Environment and Climate News Podcast

In this episode of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Karen Schoen is joined by H. Sterling Burnett, Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News. Together, they dive into the critical issues shaping America’s energy future and environmental policies.

Burnett shares his expert insights on:
  • Why the Paris Climate Treaty was never about the climate and how to put an end to it.
  • The case for repealing the Biden administration's electric vehicle mandates and revitalizing oil, gas, and coal production.
  • How offshore wind projects threaten consumers, ecosystems, and coastal communities.
  • The importance of regulatory reform to promote transparency and restore common sense in environmental policy.
Join us for a compelling discussion packed with actionable ideas and bold strategies for a prosperous, energy-independent America. H. Sterling Burnett brings unparalleled expertise to the conversation, making this a must-listen episode for anyone concerned about the future of climate and energy policy.

This episode features audio from The Prism of America’s Education podcast, hosted by Karen Schoen.

Creators & Guests

Host
H. Sterling Burnett
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., hosts The Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate News podcast. Burnett also is the director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, is the editor of Heartland's Climate Change Weekly email, and oversees the production of the monthly newspaper Environment & Climate News. Prior to joining The Heartland Institute in 2014, Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, ending his tenure there as senior fellow in charge of environmental policy. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations within the field. Burnett is a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission, served as chairman of the board for the Dallas Woods and Water Conservation Club, is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, works as an academic advisor for Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, is an advisory board member to the Cornwall Alliance, and is an advisor for the Energy, Natural Resources and Agricultural Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

What is Environment and Climate News Podcast ?

The Heartland Institute podcast featuring scientists, authors, and policy experts who take the non-alarmist, climate-realist position on environment and energy policy.

Karen Schoen:

Hello, everyone and welcome. This is Karen Shawn and you are listening to the prism of America's Education brought to you on the America Out Loud dot News Network. We have been going through some very interesting weather events, And, that is part of education because, unfortunately, our children have been taught to be afraid of weather, not to understand it, embrace it, prepare for it. And as a result, anytime we have a weather change, the left goes bonkers and blames it on us. So what I noticed recently, I'm in Florida, the Panhandle, and we have

Karen Schoen:

of our weather patterns. Fluctuation of our weather patterns. One day it's 70 degrees, and the next day it's 45 or and even it gets down into the twenties at night, And that's very unusual. So aside from what I was thinking, which is, I guess we're using too many plastic straws, there has to be another reason. And we should understand these reasons because president Trump is addressing the green issue, the weather issue, and how it affects us, especially economically.

Karen Schoen:

So I have asked our resident expert, who is a wonderful, thank you so much, Sterling Burnett from the Heartland Institute, and to come on and maybe explain, why, all those plastic straws are creating all of this cold? What do you think, Sterling? Is that am I on the right track?

H. Sterling Burnett:

I'm I'm I'm gonna say pretty pretty definitively that, Karen, you are on the wrong track.

Karen Schoen:

Oh, my goodness. But I learned that in school if I just give up those straws.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yeah. Plastic straws have nothing to do, you know, despite the fact that all those people are sucking, sucking the thought into their straws, when they get their soft drinks, at the local fast food joint, that that's not affecting the weather. And in fact, you know, you you preface this with, Trump is gonna be dealing with weather. In fact, he's not, because we can't deal with weather. Humans have no control over the weather.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And, you know, you you you mentioned what Florida is experiencing right now. Texas is going through something similar. We're, we've been for about a week now, below average temperatures for the time of year. You know, highs a few degrees below average, lows a few degrees below average.

Karen Schoen:

But Sterling, they told us if we give up meat, then the weather will get better.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yeah. Well, I didn't say the weather was bad. We we needed some of that. Yeah. But the point is, both in Florida and Texas and in if you wanna go farther north in Buffalo, the snow they're experiencing, it's called weather.

