Dr. David Legates, Director of Research and Education at The Cornwall Alliance, steps into “The Corner.”

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28And now, the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:31Good evening, everyone.
12. 0:34Welcome to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton, the third here, ready to rock and roll with
13. 0:39today's edition of the program.
14. 0:42I am your host of the program joined by the corner contingent right across from me, my
15. 0:49My man, 100 grand, Mr. Bobby, r-r-r-nosa,
16. 0:53and in the screening room, often imitating,
17. 0:55never duplicated, produced, extraordinary,
18. 0:57the real J, Mac, ladies and gentlemen,
19. 1:00and we are ready to rock and roll with today's edition
20. 1:04of the program where we are just witnessing,
21. 1:08in what, two days?
22. 1:10President Trump has taken more questions from the media
23. 1:15than Mr. Joseph Robin Ed Biden has taken in the entirety
24. 1:18of his time,
25. 1:21And I am increasingly grateful for no longer having to discuss Mr. Ice Creamy and his crime
26. 1:34family.
27. 1:35You know, you can say all you want.
28. 1:40There's no crimes, but I don't really know people who don't get pardoned for buying ice
29. 1:47cream and bubble gum anyway.
30. 1:53At this very moment, many of you, if not most of you are making your transition from
31. 1:56your part time jobs where you generate an income to your full time jobs where you cultivate
32. 2:01an outcome.
33. 2:02And as you do so, I want to encourage you to do so with intentionality, recognizing, understanding
34. 2:08and embracing the primacy that God places on family, even though, and I have to tell you,
35. 2:14I am enjoying what I am witnessing happening from the Oval Office.
36. 2:22But what goes on in your house still is far more important than what goes on in the White
37. 2:26House.
38. 2:27While I am grateful that President Trump is acquitting himself in the manner that he is thus far,
39. 2:34make no mistake about it, what he's doing is simply making room for the church to be the
40. 2:37church, removing hindrances.
41. 2:41For example, the executive orders, removing the gender insanity from every iteration of federal
42. 2:48government, the Biden administration literally implemented at every stage.
43. 2:53We are at the American Family Association actually in litigation right now on a particular issue
44. 2:59that as it applies to broadcasters.
45. 3:02And I won't say too much because it's happening right now, but it's because of the Biden administration's
46. 3:07efforts to foist upon every American at every level of life and level of government that he
47. 3:14had access to, to force us to try to exist within the world where what God declares to
48. 3:19be abominable is made standardized.
49. 3:21But what President Trump is doing is making room for you and I to be about our father's
50. 3:27business and make no mistake about it.
51. 3:33actions taking place in the White House will not change your life personally.
52. 3:39You have to do that if your life needs changing.
53. 3:42I have to do that if my life needs changing.
54. 3:45We are responsible.
55. 3:47Members of the Lord's body are responsible for being salt and light.
56. 3:51So as you are listening to the program and let me say, I thank you for doing that.
57. 3:55We never hear, take it for granted that you have allowed us into your homes, into your
58. 3:59hearts or right now, many of you into your cars.
59. 4:02I know a lot of you on your television screens.
60. 4:04I get screenshots from folks and say, yeah, we put you on the TV every night and I appreciate that
61. 4:11But we must we must be about our father's business. We must take full advantage of it
62. 4:18I know my people back in the Orleans had snow
63. 4:25It's pretty cold all over the country
64. 4:27Yes, that's that's what what happens. This is a joke, but this was happened with a global warming. I guess everything snows
65. 4:32those.
66. 4:33Lord willing we're going to have an expert to discuss this on later on in the program.
67. 4:43But it's just, it's just remarkable.
68. 4:48And also don't want it to be lost on us that and the executive order concerning reading our
69. 4:54federal government from gender insanity.
70. 4:58President Trump slid in some language recognizing life begins a conception.
71. 5:03Isn't that something?
72. 5:05Sure did.
73. 5:06Let me let me pull it up here. I'll read that
74. 5:09Then we'll get into the word of God. Oh, what did I put there? Here it is
75. 5:13He defines the executive order defines male and female female means a person belonging at conception
76. 5:20Male means a person belonging at conception. Oh snap
77. 5:24the executive order affirms that life begins at conception. Oh, yeah, and then pass the call of course
78. 5:33Anybody who has been paying attention, we know that weekend at Bernie's has been in effect in the United States government
79. 5:40So Mr. Robinette has not been the one calling the shots in fact Mike Johnson told us that I don't know if you saw
80. 5:46The interview he did with Barry Weiss
81. 5:49But he was asking mr. Biden about an executive order he signed me's about say I didn't sign that
82. 5:56I guess you did that's not what I was doing man. Let's get to the Word of God Ezra chapter 8
83. 6:04Ezra chapter 8
84. 6:07Where we are in the book of Ezra here is after the Ezra near my chapter eight
85. 6:14Nehemiah chapter eight I referred to Ezra because Nehemiah records Ezra's participation in this
86. 6:21Events the events recorded here. Did I write Ezra on the rundown? J. Mac? I sure did that's Nehemiah chapter eight
87. 6:30Nehemiah see look at me
88. 6:33Messing it up
89. 6:36Nehemiah chapter eight is where I'm going I
90. 6:38I'm wrote Ezra because Ezra is the one involved in what's happening here
91. 6:43But what's going on is that the wall has been rebuilt and now you have the leading
92. 6:50Preach the teaching priest Ezra working with Nehemiah the governor and
93. 6:55Reordering society of the post-exilic
94. 6:58nation of Judah
95. 7:00this portion of
96. 7:02the book is
97. 7:04Where the entire nation assembles outside of the Watergate?
