Bernie Lewin: “Origins of the IPCC” | Tom Nelson Pod #396

About this episode

Tom interviews Bernie Lewin about his book and the historical context of climate science and environmental policy.

Tom interviews Bernie Lewin about his 2017 book Searching for the Catastrophe Signal and his path from local environmentalism to blogging and writing for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Lewin argues postwar “big science,” shifting religion’s role in policy, and media narratives helped drive recurring environmental scares: DDT, ozone depletion tied to supersonic transport and CFCs, then 1970s global cooling amid energy crises. He claims funding incentives encouraged extreme atmospheric claims, and that policy often diverged from scientific uncertainty. The discussion covers the 1988 Hansen hearing as orchestrated, Thatcher and Bush support for expanded climate science, and IPCC early processes, focusing on the 1995 Second Assessment controversy where summaries and underlying text were allegedly altered around detection and “fingerprint” evidence. 00:00 Meet Bernie Lewin 00:28 From Environmentalism to Skepticism 02:25 Science Replaces Religion 04:30 Big Science After WWII 06:05 Silent Spring and DDT Panic 08:46 Supersonic Jets and Ozone Fears 12:29 CFCs and the Ozone Hole 18:29 Feedbacks and Funding Incentives 21:33 Global Cooling Takes Off 22:40 Energy Crisis and Climate…

People in this episode

Host: Thomas Nelson

Guest: Bernie Lewin

Topics covered

• climate science
• environmental policy
• media narratives
• big science
• historical environmental scares
• IPCC processes

Keywords

• IPCC
• climate change
• environmentalism
• Hansen hearing
• CFCs
• ozone depletion
• global cooling
• funding incentives

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Global Warming Policy Foundation, IPCC, Thatcher

Books & works: Searching for the Catastrophe Signal

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