The Great Climate Change Debate

I have always said I will debate anyone in the country or overseas about the evidence on climate change. The truth is, there is no evidence that CO2 from human production directly causes changes in the climate and needs to be cut.

Transcript

Forward to this all weekend, all week, the great climate change debate. Gee, I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be, I know. But I’m a little nervous. The first time I’ve ever done something like this, live on this programme. Malcolm Roberts from One Nation and also regular caller, Mark. Mark’s the only one, it seems, with the kahunas to take on Malcolm, particularly on a live radio debate. We put it to some Labour MPs to come on, I won’t shame them at the moment by naming them, and they said, “Nope, nope!” But Mark is up to the challenge. Gentleman, are you both there?

G’day, Marcus.

Hi.

G’day, Mark.

All right, now this is the way this is going to work, gentlemen. You will both have two minutes to start. So Malcolm you’ll go first. You’ll plead your case against climate change using, no doubt, your empirical data, all the rest of it. Then Mark, you will respond. You’ll get two minutes. You’ll be on a clock. And then after that, you’ll get two minutes again each for a rebuttal, okay? That sounds okay to you?

Yep.

Sounds good.

All right, now. A couple of rules, no name calling in the rebuttals. All right. Straightaway that’s a no-no. No name calling,

Okay.

Obviously not that you will, but we just have to be a little clear here. No name calling. And if I think you’re getting a little off topic, I’ll pull you up. Are we ready to go?

Yup, we’re ready.

Yeah.

All right, gentlemen. Thank you, the great climate change debate is underway. Malcolm, you’re going to go first, okay? Because I say so, and I will roll your two minutes from now. Climate change, you say, is not real. Tell me why.

I don’t say climate change is not real, Marcus. I say that carbon dioxide from the use of hydrocarbon fuels does not change climate. That’s the core point. What people have to understand that the core point is that they want to tax and cut our carbon dioxide from human activity, farming, agriculture, driving, transport, industry, power stations. So what has to happen? Always, science is decided by the empirical evidence in logical scientific points. What that means is that you have to have empirical data, hard data, within a logical framework that proves cause and effect. And empirical means measured or observed. Actual solid data. So before we can justify cutting human agriculture, driving, industry, power stations, electricity, raise their prices, we have to have hard evidence that temperatures today have been unusually high and continue to rise unusually.

One minute left.

There is no such evidence. Secondly, the cause of any temperature rise is increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Third thing, they have to prove that the carbon dioxide rising in the atmosphere is due to human production of carbon dioxide. There is no evidence to that effect. Number four, even if everything is correct, and someone provides the data that shows that temperatures are rising unusually in continuing to rise, and that it’s due to human carbon dioxide, they then have to prove that warmer temperatures are harmful to humans, harmful to the planet. Scientists classify earth’s past far warmer periods

20 seconds.

far warmer periods as climate optimums, because warmer periods have been booms for human civilization, nature, and individuals. Cold periods kill more people than warmer periods.

10.

So the next thing I point out is that I’ve done extensive work with the Parliamentary Library, with freedom of information bills, with parliamentarians-

Three.

Themselves. No one is able to

Two. provide that evidence. No one.

All right, okay. Okay. So Malcolm stated his points. Mark, are you ready, mate? You’ll get two minutes on the clock.

Just before I start-

Oh god.

on time.

Yes.

Do you recycle Malcolm? Or do you put it all in the same bin?

Hey Mark, we’ll get to that. We’ll get to that.

No, just out of curiosity. We’ll get to that. Your two minutes is up and in your rebuttal, that’s when you can ask questions of each other, okay?

All right.

All right. All right, Mark. Your two minutes starts now.

