Speaker 1: I'm talking about oceans dying. Tell me about why you think the coral reef problem is exaggerated.

Speaker 2: Here's Bjorn Lomborg, who I've had on the show, who's a great guy, climatologist, who is not crazy. Somehow they let him on Bill Maher's show a couple of days ago, and he explained that climate change, not that big of a problem.

Speaker 3: I'm gonna show you some of the data that actually indicates this is a problem, but it's not the end of the world by any means. So there's two of the world's leading climate economists. One is Richard Tull, one of the most quoted climate economists from this year, and the other one is William Nordhaus, the guy who got the only Nobel Prize in climate economics. They both made estimates across all the different estimates of how bad is climate change gonna be. By the end of the century, at a three degree centigrade or 5.4 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise, the cost is gonna be somewhere between 2% and 3% of GDP.

Speaker 1: But what will the ocean look like? I mean, I'm not talking about oceans rising. I'm talking about oceans dying. And the world can't live without dead oceans. And it seems like they're in bad shape between all the plastic in them, they're over-fished. I mean, many places have no fish left at all. They're too acidic. Coral reefs, I know you've talked about, oh, that's exaggerated. Tell me about why you think the coral reef problem is exaggerated.

Speaker 3: That's just the data. So can I just finish the other point I was trying to make before we go on to the coral reefs? So 2% to 3% of global GDP is a problem. But remember, by the end of the century, the UN estimate the average person on the planet will be 450% as rich as he or she is today. So that means instead of being 450% as rich, we will feel like we're only 435% as rich. Yes, that's a problem. No, it's not the end of the world. On the coral reef bit.

Speaker 1: How does rich fix the ocean?

Speaker 3: No, so on the coral reefs bit, we have a situation where we have on Great Barrier Reef, so the world's biggest coral reef, the Australian Marine Scientific Institute, sorry, I can't remember what they're called, but they're the guys who do the data every year on the coral reef since 1986. And they have been assessing what is the total outcome of how good does the reef look like. And in 2009 to 2012, we thought it was terrible. It was really dramatic. The Guardian wrote the obituary for the Great Coral Reef. And the point I've just been making is, the last three years, they've been at the highest level, the most coral reef we've ever seen in those areas. And so the point is not that there's not a challenge for a coral reef, there is. But most of the challenge comes from overfishing, from industrial pollution, from sea runoff, and those are the kinds of things that we should fix. But we're not being well informed if we're being told, this is because of climate change, so we've got to change our entire infrastructure on our global economy in order to save the oceans when it's not actually what's gonna happen. Maybe. And why do we imagine, as we treat the oceans ever worse,

Speaker 1: that the coral reefs are enjoying it more now?

Speaker 3: Look, I don't think that they're gonna enjoy this.

Speaker 1: I think. But why are they doing better in the last three years? It's not like we did anything. I don't know. Oh, well, there we go. All right. As long as we're in. That's honest. We don't know.

Speaker 2: I have to say, it's pretty great that some of the people in the audience clap there, because that is the thing. When you talk about climate change, and if you're not for the Green New Deal, if you don't give AOC the power to fix the climate, that's one of the things that they would love to cancel everybody for and keeps liberals in a constant state of hysteria. So Bjorn cites statistics. I recommend you read. He's written several books on this. We had him on about a year ago, and I'll definitely have him back on.