98. 7:07near the Watergate, the way the Word of God is read.
99. 7:11And I want you to note the physical posture
100. 7:14and we'll make some comments about that
101. 7:18as it is instructive for us as where we are in our nation.
102. 7:23Here we go, Ezra, Nehemiah chapter eight, Nehemiah chapter eight,
103. 7:28verse one.
104. 7:30And this is what the Word of God says,
105. 7:31and all the people gathered as one man at the square,
106. 7:34which was in front of the Watergate.
107. 7:38And they asked Ezra the scribe.
108. 7:40That's why I keep saying Ezra.
109. 7:41They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses,
110. 7:46which the Lord had given to Israel.
111. 7:50Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men,
112. 7:56women, and all who could listen with understanding
113. 8:02on the first day of the seventh month.
114. 8:04He read from it before the square,
115. 8:06which was in front of the Watergate from early morning until midday in the presence of men
116. 8:15and women, those who could understand and all the people were attentive to the book of the
117. 8:20law. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium, which they had made for the purpose. And beside
118. 8:27him stood Matathiah, Shema, Anaya, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Masiaya on his right hand. And
119. 8:35Padaya, Missa'el, Melchaija, Hashim, Hashbahtana, what a name.
120. 8:41Zachariah and Michulam on his left hand.
121. 8:44These are all Levites.
122. 8:46Okay.
123. 8:48Levites on Ezra's right, Levites on Ezra's left as he's reading from God's word.
124. 8:55Verse five, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above
125. 9:03all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up. I'm going to keep reading.
126. 9:15Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen. Amen. While
127. 9:21lifting up their hands, then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the
128. 9:27ground. What I wanted to present to you today is one you see because of the gravity of the
129. 9:34moment. And this is unfortunately, we live in an era where people have kind of reduced God's call for
130. 9:39his body to assemble to kind of a popcorn, drive in fast food type of situation to where if you go
131. 9:47a little over 37.2 minutes, then it's too long. But because of the gravity of the situation and the
132. 9:53people here recognized one, what a miracle it was for God to buy his grace, super intend their
133. 9:59reconstruction of the wall surrounding all of Jerusalem, post-exilic Jerusalem in 52 days.
134. 10:07It's helping them to see, oh man, Yahweh is with us. In spite of all of the hostilities,
135. 10:13in spite of all of the aggression, in spite of all of the other things that transpire.
136. 10:18So they are gripped by the fact that they are experiencing God's sovereign grace.
137. 10:28They're also experiencing God's sovereign grace by God providing them with Ezra, a teaching priest,
138. 10:33of the high priestly lineage of Aaron, also gracing them by providing them near Maya to serve as a governor with the resources of the Persian Empire supporting the work that they are doing.
139. 10:46And the grip, the being gripped by the gravity of the moment causes them with a sobriety to participate in the book of the law being read on the morning until midday.
140. 11:01One of the major things that may not be obvious is they didn't operate
141. 11:05with our exact same time schedule, so you didn't you don't have you know electrical grids and things of that nature back then so most
142. 11:11I won't say most but much of the functioning went from sunrise to sunset
143. 11:16So when you have a description of mid from morning until midday
144. 11:21You're talking pretty close to sunrise
145. 11:24Until what we describe as noon, okay, and with the scripture bears out
146. 11:30Verse five, when Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, they stood.
147. 11:37Their physical posture reflected the attitudes of their hearts.
148. 11:41And then as the scriptures being read, they cry, I mean, I mean, and respond in worship and bow low.
149. 11:47What I'm saying very simply is what we need in our time is a restoration of this type of
150. 11:57Reverrential disposition and attentiveness to God's word in our nation
151. 12:03We will not be a great nation if we are a nation that continually and consistently
152. 12:11Side steps and sidelines God's holy word. I'm just gonna tell you plainly
153. 12:17It resonated with me the great contrast of what's happening that while the Lord by his grace has allowed us to avoid
154. 12:24She shall never be president the remix
155. 12:26but at a service in what's described as the National Cathedral, you have this false teacher
156. 12:39attempting to normalize and to aggrandize what God has called abominable by contorting
157. 12:48and twisting the design that God has made for his image bear.
158. 12:55What we are existing within a framework in is a cataclysmic clash of worldviews, guys.
159. 13:04posture because the Word of God was open. You continue reading in chapter 8 as Ezra is
160. 13:11reading. These people are wrapped with conviction. They're weeping at what's being read in the
161. 13:17scripture and recognizing, oh Lord, we have sinned against you. We have entered this place
162. 13:24to where you have established our ancestry with us having kings in the promised lands.
163. 13:30Now, not promised land, now we have become slaves.
164. 13:33We're still under the authority of our tasirxes,
165. 13:39in our time what we need.
166. 13:40And this has to begin with the people of God.
167. 13:45I'm not here clamoring for people to have extra long
168. 13:50worship services, but man, if you can't attend
169. 13:52to God's word for more than 25 minutes,
170. 13:57the problem is not what God's word,
171. 13:59nor the people convey God's word.
172. 14:00The problem is with you.
