Retired Santa Barbara mathematics and computer science professor Eliot Jacobson returns to the podcast to talk about the recent California rainstorm, why it’s happening, and why he believes the environmental community has abandoned its roots.

Jacobson, who has appeared on CNN and other national networks talking about rising sea temperatures and climate change, explains what it means to be a “doomer,” and why he believes the environmental movement has lost its footing and its priorities are misplaced.

“Environmentalism has completely and totally lost its way,” Jacobson said. “Now what is environmentalism? Is it carrying about nature, is it carrying about the planet? No, what environmentalism has become is how can we maintain a habitable planet for humans, for as long as possible.”

Jacobson said the approach of preserving the planet for humans is the wrong one, because what’s best for humans is not what is best for the planet.

He said all the world’s green technology might preserve people’s way of life for “50 or 100 more years,” but the creation of those technologies is harmful to the planet and creates rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather events.

“Every time we build a solar panel, there’s not only the expense of the mining that went into that, the lithium and other minerals, there’s also the location it is placed, and these industrial-scale solar farms are being placed on pristine desert ecosystems,” Jacobson said.

The wind turbines, he said, are being placed on pristine hillsides.

“We are actively destroying the environment to preserve global-industrial civilization and that is what environmentalism has transformed into, from its roots of how can we save nature, to its current day of how can we save global-industrial civilization,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson believes the only answer is for human beings to use less fossil fuels, and consume less of everything.

“What the environmental debate should be is, should we do away with all cars, should we prohibit transport by a car unless it’s an emergency, or mandated travel, for example, the delivery of food, and just develop massive public transportation and infrastructure,” Jacobson said.

That will never happen, he said, because the national Republicans and Democrats are the problem.

Republicans, he said, are invested in fossil fuels and Democrats are invested in green technologies.

“They are both invested in technologies that are destructive to the planet,” Jacobson said. “Both of them are industries that are driven by profit.”

The recent rainstorm to hit California, he said, is a result of climate change.

“What has actually changed that is driving new weather systems globally is the northern hemisphere is how hot the arctic is right now,” Jacobson said. “It is just mind-blowing how warm it is, many places 30 degrees, 40 degrees above average right now in the arctic circle.”

These high temperatures create an unstable polar jet stream, and combined with El Niño, it’s creating extreme cold and extreme high temperature weather events, Jacobson said.

“2023 saw record greenhouse gas emissions,” Jacobson said. “So regardless of electric vehicles, we still have more coal plants in China than we have ever had before, we have methane not only coming out from the human sources, but in the equatorial wetlands, so we have this constant build of greenhouse gases that have gone unabated.”

Josh Molina is a journalist and reporter at Noozhawk.com. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast. Molina uses his 20-plus years of journalism experience to create dynamic conversations with people in the community about the issues of education, housing, transportation, business, culture and politics. Consider a contribution by visiting Molina’s website.