Overview
On The Bob Zadek Show, global warming is discussed as a problem whose science, economics and politics are entangled. Bob Zadek, the host, repeatedly frames the issue as one that ordinary voters are asked to decide despite its technical complexity. In a 2018 episode he told listeners that “us ordinary Americans are going to try to decide a hyper-technical, terribly complex scientific issue,” and asked how the debate came to sit in the public sphere rather than in science How to Spot Tabloid Climate Science (2018).
A recurring theme is terminology. Zadek observed that the phenomenon “used to be known as global warming,” and that after a cold winter it became climate change; he added that climate always changes, so the phrase itself proves little Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014). Sterling Burnett, of the Heartland Institute, made the same point at greater length, saying that when temperatures stopped rising for 18 consecutive years while carbon dioxide emissions went up, environmental advocates “shifted gears from global warming to climate change” How to Spot Tabloid Climate Science (2018).
Regulation and the EPA
The 2014 episode with Matt Zwolinski opened with Zadek’s monologue on the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon. He described the EPA as having been ceded “enormous power to regulate every part of our life,” and said the new rules had been called the “war on coal” — a phrase he attributed to coal mining and coal burning states Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Zadek’s central objection was about efficacy and incidence. He argued that whatever the United States does will have “a de minimis effect” on the planet, because the country accounts for a small and declining portion of carbon emissions, and that eliminating all coal-burning plants would affect climate over 20 or 30 years by less than one-tenth of one degree. He compared the regulations to federal rules on showerheads and toilet flushes, and to driving a Prius, as feel-good measures with no long-term planetary effect. He then argued that the cost would fall on “the people least able to afford it, which is the poor people, the people closest to the level of poverty” Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
The episode also carried recorded clips. President Obama was heard saying he had directed the EPA to build on efforts by states, cities and companies and to propose “common-sense guidelines for reducing dangerous carbon pollution from our power plants.” A clip of Joe Manchin raised reliability of the grid, asking whether power would come on in summer heat and noting that in the polar vortex the frail, elderly, young and poor would be most at risk. Rand Paul, in another clip, said the policy showed “a lack of balance” and that “environmental extremists are really guiding the policy of this administration,” comparing it to the Keystone Pipeline Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Bailey: from skepticism to concern
In the 2015 episode, Ronald Bailey told Zadek he had covered climate change as a reporter for over 30 years, attended the Earth Summit where the UN treaty on climate change was negotiated in 1992, and been to 10 UN climate change meetings. He said he was initially very skeptical of man-made climate change, but after talking to scores of climatologists and scientists and reading the literature, he decided about 10 years earlier that man-made climate change, global warming, could probably become a significant problem for humanity over the course of the century, and that he publicly changed his mind and urged people to take it seriously Ronald Bailey on the End of Doom (2015).
Bailey’s emphasis was on adaptation and technology rather than catastrophe. He said the world is going to be warmer because of burning fossil fuels and putting more carbon dioxide in the air, but that it is not going to be a catastrophe, and that low-carbon and no-carbon energy technologies coming along would probably be fairly rapidly adopted over the next few decades and probably solve the problem. Asked whether a warmer world is per se bad, he answered that it is not a problem in itself; the problem is the speed of change relative to the ability of the biosphere and humanity to adapt. He identified sea level rise from melting glaciers as the most concerning effect, because it would be a big problem for many people living along the coasts. Pressed by Zadek on whether the effect is a net minus, Bailey said he thought it would be, and that warming needs to be slowed so that humanity, plants and animals can adapt Ronald Bailey on the End of Doom (2015).
A caller named Alan from Berkeley asked about fracking — contaminated water on the surface, earthquakes, and contamination of underground aquifers. Bailey answered that he had looked into it and found no examples of a fracked well causing contamination of aquifers; that the famous faucet-lighting scene in Gasland was completely natural and not caused by fracking; that improperly sealed conventional gas wells can contaminate well water, but that is not peculiar to fracking; and that produced water does contain some chemicals and can contaminate the surface if not cleaned, a problem the industry is becoming better at controlling Ronald Bailey on the End of Doom (2015).
