RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
>> Laura Ingraham: When it comes to most policies, the left wants to exert as much control over your daily life as possible. Take the latest suggestion from Democrats. In today’s “Washington Post,” the solution to climate change is a brand-new carbon taxes and government incentives for alternatives for joining me now to debate this is Brad Johnson, cofounder — as well as mark Moore while all right, Brad, America is actually lowered our carbon emissions under trump. Why should Americans sacrifice their way of life for these new carbon taxes?
>> Brad Johnson: My understanding is carbon emissions have gone up significantly the past few years. A lot of what we’ve seen —
>> Laura: I don’t think so. The last 12 months?
>> Brad Johnson: Your viewers can go check out eia.gov.
>> Laura: Greenhouse gas emissions have gone down 2.12 in the last 12 months.
>> Brad Johnson: We can go to the record and check.
>> Laura: Answer the question.
>> Brad Johnson: If we accept the premise of the question, the reason to act on climate change is because of the harms that it’s causing to Americans in the world already today —
>> Laura: Are you going to cite the funding 97% of all scientists? That’s been debunked. Can we cross that out? “Oh, 97%” — you can unpack that and four different ways. It’s completely phony.
>> Brad Johnson: No, I was going to talk more about what we’ve seen in Puerto Rico and in California and all across the country and the world where we are seeing billion-dollar climate disasters on the rise and this is real —
>> Laura: None of that. I’m a conservationist. I’m a real outdoors person. I cherish that they’ll make the environment. I think we should have a balanced approach to our life. I cry when barns are torn down. My problem though is you say, this happens, you make a connection from point a to point B with very little evidence when it comes to wildfires. We have people living in areas that they’ve never lived before, incredibly remote terrain, I’ve been to some of these parts. They are beautiful. But for someone who believes in animals and wildlife, maybe that’s where the animals and wildlife have to be and not in these remote canyons that have always been dry.
>> Brad Johnson: The fundamental reality about talking about wildfires and floods committees are human disasters, you…I am costing about the cost of life and property. Decisions where we make of where to build, what kinds of building materials we use. Also the pollution we put into the atmosphere. Collectively as a society, we’ve made a decision to bump billions and tons of greenhouse gases as an atmosphere.
>> Laura: Do you think we should basically immediate, what, go to 50%? Some of the radicals are like cut by 50%.
>> Marc Morano: Keep it in the ground, some of them.
>> Brad Johnson: It really should be a decision for the American people and the world.
>> Laura: They are rejecting it in France?
>> Marc Morano: They are rejecting it in France, Brazil’s new government, the foreign minister called it a Marxist hoax, Canada has a carbon tax rebellion. Donald Trump was criticized by Emmanuel macron by promoting nationalism. Pulling out of the U.N. Paris agreement. A week later, Paris is ablaze. He tries to call it “Poison weather.” You can look at everything he mentioned, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes. Every climate timescale, there are either no trend or declining. That’s how you look at the science. California had much worst droughts in previous century. This is even buried in the U.N. Report. They can’t even hype that kind of thing. (LINK) (LINK)
>> Laura: The iceberg from big pieces of ice coming off, you see the polar bear really lonely. I start to tear up and I cry. I’m sure a lot of other people cry because it looks really awful. We are changing the planet, no doubt about it.
>> Marc Morano: But — B when…
>> Laura: Species are being wiped out because we do dumb things.
>> Marc Morano: One thing we know how to do now is save species. One of the biggest success stories is when we do logging, instead of clear cutting vast swaths, they do what they call sustainable logging. The bottom line is this, the carbon tax would increase admissions. If you hamstring the developed world, the United States, Canada, Western Europe, that’s going to move industry over to China and India places without that. There is peer reviewed studies and other studies showing the emissions, for decades to come, will go up.
>> Laura: What’s interesting is conservatives on this, they don’t sell their points well so kids come home from school, they are frightened to death that is all coming down. There is a really interesting moment, a 15 year old Swedish young woman made a very impassioned speech. Let’s watch.
>> 15-year old girl: Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making an enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury.
>> Laura: The conservative argument, that’s pretty… For most people watching that…
>> Marc Morano: It’s sad. She led a school strike in Sweden, spreading across the world of kids protesting for government action on climate that what she is not realizing is government action on climate is the worst thing you can do to the developed world because you will limit their ability to develop. It’s bad for the environment. It’s better to have fossil fuels and carbon-based developing in Africa, South America, Asia, you do not have people dumping stuff in the rivers, open sewage, don’t have them burning dung and breathing in bad air. Infrastructure has saved us in the United States.
>> Laura: Life has gotten better for a lot of people who are poor, but I want to play montage of some of the more alarmist type comments. Let’s watch.
>> Media clips: It’s hard to think, the worst thing this president has done, but so far this might just be the one.
>> This will be the date in the United States resigned as the leader of the free world.
>> We watched a dangerous little man give a very, very scary speech.
>> Laura: That goes a little bit… That’s after we dropped out of the Paris accord. Do you subscribe to those alarmist comments?
>> Brad Johnson: The last one was a dig at the president, which is not necessary. I think the point, the young woman there was making, really what’s driving quite frankly what I think mark likes to talk about and what this is really about, what’s more important? The prophets of a few very wealthy and powerful industries, billionaires, or our children? We get to make that choice.
>> Laura: Won’t carbon tactics —
>> Brad Johnson: It’s funny you should say that. The state level initiatives to pass carbon taxes were defeated by the fossil fuel industry outspending by tens of millions of dollars.
>> Laura: Why do we have the celebrity type slots — this ledger type options? All big donors to Obama.
>> Brad Johnson: Is something that I would defer to you and your viewers for checking the facts. My understanding is that program invested in a lot of industries and made profit for the American people.
>> Laura: Is that accurate? It still doesn’t mean —
>> Marc Morano: Exactly. Brad has said, politicians who deny climate claims should be put in jail. He just said that in 2017.
Brad Johnson, formerly of Think Progress and currently with Climate Hawks, declared today: “Climate disaster response rules 1) save lives 2) global warming is here 3) put officials who reject science in jail.” Johnson linked to an article demanding “climate change denial should be a crime.”
Laura: Do you really think they should be put in jail.
>> Brad Johnson: I mean, if they are lying deliberately and causing harm to other people.
>> Laura: This whole town, most people would be in jail. If it’s just climate — if it’s across the board, maybe I’ll take you up on that.
>> Marc Morano: Brad does not want to allow dissent and he claims that solar and wind are ready to burst on and make all this money and take over our energy. If something is that good, solar, wind, renewable energy, why do you have to ban energy? Go after fracking? There is not a fair playing field. They want to go and ban energy that has proven itself. If Al Gore is right (about solar and wind taking over), the day you go to Walmart and buy make a solar panel on your roof and get off the grid is the day climate policy debate ends. But that’s not what they are interested in. The UN is calling for a centralized transformation.
Brad Johnson: We burn through hundreds and billions of tons of fossil fuels fuels. The United States has benefited greatly from it. I have, all of us have. It comes at a cost. That pollution, we are paying the piper for it.
>> Laura: We will end on that. Thank you so much, both of you.