H. Sterling Burnett:

It's has nothing to do with climate change because there's no sustained trend. In fact, what Florida is experiencing, you know, if you're below average, well, how do you create an average? When you're in when you're in school, right, you take a test, and your teacher grades all the tests, and the average is just the grades assigned to each student divided by the, you know, added up and divided by the number of students, and that gives you an average. It tells you nothing. Well, okay.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Florida has average temperatures for this time of year. Texas has average temperatures for this time of year. Buffalo has average amounts of snow for this time of year and temperatures, and you get averages by sometimes it's higher than normal 1 year. You know, Texas can have hot winter days, and that's how you create the averages, but it says nothing about whether there's some kind of a long term change in weather systems. And what we look at when we're talking about climate change, you look at 30 year averages, long term averages for weather systems.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And what we are finding is there is no change. Sometimes it's hotter, sometimes it's cooler, but there's no sustained warming, no sustained cooling. So there's no trend that indicates humans are changing the climate.

Karen Schoen:

No. And you're right because, I was in college in Oswego, which is not far from Buffalo, on Lake Ontario. And when I was, there during the winter, one winter, I think it was 66. We had a 102 inches of snow. We were jumping out of the 2nd floor window to get to our classes in order to be able to do that.

Karen Schoen:

And when I spoke to the people that live there, they said, oh, this is nothing. This happens. It's snowing. It's usually snowing. Let's

H. Sterling Burnett:

get honest. You you you weren't jumping out to get to your class. You just wanted to see what it felt like to jump in.

Karen Schoen:

That was fun too.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Exactly. Exactly.

Karen Schoen:

But from what you're saying is we're really not experiencing anything that is abnormal. And I think that the problem is when they go back and track something, they don't go back far enough. They'll only go back to the next, available data where it makes their premise fit. So they don't go back and say, well, in the last, 1000 years, we've had this amount of snow and that type of weather. They'll just go back maybe a 100 years.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Or they'll go back the last year. I mean, meteorologist your your local weather person, man or woman, has gotten their marching orders. When I grew up, we had some meteorologists we trusted here in the Dallas area, and they would tell you what the daily high and low was and how it compared to the average. Never once never once did they say, oh, and because it's below average, this could be a sign of climate change. You know, back then, the worry was it's getting cooler.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They didn't comment on that. They commented on the weather, and they just said below or above average. And they'd show you what the averages were for the time of year. Now meteorologists feel like every time it's below average or every time it's above average, they have to say something about climate change, which reinforces it in people's minds. So, in truth, this is one of those instances where they pulled the curtain back on the wizard, and he says ignore the man behind the curtain.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Nothing bad is going on here. And the truth is nothing bad is going on here. It is weather, folks, and weather varies from day to day and year to year and always has, and humans have no control over that whatsoever.

Karen Schoen:

The fault that I see with our government is that instead of scaring the people, they should be preparing the people, because now we have the tools that can predict, and we have a general idea of the direction of a hurricane. So I know in Florida when and in Texas, when we know that something is coming, we prepare. That's the idea of how you get out of this. You're not going to change it. But if you prepare for it, we're not going to have another, issue like they did for a 100 years ago, in Galveston.

Karen Schoen:

When they didn't know the hurricane was coming in, it hit Galveston and destroyed the whole community. Well, we don't have to go through that anymore because we should be prepared.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Over time over time, deaths have declined due to extreme weather events because we we have hardened our infrastructure. We do prepare better. We have more warning. But even even with all our, you know, modern technology, storms are gonna hit. People are gonna die.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Property is gonna be destroyed. And the more people that move into hurricane zones or areas where tornadoes or earthquakes are likely or wildfires, the more people who are gonna be affected by this. But that doesn't have anything to do with climate change. It has to do with demographics and people where they live. Now as far as government, let's talk about that for a second because you say, government should stop scaring people.

H. Sterling Burnett:

That's right. But they should also we have something called FEMA. Right? And whether I think it it's a good idea to have a a federal agency involved in in, emergency response or not. We have it, and it's telling us that we can't recover fast enough.

