TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: The Cult of Climate: Who Is Really Infallible?
Date: 12/08/23 Length: 39:49
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors. And welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi reveal how the world really works. And I remain equally and as solidly dedicated to reminding you that the more that things change, the more we need to depend on those things that never change. And one of the things that is never going to change is that at the time of my preparing this podcast, Jews are lighting Hanukkah candles for eight successive nights. And so for instance, the fourth, the the, the, the fourth candle is going to be lit on Sunday night. And when I say the fourth candle, I mean, four candles will be lit on Sunday night, December the 10th. And I'm speaking about the 2023 for those of you who may be listening to this a year or two or more late, but at any rate for people currently listening to the show, Sunday night, the 10th of December, Jews will go ahead and light four candles in their windows. And yes, they are meant to be visible. And on Monday night, December 11, the light five candles on Tuesday night December the 12th. six candles on Wednesday night December 13. seven candles. And finally, the culmination of the holiday will be Thursday night December the 14th. When eight foot candles will be lit. And and by the way, if any of you would would like to be doing that. You don't have to be Jewish, there is something rather wonderful about Enlightening the World. And by making this truly a season of light. And it doesn't have to be in any formal kind of menorah. It doesn't have to be any specific kind of candles. It can it should be for four candles, or five candles or six for four on Sunday night. And it can be tea lights or regular candles or it can even be oil lamps. It doesn't matter at all.
Daniel Lapin 2:50
But the idea is that it should be not a directly electrical though in times of duress or for instance, a person just recently contacted me about a sibling who is in hospital during the final cut period. For reasons that are obvious in the sense that we have oxygen around. They don't let naked flames in many hospital rooms are some do. And he asked whether his sibling can light go ahead and light within the electric menorah. And yes insists the situations of duress can why because the fact is that in addition to the holiday commemorating the the the triumph of the Maccabees against the Greek tyranny 2187 years ago and think about it, I mean just been lighting kind of collides every single year since then. 2187 years ago, there are heart rending accounts of Jews lighting candles that they made in unbelievably ingenious ways. In Auschwitz during Hanukkah. It's it's always been a symbol of resisting tyranny, but it's also a symbol of something else. And you won't hear much about this aspect of Hanukkah very often. But there it is in in learned circles, it's understood and known, and that is that it also is a celebration of what I call G. G. energy God given energy. It is the energy of that. The other side of this bipolar world calls fossil fuel, All right FF energy. So you either go with the G G model or the F F model, what is one of the huge differences?
Daniel Lapin 5:09
Well, one of the very big and important differences between a God given energy model, as opposed to a FF model is, is the very simple basic idea that in the F F model, we are running out of fuel. That's, that's an important aspect of that model. So now, just bear in mind that the account in ancient Jewish wisdom is that the, the Greek tyranny violated the temple. And the sacramental eyes, the oil, and the need to light the candelabra, every day in the temple was hard to accomplish without the oil. And they found one tiny little jar of oil that was enough for one day that hadn't been violated. And, and it took a certain amount of time to produce new oil from the olive groves. And they went ahead and lit it anyway. And it just kept on burning for eight days. And so there was this idea of, of not running out of oil, basically. And again, because of political correctness, you don't hear the spoken about a whole a whole lot. But if you're gonna approach it with just a completely open mind and a fresh vision, you can't possibly ignore the fact that we've been talking about running out of oil for a very long time. And one of the earliest cases I could find was a very influential British economist called William Stanley Jevons, Jevons. I think his brother in law was a lord or or a member of parliament, he was very, very well connected. And virtually every word he uttered was icon iced by British society. And he wrote a book in 1865, called the coal question and inquiry concerning the progress of the nation, and the probable exhaustion of our coal mines. And what he was suggesting was that Britain dial back their industrial activity, so as to make the oil last a little longer than it was otherwise likely to do. They were going to run out of non oil, coal, Britain was going to run out of coal. And there it is, that's that is the persistent drumbeat of the fossil fuel movement. We're running out of oil. And I don't have to tell you that Britain could still operate entirely on oil. If they hadn't switched. Excuse me, I keep saying well, I mean, gets cold Britain, could they're still able to mined coal, there's plenty of coal left, they never dialed back on industry. What they did do is they eventually switched from oil to from coal to oil, and from oil to natural gas, and they're using all those examples of That's right, fossil fuels. Exactly. And and that is something that is not clearly understood at all. So why, why fossil fuels so persistently tied to the idea of running out well, partially because the FF vision is closely tied to the idea of shortage, whereas the Ge Ge vision, the God given fuel idea, is closely linked to the idea of abundance. But back to the fossil fuel story. 1865 and William Stanley Jevons assures us that Britain is on the brink of running out of coal, but listen to the United States Bureau of mines. Now, this is the United States government, and you think they could hire the most reliable predictors and they could employ the most knowledgeable scientists. In the year 1914. I found a proclamation from the United States Bureau of mines, the world will run out of oil in 10 years that would be 1924.
