Legal Insurrection by Leslie Eastman 10/24/2025
Dr. Richard Lindzen and Dr. William Happer cover the sound reasons for climate science skepticism, the politicization of research funding, and the limitations of current climate models.Legal Insurrection readers may remember my many references to my CO2 Coalition colleague Dr. William Happer.
I often refence his work when reviewing the latest climate crisis narrative being pushed by the minion media. In one of my most recent pieces, I noted Happer (Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University) asserts that increasing amounts of the life-essential gas boosts crop yields.
Happer appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience (#2397) this week, alongside Richard Lindzen, a retired MIT professor of atmospheric sciences. The episode centered on sound reasons for climate science skepticism, the politicization of research funding, and the limitations of current climate models. In other words, a very large audience of potentially less-than-reliably informed people were treated to a discussion of real science about both carbon dioxide and geologic history.
Dr. Will Happer (a friend of mine) said on Joe Rogan yesterday that climate hysteria has set back science by 50 years.
Happer and Lindzen discuss how government funding mechanisms and political narratives shape climate research priorities. They argue that scientists who challenge mainstream views risk career marginalization and loss of funding. Rogan’s audience was treated to a robust review on how ideology and media framing have amplified what Happer calls a “CO₂ cult,” and how vital it is to question the reliability of predictive climate models.
As Happer noted during the show, the focus on CO2 has set science back 50 years. During the discussion, he cited that “settled science” once considered the Sun was comprised of phlogiston (a hypothetical fire-like substance once believed to exist within all combustible materials.)
…We’ve set back the serious study of climate, I think, by 50 years, by this manic focus on CO₂. If your theory doesn’t have CO₂ in it, forget it. You won’t get funding. And so the true answer, to me, there was a period 200 years ago when everyone thought that heat was a phlogiston. There was this magic subject, nonexistent. But everyone to believed in phlogiston. It turned out it was nonsense.
Part of what delighted me the most was the focus on geologic history and the very neglected discussion of Earth’s glacial history. When Rogan noted the Earth’s temperature has always been subject to variation, Lindzen took a moment to review the actual numbers.
There’s something else about it, which I find funny, and you might have some insight into it. People pay no attention to the actual numbers. We’re not talking about big changes. In other words, for the temperature of the globe as a whole, between now and the last glacial maximum, the difference was five degrees, but that was because Most of the Earth was not affected, much of the Earth anyway, very much. But somebody says one degree, a half degree. What’s his name? [UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres] at the UN says, “The next half degree and we’re done for.” Doesn’t anyone ask? I have to agree. I mean, I deal with that between 9: 00 AM and 10: 00 AM.
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/10/joe-rogans-audience-learns-that-climate-hysteria-set-back-real-science-by-50-years/
