Joe Rogan - Science Shouldn't be Political

And I feel like there's a fundamental problem with the way people approach ideas. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, about right versus left, or Republican versus Democrat. They're not thinking of the consequences of arguing against the possibility that climate change is a human-caused thing. They're not thinking of the consequences. They just want to win. Right, right. They want their side to be right. They want their side to be right. And what bumps me out is they don't understand the consequences of that for both the American enterprise and the human enterprise. Right? I mean, because if you keep calling one branch of science a hoax, then what's to say to the other branches? Like, well, then you're rolling down this slippery slope. Or like, the other countries ... So most of the Nobel Prizes Americans have won were people from other countries. They came here to do their science because we had the best scientific enterprise. The next generation will just go somewhere else. They'll go to China. So there's that part of it. And the other part is like, dude, it's just science. It doesn't care about your political views. And it's not fair to use the cell phone and take the antibiotics and then turn around and then suddenly treat this thing as if it was another thing in your bucket of ideologies. I think also people think if you somehow or another compromise industry's ability to work that you're going to kill jobs and you're going to damage the economy, and that's more important. Yeah, but I think it's the exact opposite, right? And if people really saw, right? I mean, again, just like I'm saying, climate change shows how powerful people have become. It also shows how powerful our enterprise, right? We did this by building businesses, by building enterprise, and we built this world-girdling machine of civilization. And the planet actually noticed. Why do you like that term, world-girdling? Because that's ... It gives me the ... A girdle? A just wrapping around the earth? Actually, I think it's because it's from Shakespeare, from Caesar or something. I always thought it was a good ... But it's the idea that in the Foundation trilogy, the Isaac Asmanoff classic science fiction thing, there's the planet of Trantor, which is the center of the empire, the galactic empire. And it's basically the whole planet's been covered in city. You got to go down 500 levels before you get to the surface. So that idea ... I mean, what I like about it is the idea that we've done something, we're kind of covered the planet in our effect, covered the planet in our enterprise. So this issue of business is that there's a place I can stand in Rochester. I did this for NPR. And there's the Erie Canal. I can stand right on the edge of the Erie Canal. Then there's a train tracks. Tracks were laid back in the original line, back in the 1870s. Then there's a highway. And then there's the airport right over there. Four different infrastructures, which everyone took huge amounts of money to build, one of which we don't even use anymore. So the idea of building an infrastructure that will not be carbon polluting, will not trigger climate change. It's like, dude, this is what we do. So the idea that there's going to be more jobs that come out of this than it could ever come out of fossil fuels. It's not a big deal for human beings, because that's what we do, to switch infrastructures. And there will be a lot of wealth generated by ... just like there was when we switched to the trains. Where's the argument coming? Because there are people that just adopt the party line, the party line that climate's always changed and human beings barely affected, and it's not something to concentrate on. Where's that coming from? Again, I think it's the gradual political polarization of everything. Because if you look at in the ... we're now at the, what is it, 30 year anniversary of Jim Hansen, who was the famous climate scientist, giving his testimony in front of Congress in 1988 on a hot, sweltering summer day. We said climate change is already happening. And that made news everywhere. And that was the first public awakening that this was happening. And if you look at the first Bush administration, they were like, oh yeah, we're ready to do something about this. Sure, we can do it. And then it just gradually over time as the whole political polarization thing happened, you can actually see the very purposeful denial. They took a page out of the cigarette companies. For years, cigarettes were like, the cigarette companies were like, no, it's not a problem. So they were purposefully ... there were people who had money invested. They didn't want this change. Well, there's a documentary that goes into that. What is the name of that? Merchants of Doubt? Merchants of Doubt. That's a great book, man. That's a really good book. Yeah. And the documentary is really good, too. So it was purposeful. It's also confusing. It's like, why are they doing that? Who's paying them to do that? Obviously the cigarette companies would be paying the same people to put doubt into the idea that cigarettes are addictive or cigarettes cause cancer. And this is what had been done in the past. Now the same people are involved in doing it with climate change. But why? Well, one time I wrote a piece for the NPR that was kind of positive about like, yeah, we can switch infrastructures like I'm saying. And some guy wrote me back very angry and he said, the proven reserves, the stuff, the oil that's in the ground has a wealth, has a monetary value. That's in the oil companies' banks, in their bank accounts, of like $1.5 trillion. And the guy said, dude, people have gone to war for a lot less than $1.5 trillion. So if we were to really be like, hey, man, we can't burn that, you're going to have to leave that in the ground, that's like their bank accounts going like, we've gone to zero pretty fast. So what I don't get- So it's those industries. I think that's part of it. And then it gets linked to other things. And then it becomes this sort of like mass, it becomes the political poll- they use the political polarization to sort of make this happen. Other countries aren't doing this. That's the important thing. Other countries, there's always a little bit of climate denial going on, but we're like the only country that's got, as you can see, because we're the only ones who are not part of the Paris Accord. Well, it's one of the weirder things about this right-left thing is the left is always supporting the environment. The left is all about the environment. The left is about clean air and clean water. Yeah, how did that happen? I don't understand that. I don't understand that either. The whole thing is very strange. Well, I got, I mean, I have issues with environmentalists too, because I think after one of your shows I was watching, the whole idea of eco-broads, right? And you get eco-broad by people. And I have a piece in the New York Times today, and I'll bet, where I'm basically saying, like, look, man, the planet's going to be fine. Like long term, there's nothing we can throw at the biosphere that is going to kill it. We're not about saving the planet. The Earth is not a fuzzy little bunny. The planet is powerful. And it's really about saving us. Let's be honest about what's going on. And there's going to be all kinds of ethical choices that go on. The polar bears may not be able to come along with us on the ride here. We need a healthy biosphere with a lot of biodiversity. But we're part of it, and we're going to have an impact. There's no such thing as no impact. And already I'm getting eco-broad. People are like, hey, man, you don't care about life. Yeah, what about, I just like, oh, come on, man, I just put it in the thing. I said we need to be wise and compassionate. But they're like, man. Well, people have convenient opinions. I mean, this is one of the things you get involved with when you start talking with people about really important issues. I mean, it's like we were talking about earlier. They want to be right. And they want to be on the side that's righteous and with virtue and ethics. And they find anything that you disagree or that they disagree with that you're saying, they don't ask you questions. They don't go, what do you think the implications are? How do we minimize the effects and the negative consequences of our... They just immediately want to say, you are insensitive. You are an asshole. You are the problem. Yeah. And the way around that, and that's what the whole book is about, is to like, when you've got a polarization, right, where you're either this or you're that, the thing that this is like a mathematical idea is to go orthogonal. When you go, because it's a line, basically, right? You're either on this side or that side. Go 90 degrees to it. Now you're in a whole new space. Now you're up and down to the left and right. Exactly.