173. 14:04Because I've made the statement I'll say it again,
174. 14:06I don't see anybody saying NFL football games
175. 14:08too long. They sit out there and snow up to their eyeballs in Buffalo to see Josh Allen
176. 14:13throw a football. The simple reality is we will endure whatever we love or ever long it
177. 14:19takes because we love it. If we have a problem giving attention to God's word and again,
178. 14:24I'm not saying we need that extra long services for the purpose of just being long. What I'm
179. 14:29saying is we if we recognize the gravity of the moment and the desperation of our need, we
180. 14:35would not be in a hurry to move by and past God's word,
181. 14:42but that we would have a similar posture of these people.
182. 14:44And when the Word of God is open, they're standing.
183. 14:46And as the Word of God is read,
184. 14:48they're bowing to the Lord,
185. 14:49bowing to the ground in worship,
186. 14:50because they recognize the gravity of the moment
187. 14:53and the desperation of their need
188. 14:55for the God of His holy word.
189. 15:02A discipleship minute with Joseph Parker.
190. 15:05The most exciting, fulfilling,
191. 15:06and satisfying life you can possibly live
192. 15:09is the life you live as you walk out God's call on your life.
193. 15:13The wisest and best life you can possibly live
194. 15:15is the life of embracing and running after the call of God.
195. 15:19But his calling on your life must be accepted
196. 15:22and then lived out faithfully.
197. 15:24You can accept his calling and live it out
198. 15:25by the power of the Holy Spirit
199. 15:27and become a great blessing to the world.
200. 15:31Or you can run from your calling.
201. 15:33However, doing so will only lead
202. 15:35to a very frustrated, unfulfilled life.
203. 15:38It will result in a waste of a lot of money, energy, and time if you run from your calling.
204. 15:44And be aware of this, wasted time is wasted life.
205. 15:49Then maybe after years of frustration, if you live long enough, maybe you can say, okay,
206. 15:54God, I will now do what you told me to do years ago.
207. 16:06Shiting light into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
208. 16:12Come back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third here,
209. 16:14and I am honored to have on the program with me an expert climatologist.
210. 16:20I'm referring to Dr. David Le Gates, who received his bachelor's,
211. 16:25master's and PhD degrees from the University of Delaware.
212. 16:28As I mentioned, he's a climatologist who specializes in precipitation and climate
213. 16:32change as well as spatial statistics.
214. 16:35Upon receiving his PhD, Dr. Le Gates became a professor at the University of
215. 16:39Oklahoma, he then moved to my home state, Go Tigers.
216. 16:44To Louisiana State University, and then subsequently returned to the University of Delaware as
217. 16:49a full professor.
218. 16:50During the first Trump administration, he was on leave to the federal government where
219. 16:53he served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and
220. 16:59Prediction and was detailed to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as the
221. 17:04Executive Director of the United States Global Change Research Program.
222. 17:09He's been invited to speak to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on
223. 17:13three separate occasions and he also participated in the historic joint USA USSR Protocol for
224. 17:19the exchange of climate information.
225. 17:21He's now Professor Emeritus from the University of Delaware and works with the Cornwall Alliance
226. 17:25for the Stewardship of Creation as its Director of Research and Education.
227. 17:30Dr. Leogates, thank you for joining me here on the Hamilton Corner.
228. 17:33Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
229. 17:35the pleasure is all mine. And we kind of started having email
230. 17:40correspondence and Dr. Byzner from the Cornwall Alliance helped you and I
231. 17:44connect for this interview because I wanted to have someone with your expertise
232. 17:49on the program to help to discuss the tragic fires in Southern California.
233. 17:58But also understanding that in a lot of this stuff could have been avoided if
234. 18:02we'd have had a different approach that really requires,
235. 18:05I would argue first a worldview disposition
236. 18:07and a different approach to what has transpired.
237. 18:11And so, and I also wanna get you to respond to
238. 18:13some of the things that I now know to be your former boss
239. 18:16at the White House.
240. 18:17President Trump's actions in the first few days
241. 18:19in office where he's taking more questions
242. 18:22from the media and more reporters
243. 18:24than Mr. Biden did in his entire administration.
244. 18:26But turning to the fires, what are some things
245. 18:30that people need to understand that climate zealots
246. 18:33and really prominent dominant mainstream media
247. 18:37doesn't necessarily include in the discourse
248. 18:40when we discuss the concept or the subject matter of climate.
249. 18:44Okay, Southern California is in a climate
250. 18:47that is known as Mediterranean climate.
251. 18:51It's winter-wet, summer-dry,
252. 18:53which is backwards with the way you'd normally want it.
253. 18:55You want the warm season generally to have rainfall
254. 18:58and you want the dry season
255. 19:00if you don't have rainfall, that's fine.
256. 19:02Well, this is backwards.
257. 19:03You get it when it's cold and when it gets warm,
258. 19:07everything dries up and you have a little limited rainfall
259. 19:11and people like it because you don't get much rain
260. 19:13in the summer.
261. 19:15The temperatures aren't exorbitantly hot.
262. 19:17It doesn't get really cold.
263. 19:19It's a nice place to live.
264. 19:20It's a nice mild climate.
265. 19:22The problem is you pay because you get fires
266. 19:26from time to time.
267. 19:27When the vegetation dries up, essentially it becomes fuel.
268. 19:32And there are three fuels that you need.
269. 19:35You need three things that you need for a fire to start.
270. 19:40You need oxygen, which never is a problem.
271. 19:43You need dry combustible brush.
272. 19:46And you need some sort of spark to start it.
273. 19:49Spark can be natural, it can be lightning,
274. 19:51but oftentimes spark is human-induced.
275. 19:55It's arson, it's negligence, it's somebody,
276. 19:59unfortunate event, car catch is fire,
277. 20:02it's that's part of the local brush and so forth.
