Climate master class with David Siegel
Summary
What drives earth’s climate? What role does the sun play? What influence do humans have? What will the climate of the future be? This ongoing class will take students through an in-depth exploration of the earth’s climate systems, learning what we know and what we don’t know about climate. Classes are pre-recorded videos with a live presentation each week on Wednesdays (UK) and Thursdays (US). We will have guests, student presentations, question/answer sessions, climate news, and community events.
This is a self-paced class with about 18 hours of video instruction, extra material, and ongoing discussions. There’s a weekly live meeting on Zoom, but it is not necessary and is recorded and posted. For a taste, see Climatecurious.com.
Sample unit
The course is made up of about 35 pre-recorded units plus group discussion. Here’s a short one:
Testimonials
Who this is for
People who want to understand how the earth's complex climate system works
People who are willing to do reading and homework
People who have questions and want to understand what's really going on
Educators, students, and politicians who need a firm grasp of the fundamentals
Influencers, journalists, policy people, government officials, media people, researchers
People in companies who need to understand climate
People in NGOs who want to learn the truth, not the fundraising hype
People who want to learn how to communicate more accurately about climate
Level
This class is not for beginners. It is 20 hours of instruction plus Q&A. You should already have at least 20 hours looking into and trying to understand climate science (ideally at ClimateCurious.com). It would be good if you’ve read at least one scientific paper. If you consider yourself an intermediate critical thinker or an open-minded expert, this class will be very rewarding. Those who just want to listen and learn will find it challenging. The more you put into this course, the more you get out.
Text book
You don’t need to buy the text book for this class if you just want to participate, ask questions, and learn. But if you want a deep understanding of climate and you’re willing to do homework, you’ll want to purchase Climate of the Past, Present and Future: A scientific debate, by Javier Vinos. You can get the PDF version for free at ResearchGate.
We will have a chance to discuss other books — be sure to see my list of books.
What you won't learn
Politics, energy, renewables, trickery, cartoons, stories from the Guardian.
Membership
Your membership gives you access to the community and resources for one full year. We have two live sessions each week. You can come to one or both, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the material is on the platform, you learn at your own pace. There’s always new research and commentary coming in.
UK class: 2pm EST/7pm UK time
US class: 6pm EST/3pm Pacific
Register for the class by filling out the form below.
Number of members now: 69
Price
Price is $150 (or £115) per year.
Warning
Learning more climate science will not help you convince anyone to change his/her mind about future climate disaster. People who make up their minds without data and logic cannot change their minds using data and logic. This is for your own scientific understanding.
About your instructor
David Siegel is an autodidact and a lifelong learner. He wrote his first (and only) book on climate in 1991, and that book said that CO2 was going to fry everyone and we had to reduce population if we were going to survive. After noticing that humanity was doing rather well, he took a year off in 2015 and dove headfirst into the wacky world of climate science. Since then, he has spent over 6,000 hours reading papers, bugging scientists, making videos, and writing hundreds of blog posts, and getting kicked out of LinkedIn and medium.com for his heretical scientific views. He curates a list of 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers that do not confirm the IPCC’s preferred narrative on climate. He has spent hundreds of hours with the book for this class and many months badgering its author to learn more. Now, he has developed a master class that he hopes isn’t too wrong and wants to help others be less wrong as well.
He is also a champion of individual human rights and privacy, free markets, and hopes to play a small role in the demise of the UN, the WEF, the World Bank, and the ESG movement. He welcomes all scientific conversations that don’t involve name calling, Guardian articles, or appeals to authority. Explore this website to learn more.