Epstein: elites, models and the 97 percent claim
Richard Epstein, in the 2017 episode, rejected Zadek’s framing that voters decide the issue. He said popular environmental global warming always scores extremely low in polls, and that voters care about war and peace, economic well-being, education, healthcare and affirmative action much more. The problem, he said, is that much of it is driven by a series of elites who tend to be coastal and clubby, and who drive out people who disagree with them; he noted that virtually all of the leading skeptics are no longer in the active academy, having retired or gone to conservative or libertarian think tanks Richard Epstein on Climate Change (2017).
Epstein described the tone of the debate as abusive rather than deliberative, recounting a public session where a question about global warming drew the answer that the models would explain it but the questioner was too stupid to understand. He cited a graph put forward by a man named Christy, described as a distinguished climate scientist, which took the composite average of 130-plus climate models and plotted it over the last 30 years of observed data; the models ran wild high in virtually every case by a factor of two to two and a half. He called this powerful evidence of an alarmist quality, and said the constant refrain that 97 percent of climate scientists believe in global warming is a wild overstatement, with views much more nuanced and the data old and unreliable. Epstein counted himself as someone who would say that more carbon dioxide, all other things being equal, produces some increment in temperature, but not that there is a world-wide crisis Richard Epstein on Climate Change (2017).
His prescription was incremental rather than crisis-driven. He said what you really want is a world of steady incremental technical progress that increases the possibilities for human improvement and overall welfare, and warned that going into crisis mode on global warming would unleash other forces that may be more dangerous, including dirty pollutants and possibly less care dealing with infectious diseases Richard Epstein on Climate Change (2017).
Burnett: the politicization of science
Sterling Burnett, in the 2018 episode, disputed Zadek’s premise that public scientific controversy was new. He cited debates about sociobiology and evolution going back over a hundred years, and the 1960s debate over pesticides, in particular DDT. He said Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring led to a ban on the production and use of DDT, which had been effective at wiping out malaria; malaria used to be endemic to the United States, with 50,000 cases a year in the 1950s, and was wiped out with DDT, after which developing countries were told they could not have the cure because of thinning eggshells in birds How to Spot Tabloid Climate Science (2018).
Burnett argued that in the late 1960s and early 1970s the environment became a large public policy issue, and that the leadership of environmental groups began treating environmental issues as the most important value a person could have, trumping every other value. He said they spoke admiringly of China’s population policies and of the need for population control because resources were running out, and that once you start talking about changing the economy and the way people live, you have left the realm of science and entered politics. He described climate change as the biggest such issue available, since climate is constantly changing and everywhere, and said advocates had painted people into a corner because no one can dispute that the climate changes. The real questions, he said, are whether humans are causing the present climate change, whether that can be said with any certainty, and whether it means catastrophe is in the offing requiring dramatic action How to Spot Tabloid Climate Science (2018).
Across episodes: no single arc
The topic recurs across all four episodes, but the excerpts do not show a single developing argument. Zadek’s own framing is consistent from 2014 to 2018 — regulation is ineffective and costly, and the terminology of climate change is elastic — while the guests differ sharply: Zwolinski’s episode is dominated by Zadek’s EPA monologue and congressional clips, Bailey describes a personal conversion toward taking man-made warming seriously, Epstein disputes crisis framing and the 97 percent claim, and Burnett places climate change in a longer history of politicized science. What changes between the earlier and later treatment is chiefly the target: the 2014 episode attacks a specific EPA rulemaking, while the 2017 and 2018 episodes attack the structure of the debate itself.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the legal basis on which any climate regulation was upheld or struck down, nor the name of any bill or case. They do not give figures for the actual cost of the EPA rules to households, nor any measurement of global temperature or sea level. They do not describe the contents of the UN treaty negotiated in 1992 beyond Bailey’s reference to it, and the 2015 excerpt breaks off mid-sentence in a later segment on species extinction and the ESA.