278. 20:05So the question is, is climate driving the force?
279. 20:10And the answer is no, we have had lots of variation
280. 20:14in climate, we have had lots of rainfall from time to time,
281. 20:17we've had droughts from time to time.
282. 20:19And the one thing people forget is that the natural case
283. 20:23of Southern California is that there will be fires.
284. 20:28Pacific Palisades, for example,
285. 20:30went, was burned to the ground recently.
286. 20:33But B people don't know or don't remember
287. 20:35that back in 1961, it was also largely destroyed by fire.
288. 20:39And back in 1938, it again was largely destroyed by fire.
289. 20:44So was 1938 climate change, was 1961 climate change.
290. 20:48So why is this one climate change when the other two haven't?
291. 20:53I mean, there have been large fires in Southern California all along.
292. 20:56The problem with this one is we've got lots of people around and we had very little,
293. 21:02we had lots of high winds.
294. 21:03We were in dry condition, the high winds, and that just essentially makes it spread.
295. 21:08And we weren't able to fight it like we normally do.
296. 21:11So, and I guess let me take a few steps back because I introduced you as a climate
297. 21:17climatologists to specializes in precipitation and climate change and spatial statistics.
298. 21:23Let's take a few steps back.
299. 21:25What is a climatologist?
300. 21:28The climatologist is somebody that studies climate.
301. 21:32That differs from meteorologists who are interested in studying weather.
302. 21:37So the difference between weather and climate is that weather occurs on a day-to-day basis.
303. 21:43So if we're going to forecast what's going to happen in the next week, that would be
304. 21:47If I'm going to forecast what's going to happen this coming summer, that would be climate.
305. 21:52There isn't really a line that says this to the shorter side of this is weather, to the
306. 21:58longer side of this is climate.
307. 22:00The one description I despise is to say with respect to weather is weather is what you get,
308. 22:08climate is what you expect.
309. 22:10The assumption there for is that climate doesn't change, but climate does change.
310. 22:15always has changed and always will change. So the excitement is not just in the weather events.
311. 22:22There's also excitement in the climate changes because not every year looks like every other.
312. 22:28And in addition to your expertise and precipitation and climate change, you also mentioned spatial
313. 22:34statistics. That's SPATIA for those who are listening. What are spatial statistics?
314. 22:40Facial statistics is just to feel the statistics, but we're interesting in how things vary over space.
315. 22:47I came out of geography and in geography we're always interested in why things vary.
316. 22:52The general premise is that things that are close together are more alike and things as you get farther apart become more different.
317. 23:00And so how do you look at statistics based upon proximity of two or more locations to themselves?
318. 23:07Now, we were having this conversation about the fires in Southern California, and you mentioned
319. 23:14that human activity is often involved, and I remember I came on the program, and I referred
320. 23:18to an article that I found on the Cornwall Alliance's website, and I mentioned that, you know,
321. 23:23we can't exclude arson from the consideration here.
322. 23:26Then lo and behold, what did I find?
323. 23:28Soon after making that statement, several people were arrested for, you want to guess what
324. 23:33Dr. LeGates, Lee Gates, you want to guess?
325. 23:36Arson, what an idea.
326. 23:40Why then, why then is there such
327. 23:44zealotry and alarmism concerning what I would describe as the popular
328. 23:49climate change narrative in a refusal to even acknowledge
329. 23:54the possibility for things like Arson and the fact that characteristics you described
330. 24:00contributing to these things happening.
331. 24:03Because the mantra is always never let a good disaster go to waste.
332. 24:08And so when we have a disaster like forest fires that are burning up Southern California,
333. 24:14immediately you have to rush out in the media and say climate change, global warming, that's what's doing it.
334. 24:20See, one of the things that nobody's talking about is you said you're from Southern Louisiana,
335. 24:25Baton Rouge just a couple days ago, got four to nine inches of snow,
336. 24:29and the temperature is going to be seven Fahrenheit.
337. 24:32has never been that low since 1930 since records began.
338. 24:36But that doesn't fit into the climate change narrative.
339. 24:39That can't be easily morphed into global warming.
340. 24:43So we ignore it.
341. 24:44But the fires easily can be because everybody thinks,
342. 24:47well, warmer temperatures, you're gonna get more fires.
343. 24:51But in fact, the research shows that warmer temperatures,
344. 24:54lack of precipitation really doesn't lead
345. 24:57to much difference in fires.
346. 24:59its population and essentially how much the wind is blowing.
347. 25:03And we had a situation here where Southern California,
348. 25:07lots of people love it.
349. 25:08They've all moved there.
350. 25:10The winds were high, the water was down
351. 25:12because we had a major reservoir that was empty.
352. 25:18But the Native Americans that lived there before
353. 25:20we got there knew all about this and said,
354. 25:23you've got to clean your local area.
355. 25:25You've got to take trees that are dead,
356. 25:28take them down.
357. 25:29Rush, you gotta keep it clean.
358. 25:31It's gonna burn, but not in my backyard.
359. 25:34So the idea is they did that.
360. 25:36Well, when we got here, you know,
361. 25:38the English and so forth, Spanish,
362. 25:42when they moved in said they didn't know about this.
363. 25:45And so now the environmentalists have come back and said,
364. 25:48what we really need is to keep old growth forests intact.
365. 25:53Don't do anything with them.
366. 25:55Leave the old forest there.
367. 25:56And so what happens is trees die, brush remains,
368. 25:59and there's your fuel that all you need is a spark,
369. 26:03and up it goes and smoke.