H. Sterling Burnett:

We can't do things in North Carolina right now where people are a little bit intense a month, month and a half after the hurricane. And you say, why is this when Biden gives away $1,000,000,000 to Africa or gives away another $700,000,000 to Ukraine? I'm not saying we shouldn't help Africa or Ukraine. What I'm saying is put America first. And if we've got people here in North Carolina suffering, get them that they shouldn't be living in tents 2 months after a hurricane.

Karen Schoen:

No. And there were many private organizations that brought the the little houses, the small houses. You know, whatever it was was better than a tent, and FEMA wouldn't let them give them out. So here you have, I think they said 75 small houses that could have come date 75 families, and they're not allowed to give them that because of a regulation. That makes no sense at all.

Karen Schoen:

None at all. Well,

H. Sterling Burnett:

that's that's typical government, though. Right?

Karen Schoen:

Yeah. Unfortunately, you're right.

H. Sterling Burnett:

I live I live in an age where used to, churches and charities would give up food to homeless people. They, you know, they they give them brown paper bags with sandwiches in it, hand out wax paper wrapped sandwiches and an apple or something. And then the government got involved and said, no. No. No.

H. Sterling Burnett:

These haven't been food quality checked. It'd be better that the homeless people starve rather than, you know, someone might get one bad sandwich. So you've gotta stop all that.

Karen Schoen:

Yes. The government has, has managed to get in the way of progress. It usually always does. Your institute, I when I I love your website, everybody, you should be going to heartlandinstitutedot It's heartland.org. And, the, there is a wealth of information, not just on climate, but that's where I get my climate information from.

Karen Schoen:

You came up with a list of things that top ten of climate and energy action items for president Trump. Now we all know he's not going to be able to do everything, but I thought maybe we could go over a few of those items. So people would be able to know what to look for and to educate their legislators. Because if the legislators do not do their job, then president Trump's 4 years will be for naught. We don't want that to happen.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yeah.

Karen Schoen:

So one of the things was we hear about this Paris climate treaty. Why is it bad, and why should people want why should we wanna get out of it?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, it it's not a treaty. It it it I'm sorry. It is a treaty, but, when it was agreed to by the Obama administration, he said it's not a treaty. He said it's an executive agreement. Why did he say that?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, so he could sign on to it and didn't have to get it through the senate for ratification because it couldn't be ratified. So they have used this agreement that the president signed on to to try and force the US to cut carbon emissions. The goal is 80% below, 2,005 levels by 2050. That has spawned, the EV mandate that Biden put out. It has spawned multiple attempts to shut down, largely successful coal fuel power plants through, the various power clean power plants, so called clean power plans out of the government.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They should be called wrecking power plans because they're causing more blackouts than we've ever experienced. And yet it is not the law of the land. It was never agreed to. Now, when Trump was the president previously, he signed and he he got us out of the agreement. But under the terms of the agreement, it took 3 years from the time he signed it for us to officially be out.

H. Sterling Burnett:

By then, his term was almost up, and Biden put us back in. Trump on day 1 this time can get us out. And when he signs it this time under the way the agreement's written, we're out. But we suggest that he goes a step further, which is to submit the agreement to the Senate for ratification. Some would say, oh, well, that

Karen Schoen:

It's a good idea.

H. Sterling Burnett:

That makes it dangerous because if they ratify it, we're in it. Well, yeah. But their problem is they're not going to ratify. There may be there may be a majority of senators who would agree that we should be in this treaty. But you don't get a majority for a treaty.

H. Sterling Burnett:

You have to have 2 thirds, 66. And there are not 66 senators that would agree to this treaty. And if it goes to the senate, no future president can enact it again. They can't reverse Trump on it. It sits there until the senate acts.

H. Sterling Burnett:

If the senate doesn't act, the president can't touch it. If the senate does act and doesn't, enact it, which they wouldn't, then it's dead. So, we suggest that.

