Sen. Bernie Sanders and podcast host Joe Rogan discussed climate change, energy policy, and the role of financial interests during a recent exchange, presenting differing views on how the issue should be understood and addressed.

Sanders emphasized the urgency of confronting climate change, citing temperature trends and the potential for economic changes tied to energy policy.

He said the issue should be addressed as part of broader national priorities.

"You got to deal with this climate change issue. And I know that, you know, there are some people think climate change is a hoax. It ain't a hoax. I think the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and we can't create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency to solar to wind and other sustainable energies."

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Sanders framed the discussion around what he described as the need to move toward alternative energy sources while also focusing on job creation tied to those industries.

Rogan responded by describing climate change as a complex issue and raised questions about long-term climate data. He referenced a Washington Post article examining climate patterns over an extended period.

"I think the climate change issue is very complicated. And I think Did you see the Washington Post piece that they wrote where they did this long term view? First of all, the reality is that the Earth's temperature has never been static, right? We both agree on that. It's always been up and down. There's been ice ages and heat waves. And then the Washington Post looked at it. What was the time period that they looked at that? Essentially, they found that we're in a cooling period that the earth over the past X amount of years. And this was like a very inconvenient discovery, but they had to report the data, and kudos to them for doing that."

Rogan continued by referring to scientific efforts to track long-term climate patterns.

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"Scientists have captured the earth climate change over the last 485 million years. Here's a surprising place we stand now. So look at the far end of that graph, and you see we're in a cooling period."

Sanders responded by noting that he had not read the article Rogan referenced and pointed to the views of scientists studying climate change.

"Well, I'm not sure. I didn't read that article, but you know the scientists who are out there, I think."

Rogan then raised concerns about the influence of financial interests in the broader discussion surrounding climate change.

"I know. But there's a lot of money involved in that too. Bernie, that's part of the problem. There's a lot of money involved in this, this whole climate change emergency issue, and there's a lot of control, and that's that's a big part of this problem."

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