#1500 - Barbara Freese

Joe Rogan (0:01)

And we're rolling. How are you, Barbara? What's happening?

Barbara Freese (0:03)

I'm good, Joe. How are you?

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Pleasure to meet you.

Barbara Freese (0:05)

Pleasure to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

How did you get started on this? And how did you get interested in the subject?

Barbara Freese (0:11)

I got interested in this subject through climate change, climate denial specifically. I'm an environmental attorney, and back in the 1990s, I worked for the state of Minnesota. And we found ourselves very briefly, sort of on the front lines of the scientific debate over climate change. And the way that happened was the state had passed a law saying that utilities regulators should try to estimate the cost to the environment of generating electricity. We get most of our power from coal, or we did then.

And so we looked at coal emissions. We looked at the traditional pollutants that we had regulated for a long time. And my client was the pollution control agency, so I was familiar with those.

What we also looked at, though, and I wasn't familiar with, was CO2 and its effect on climate change. Because while that was a big issue globally, there was already a global treaty signed to fight climate change. States had not taken a look at that. And what happened was we struck a nerve with the coal industry. And they sent to Minnesota a bunch of witnesses, a bunch of scientists, to testify that we did not have to worry about climate change and it wasn't going to happen. Or if it did, it would be just a little and we'd like it. And that all of those scientists, the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, those scientists, that the rest of the world, including the US government and the treaty signed by George HW. Bush, the ones that they were relying on, those scientists were basically biased, they were biased because they were in it for the money somehow, they wanted research grants or they had some political agenda, it was kind of vague.

But it was clear they did not want us worrying about this issue at all.

Joe Rogan (2:08)

They told you that it would be just a little and that you would like it? What did they mean by that?

Barbara Freese (2:14)

Well, a couple of things. One of the arguments, and you will still hear this sometimes, is that CO2 is a plant fertilizer, which is true.

And therefore, more CO2 makes the world a happier place for plants and therefore better for everybody else. And to the point where one of the coal interests who were parties had put out a video saying that the earth was deficient in CO2. And by digging up the coal and burning it, we were correcting that.

Yeah, so that was one of the arguments. The other was, you know, it'll be mild, it'll be warm, the winters won't be as cold, and hey, this is Minnesota, so you know, you guys are going to appreciate those warmer winters. So yeah, there was a lot of crazy stuff that hasn't gone away. In fact, in many ways, it's gotten a lot worse. But there were certainly enough to leave me shocked.

Joe Rogan (3:10)

Was that the first time you were ever aware that corporations do send in people to try to diffuse arguments or pollute the waters?

Barbara Freese (3:19)

I don't think I was quite that naive, but I'd certainly never seen anything like this. I mean, these were people under oath, you know, and they were saying things that were pretty extreme and many of which would just get a lot more extreme.

Joe Rogan (3:34)

And they were scientists?

Barbara Freese (3:36)

Yes, the ones I cross-examined were mainly the scientists. They also sent in some other witnesses as well.

So they didn't actually work in a coal company. They were hired by the coal industry to come in and testify.

Joe Rogan (3:47)

And these scientists, presumably, they were paid to do this?

Barbara Freese (3:52)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (3:52)

So is that, I mean, how do you track that? Like, if you have scientists and they come in and they say things that you know are not accurate or deceptive, how do you find out what their motivation is? Did you ask them if they've been paid?

Barbara Freese (4:08)

We were able to put some things in the record regarding how much money they had gotten from different fossil fuel interests over the years. So we definitely did point to that, argue about that. We didn't realize some of the witnesses had a much deeper history than we understood in science denial. One of the witnesses was a pretty prominent scientist named Frederick Seitz, who has since died. But what we didn't know, what I didn't know when I cross-examined him, I mean, this was a shoestring operation, was that he had spent a lot of time actually consulting for the tobacco industry.