Sep 28, 2026 · 54 min · 16 segments
Gregory Wrightstone, geologist, author, and executive director of the CO2 Coalition, challenges the prevailing narrative that rising carbon dioxide and a warming planet spell disaster. Drawing on…
Gregory WrightstoneGuestKendall NelsonHost
That's one of my favorite topics to talk about is a strong relationship between temperature and humanity.
And if we look back to the first great civilizations that rose up, it was during what was called the Minoan warm period.
And so we had the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Harappan Empire, which was in the Indus River Valley.
During that period, they were able to grow a crop called millet in Scandinavia, which today can only be, well, then too, could only be grown in tropical and subtropical climates.
So just using these historical records, we can say, well, it had to have been a lot warmer there.
And so what we had was food was bountiful, great empires arose and civilizations, and then it started getting cold quickly.
All of those civilizations, in as short a period as maybe 100 years, all of those empires and civilizations collapsed, with the exception of the Egyptians, who barely survived by the skin of their teeth.
And so if you were Empress Kendall during the Minoan war period, and I think you'd make a great empress, by the way.
But if you were Empress Kendall in the warm period, your subjects loved you because you could feed them, provide for them.
But if you were Empress Kendall going into the cold period during that period, they were coming after you with pitchforks and you probably wouldn't survive very long because what we saw associated with this cooling was crop failure, famine, pestilence, and nasty population.
That's one of my favorite topics to talk about is a strong relationship between temperature and humanity.
And if we look back to the first great civilizations that rose up, it was during what was called the Minoan warm period.
And so we had the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Harappan Empire, which was in the Indus River Valley.
During that period, they were able to grow a crop called millet in Scandinavia, which today can only be, well, then too, could only be grown in tropical and subtropical climates.
So just using these historical records, we can say, well, it had to have been a lot warmer there.
And so what we had was food was bountiful, great empires arose and civilizations, and then it started getting cold quickly.
All of those civilizations, in as short a period as maybe 100 years, all of those empires and civilizations collapsed, with the exception of the Egyptians, who barely survived by the skin of their teeth.
And so if you were Empress Kendall during the Minoan war period, and I think you'd make a great empress, by the way.
But if you were Empress Kendall in the warm period, your subjects loved you because you could feed them, provide for them.
But if you were Empress Kendall going into the cold period during that period, they were coming after you with pitchforks and you probably wouldn't survive very long because what we saw associated with this cooling was crop failure, famine, pestilence, and nasty population.
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