Erich Schaffer: “Water Vapor Feedback, Part One” | Tom Nelson Pod #395

Bernie Lewin: “Origins of the IPCC” | Tom Nelson Pod #396

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://a.co/d/0bmYZdUX] https://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/about/ [https://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/about/] ========= Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries [https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries] My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 [https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1]

Erich Schaffer: “Water Vapor Feedback, Part One” | Tom Nelson Pod #395

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://x.com/erich_schaffer] https://greenhousedefect.com/ [https://greenhousedefect.com/] ========= Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries [https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries] My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 [https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1]

Catherine McBride: “Premeditated Industrial Destruction?” | Tom Nelson Pod #394

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://x.com/CeeMacBee] https://catherinemcbride.substack.com/ [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 [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 [https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries] My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 [https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1]

Sonia Elijah: “3/11 Viral Takeover” | Tom Nelson Pod #393

Tom interviews investigative journalist Sonia Elijah about her book 3/11 Viral Takeover, a five-year, evidence-based chronicle of the COVID era with 941 citations drawn from FOIA releases, emails, and leaked documents. Elijah argues COVID policy reflected a coordinated, censorship-driven response, tracing a timeline of pre-2020 pandemic exercises, media/government coordination, and conflicts of interest. She discusses the WHO’s March 11, 2020 pandemic declaration, alleged suppression of lab-origin discussion, flawed modeling used to justify lockdowns, and problems with PCR testing. The conversation covers propaganda and censorship networks (including the Trusted News Initiative), suppression of early treatments, harms from ventilators and drugs, and allegations of misclassified vaccine trial and safety data, including pregnancy and myocarditis concerns, urging accountability and preparedness against repetition. 00:00 Meet Sonia Elijah 00:18 Book Thesis and Censorship 01:17 Research Depth and Purpose 02:49 Will It Happen Again 04:40 Why 3 11 Matters 06:01 Pandemic Drills and mRNA Push 10:53 Bat Database Goes Dark 12:18 FOIA Emails and Lab Leak 15:04 Cracks and Conflicts 18:10 Lockdowns Driven by Models 19:19 PCR Testing Anomalies 25:31 Harms and Care Homes 26:37 Testing Kit Profiteering 29:40 Fear Messaging and Propaganda 32:10 Dancing Nurses and Empty Wards 33:39 Trusted News Initiative 37:17 Natural Immunity Censored 38:17 Lancet Study Fallout 40:13 Ivermectin Smear Campaign 41:57 Silencing Doctors Online 43:30 Hospital Protocol Controversies 45:09 Redefining Vaccinated Data 46:38 Retracted Myocarditis Research 48:46 Missing Safety Reports 53:31 Pfizer Papers Deep Dive 58:13 Vaccine Injured Silenced 59:52 Pregnancy Harms Revealed 01:04:40 Justice and Accountability 01:07:32 Closing Thoughts on the Book https://x.com/sonia_elijah [https://x.com/sonia_elijah] https://linktr.ee/SoniaElijah [https://linktr.ee/SoniaElijah] Book Review by Robert Malone— 3/11: Viral Takeover: https://www.malone.news/p/book-review-311-viral-takeover [https://www.malone.news/p/book-review-311-viral-takeover] Order it at Amazon here: https://www.malone.news/p/book-review-311-viral-takeover [https://www.malone.news/p/book-review-311-viral-takeover] ========= Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries [https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries] My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 [https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1]

Thomas Kurz: “Why There Is No Climate Crisis” | Tom Nelson Pod #392

Thomas Kurz discusses his upcoming book, Why There Is No Climate Crisis (Kindle in May, print in June), and argues modest warming is largely natural, claiming the IPCC obscures evidence of past climate variability. He explains paleoclimate proxies (oxygen isotopes, carbon-14, beryllium-10) and links climate shifts to Milankovitch cycles, solar cycles, galactic cosmic rays influencing clouds, and ocean oscillations (AMO/PDO). Using temperature reconstructions, glacier, treeline, sea-level, historical freeze, agriculture, insect, and civilization records, he says warm periods brought prosperity while cold periods drove drought, famine, disease, and upheaval. He concludes about half of post-1850 warming is natural, warming is generally beneficial, and future cooling is likely. 00:00 Guest And Book Intro 00:24 Why He Dug In 01:46 Focus On Climate Cycles 03:44 Paleoclimate Proxies 04:57 Isotopes And Temperature 06:48 Cosmic Rays And Solar 07:56 Milky Way Climate Cycle 12:17 Milankovitch Ice Ages 14:28 CO2 Follows Temperature 17:10 Holocene Cooling Trend 19:29 Schwabe Solar Cycles 21:42 Millennial Solar Cycles 23:14 Temperature Reconstructions 25:04 Glaciers Treelines Seas 28:44 Historical Freeze Evidence 32:27 Farming And Wildlife Clues 37:06 Warm Vs Cold Impacts 41:28 Storm Evidence In Proxies 44:44 Civilizations And Climate 45:48 Holocene Optimum Prosperity 47:42 2200 BC Collapse Event 48:18 Minoan Warm Period Boom 50:47 Greek Dark Ages Breakdown 52:53 Roman Warm Period Growth 54:23 Late Antique Cooling Plagues 56:50 Medieval Warm Period Golden Age 59:11 Little Ice Age Hardship 01:06:46 Witch Hunts Climate Blame 01:09:16 Modern Warming Attribution Debate 01:12:17 Ocean Oscillations AMO PDO 01:15:44 No Climate Crisis Wrap Up ========= Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries [https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries] My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1 [https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1]