Righto. Let’s go back 450 million years. The earth was barren. It’s being bombarded by solar radiation. There was fissures and cracks pumping out carbon dioxide and methane gas. I’ve got a Kelpie chewing up my foot while I’m talking to you. The seas were swarming with jellyfish, and fish, and sharks with big bony plates. The first algae, at that time, began to creep up onto the rocks. Come forward another 50 or 60 million years. They’d turned what they call the Gilboa Forest. They were about five metres high. They had a base like a palm tree with multiple roots. They had a straight trunk. They had fronds like a tree fern. There’s fossil evidence of these from Belgium to New York state, a town called Gilboa funnily enough. Then go back to to about 349 million years ago. We started the Carboniferous Forest. These massive forest. These huge rainstorms, probably like we’ve never seen before, that filled up swamps, carved out canyons, rivers flowing up and everywhere it was just to intense-

One minute. One minute.

And then glaciers begin form ’cause there’s so much oxygen in the atmosphere. But the downside of that was every time there’s an electrical storm, because there’s so much oxygen, there’s these massive fires. And that’s what they reckon kept the forest going because forests, obviously, need carbon dioxide. Then by the end of that time, 299 million years ago, the begin to split up.

30 seconds.

And then we got back to now. Now we’ve got, the atmosphere has changed. In 200 years we’ve dug up so much carbon and burnt it, we’ve changed back to what it was 3 million years ago. So what you’re saying is, Malcolm, it took 200 years to go back to what it was 3 million years ago.

10.

And now you’re saying it doesn’t really matter because we’ve changed 3 million years in atmosphere in 200 years. That doesn’t compute.

All right. All right. Well said. All right. I think that’s pretty good from both of you. Great for a start. So the way this now works, you both had your opening arguments. Now it’s time for rebuttal. Another two minutes for any of the points that Mark’s brought up, Malcolm, you get to rebut. Then Mark, you get your chances as well. You ready to go there, Malcolm?

I am, Marcus.

All right. The clock starts now two more minutes, off you go.

I’ll say it again. What determines science is the use of logical scientific points and that’s the beauty of science. It gets rid of all the crap, all of the opinions, all living emotions, and just says, “Show me your data.” And that data, hard empirical data, has to be provided within a logical framework that proves cause and effect. Mark has done none of that. He has not proven the temperatures are higher than in the past. He has not shown that the carbon dioxide that man produces drives temperature. He has not shown that higher temperatures are dangerous to humans. Now, he’s then talked about carbon dioxide levels. In the earth’s past, fairly recent past by earth standards, carbon dioxide levels were 130 times higher than today. Carbon dioxide levels today are closer to the limit of 0.015% in the atmosphere where plants shut down. We need far more carbon dioxide, not less.

One minute. One minute, Malcolm.

Now, I’m the only person in the world from a Congress or a Parliament who has cross-examined the government science agency. I’ve cross-examined CSIRO over a period of five years. They have admitted to me that they have never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger. Never. They have failed to show me, in the last 10,000 years, anything unprecedented in climate. Not just temperatures, anything at all, rainfall, snowfall, etc, nothing at all. They have failed to show me

30 seconds. any statistically significant change in climate. None that all. The chief scientist, after I questioned him, broke down and said to me, he is not a climate scientist, and he doesn’t understand it. Yet, that man was around the country spreading this misrepresentation of carbon dioxide and climate.

10.

No one anywhere has identified any quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity and climate. And thus, there is no basis for policy whatsoever.

All right. Well done. Malcolm. That’s your rebuttal. How you feeling Mark, by the way? You feeling okay? What was that?

Bored.

Bored!

I’ve heard it all before.

Oh really? Okay.

So start the clock.

Hang on there. I’ve just got to re set it. Give me two seconds. Here we go. All right, you’re ready, boss? And again, you’ll have two minutes to state your rebuttal and off we go. By the way, gentlemen, I won’t be making a decision on who wins this. My listeners will. Both on air and online. So we’ll put it up a little later for those who aren’t listening live. They can listen back to it, etc. We’ll leave it up for a while. Malcolm, if you wouldn’t mind, perhaps share it as well. And we’ll get some feedback from your followers. Mark, off you go.

