Summary of Wallace Manheimer: There Is No Climate Crisis | Tom Nelson Podcast #72

00:00:00 - 00:35:00

Wallace Manheimer, a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratories in Washington DC, challenges the idea of a climate crisis by citing historical evidence and data that shows a pattern of warm and cold periods over the last 10,000 years. He expresses concern about the panic over climate change and its impact on children, as well as the gatekeeping in the field of climate science that makes it difficult for people to challenge the prevailing narrative. Manheimer also discusses the challenges and potential solutions for nuclear energy and fuel production. He argues that wind and solar power are not as clean and efficient as people believe and raises concerns about their disposal and ethical sourcing of rare materials.

• 00:00:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer, a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratories in Washington DC, discusses his belief that there is no climate crisis. He points to historical evidence like the Vikings settling in Greenland during the Medieval Climate Optimum, which was warmer than it is today. He also notes that world temperature is slightly increasing but not very much, and therefore not a crisis. He goes on to highlight the effect the panic over climate change has on children, citing an increase in depression rates since 2010 when the panic began to take hold. Manheimer believes that people who panic about climate change are guilty of child abuse and that Greta Thunberg is a victim of this abuse, as her childhood has been robbed from her. He expresses skepticism about the journals that publish on climate change, believing that many articles are rejected out of hand without being reviewed.
• 00:05:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer discusses his experience trying to publish an article that challenged the idea of a climate crisis in a journal called Fusion science and technology. Although the article received high marks from three reviewers, the journal ultimately rejected it, claiming it was unsupported and contained personal attacks. Manheimer ended up publishing the article in a Canadian journal and later in an Indian journal. He believes there is a lot of gatekeeping in the field of climate science, which makes it difficult for people to challenge the prevailing narrative about the climate crisis.
• 00:10:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer discusses the willingness of prestigious societies and journals to publish articles on the topic of climate change, despite the American Physical Society's reluctance. He also mentions that the CO2 Coalition, of which he is a member, had a Facebook post fact-checked and canceled, despite being supported by scientists like Dick Lindsen and Bjorn Lomborg. Furthermore, Manheimer criticizes the emergence of a "climate industrial complex," which he argues profits from expensive carbon regulations while failing to offer a cost-effective solution to global warming. He cites Google's new monetization policy, which prohibits ads and monetization of content that contradicts the scientific consensus around climate change, as an example of this complex.
• 00:15:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer discusses the evidence that there is no climate crisis. He refers to a graph from Google that shows the climate over the last 10,000 years, which indicates a pattern of one warm period followed by a cold period. Manheimer also cites historical records, such as the warm Holocene climate Optimum period 4,000 years ago, during which northern forests grew 200 miles further north than they do now and even the Romans grew vineyards in England. However, scientific societies, according to Manheimer, ignore these historical facts. He claims that the American Physical Society is captured, and there is a lot of money involved in their climate programs, so everyone has an incentive to support the crisis theory.
• 00:20:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer, who has experience in computer simulations, explains the gaps he sees in climate models, including the discrepancy between John Christie's graph and the Russian model. He discusses his time spent on sabbatical in Russia, where he learned a lot about their scientific tradition. When asked about the public's response to the climate crisis, he expresses concern about the amount of money being spent on wind and solar power, stating that they are not as clean as people believe, and require rare materials which are often sourced immorally. Finally, he gives a calculation showing that solar power, when angled differently than at high noon on a cloudless summer day, is much less efficient than commonly believed.
• 00:25:00 In this section, Wallace Manheimer argues that the touted benefits of wind and solar power are overestimated. The average power output of wind turbines and solar panels is much lower than their nameplate power, and it takes up enormous amounts of land to generate significant amounts of energy. Disposing of windmill blades and solar panels is also a big problem, as they cannot be safely put in landfills. Some people in California dispose of them irresponsibly, and a proposed solution is to send them to Africa, which Manheimer considers immoral and environmentally devastating.
• 00:30:00 In this section, the speaker discusses energy consumption in the world and the moral imperative of bringing the whole world up to five kilowatts per capita by mid-century. He believes that the only way to achieve this is through nuclear energy and advocates for the development of laser fusion for energy. The speaker also suggests that fusion can be used to breed fuel for thermal nuclear reactors, which makes it an attractive option for plasma physics.
• 00:35:00 In this section, the speaker, Wallace Manheimer, discusses the challenges posed by nuclear energy, particularly the issue of uranium depletion. He mentions the need for breeding processes to continue fuel production and identifies three potential options for this: fast neutron reactors, thermal thorium reactors, and fusion breeding. However, he notes that fusion is still a long way from being a viable solution, and there is much work to be done in finding alternatives for fuel production.