Episode 267: CO2: The Miracle Molecules with Dr Will Happer and Greg Wrightstone
Release Date: 03/19/2024
The Bill Walton Show
In this compelling and wide ranging episode of The Bill Walton Show, host Bill Walton engages with the great economic, technology and futurist thinker George Gilder to talk about his provocative book, The Israel Test. In The Israel Test George provides much needed context for today’s war in the Middle East. His theory about the root causes of the conflict dramatically reframes the issues and makes it clear why we need to support Israel in this defining moment in History. Despite comprising only 4% of the Middle East's land area, Israel has cultivated a preeminent high-tech economy,...
info_outline Episode 280: How to Conduct an Honest ElectionThe Bill Walton Show
It won’t be news to anyone that this upcoming election is fraught with many potential problems. Based on a new study by Just Facts, 10% to 27% of “non-citizen” adults in the U.S. are estimated to be illegally registered to vote. Aggressive attempts to debunk the study have completely failed. With roughly 20 million adult non-citizens living in the United States, about two to five million of who used to be called illegal aliens are now illegally registered to vote. This means that there are enough votes to overturn the votes of the American citizens in the upcoming congressional and...
info_outline Episode 279: The Case for TrumpThe Bill Walton Show
In this easy to listen to, charming, and informative episode of "The Bill Walton Show," host Bill Walton engages with Mercedes Schlapp and Matt Schlapp in a dynamic discussion about the pressing issues facing America today. Together, and with humor, they dig into the upcoming elections, economic priorities, and the shifting political landscape. Of course, as Trump supporters, the trio delves into critiques of Biden/Harris’ leadership, the importance of economic growth, and why minority communities are increasingly supporting conservative policies. They also highlight the work that CPAC has...
info_outline Episode 278: Stop trying to "Reform" Schools, Start Fresh with New Ways to Teach Our KidsThe Bill Walton Show
Public K12 education in the United States has become the largest government-controlled monopoly in the world, (other than the CCP controlled monopolies in China), spending nearing $1 trillion per year. And for all the money spent, it’s been a failure. In international tests, American eighth graders score 9th in reading, 16th in science, and 34th in math. With few other options granted other than attending their residentially assigned district public school most Americans cannot conceive that there are other alternatives to educate their children. School reform efforts are...
info_outline Episode 277: "NATO Taunts Russia" with Stephen Bryen and Brandon WeichertThe Bill Walton Show
"He who tries to defend everything defends nothing." ~ Frederick the Great of Prussia This episode examines the three explosive national security crises the United States and world are embroiled in today, any one of which could escalate into igniting a World War III. Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Hamas and Taiwan/China. Disturbingly, there’s a lot of sabre rattling with far too many politicians in both Europe and the United States engaged in reckless rhetoric. To provide cogent analysis and a healthy dose of sobering realism at a time when we face dire...
info_outline Episode 276: Is Technology a Force for Good or Evil?The Bill Walton Show
For the last 200 years, innovation and technology have produced dramatic increases in living standards and our quality of life. Yet today there is a widespread and growing belief that technology has become the root of all evils with all sorts of claims being made that it destroys privacy, spreads misinformation, undermines trust, and democracy, eliminates jobs, discriminates by race, and gender, increases inequality, rips off the consumer, harms children, and even threatens the human race. This is quite a bill of indictment! But is any of this true? Bill’s guests...
info_outline Episode 275: We won the Cold War and lost the peace : A Tour de Force with Erik Prince and Stephen BryenThe Bill Walton Show
Former Navy U.S. Seal and founder of the private military company Blackwater Erik Prince says that “We are fighting wars the wrong way.” Stephen Bryen is known as the “Yoda” of the Arms Trade. Time Magazine comments, “He knows every sinkhole in the regulatory swamp. Ignore him at your peril." He is also a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and founder of the Defense Technology Security Administration. This week, we are discussing Erik’s new paper “Too Big to Win: How the Military and Industrial Complex and the Neocons Keep America Losing.” One of the central questions...
info_outline Episode 274: Behind the Curtain: Unveiling the Arabella Network's Vast Influence on U.S. PoliticsThe Bill Walton Show
In this episode of The Bill Walton Show, Bill wades into the murky waters of the Left’s “dark money” manipulation of American politics with Scott Walter and Kristen Eastlick with the Capital Research Center. We often use the phrase follow the money. Scott and Kristen are among the best at doing just that. Centerpiece of the discussion is Scott’s new book Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America. In it, he reveals the vast influence that the Arabella Network - by deploying billions of dollars - plays in American...
info_outline Episode 273: Investing in a Polarized America: Federalism and Entrepreneurship with Jim PinkertonThe Bill Walton Show
In this lively episode of the Bill Walton Show, Bill talks with Jim Pinkerton in a thought-provoking discussion about investing in the turbulent waters of today's toxic political climate. With a focus on the stark Red-Blue divide in America, Jim offers a contrarian view that it’s fertile ground for what he terms "directional investing." Drawing from his upcoming book, "The Secret of Directional Investing: Making Money Amidst the Red-Blue Divide," Pinkerton—a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and a long-time Fox News contributor—unpacks the intriguing...