Karen Schoen:

That makes a lot of sense. And this is something that We The People have to take up. So go to heartland.org, learn about the Paris Treaty, and speak to your senator because they are the ones that will have to ratify or deep 6 this agreement, and we want them to get rid of it. We we don't want to see this treaty hanging around anymore.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yeah. It's a bad agreement because for for a lot of reasons. First off, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It's the, the molecule of life. Plants need it.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And if plants need it, we need it. But even, were it a problem? If you look at the agreement, all the nation, a lot of nations signed on. Even China signed up. People say, oh, China is not part of the no, they are.

H. Sterling Burnett:

But China's agreement China, which is already the largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, they emit more than double US emissions. They aren't bound under the treaty to cut their emissions. What they've agreed to is they're gonna peak their emissions sometimes around 2050, they expect. Peak them at what level? If it's double that, if it's double what their present emissions are, they'll be emitting more than half of the emissions in the world.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They're already up above 25%. India, also, no immediate emission cuts. Gonna peak sometime in the future. Well, that just puts us it does nothing for the climate, and it puts the US and, you know, Europe, though I'm less concerned about Europe since they stupidly have pushed this stuff. It puts us in a competitive disadvantage.

H. Sterling Burnett:

It it it wrecks our economy and favors our enemies' economies or our competitors' economies. So that's why it's a bad agreement.

Karen Schoen:

Well, then it's something that we have to pay attention to, and it's something that we can help president Trump make sure that the legislators, that our senators are going to say no to this. And I think that's a great idea. Also, the mandates, the EV mandates are insane because if the people understood where where does electricity come from? You need oil and gas in order to produce electricity. So how are you going to curtail oil and gas, stop production, and then produce electricity for electric cars?

Karen Schoen:

Can you tell me how that works?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, it's not just electric cars, right? It's it's

Karen Schoen:

It's everything.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Wind turbines, it's electric appliances because they want you out not using gas appliances. It's it's solar panels. But even solar panels and wind turbines, they all require fossil fuels. Wind turbines have oil running through them to to lubricate parts. The concrete that is used to sink those things into the earth, lot tons and tons of concrete, use fossil fuels to produce the fibers, the, you know, the the carbon fibers in in plastics that go into those things.

H. Sterling Burnett:

The mining all uses fossil fuels. So, Biden has imposed through his, EPA, air emissions regulations, and he's given waivers to California to set their own emission regulations on vehicles. That essentially has become an EV mandate. Everyone well, all but about 20 20 to 30 percent of the cars by 2,035 would have to be electric under these rules. They're about 3% or less today.

H. Sterling Burnett:

So basically, you're talking about

Karen Schoen:

Nobody's going anywhere.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yeah. So basically, you're talking that's what, you know, that's truly that's the real the real goal. It's not that they want to buy electric vehicles. They want everybody in no vehicles. They want them staying home.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They want people, not themselves, mind you, John Kerry, and, Leonardo DiCaprio and, Joe Biden. They'll still get to ride in private planes, spewing 8 times the emissions of the average person in one trip, the average person puts out in a year. It's only the the poor, the peasants that they don't want moving about. So they want to force them into cars that don't work as well as, you know, internal combustion engines that are more expensive than internal combustion engines that they can't charge, for fear of burning up their homes if they have a charger in their house. So you think, well, if it just can't work, you know, if in California, where there's more EVs than any other state where there is less fossil fuel use than any other state for electricity, and every year in California, they tell you we're going to have blackouts.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Oh, and by the way, don't charge your vehicle at this time of year. Well, hold it. You told us we have to have these vehicles. We have to get to work. We have to shop.

H. Sterling Burnett:

We get get the kids to school. But now you're telling us not to charge them because it'll wreck the, electric grid. Okay. So what you're telling us is you're putting people into an impossible situation, which tells me because these people, they may be, venal. Some of them may be evil, but I wouldn't accuse many of them of being stupid.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They know what they're doing.

Karen Schoen:

Yeah. That's the sad part. And to me, all of this is designed for the same thing, and that is to depopulate, depopulate, depopulate. Because if we get rid of carbon dioxide, you can't breathe. And, I love watching, Bill Gates' YouTube where he said he wants to live in a world without carbon dioxide.