Okay. Now what I was getting at there is all those processes took millions and millions of years to happen.

Yeah.

Now what we’re doing now, we’re clearing land the size of the United Kingdom, every year. We’ve got this corrupt fool in Brazil that’s cleared a fifth of the Amazon jungle, which pumps out oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide. Now in 1857, a scientist named Eunice Newton Foote, a lady scientist, she couldn’t understand why when the carbon dioxide was in… Looking at the earth’s history, everything began to heat up. So she did an experiment. She put a sealed jar of oxygen, a jar of, I think it was hydrogen or helium, I can’t remember what it was, and a jar of carbon dioxide and put them in the sun. And she noticed when she took measurements, the carbon dioxide absorbed, and attracted, and retained the heat, more than the other gases in the atmosphere. They were three sealed jars.

One minute.

And then years gone by. In the late ’70s, the Nixon government, they started making warnings about climate change caused by carbon dioxide. All the insurance companies in the US all got together and said, “We’re going to have to do something about this. It’s going to cost us a heap.” Now, the track were going on now, we’re clearing so much land, and we’re cutting down all the trees, it’s turning into heat sinks. I noticed that Rob Stokes this morning, announced a thing where no more houses with black roofs ’cause the cities are taking the heat sinks.

30.

If you look at new housing develops now, they’re hot because there’s no trees, all got black roofs, and because we’re pumping out so much carbon dioxide now that it’s getting hotter and hotter. Systems are starting to collapse all around the world now. And if you take any notice or if you care, we need nature.

10.

Nature doesn’t need us. We need nature. And the thing is all these right wing gits all around the place say, “Oh, so what, who cares? It’s not our problem.” I heard some fool yesterday on the radio say, “Who cares what happens in 30 years.”

All right. That’s it. Mark, all right. Well done. Well done to both you gentlemen. Any questions between each other, let’s be respectful. You had a question of Malcolm just before, Mark. You can ask it now.

Do you recycle, Malcolm?

Yeah, I recycle.

Well, hello. That’s what the earth’s atmosphere does. We have forests to recycle carbon dioxide and turn it back into oxygen.

That’s right, and-

Yay!

Nature alone produces 32 times, every year, 32 times the amount of carbon dioxide than in the entire human production around the planet. And whats more, Data shows that the-

Hang on.

Human production cannot-

We’re burning so much-

And does not change the-

fossil fuel we’re changing-

Level of carbon dioxide-

The balance.

In the atmosphere.

Okay. I think you spoke over each other. Malcolm, just again.

Again what?

Just repeat what you were saying ’cause Mark, I think, spoke over you. We couldn’t hear you properly.

I believe in recycling and-

Yeah.

Nature itself recycles through the carbon cycle, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon is essential to all life in this planet. Every cell in Mark’s body contains carbon. Carbon dioxide is essential for life on this planet. It and water vapour are essential for life. All forms of life on this planet. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas at 0.04% of earth’s atmosphere. It has no physical effect on temperatures at all.

All right, Mark?

Air, and also oxygen, blankets out the heat that’s being bombarded into the planet. We’re just changing the balance so much. These people just don’t get it. I just can’t believe people can be so thick as a society.

Hang on, lets be nice.

We need more carbon dioxide.

Let’s be respectful. It’s not about being thick. We’re talking ideology, we’re talking science, we’re talking-

All right.

It’s an important debate because it’s effectively divided our-

I’ll finish up with this.

Yeah?

I’ll finish up with this. Remember the smoking debate. They used to trot out all these people with white coats and clipboards saying “Oh, it’s not smoking. Two twins, one smoked and the other one didn’t. The one that smoked didn’t die, but the other one that died had cancer, so explain that.” They try and confuse you with figures. That’s what it is. But we’re changing the balance. And as I said before, all these things happened over millions of years, not the rate we’re doing. Not 200 years-

Yeah.

Millions of years.