info_outline Episode 272:The Art of the Flail: Expert Takes on US National Security Blunders with Stephen Bryen and Brandon WeichertThe Bill Walton Show
This episode of The Bill Walton Show is a riveting discussion with two astute geopolitical analysts, Dr. Steven Bryen and Brandon Weichert. Together they dissect the exploding tensions in the Middle East, specifically the dramatic escalation by Iran’s air attack on Israel. And the big questions: How are global players like the US, Russia, and even China moving their chess pieces in this high-stakes game? The episode is a whirlwind tour through the strategies, fears, and potential flashpoints that will likely redraw the map of global power. Dr. Bryen, with over 50...
info_outlineCarbon dioxide, or CO2, is portrayed as the worst villain in climate alarmism’s pantheon of satanic gases.
The claim is that increasing levels of greenhouse gases are purportedly driving atmospheric warming to dangerous and unprecedented levels which is said to be leading to ever increasing natural disasters, severe weather events and human health concerns.
But what if these claims are wrong, catastrophically wrong.
What if, rather than being at unprecedented high levels, CO2 is at one of its lowest concentrations in the long history of the Earth and that the modest warming anticipated from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will be benign. More carbon dioxide will bring huge benefits to agriculture, forestry and life in general.
Returning guests Dr Will Happer Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University and geologist Greg Wrightstone, both with the CO2 Coalition, make a convincing case in this episode for just that. Atmospheric CO2 is the primary carbon source for life on Earth.
Carbon dioxide concentrations - in part due to human emissions - are slowly growing from near-famine, pre-industrial values toward levels that are optimum for plant growth and which have prevailed over most of the geological history of higher life forms.
Carbon dioxide, at a current concentration of about 420 ppm, represents just 0.04% of the atmosphere, or about 420 molecules out of every million. Current levels are an incredibly small percentage of the atmosphere, albeit a critical one, as advanced plant life could not survive without at least 150 ppm. Recent declines in concentration have pushed the world dangerously close to that 150 ppm “line of death.”
Nearly all great leaps in human history occurred during warm periods. Before climate science became politicized, historians called warm periods “climate optima” because Earth’s ecosystems and humanity benefited from the blessed warmth.
Contrary to the demonization of the gas, CO2 is essential to life on Earth. CO2 is not a poison. Without CO2, there would be no photosynthesis, no plant food and insufficient oxygen to breathe. Just some of the benefits of CO2:
• Increasing crop growth
• Increasing soil moisture
• Shrinking deserts
• Expanding forests
• Lengthening growing seasons
• Declining cold-related mortality
What we should be worried about is that throughout most of Earth’s history, carbon dioxide existed in beneficially high levels that were multiples of our current concentration. Geological sequestration of CO2 into fossil fuels has depleted our atmosphere to levels below the optimum for plant growth.
The great irony is that through the burning of fossil fuels, the carbon stored in the remains of ancient plants and organisms is now being liberated and helping to return the planet’s atmosphere to more beneficial levels of CO2.
We can correctly refer to fossil fuels as “natural solar-powered energy” or, if you like, giant solar energy storage batteries!
Without fossil fuels there would be no reliable, low-cost energy worldwide and less CO2 for photosynthesis to make food. Eliminating fossil fuels to attempt to reduce CO2 emissions would be disastrous for the world’s people, especially for the two billion impoverished poor.
An underreported consequence of the “green” energy transformation is the loss of habitats and species.
The “green” solution to a non-existent climate crisis is to encourage a great acceleration in habitat loss by abandoning efficient fossil fuels for inefficient wind and solar energy that requires vast swaths of forest, grasslands and farmlands for solar and wind installations and further habitat loss through:
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open-pit mining of minerals needed for batteries, photovoltaic cells and electric transmission,
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conversion of diverse jungle habitat to plantations for biofuel,
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large-scale electricity transmission lines and
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destruction of mature forests to make wood pellets as biofuel.
So-called green energy is causing the destruction of massive numbers of birds, bats and insects slaughtered by wind turbines. Offshore wind projects are killing whales, dolphins and other cetaceans.
We have been seized by a great madness.
Under the false claims of coming calamity, bureaucrats and politicians seek to shut down coal-fired power plants, kill the internal combustion engine, ban natural gas for home use and advance the misguided objective of a “net zero” economy.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
- Charles MacKay
“What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that carbon dioxide from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world—that carbon dioxide, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.”
- Dr. Richard Lindzen
“I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the consensus on climate change and the consensus on witches. At the witch trials in Salem the judges were educated at Harvard. This was supposedly 100 per cent science. The one or two people who said there were no witches were immediately hung. Not much has changed.”
- Will Happer