Daniel Lapin 9:47
In less than 20 years, that after that, World War Two is being fought over and on oil. How about the United States Department of the Interior, another governmental department, they issued a statement in 1939. The world ran of oil in 13 years now, that was already 25 years after the United States government said the world will run out of oil in 10 years time. So then they did that again in 1950. Again, a statement from the United States Department of Interior, the world will run out of all in 13 years. Paul Ehrlich distinguished professor at Stanford University. In 1973, he wrote that the world will run out run out of oil and other fossil fuels by 1990. So by 1973, they were already using the term fossil fuels. And in 1973, he writes and is widely accepted, the world will run out of oil and other fossil fuels by 1990. Paul Ehrlich again, when apparently, we hadn't run out of oil in 1990. And by the way, by 1990, we were actually extracting more oil per year than we had been doing in 1973. The Paul Ehrlich came back again, remember, in 73, he predicted no more oil or coal or gas by 1990. Well, in 2002, so that's 12 years after the expiration of his last deadline. He then said, the world will run out of oil in 2030. And other fossil fuels in 2050, says being a lot more cautious now. But it's one prediction after another, it's almost as if they want to see the world running out of oil. Well, in a certain sense, of course they do. Because if you've been predicting that the boat will sink, if you take to the lifeboats, in confidence that the ship is gonna sink, and then you watch the ship sail happily onwards, of course, you're miserable. And of course, you have to say, well, you just wait, it's gonna sink, you just keep watching. And then it reaches the horizon. And it's about to sink over the horizon, but not sink into the water. And you say, see, it's sinking, it's sinking. That is kind of the picture of what I feel I'm watching as I look at all of these insane predictions, because part of the fossil fuel vision is yes, of course, we're running out.
Daniel Lapin 12:37
But part of the God given vision is that there's abundance. And there is the part of the message of Hanukkah. That yes, we're going to burn a light one candle one night, two candles, the next and unset by the time we get to Sunday night will light for Monday night, five and Sunday and choose that at sick, there's no shortage, just keep on leaving, it's fine. Go ahead. And these are clearly two different incompatible views of reality, right? It can't be both ways you got to make up your mind. And just remember, you heard it here first on the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, when you eventually discover that shocking, amazingly enough, oil is not the decaying vegetated vegetation products of millions of years ago. But instead, somehow or another, it is created, geologic, geologically. through some process going on inside the rocks. By though I'm not the only person who thinks that that is a reality. And it's not a it's not a scientific prediction. You can't you can't tell that talking about science.
Daniel Lapin 13:57
I'll come back to that in just a moment. But initially, let me remind you that now would be a wonderful time to go ahead and subscribe to this show, go ahead and do that. Subscribe, add to our subscription numbers as they continue to climb and you be a part of that as a happy warrior. I would appreciate that very much. So please go ahead and do that. And also, while you are added in order to gain a fuller understanding, not of fossil fuels, and God given fuels, and not of the, the the geological process of oil creation, but know a better understanding of how to make sure that the decisions you take in your life numerous times every day, dozens of times every week, important decisions, some of them are so important you don't even know realize at the time you were making them. But to develop an intuitive ability to make the right ones, I want to recommend that you go ahead and get yourself a copy of the holistic EQ. That is a book that Susan Lapin and I wrote, it's called the holistic view, integrating your family, finances, faith, friendships and fitness, the holistic view. And the the book focuses, as the subtitle indicates, on the five essential zones of everybody's life, and it explains them. And it explains how, paradoxically, in an unexpected way, working on shall we say your fitness can help your finances, how working on your friendships, can help your family, how working on your finances, can can help your faith and so on and so forth. How all of these five essential subzones of life actually all integrate together very, very effectively, and how you can benefit from managing your life in accordance with this extremely reliable blueprint.
