that they share in common is that the reason that the other side disagrees with them is because they are stupid or ignorant or immoral. They are contemptible in some way. This fits into the war thinking that is ubiquitous in our culture to find an enemy. So here the enemy, if you're on the mainstream side, on the alarm side, the enemy isn't just carbon dioxide. That's not good enough. You have to have an enemy of the greedy corporations and their executives and the corrupt politicians and the people who know better yet they're willing to betray future generations for their own short-term gain. Aren't they horrible? And the implication is that if we could just get rid of these horrible people, then the problem would be solved, which is a lot easier than changing an entire system. So when I approached the debate and I decided I'm going to put everything on the table, I'm going to look into what all sides are saying. Well, I'm already committing a sin in the eyes of the dominant side, which would be the mainstream, the climate alarm side, because to even listen to the arguments posed by a side that you already know is wrong, you must already be somewhat deluded because it's so obvious that they're wrong. How do we know? Because our side is right. So why would you even listen to this argument that's coming from something that's fueled by a fossil fuel company that's funded by a fossil fuel company or that has writers who did other things that were funded by a fossil fuel company or have an association with something like you can find some way to demonize the people on the other side and both sides do this. On the skeptic side, it's the libtards and the idiots, the the fake scientists and so forth. Both sides have a very unflattering characterization of the other side. And so here again, I thought, okay, this agreement that the other side is composed of a bunch of corrupt idiots, what if this agreement isn't right either? What if each side has basically created its own universe? And that's what it seems. When you go into one of the sides, they don't even agree on what constitutes valid data. The skeptic side, they'll provide you graphs of historical climate data circa 1980, circa 2000, circa 2018. And they show, look, the data is being adjusted to make it look like there's been more warming. And they go back to the temperature data and they compare the adjusted data to the raw data. And every time the adjusted data is hotter than the raw data, if it's recent and cooler than the raw data, if it's in the past. And they say, look, they're fiddling with the data. This is an artifact of their agenda. They talk about their agenda to institute one world socialism or something like that. And so it's like an entirely separate universe. Both sides have their own reality that they're living in. And when I try to figure out, well, what is the truth? What is, what does the objective evidence support? I'm really out of my depth. I am scientifically literate. You know, I have a degree in mathematics, like I'm better equipped than most people to evaluate the science on its own merits. But when I get into the arcana of the temperature dispute and the reasons why it's been adjusted and the mathematical techniques used, like, I have trouble understanding it after I go in one or two levels. And pretty much every issue is like that. Like, how do I, who do I trust here? Do I trust those who are saying, yeah, the melting ice caps, you know, actually, the Arctic has has gained ice in the last few years after reaching a nadir in 2007. And the ice hasn't happened. And then the other side says, actually, ice extent maybe is has recovered some, but the age of the ice is more fresh ice, the et cetera, et cetera, like that gets into really into details that I don't really have the time or the training to pursue all the way. And, and so basically, I have to make a choice on which side to believe that isn't based on evidence that isn't based on my isn't based on my ability to understand the science, I have to trust somebody. And, and this is, you know, this is coming from somebody who's done a lot of research and who is scientifically literate. Like, what about the average person? How are they going to decide what to believe? You pretty much, it pretty much comes down to what are you willing to take on authority. So, and this is one of the weaknesses of hitching environmentalism to the climate change wagon, because you're basically requiring people to trust authority, the trust it because it's scientific consensus. And a lot of people today are not very feeling very trustful of authority. They're rebelling against authority with good reason. So to say, be an environmentalist because science says so. And science that is, I think, a lot easier to question than the more local impact of pollution and especially development and habitat destruction. I mean, you can see that, you know, you don't need a lot of science to see that terrible damage is being done. It speaks to the heart in a way that that levels of an invisible gas do not speak to the heart. You have to make a mental leap to trust that levels of this gas rising are going to cause sea levels to rise, you know, in 30 years or something like that. You have to take somebody's word for it. And that doesn't mean that the science is wrong. I'm not saying that it's wrong. The point of my book is not to demonstrate that it's wrong, and it's not to demonstrate that it's right. It's to demonstrate that the things we need to do need to happen whether or not it is wrong. And that is to protect and restore and heal and regenerate all of life, all of Earth's living systems, the soil, especially the soil, especially the rainforests, especially the coral reefs, all these things. Even if climate change is not a problem, even if the skeptics are right about everything, I still support pretty much all the things that we need to do to reduce greenhouse gases. There's, there's almost a paradox here. I'm still opposed to fracking. I'm still opposed to offshore oil drilling. I'm still opposed to pretty much all of the things we do to maintain the fossil fuel economy. So this is one thing I came to. It's like, I actually don't need the climate change narrative to call for all of the things that people who are immersed in the climate change narrative are calling for. If I