Karen Schoen:

Please go there. Please. Please.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Wait. Hop on a hop on a x's next, like, test, you know, the the the next SpaceX, shuttle to Mars and, and live there because you can live in the world without carbon dioxide there. Oh, yeah. You know, it has no oxygen, but, you know, piddling, you know, niggling things like that. Though, I'll I'll say this, Karen, if they get their, if they get their wish and everybody has to stay home, it's it's not it's not clear to me that that results in depopulation.

H. Sterling Burnett:

I think that increases population, because what we know is birth rates go up after every snowstorm.

Karen Schoen:

Oh, that's true.

H. Sterling Burnett:

The more you stay at home, you gotta do something while

Karen Schoen:

you're there. Right. Now the other thing that I wanted to talk about is litigation because that's really how a lot of these things get passed. They have a little game that they play where, the EPA will make a rule and then the, like, Sierra Club will go and fight the rule in court, and then they'll make a settlement. And then we get stuck with a mandate.

Karen Schoen:

So what is, what do you think we should suggest to our legislators with regard to that?

H. Sterling Burnett:

That's it. There's a lot of things Trump can do with executive orders because a lot of these things were done with executive orders by Biden. Anything Biden did just with an executive order can be reversed by Trump. Biden did the same thing to Trump. But many things have to actually be done through law.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And one of the things they can do is, Congress can pass a law that says, agencies may not sue and settle, that they have to fight these regular they have to fight for the regulations. They can't settle. It could take away standing for environmental groups to sue if they can't show particularized harm to themselves. But more importantly, the the lawsuit thing cuts both ways because it's not just environmentalists who sue over regulations to get them make made it even harder. One of the things that's going on is because many of these regulations are major, you know, having huge, a $100,000,000 or more impacts on the economy, states are suing to fight these regulations.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They could pass a law that says while suits are going on, regulations are are not effective. They cannot take effect. Because what what happens a lot of times is, the regulation goes into effect. The state sue. But while it's going on, the courts say, well, we're going to allow the the rule to to go forward until the courts make a final determination.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They don't always do that. Sometimes the courts intervene. They know we're halting it until we make a decision. But oftentimes they don't do that. And when they don't do that because, say, utilities have to plan years into the future, they just plan on the rule being effective, and they start making their plans that that says, oh, yeah, we're going to close this coal fuel power plant because there's this rule.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And by the time the courts overturn the rule, if and when they do, it's too late because they've already made their plans. They've already invested in the new technologies. So you can stop that. But the second thing is, for for Trump, what Trump can do is when in in these rules that states have sued over, like the power plant rule or the EV mandate rule, the Trump administration can say, we've just decided he could direct his justice department not to defend these rules in court. So when the case is heard, no one represents the federal argument.

Karen Schoen:

Interesting. In which case

H. Sterling Burnett:

in which case, the court can either, a, appoint a proxy to represent the state, or, b, just say, look. In the absence of anybody defending this rule, we're gonna assume that it's not, you know, a good rule and we're going to fine for the plaintiffs. Or they could go into court and say, we've decided this rule is wrong. We're going to rewrite it. We ask that you throw it out and until we've rewritten it.

H. Sterling Burnett:

But that's something the Trump administration could do, and we're gonna be watching to see if they do things like that.

Karen Schoen:

Well, Sterling, I wanna thank you so much. This is so interesting. And what I am gonna do is ask you to come back after president Trump gets inaugurated and after he is passed his 1st week in office, and let's see what he has come up with and let's comment on that so that we, the people know what we can do, and you can speak to our legislators and make sure they know what they should be doing. So thank you so much. Tell everyone where they can find you.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, they can find me at www.heartland.org, or they can go if they want a daily update on the climate change, lives of the day, go to climate realism.com.

Karen Schoen:

Thank you. I appreciate that. Folks, you've been listening to Karen Shone. This is the prism of America's education. Hope you had a good education today, and I know we did.