370. 26:04And when you have high winds and limited precipitation
371. 26:08or limited water supplied to put out the fires,
372. 26:11they just burn and burn and burn.
373. 26:13And that's the situation we've gotten into here
374. 26:16in early 2025.
375. 26:18Let's talk for a moment.
376. 26:19And I don't want to detour the conversation in total here,
377. 26:23but to the reservoir depletion.
378. 26:25I mean, in Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles area,
379. 26:29you have fire hydrants with no water in the fire hydrants.
380. 26:34What, pray, tell, good doctor,
381. 26:36would lead to the cacophony of events
382. 26:41that would get us to a place where a major American
383. 26:43metropolitan area wouldn't have water in the reservoir.
384. 26:48Well, sometimes you have to release water
385. 26:50from the reservoir to work on the reservoir
386. 26:52to fix breaks and cracks and so forth.
387. 26:54And I get that.
388. 26:56But you have to have a plan in place that if you need more water, where's that water going to come from?
389. 27:01Can we get it from the ocean, but that's going to be salt, so we can't drink it directly?
390. 27:06What are we going to do in an emergency?
391. 27:08And I don't think that was ever planned for.
392. 27:10It was just, we'll run the water down and we won't need it until the summer, but that's not true.
393. 27:19And so that's the problem is just a lack of foresight, a lack of planning,
394. 27:23And it's the same thing with the removal of brush, a lack of force, a lack of planning.
395. 27:27The stuff's going to burn.
396. 27:29You got to get it out of there.
397. 27:31Yes.
398. 27:32And the removal of brush and things of that nature, we saw a similar phenomenon happen in
399. 27:38Canada, not too long ago, I'm pretty sure you're aware of that, that led to all kind of smoke
400. 27:42and fog filling up the northeast portion of our country.
401. 27:46And I found the account of the previous manager of the forest who said that he was let go by
402. 27:52by the Canadian government because he actually
403. 27:54to do exactly what you're describing.
404. 27:56Deadwood, we gotta get out of here.
405. 27:58We can't have food and they literally accused him
406. 28:01of all kinds of malfeasance in order to terminate him,
407. 28:05but his advice was exactly what had been done.
408. 28:08So what in the minds drive people to refuse to remove deadwood?
409. 28:14What is going on there?
410. 28:16It's this idea of somehow that nature takes over over humans.
411. 28:21So we have to preserve nature in its pristine state and not use it.
412. 28:27It's the same thing with fossil fuels.
413. 28:28I mean, there is a big push saying, keep it in the ground.
414. 28:32What we don't want is fossil fuels put in the ground.
415. 28:36And so as a result, we don't want to be able to pull them out.
416. 28:39We don't want to use them, leave them just where they are.
417. 28:42Well, they're, sorry, the resources given to us for the purposes of making humans life better.
418. 28:50And so I'm sorry about the phone going on.
419. 28:52That's all right.
420. 28:53But for making human life better.
421. 28:55And so as a result, what we really want to do is use those resources to the glory of God
422. 29:00and for bringing up our fellow man.
423. 29:03But what the environmentalists would love to do is not change at all and keep, you know,
424. 29:10put nature essentially over other humans.
425. 29:12And that is a fundamental problem.
426. 29:14And this is where it literally comes to the fore and I've said that this is really a
427. 29:19a clash of worldviews because what you're describing sounds a lot similar to Genesis.
428. 29:24You exercise dominion over the Lord's creation and the opposite of Romans 1 to where we
429. 29:33worship the Creator and not the creation, but we've moved to where the people in positions
430. 29:37of influence and authority and policy makers to where it seems to be really an attempt to
431. 29:43to deify creation, to where creation is best if it's left in its non-human impacted state.
432. 29:52And then you end up having all kinds of people who can be decimated.
433. 29:56Your houses burned down in Florida, I mean in California, people die, oh, as long as we
434. 30:01keep creation intact and undisturbed, and that's best.
435. 30:05Am I overstating that clash of worldview phenomenon, or is that truly what's undergirding this
436. 30:10kind of tension that we see playing out before us?
437. 30:13truly undergirding the contention. I mean, the issue is it's a worldview. If you go back to Matthew 22,
438. 30:19we have two great commandments. Put God first and treat others as equals. So the rest of creation
439. 30:26isn't mentioned. So what is it there for? It's not for the sort of hedonistic, you know, do with it as
440. 30:32you will, but it's use it to put God first and to bring others up from poverty, up from their current
441. 30:40conditions. So we're to use it as resources. It's like in Matthew 25 when we have the parable of the
442. 30:46talents. What were the talents there for? Not to protect it. The one person that protected it by
443. 30:52putting it in the ground, God declared as being a bad or an evil steward. The idea is it's been
444. 31:00given to us to use to therefore people, therefore to, as I said, to two commandments, put God first
445. 31:08and to bring others up into their situation.
446. 31:11And so that's what it's there for.
447. 31:13It's not there to protect, to keep into the ground.
448. 31:16And I'm afraid at the end of time, if we tell the Lord,
449. 31:20look, here's all your fossil fuels.
450. 31:22Here is it just like we gave it to you.
451. 31:24He's gonna say, they'll evil serve it, get away from it.
452. 31:30This is so profound to me on so many fronts,
453. 31:34because as you said, the condemnation of fossil fuels,
454. 31:37You know, it's just, you know, what's being used to elevate the most people at any point in time in human history out of poverty, more than any other time in human history.