All right, Malcolm?

Yeah, sure. Marcus, the use of any label like thick indicates that Mark-

Yeah.

Hasn’t got an argument that he can put together to counter the data.

Well, I think he did put an argument together, but.

The second thing, Marcus, is that raising smoking, which has got nothing to do with this. just shows that he hasn’t got an argument. Temperatures today are cooler than the 1880s and 1890s, when they were warmer 140 years ago. The longest temperature trend in the last 160 years was from the 1930s to 1976 when temperatures cooled. Since 1995, for 26 years, that’s more than a quarter of a century, temperatures have been flat yet China, India, America, Brazil, Russia are producing record quantities of carbon dioxide. When you consider nature’s El Nino cycles, there has been no warming trend at all for 26 years. And that conclusion is confirmed in NASA satellite temperature data.

All right, Mark? There is nothing unusual happening.

Mark?

Look at the extreme weather events that we’re getting now. As we talk, did you know last week in Canada, a place called Merit City, they had to evacuate 7,000 people because of the floods. Do you know in India last week they evacuated 200,000 people because the floods? This is what’s happening here. All these extreme weather events, and these people keep living in denial.

So Malcolm, Mark is suggesting climate changes has led into catastrophic floods, and we look here in Australia at the fires. Are you suggesting, Malcolm, that climate change has nothing to do with these severe climb of the severe environmental challenges faced by flood, fire, and?

Mark himself has failed to provide the evidence.

But there is evidence there.

Hang on, Marcus, I’m answering your question. The area of land burned-

Yeah. In the 2019 fires was much, much smaller than in the past. Even in the 1970s and much smaller than a hundred years ago. Much, much smaller. That’s the first point. The second point is that Antarctica has just had the record coldest six month period in its records, ever, ever.

Yeah.

And you can’t just go off… You notice, I don’t raise things like that, because that is weather. And the same with Canada having floods, we’ve always had floods. And if you look at the records from the Bureau of Meteorology, and you hear it on the news every night, oh, this is the heaviest flooding since in the last 50 years, what happened 51 years ago?

All right.

It was greater.

30 seconds each, just to finish. Mark, you first.

The weather events are getting more extreme because the oceans… I’ll just tell you. Okay, we’re in Australia. This is what’s happening. Up in Queensland they’ve cleared so much land the fertilizer’s washing into the water, feeding the Fido plankton. Fido meaning floating, plankton meaning plant life. That’s feeding the crown-of-thorns starfish. They’re munching their way through the barrier reef. Up in the gulf you’ve got hundreds of kilometres of the, what do you call them, mangroves have died off because it’s so hot. You’ve got Leeuwin Current floating in the coast of Western Australia was five degrees warmer-

All right.

than what it usually was. Five degrees!

Malcolm, last 30 seconds please.

Mark has failed to provide any evidence. Look, before we can provide any policy, you need to be able to quantify the impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate. No one anywhere in the world has done that. No one anywhere has quantified any effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate. And thus, there is no basis for policy. Mark is just clutching at straws. Crown-of-thorn starfish come and go in cycles. And we’ve known that for decades and decades and decades.

All right.

We need to respect nature, not vilify nature.

Gentleman, thank you both. This has been very enlightening. Very interesting. I hope the people listening at home, and those that listen back to the podcast online, enjoy it. Thank you, Mark, and both of you for being a really good sport. I think Mark deserves kudos for taking you on, Malcolm considering others, including federal members of parliament, have refused to do so. So I think kudos to him.

I agree. I agree. Kudos to Mark. But one of the sad things is that Mark has failed to provide the evidence. What we need, Marcus-

All right.

Is to understand-

Yes.

That you need to provide the empirical data, proving the link between the human carbon dioxide and climate variability.

All right, guys.

No one has done that anywhere in the world.

All right, I have to go. We’ve got the news coming up. Thank you, gentlemen, both for your time. That’s the great climate debate.