Daniel Lapin 16:25
And so, that basic Chanukah message. And yes, it's in addition to other also fundamental Hanukkah messages, defiance of tyranny, the idea of the faith model of reality, defeating the secular model of reality, because in ancient Jewish wisdom, there is a constant tension between Jerusalem and Athens. And the two cities exemplify the two worldviews completely incompatible, you can't have them both, you got to decide how you are going to live your life. And you can say, I'm not all the way on one or I'm not all their way on the other, I tend towards this direction. Or you might say, I'm undecided. But somehow or another, the people I admire the people, I like the people who I think are making a more successful job of their lives, will they tend towards this way or the other? What are the two ways the Jerusalem way is God centric the Athens way is, is completely secular, the fossil fuel vision of reality, ties to the Athens vision, the secular vision of reality, and part and parcel of that vision of reality is shortage. Okay? Not surprisingly, societies that have been operated on a secular, tyrannical model, otherwise known as communism, or if you want me to be polite socialism, or if you want me to be really, really polite progressivism, or woke ism, but societies that have been operated on that basis, have never succeeded in building effective economies. Why will partially because tied in to the secular fossil, fossil fuel vision of reality is also the idea of shortage that is part and parcel. It is one of the fundamental doctrines of the religion of secularism, if you if you understand my meaning, a fundamental doctrine is shortage. And so recycling becomes a sacred sacrament of that particular worldview. On the other side, you got to Jerusalem worldview, which is one of a god centric world. And part and parcel of that one is abundance. And so, you know, you might say to yourself, well, you know, I'm not really sure that, that there is really a garden. I don't know about that. And people seem pretty settled about an evolutionary model of creation and how things came to be. So I don't really know but I must admit that people that I like people who seem to have successful families and people who are making a living and doing well, many of those people seem to have a faith dimension in their life. And so I sort of tend to incline that way, but the jury is still out. I'm basically agnostic on the topic, right that that's position many people legitimately take and then there are other people who are ardently and strenuously for the, the secular model of reality. And, yes, these are two conflict acting and incompatible visions, Jerusalem and Athens. And yes, they are two conflicting belief systems. And when I say belief systems Well, let me let me put it this way. They're in the minds of people and in the United States of America, it is close to a, a, an even division. About 40% of Americans at the present time, believe, and I say believe, right? It's nobody's proving anything. But about 40% of Americans believe as I do, that we are on this planet because the good Lord created us in His image and put us yet, and about 40% of Americans tend to believe that we're on this planet, because through a process, a very lengthy process of unaided materialistic evolution, primitive proto plasm turned into plumbers and prop geologists. And about 20% of Americans have an extremely firm and deep seated conviction on either resonance temps and one way timbers and the other way, but, but yeah, about half of Americans tend towards the Jerusalem worldview, and about half 10 towards an Athens world. And belief it is, there was a very influential and, and very funny sitcom on television from the late 90s. I think it ran from about 95 to 2005, approximately there abouts. It was called friends. And I've often alluded to it, because it did have an enormous impact on American culture and possibly elsewhere in the world as well. It had a very strong impact, and spoke about six friends who shared life together on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were three guys and three girls. And, and they were friends and and I've alluded to aspects of the show in the past, it was very cleverly written, no question about it very, very cleverly written. And yeah, some episodes are better than others. And I'm not an expert on the show by any means. But But while acknowledging that it damaged the culture, I myself know of a couple of young women and young men who really did decide to sort of shape their lives on on the values they imported from the show called Friends. Now, in one of them, one of the girls who's the sort of sweet, kind hearted, slightly ditzy girl, and her name is Phoebe. And one of the other ones is a guy called Ross. And he works as a paleontologist. He is a scientist, he works for the Museum of Natural History, and I think he then becomes a professor of paleontology. Anyway, it's here, here's just a few words of an interchange about evolution.
Ross 23:33
Such as,
Phoebe 23:34
like crop circles or the Bermuda Triangle, or evolution.
Ross 23:43
But you don't you don't believe in evolution?
Phoebe 23:45
No, not really.
Ross 23:49
You don't believe in evolution?