455. 31:46Yet there's this continual denigration of it to where you have people who work in the oil and gas industry who are sometimes embarrassed.
456. 31:53But working in those industries because there's such a profound propaganda effort to demonize those things.
457. 32:01And that's the disrespectful music.
458. 32:02When we come back, I was going to ask you,
459. 32:05what do you see as the motivation behind demonizing things
460. 32:09like fossil fuels and what type of course needs to be
461. 32:13struck in order to push back that kind of demonization?
462. 32:17I'd like to have that conversation and then invite you
463. 32:19to respond to some of the things that President Trump
464. 32:21is doing on the energy and the environmental fronts
465. 32:25and get your takes on those.
466. 32:27Is that cool?
467. 32:28Yes.
468. 32:29All right, well, you're listening to the Hamilton Corner, folks.
469. 32:31My guest is Dr. David LeGates,
470. 32:34PhD from the University of Delaware climatologist
471. 32:37who specializes in precipitation and climate change,
472. 32:40as well as spatial statistics.
473. 32:42He is currently the Director of Research and Education
474. 32:46for the Cornwall Alliance.
475. 32:47I wholeheartedly recommend that you check out their work
476. 32:51cornwallalliance.org,
477. 32:52his website, you will not be disappointed.
478. 33:01What we believe about the Bible
479. 33:05is based on what we believe about its source.
480. 33:10The God Who Speaks.
481. 33:11The award-winning documentary from the American Family Association
482. 33:15is now available in a special limited edition DVD set.
483. 33:19This release includes a Sunday school curriculum
484. 33:21and two hours of additional footage.
485. 33:23Go to thegodwhospeaks.org to get your copy today.
486. 33:27Thegodwhospeaks.org.
487. 33:35The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Commentaries
488. 33:38are available at eafr.net.
489. 33:41back to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
490. 33:45Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton,
491. 33:48the third here.
492. 33:49My guest is Dr. David Le Gates,
493. 33:50Director of Research and Education for the Cornwall Alliance.
494. 33:54He's a climatologist who specializes in precipitation
495. 33:57and climate change as well as spatial statistics
496. 33:59before we went to the break with a disrespectful music
497. 34:02gravidist.
498. 34:02I was about to ask you, well, I did ask the question already.
499. 34:05It seems like people like you and the experts
500. 34:08at the Cornwall Alliance, both your credentials,
501. 34:10expertise and your perspectives are excluded from popular discourse often.
502. 34:17Not necessarily an academic as much, but also an academia, academia as well as popular
503. 34:24discourse.
504. 34:25And people like I am left, like I can turn on a television and find the latest, you know,
505. 34:32Spokesmouth spouting all manner of climate change in Sanities.
506. 34:38But I have to hunt and scour for people like you.
507. 34:41Why is there such a almost gatekeeping grip to kind of exclude you from both popular and
508. 34:49academic discourse?
509. 34:50I think it's because Marxism has a tendency to take over everything and it kicks out all
510. 34:57of other views.
511. 34:58And so we've gotten into a situation where there's a lot of socialism in this world, particularly
512. 35:05in the United States now.
513. 35:07And so they are intolerant of other people's views.
514. 35:10And that's why you get climate change as the scientific truth and everything else is disinformation.
515. 35:20Even if it may be true, even if it may work against that mantra, it's still labeled disinformation.
516. 35:26But I thought, you know, for science, we go where the evidence leads us.
517. 35:33It's not in my life.
518. 35:35Well, that was the scientific method.
519. 35:39But see, now we've gotten into another time of paradigm.
520. 35:44The idea is that we've gotten into a situation where we need answers, we need them fast.
521. 35:50The problem with the scientific method is it requires proof.
522. 35:54We don't have proof, but we don't have time.
523. 35:56So let's go with a bunch of experts and let's decide what the answer is and then make all
524. 36:01the decisions based upon whatever they think at the time.
525. 36:05And this is sort of the postmodern or postnormal science that we're getting into.
526. 36:10And it replaces a scientific method which says, let's collect data, let's produce hypothesis,
527. 36:16let's see if the hypothesis fits, for the data I should say fits the hypothesis.
528. 36:21And if it does it, we have to come up with a new hypothesis.
529. 36:23Now we don't even need to worry about the data.
530. 36:25The idea is just get a number of people together that think this is the way we should go and
531. 36:30And away we go and you don't need to determine whether or not it fits data, whether or not
532. 36:35it fits reality.
533. 36:37It's just the thing we should do because everybody agrees we should do it.
534. 36:42That is absolutely unscientific.
535. 36:45It's anti-scientific.
536. 36:46That's exactly right.
537. 36:48Anti-science.
538. 36:49And it's not lost on me that you mentioned the prevalence of Marxism.
539. 36:54I did a long program before on not just what Marxism is, but who Moses Mordecai marks levy.
540. 37:00was and and his frankly pension for Satanism, you know, he's buried in high get cemetery and I
541. 37:08don't think we can underestimate that the anti science forces seemingly often coalesced with the
542. 37:14anti God forces. They don't want to hear about the stewardship of creation. What are you talking
543. 37:22about? But when you refer to us not being allowed to a lot of crisis or tragedy to go to waste,
544. 37:28you know, that's straight out of Saul Olinsky's playbook as quoted by Rahm Emanuel, and that
545. 37:33is what we're seeing happening. But I have to think, I would imagine, that you are encouraged
546. 37:40by some of the things we're seeing President Trump do with, for example, the announcement of
547. 37:45America's withdrawal from the pair's climate agreement. What are your thoughts on that?
