Tom interviews Bernie Lewin about his 2017 book Searching for the Catastrophe Signal and his path from local environmentalism to blogging and writing for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Lewin argues postwar “big science,” shifting religion’s role in policy, and media narratives helped drive recurring environmental scares: DDT, ozone depletion tied to supersonic transport and CFCs, then 1970s global cooling amid energy crises. He claims funding incentives encouraged extreme atmospheric claims, and that policy often diverged from scientific uncertainty. The discussion covers the 1988 Hansen hearing as orchestrated, Thatcher and Bush support for expanded climate science, and IPCC early processes, focusing on the 1995 Second Assessment controversy where summaries and underlying text were allegedly altered around detection and “fingerprint” evidence.

00:00 Meet Bernie Lewin

00:28 From Environmentalism to Skepticism

02:25 Science Replaces Religion

04:30 Big Science After WWII

06:05 Silent Spring and DDT Panic

08:46 Supersonic Jets and Ozone Fears

12:29 CFCs and the Ozone Hole

18:29 Feedbacks and Funding Incentives

21:33 Global Cooling Takes Off

22:40 Energy Crisis and Climate Instability

28:36 Coal vs Nuclear and CO2 Program

36:12 Cooling to Warming Flip

39:53 Hansen 1988 Hearing Moment

41:32 Thatcher Bush and Politics

Searching for the Catastrophe Signal: The Origins of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: https://a.co/d/0bmYZdUX

https://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/about/

=========

Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries

My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1

Erich Schaffer argues climate science contains major blunders, chiefly that water vapor cools the planet and provides negative feedback. He explains the greenhouse effect as determined by emission altitude and the adiabatic lapse rate, criticizing older “back radiation” explanations. He claims climate budgets and attribution studies overstate surface emission by assuming Earth’s surface is a blackbody, ignoring water’s non-Lambertian behavior and ~0.91 hemispheric emissivity, which he says inflates the greenhouse effect and misattributes missing radiation to water vapor. He highlights latent heat cooling and contends empirical “proxy” methods used to infer strong positive water-vapor feedback are invalid due to lapse-rate behavior. He concludes climate sensitivity would drop to ~1 K or less.

00:00 Meet Erich Schaffer

01:06 Why Climate Basics Matter

04:52 Greenhouse Effect Explained

07:30 Lapse Rate Physics

10:52 IPCC Definition Shift

12:38 Debunking Back Radiation

16:04 Cloud Window Mistake

19:25 Latent Heat Cooling

20:40 Who Causes Warming

31:04 Reading the Spectrum

33:46 What CO2 Forcing Means

37:03 Deriving 3.7 Wm2

41:41 Water Vapor Feedback Setup

45:35 Models vs Observations

46:57 Empirical Feedback Proxies

51:10 Calculating Feedback From Slopes

54:16 Super Greenhouse Tropics Claim

56:52 Lapse Rate Versus Water Vapor

58:45 Moist Adiabats And Latent Cooling

01:00:58 Clouds Versus Water Vapor Paradox

01:05:21 Water Reflectivity And Polar Amplification

01:09:55 Infrared Emissivity Of Water

01:15:01 Surface Emissions Overstated

01:21:16 Reattributing The Greenhouse Effect

01:28:30 Thought Experiments Removing Water Vapor

01:34:26 Why Regional Proxy Fails

01:40:24 Seasonal Proxy Broken By Inversions

01:44:37 Sluggish Troposphere Explains Slopes

01:49:33 Wrap Up And Next Parts

https://x.com/erich_schaffer

https://greenhousedefect.com/

=========

Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries

My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1

Catherine McBride talks about her paper “Premeditated Industrial Destruction,” arguing UK net-zero policies have driven deindustrialization without lowering global emissions by shifting production and emissions to countries like China. They discuss UK energy reliance on fossil fuels (about 75–80%), gas backup for wind, bans and legal obstacles to new North Sea and shale projects while importing gas, and high industrial electricity costs from wind-related grid and balancing costs plus multiple carbon taxes. McBride criticizes EV mandates and fines, insufficient charging and grid capacity, and policies pushing carmakers and firms like BP away. She says EU net-zero rules hurt farming and industry, notes coal’s role and storage advantages, questions activist funding (including alleged Russian support), and contrasts Norway’s hydro and state oil strategy with UK decisions.

00:00 Meet Catherine McBride

00:11 How Net Zero Killed Industry

02:37 Fossil Fuels Reality Check

04:19 Importing Gas While Banning Drilling

07:05 Norway Hydro And LNG

09:33 Hybrids Versus Pure EVs

11:54 EV Mandates And Car Industry Exit

15:38 China EVs And Charging Limits

19:05 Grid Can’t Handle Electrification

35:33 BP Profits Politics And US Option

37:37 Free Speech Shift And Chris Wright Wish

38:54 UK Cabinet Energy Illiteracy

41:29 Coal Mines Versus Activists

43:44 Europe’s Coal Reality Check

47:50 Batteries and Load Shedding

51:45 Why Solar Fails in Britain

53:48 Subsidies Warp Farming

57:16 Tariffs and Media Blind Spots

01:03:29 NGO Funding and Anti-Fracking

01:06:29 Russia Gas Markets and Nord Stream

01:08:52 Norway’s Oil Wealth Playbook

01:10:27 UK Bets on Carbon Capture

01:11:37 Trees Beat Tech Wrap-Up

https://x.com/CeeMacBee

https://catherinemcbride.substack.com/

Premeditated Industrial Destruction?: https://gbbc.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Premeditated-Industrial-Destruction-Final-6th-April-2026-with-added-security-issue-v2.pdf

=========

Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries

My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1