Alabama's Morning News with JT
David Lipsky informs us on a Conservative climate story
- Joining us now is a conservative climate story author, David Lipsky to talk a little bit more about climate change, climate agendas, electric vehicles, and is it really all about saving the planet, or is it just a political stage to jump on and pound? David, welcome in. Before we get into all that discussion, I did want to get your thoughts. We've been asking our guests this morning, tonight's debate. First of all, you're going to be watching with your popcorn, you're ready to go? - Yeah, I'm sure I'll watch. - All right, so your thoughts on what Joe Biden and Donald Trump have to do to win it or lose it. We'll start with Biden. - Biden's just got to get Trump to lose his temper, that's all, because there's always that question. They induce Trump fatigue, so all it's got to do is make him turn into the TV version of the Joker. - Okay, and on the other hand, what does Trump have to do to win this or lose it? - He has built the idea of sleepy Joe. All we've got to see is just one of those just pauses that just the human thing beyond politics, you kind of hate to see. And so all he's got to do is hope for that. - All right, I'm putting the over under at three as far as Joe Biden's cognitive slip ups freezes or just can't get it together. I'm saying three and a half. - Yeah, I would go a little lower, 2.5. - Okay, but the reason why is just to be an interesting guess, I would put it around the same number as here. - All right, all right, let's talk about your book, The Parrot and the Igloom. Why climate change is not a red thing or a blue thing, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, but what are your thoughts on the whole climate change agenda and topic? - Well, key thing is that the climate scientists who we have learned, you're talking about how the weather is now at eight in the morning. The same climate scientists who brought us the data, what they learned and what the most famous one, Dr. James Hansen began saying by about 2010 is, politics has nothing to do with this and the Democrats are as untrustworthy as Republicans. That was a big thing for me. It's one of the main reasons that I wrote to both. - Well, as far as climate change goes, is there anything that we can all do? Now I get cleaning up the air, the pollution in LA is worse than Des Moines, Iowa. I understand that temperatures fluctuate depending on whether you're inland or on the coast or whether you're on cement downtown or you're out in farmland. But is there anything collectively that, me driving an F-150, is that really causing problems? - You know, I would love to get back to that so, but here's the main thing that we can do. Not try to use it socially or for game. I think that that is completely ineffective. If we need everyone to get together the way we got together for the moon stuff and also for the beat the Nazi stuff, saying it's your fault or saying it's not my fault, that has proven ineffective. Science is about, we tried this, it works, we tried this, it doesn't work. A, it's gross, B, it's not true and C, it's ineffective. Can I give you a quick example, not that? So, we keep having ambitious targets about, and this is one of those points the scientists knew this would come, which is however much we didn't like hearing that the great deal that we've gotten from fuel for our cars and electricity for our fridges and our Wi-Fi. However much we didn't like the fact that, hey, it's got this slight problem. And however much we tried to fight against it that the data would come in and our weather would be hotter. And there's a certain point at which, even though it's only like four or five degrees for us, that becomes very bad for the way that we live. Anyway, America has had a very tough time, even though we talked about it a lot and people use it to make you feel bad at work or at parties. We have not been able to cut our emissions. We did finally have a drop in our emissions last year. And part of it is that we had been using far less coal. For the first time in our post, we know about global warming history. Our coal use has really dropped in the last 10 years. Do you know what the cause of that is? Fracking. So the very same people who when we were going out to frack, fracking is that you would squeeze water into the ground to find natural gas. The computer have told you were there, but that was hard to get to. To save people who would say, you can't frack the idea that we will frack is the reason we're in the fix we're in, because we keep meddling with these awesome forces on the planet. And if you keep doing that, it's just the same thing that's led us into this bad situation. Fracking has been the only good news on the emissions front in the last, let's say 10 or 20 years. That's what I mean about not using it this way. - I got you. So politicizing it is not getting us anywhere. Talking about how to clean things up in our own little community, our own little world. Fine, go for it. But this whole push on EVs, for instance. I mean, I'm looking at polling numbers, 50% of people that went to the EV world went out. They want to go back to where we were. - Yeah, but it's not just, yeah, it's not so, JT. I'm very passionate about this, because the blaming thing, A, it's not true, and B, it doesn't work. It's, if blaming people work, that'd be great. And you could apologize afterwards. A public health advocate's gotten trouble with that during COVID, they call that a noble lie. But a noble, that's their trade term for it. But a noble lie that doesn't work, you kind of do have to stop telling. So, Al Gore, this is his issue, right? I mean, it is clear to me, just from having had to do all the research that this is something that we did. It's not really a cent. Part of what makes this a turn off for voters who are not in progressive cities is that what is the technological problem has been turned into a moral failing. And it's not a moral failing, if you, yeah, if you use the technology that you were born into, like when we were born, there were cars. There were light bulbs, which is that we could flick on. And I'm mentioning light bulbs for a reason. There was Wi-Fi, there was AC, and we used them. And then when people come along and say you committed a sin, we deep down know we didn't commit a sin. So, if they then say there's a problem and the solution has to be you, since we know we didn't sin by using it, it makes us reject the issue. That's the reason that this hasn't worked. Anyway-- - Well, it all plays to the narrative and the general feeling around this country now. It's the whipification of America. It's the what is right is wrong and the what is wrong is right attitude these days. And if you go anywhere that disagrees or is in not in line with what this agenda that we're trying to push, then you're right, the blame game explodes and they start labeling you and getting mean-spirited about things. Like you said, it did not used to be that way when this country was in different times. I think the social agendas around this country has put us in such dire straits in so many areas, including this one. - Yeah, I completely agree. And to get back to, sorry, I have a lot of thoughts on what you were saying. Here's the basic one. Do you remember that speech that got popular from the movie Untouchables? You know, don't bring a knife to a gunfight. - Right. - Something about what you were calling the wimpification and what Brett Ellis, who is a very hard living writer from LA, he called it Generation Wolfs, which I always thought was very funny. - Right, right. - And the problem with it, it's spread, it's woofiness, upward, it wasn't just relegated to one generation. - Right. - It simply is not an effective way to do team building. I've spent about four years living at West Point as a reporter, and one of the great things there is that you accept in those situations that we are team people, team beings, and we're designed, yeah, please go ahead JTI. - No, I was just saying I'm getting up against the clock here and I've got to run, but I totally agree with you. We've missed the point on how to stay on track and how to have conversation about these things and we've taken it off track and I think it's in a lot of areas of our life, including this one. So David, we will have you back. Thank you so much, I appreciate you. - It was a total pleasure JTI, it was really fun, I appreciate you back. - All right, David Lipsky and the author, the book, the parrot and the igloo.