548. 37:52Well, I think, you know, they essentially, their motion is to put us into what I call a
549. 37:58a pantheistic worldview.
550. 38:00It's where the environment takes over
551. 38:02and the environment is important.
552. 38:03And you see places like actually Mexico recently,
553. 38:08back in Switzerland and so forth,
554. 38:11where literally in the constitution,
555. 38:13they're giving rights to non-humans
556. 38:18that have the same rights as humans.
557. 38:19So, you know, there was an article a number of years ago,
558. 38:24the silent scream of the asparagus.
559. 38:26And the idea is, should we do things that harm asparagus?
560. 38:30Well, as God says, the most important thing that he created
561. 38:34are human beings, and that we should take care of first
562. 38:38and foremost.
563. 38:39But somehow we get into this pantheistic idea
564. 38:42that nature is important by itself,
565. 38:45that in fact it's more important than humans.
566. 38:47Because all humans are there to do is destroy nature.
567. 38:50Even right now there's an article out
568. 38:53that essentially says that very active human breathing
569. 38:56destroys our planet by climate change.
570. 38:59And so the idea is we've always wanted few humans,
571. 39:02we've always wanted to reduce the population,
572. 39:05humans aren't bad and humans are evil,
573. 39:08and that's the pantheistic argument
574. 39:10that God is inherently in all of nature.
575. 39:13And that even though humans are part of that nature,
576. 39:16they work against the true nature.
577. 39:19And that's why we need to get rid of humans.
578. 39:21Few humans, limited population,
579. 39:23It plays off humans as being evil people.
580. 39:26And that's completely counter to the biblical worldview.
581. 39:30Man, that's so true.
582. 39:32And you have a few people who are willing to outright say,
583. 39:36what you just said, who are depopulationists.
584. 39:39They're outright say it, but there are lots of others
585. 39:40who agree with that worldview, but they don't wanna say it.
586. 39:43They cloak that worldview into other types of things.
587. 39:48I have found that not all climate alarmists
588. 39:53our depopulationists, but I have found that all depopulationists are also climate alarmists.
589. 39:58Is that overly reductionistic?
590. 40:00No, I think that's correct.
591. 40:03I mean, that's what I wrote about in chapter two of our book, Climate and Energy.
592. 40:07The idea is how did we get here to a climate where climate change is destroying the planet,
593. 40:13it's the existential threat and we need to do everything humanly manageable.
594. 40:17And the idea was it goes back to socialism.
595. 40:21How do you enact global socialism?
596. 40:23You can do it within a country by playing off the poor versus the rich.
597. 40:28But you can't really do it like in the United Nations, by playing the poor nations off the
598. 40:32rich nations.
599. 40:33Rich nations have better militaries.
600. 40:35They have more control.
601. 40:37You just can't use that philosophy.
602. 40:40So what they had to do was come up with a way of shaming the rich nations of the world into
603. 40:45saying you're destroying the planet at the expense of these poor nations, you need to therefore
604. 40:51give your riches to the poor people. And that's socialism and that's exactly what this is all about.
605. 40:58The climate change narrative is that through fossil fuels, developed nations of the world
606. 41:03have largely destroyed the planet. And that's the underdeveloped and the undeveloped countries
607. 41:09have suffered from it. So what we need to do is get lots of money to the United Nations
608. 41:13so that most of it they can keep for themselves, but some of it they can give to these third world
609. 41:19countries so that they can develop themselves, but they never do. And so it's really a wealth
610. 41:24redistribution strategy on a global scale. And it's so true and it's so profound. Where did the effort
611. 41:34to denigrate these fuels, gas, oil, where did the moniker fossil fuels come from and the effort
612. 41:40to denigrate them, how far back can we trace that if that's possible?
613. 41:47It's back. Well, it started a long time ago, but the real thrust came, I think, in the late 1980s.
614. 41:54The idea is before then, we were in a global cooling. If you looked at
615. 41:59light magazine, look magazine, if you remember those, Newsweek, time, US 7 News and World Report,
616. 42:05it was all about global cooling and how we might be headed into the next ice age.
617. 42:10And the temperature started to shift at the end of the late 1970s started to go up again.
618. 42:16Now we have to understood that we can use warming as a problem because the carbon dioxide, the methane,
619. 42:23the nitrous oxide that are being produced are all greenhouse gases. They're causing the warming of
620. 42:28the planet. The warming of the planet is always bad, except it isn't. In fact, civilization has
621. 42:35always done better when the planet has been warmer. Civilization has always struggled when the temperature
622. 42:40gets colder. More people die as a result of cold periods than die as a result of warm periods.
623. 42:47Because when it's really warm, you can go into the shade, you can stop working, you can cool down.
624. 42:51When it's really cold, there's almost nothing you can do. If you don't have a fire handy,
625. 42:56if you don't have shelter, you have to live to essentially live it out. And that's where I think
626. 43:02all this comes from is that they realize this is a way to make the to shame the rich nations of the
627. 43:10the world and make them pay for their destruction of nature.
628. 43:14And I think it goes right back to Marxist, you start to look at
629. 43:19the people that were close to this at the United Nations and
630. 43:22they're all Marxists. They all wanted to be Marxists. And so
631. 43:26this is where it comes from.
632. 43:29So I'm guessing that you're not too disappointed at the
633. 43:31announcement of the withdrawal for the US from the World Health
634. 43:33Organization.
635. 43:34No, not at all.