don't need it, do we need it as the flagship issue of environmentalism? Is it wise to make this our flagship issue when it's so politically polarized and when it requires trust and authority in the integrity of the institution of science for people to follow? Do I really want to exhort everybody to trust science when actually there are a lot of things that I do not trust science on? Science has been telling us that most pesticides are safe, that GMOs are perfectly fine. If you deny that GMOs are safe, then you are going to get called a denier. I mean, this is a common tactic. You can think even some social media now is is demoting or censoring videos or articles that are unscientific, that question the safety of GMOs, that question the safety of vaccines, that advocate alternative cancer therapies, that advocate homeopathy. These are considered unscientific, and so many people in my sphere, and these are educated people, have certain beliefs that are blatantly unscientific. They're aficionados of astrology, or energy medicine, or they have these spiritual practices. They practice qigong, things that are, and I'm not saying that these things are fundamentally out of the bounds of the methods of science, but they are out of the bounds of the institution of science right now. I do think you can apply scientific practices to understand the effects of qigong, for example. And I do think that there are scientifically valid explanations or steps toward an explanation of homeopathy. So here I am talking about the limitations of science, at least as an institution, and thereby undermining my credibility, probably, because if you take science as the one remaining bastion of integrity in our culture, and a lot of people do, like people do not trust politics anymore, politicians or the financial industry, those who run the economy, they don't trust anybody except academia and especially science. That's the one thing we can trust now. And the solution to our problems is to become more trusting of science, more rational, more faithful to this particular way of knowing, and the institutions built around it. That's what progress is, away from superstition and toward science. So trusting the dominant narrative of climate change is bound up in this larger value of trusting science. And yeah, I think that science bears the same strengths and limitations as the other dominating institutions of our culture. And I'm not going to call on people to trust science and then our problems will be solved. I do think science has a lot to offer in our understanding of how this biosphere works. It is an extension of our powers of observation. And like, yeah, so I'm not discarding it, and I'm not saying that, again, that climate science is wrong or right. I might have my personal opinions on that. I mean, I'll say that I think it's wrong in some ways and right in other ways. And in most ways, I just don't know. And that is already enough for some people to turn this video off right now. And to make a lot of people feel really uncomfortable, even when they know, I'm going to have run into this again and again, even when they know that as a practical matter, I support pretty much everything they support. And I'm opposed to pretty much everything they're opposed to. And that we are brothers in arms as deeply caring environmentalists with love for the living beings of this earth. Still, very uncomfortable. And this illustrates a general principle that applies to any polarized situation, and especially something that is conceived of as a war. In a war, pacifists are more detested than the enemy. The enemy kind of validates your existence. It validates your identity as being the crusading good guys. We're the ones saving the world in opposition to those who are trying to destroy the world. The pacifist calls that entire dynamic into question and says, both sides are missing something. And I think that both sides are missing something. Of course, most environmentalists, most climate activists will affirm that, yes, it's not just about climate, that, yes, this is a living planet. But the dominant framing of the rhetoric of the conversation and the attention that is given to some policies and not others, to some causes and not others, it is pretty heavily directed all toward the climate, the carbon narrative, the greenhouse gas narrative. So I find myself in a bit of a vulnerable position. And sometimes I hesitate even to go there, because it disqualifies me as one of the in group. And I, but I'm, what happens if the skeptics are right? What happens if we go through a period of cooling? Or what if warming just slows down? What if sea levels don't really rise that much? What if year after year goes by and the ice caps don't continue to shrink? And we've put all of our eggs in the basket of climate change and staked our credibility to it. Then what? And we've neglected the other reasons to care for life on earth, drawn attention away from them, and spent all this time appealing to our fear of consequences that are going to doom humanity and at least subject us to horrendous economic costs. Why take that risk when we can appeal to our love of life and our recognition of the sacredness of all beings and places? Whether or not climate change is happening. It's a win-win, in fact, because if climate change is happening, making those appeals are still going to draw down carbon and create resiliency in the biosphere. And if it's not happening, then we're still going to be protecting and healing life on earth. So I just really want the environmental movement to consider whether it's worth taking the risk to make it all about climate change and whether it's worth the risk and also whether it's even working. 2018 saw the largest rise in carbon emissions in history year on year. Whatever we're doing is not working. What do we do then? Do we up the rhetoric? Do we double down? Do we try even more more energetically to incite fear? Do we do even more of what has not been working? Try to remember the guy's name. I cited him in the book. A Scandinavian fellow peers somebody. He points out that public alarm, public belief in climate change has decreased. Public concern for it has decreased in polls over the last decade, even as the science has mounted. Why? I'm not going to try to answer that right now. I do go into it in my book.