My guest this week is Dr. Matthew Wielicki, a geochemist and Earth Sciences professor whom you might already know from his insightful posts on X. He runs a popular Substack at irrationalfear.substack.com where he challenges mainstream climate narratives by actually looking at… the published science. He also has a book called Irrational Fear: Climate Change coming out soon.

I’ve invited him on the show to discuss the latest media focus — the alleged impending collapse of the Atlantic Ocean currents, commonly known as the AMOC (short for “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation”) and which include currents like the Gulf Stream, which act like a giant conveyor belt to vent heat from the Atlantic into the Arctic.

According to the mainstream narrative, there are growing signs that continued global warming could weaken the AMOC, with media often pointing to increasing meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet as a trigger. They say that stalling these currents would plunge northern Europe into a bone chilling 5–15°C (9–27°F) temperature drop. Media outlets like The Guardian, Science Daily, Phys.org, and YouTube videos with millions of views all warn of a ‘critical Atlantic current collapse’ within decades.

As evidence that we’re teetering on the edge, many point to the historic example of the Younger Dryas — a 1,200-year cold snap 12,900 years ago, with temperatures similarly plunging between 5–15°C. It was likely triggered by the collapse of Glacial Lake Agassiz, which dumped a colossal 21,000 cubic kilometers of meltwater from the Laurentide Ice Sheet into the Atlantic, thus fundamentally disrupting the AMOC.

And it happened again around 8,200 years ago during the awkwardly named 8.2-kiloyear event, when another 100,000 cubic kilometers of meltwater from Glacial Lake Agassiz disrupted the AMOC, causing a somewhat milder 160-year cold snap of 1–3°C globally and 3–6°C in parts of Europe.

I reached out to Dr. Wielicki to unpack this doomsday scenario to see what the science actually says (hint, it’s quite different from the media’s narrative) and to bring in some geological context to show how the truth is far more fascinating than the hype.

Our full interview is free for everyone, but I’ve also included a bonus question at the end, for paid subscribers only, building on another of Dr. Wielicki’s articles called Is It Really Our CO2?, in which he unpacks some recently published peer-reviewed research that significantly muddies the waters when it comes to the simple story of fossil fuels carrying most of the blame for rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

When it comes to the climate sciences, no matter where you look, the actual data looks nothing like what the popular narratives would have us believe. In our interview, Dr. Wielicki even discusses his first hand experiences as an academic with the distorted incentives that have rotted out the climate sciences.

I hope you enjoy our discussion!

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