636. 43:35Or from the Paris Climate Treaty, or from other things like that, that just are counter-productive,
637. 43:44as I said, from Matthew 22, putting God first and really caring for other human beings.
638. 43:50I think one of the things that people don't realize and even many believers, that we kind
639. 43:56of find ourselves living in a Romans 12 phenomenon instead of refusing to be conformed to the
640. 44:02world and be transformed by the renewal of our minds.
641. 44:04We find ourselves trying to look for ways to embrace things that are worldly, but God
642. 44:11from the very beginning said he made man and his creation of man was good.
643. 44:14He explained that he placed man in the garden to cultivate it and to keep it.
644. 44:19So man's investment in God's good creation would ultimately be for not only man's good
645. 44:24but to honor God and what he made us to be.
646. 44:27Exactly.
647. 44:28But the divergent worldview says, man bad, earth good.
648. 44:32So in order to have good earth, we have to get rid of man.
649. 44:36And we're literally inverting what God created us to be and for what we should be in the world.
650. 44:44What would you say to believers who may find themselves being somewhat seduced by the climate
651. 44:50alarmist propaganda?
652. 44:51I mean, part of the idea is we should hold fast to what is true.
653. 44:56And the idea, if you start to look at what I give talks on climate change, the first thing
654. 45:01I do is I say, well, we're told that we have more hurricanes. Well, we don't. We're told
655. 45:06that hurricanes are becoming more intense. They aren't. We're told that hurricanes are going
656. 45:09to make landfall more often. They don't. We're told, Oh, we lost Dr. Lee Gates. We're trying
657. 45:19to get him back on because he was cooking. And guys, if you know, this is exactly what
658. 45:25I said yesterday. One of the things that that is a tool for us is to hold fast to what is
659. 45:32True, hold fast to what is true.
660. 45:35God has given us truth as a vehicle to contend against the insanity that is
661. 45:41prevalent around us.
662. 45:42He was going through, you know, the discourse, people were saying, we have more
663. 45:45hurricanes before we don't, they're making land for them often, making land
664. 45:48fall more often.
665. 45:49They're not.
666. 45:50Well, what is true?
667. 45:52So before we even allow ourselves to get, you know, emotionally stirred, we should
668. 45:56first say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
669. 45:58I hear what you're saying to me, but is that in fact true?
670. 46:03Is that true?
671. 46:04One of the major things that I enjoy and how I desire for my program to be for you is a place
672. 46:10where you can receive resources or get connected to resources.
673. 46:14This is why I wholeheartedly recommend that you bookmark the cornerwallalize.org on your
674. 46:21computers because this is a place where you have access to all types of experts in many
675. 46:25different fields, but who share a similar worldview with their expertise. I believe we have Dr.
676. 46:30Leagu back on. We had to switch to phone. Now you were explaining what you say at the beginning of
677. 46:35the talk that you give on climate change. Is it there? Yeah, go ahead. Yes. So essentially,
678. 46:42as I talk about, in climate change, I talk about hurricanes, I talk about tornadoes,
679. 46:46I talk about floods and droughts and how they're caused more by land use change and people in the
680. 46:51landscape and then you get the idea that climate really varies but does not has not really gone
681. 46:58out of control so to speak. And then the question is why did we get here and why is you know what
682. 47:04is the real message that we want to take home and it's not that the world is coming to an end,
683. 47:10it's that things are getting better effectively and we are able to use if we do this correctly
684. 47:17We're able to take better care of humans, which again takes us back to Matthew 22, and the whole
685. 47:22of the law and the prophets is put God first and treat others as if they were our equals.
686. 47:27It's vitally important, folks, that we understand that a right approach to an environment is a part
687. 47:32of us loving our neighbors. We're not loving our neighbors by succumbing to lies. And so we must
688. 47:37be willing to contend for the truth, cling to the truth, and advocate for the truth as we stand
689. 47:43fast and firm in the public square. Dr. Lee Gates, how can people keep up with you and the work that
690. 47:47you're doing at the Cornwall Wall Alliance? As you said, Cornwall Alliance, Cornwall Alliance.org,
691. 47:55all one word. We have a podcast created to reign, our EIGN. It's on Podbay and on
692. 48:03all sorts of Spotify. Anywhere you get your podcasts that should be available.
693. 48:07Well, thank you so much for joining us here on the program. The disrespectful music has
694. 48:13has regained its steam.
695. 48:15I hear the snare drum kicking in.
696. 48:17I so appreciate having you on.
697. 48:18I definitely want to have you back on the program
698. 48:20to talk more about this because we don't want,
699. 48:23I don't want personally and I know the Lord
700. 48:26doesn't want his body to simply be tossed
701. 48:29to and fro as Ephesians says,
702. 48:30tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
703. 48:33Doctrine comes in many forms and not just something
704. 48:35that is presented as a pedagogical offering
705. 48:37but behind some lectern society at large offers doctrine,
706. 48:41media offers doctrine.
707. 48:42The culture offers doctrine, but thanks be to God,
708. 48:45He has given us His holy word and His spirit
709. 48:48to navigate these issues and given us experts
710. 48:51like Dr. Lee Gates to enable us to have the technical vernacular
711. 48:55that we need to be armed to always give a reason
712. 48:58for the hope that we have.
713. 49:00You all have a great evening, and by God's grace,
714. 49:02we'll be back tomorrow.
715. 49:03You'll have a great evening.
716. 49:10The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast
717. 49:12may not necessarily reflect those
718. 49:14of the American Family Association
719. 49:16or American Family Radio.