Phoebe 23:51
I don't know. It's just you know, monkeys Darwin you know, it's it's a nice story I just think it's a little too easy
Ross 23:58
too easy? the process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single celled organisms is too busy.
Phoebe 24:14
I just don't buy it
Ross 24:18
evolution is not for you to buy. Evolution the scientific fact like like like the air we breathe like gravity.
Phoebe 24:26
Okay, don't get me started on gravity.
Daniel Lapin 24:32
Well, you you get the idea, right. It hits on hot topics and and it dealt with that one effectively with one of the things that didn't show was that the you know, all rational normal people, I suppose to say not with a ditzy blonde, but with scientist Ross, and he is incredibly offended that she doesn't believe believe in evolution. That's right. So these things do really go together. In other words, almost, you know, if you believe in ever in evolution, well, then you're likely also to tend towards believing in running out of fossil fuels. And back in the day of William Stanley Jevons, you know, he recommended slowing down industry, cutting back England's productivity and development, in the interests of saving coal of making it last longer. Well, as time went by, that particular rationale, didn't work so well, because people said, Look, don't don't make us worry about running out of coal, make us worry about running out of oil, and you're wanting us to cut back now, it's not necessary, we'll solve that problem down the road. And of course, they were right. But what they really didn't want to do was to be handicapped by fears of running out of fossil fuels. And so that side, the members of that church, the people, the devotees of that religion, had to come up with something else and give them credit, they came up with something really clever, they came up with the cult of climate, the idea that burning fossil fuels is destroying the planet. So if we couldn't get you to be worried about running out of coal and running out of oil, perhaps we can get you worried about destruction of the planet. If you live near a coastal city, you'd better learn to tread water because the ocean levels are rising. You know why? Because we're burning coal. And we're burning oil. That's right. The cult of climate is created in order to sustain the secular religion of fossil fuels running out of fossil fuels.
Daniel Lapin 27:01
And so this is an ongoing problem, obviously. And sure enough, it is, as you look at it, clearly, a competition between two religious visions or if you don't like the word religion, two belief systems. Alright, the belief system of scientism, which proves and shows that we're running out of fuel, and a God given fuel vision, which says, No, we're not. And it's interesting that there really are only two infallible things. People believe that science is infallible. People believe God is infallible, it's it's one of the two. Either science is infallible, or God is infallible. And about half people believe that God is infallible, and about half the people believe science is infallible. So there it is, you've kind of got to decide. And it's interesting that it always comes back to the basic question of How did human beings arrive on this planet? And it's something that seems to be basic to all of us human beings to sort of want to ask that question. And as far back as you want to go in recorded history, people have been asking that question. And I was interested to discover that every culture that has been studied and deeply studied by wonderful anthropologists like Stanley, by it by Daniel Anwen, or charlatan, anthropologists like Margaret Mead, but all of them, investigate and show that all cultures seem to have some kind of what they call origin myth, some kind of legend, some kind of account some kind of story that explains how it all began, where we come from. The American Indians have this and different tribes have different ones that vary from one another in detail or to a greater extent. And wherever you go, Hinduism has an origin story. Buddhism has an origin story. Many African tribes have different kinds of origin stories. Islam has an origin story that is similar to but in no way identical, differing in very important details from the biblical one. And Jews and Christians have an origin story based on the book of Genesis in the Bible. And, to me, what's interesting is how so many different seemingly different and apparently disconnected characteristics all seem to in general align with one or the other of these two alternative worldviews.
Daniel Lapin 30:11
So, in other words, when you decide which belief system to follow, when you decide to follow the infallible god of scientism. And when I say when I say that with with some irony in my voice, there would be because we have to understand things that are scientific and things that are not scientific. And being a scientist doesn't confer infallibility upon you, in all areas. So, for instance, if a geologist makes the statement that, according to science, the ideal spacing for children is three years between each child, you know, you can listen to him or not listen to him, but to say that that is scientifically proven, is complete nonsense. And so in the same way, if Well, let me say, the thing about science is it has to be reproducible. And it's got to be falsifiable. In other words, you've got to be able to, if you state something scientifically and say, I have proven it, then other people have got to be able to follow your proof and be able to do it as well. And for this reason, one scientific belief system are one, I shouldn't say that one scientific conclusion after another has been invalidated by further research. And by further progress. This is always the way of science. But when people say, you know, six out of 10, scientists believe in global warming, it doesn't mean anything. And you know, it's obvious why it doesn't. And if it isn't obvious, you can research it, you'll see for yourself and see equivalent, as I say, to an electrical engineer, saying that. People, people should, it's been scientifically proven that people who live together before marriage have more successful durable marriages. By the way, actually, the opposite happens to be true, to whatever extent you can say scientifically, but to whatever extent, you want to rely on surveys and studies and analyses and data and statistics, it's actually the opposite. But bottom line, is it. Science is something that can be reproducible. And when Ross told Phoebe, evolution is a scientific fact, no, it isn't. Actually, it's, it is the only explanation for how we got to this planet provided you exclude a god vision, a god centric vision, if you are completely open, if you genuinely have an intellectually open mind, then it's not the only way. But the idea that it is scientific, it's simply not true. Science means you can prove it. No, it cannot be proven, it can be shown to be a possible explanation. In the absence of God. That's the best you can say for it in exactly the same way that there's no way to prove the God view, all you can do is go through life, keep your eyes open, and arrive at which is the most likely to give you a better life. Which belief is most likely to give you a better life. That's what you really have to ask yourself. And that's what people do free world's free country, free belief system. Everybody can do what they like. But we do have to recognize that the two infallible gods in the world our God, and scientism? I don't say science, because
Daniel Lapin 34:04
science is, is a tool and a very effective tool. But like anytime you misuse a tool, like putting a walnut on a glass table, and then using a sledgehammer to crack the walnut, when you use the wrong tool for the job. The results are, shall we say not pretty. And, and so that is true as well. If one uses religion, to decide how to wire once home, or when you are when we use religion, to try and determine the safety factors needed for the containment of radioactivity in a wonderful nuclear power station. That's a wrong use. Clearly that's exactly the same as the other way around wrong usage. And and that is the These these are some of the things that I've been thinking about as Hanukkah arrives. And and I realized that yes, the the basic lessons of Hanukkah that you know everybody, every Jewish person who goes to Hebrew school as a kid learns and heard about and oh, you know some people are drawn to the attractive feature of this was a military victory of the Maccabees against the vastly superior Greek army. This shows the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare. And, you know, okay that that's one lesson that came out of Hanukkah story and the events of Hanukkah 2187 years ago. For other people, it is an emphasis, a central part, the triumph of faith. This is the triumph over a god centric view of reality over the Athenian set secular vision of reality. And and all of these things are true, as is the oil message of Hanukkah, lighting an additional oil burning device each successive night of the eight day festival of Hanukkah, it to signify, yes, we can use more oil next year than we use last year, we can use more fuel. That's that's just fine. And yes, it is, in fact very easy to show the huge dramatic increase in human welfare since the world started using energy sources that are really effective like coal, and then subsequently oil. The if you actually plot the the decline of poverty and real poverty not reduced to you know how many dollars a day the average person earns but reduced to, you know, the the number of people who worry about their next meal or where they're going to sleep tonight. That figure took a dramatic turn for the better as the world moved into oil. And it's not a mistake. It's not an accident. It's not it's not a coincidence that the governor of the state of Michigan just recently did some ledges possum ledger or put out a bill that I believe is past committing Michigan to zero fossil fuel usage by a very early date. And the there's no question that this is going to cause huge economic hardship to Michiganders as people who live in Michigan are cold. And at a certain point, people will begin to notice that in California right now, people are paying typically double double on their energy bills. And they need to because of the insistence of Governor Newsom, and success of California and governments to not only believe in the fossil fuel vision of reality, but to act very aggressively on it. There are real costs associated with that view, poverty and shortage is associate associated with a secular, godless view of reality, and abundance and prosperity is more associated with a god centric view of reality. At any rate, I will leave you now to go and get ready to light my final candles. And I wish you all a very joyous festival of light, season of light. And Merry Christmas for those of you celebrating Christmas and a joyful Hanukkah. For those of you celebrating Hanukkah, and for everybody lighting candles, bringing more light into the world, and developing and promoting and advocating for a wise view of reality, one that really shows how the world really works. And so until next time, your rabbi hoping that your world moves upwards and onwards better and better as you integrate your family, your finances, your faith, your friendships and your fitness. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. God bless.
