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c-span.org. >> up next, james delingpole talks about the battle of climate change with peter slen and liberal versus conservative politics. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. booktv is interviewing james delingpole. he is the author of several books. what happened was environmentalism, they are so into saving the planet, and they want to advance this.

>> what were some of the causes? >> it is the same as it always has been. control and regulation and higher taxes. he has a self smiling type of cadence. >> what is your opinion of climate change? >> the science seems increasingly to be witnessed in this way.

we have an unfailingly great way of coming up with this solution. >> you consider yourself a conservative and libertarian? >> i think i used to consider myself a conservative. i never went through that stage about 17 or 18 years old because the world is so unfair and it seems to me that the conservatives include the facts of life, they are conservative. i have undergone a progression not unlike the one undergone by william frederick street he

turned in his career from the natural progression to more of a radical. i am libertarian in my philosophy and i believe in small government. i believe in this as well i don't think that the current systems by which the world is governed are so out of line with democracy. i think it is probably making big strides. it is the most intransigent, the most longest lasting.

i am like cassandra. i always talk about the truth more or less correctly. people in england think of me as a bit of a free spirit. although it has to be said but it has done very well in the local elections. this includes self-determination, less regulation, lower, left involvement with european up with up up up up up up up up

up but i have to say that i am not ruling out the ventures in politics. i never thought of myself as a politician. that is why the people in power are doing such a terrible job. in regards to david cameron, davis johnson, they are not all doing badly but quite a few of them are. >> it is a symbol of the reason

that i call them is because they serve a very real function. they are sensible at the moment. the only real person is to symbolize the dominance of the green movement over the world, in the same way that, for example, in the middle 80s, the french catholic church subjugate and subjugate that it has the audience up up up up up up up up up up up in the same way, wind turbines, they fail at any number of levels. a throwback, they actually increase this mission. their only purpose is a symbol of dominance.

>> how the wind turbines increase carbon output? >> the problem is that wind energy is intermittent, as you know. the winds only blow for a certain amount of time. probably about a third of the time that the wind is blowing to power the turbine. which means that you constantly have to have backup supplies for when the wind is not blowing. guess what provides this backup? it is fossil fuels. fossil fuel power have to keep spinning the reserve. so even if you have the winds reduced to three energy, don't forget the carbon which goes into making these turbines, think of all of these olympic sized swimming pools devoid of minerals and including the

conditions in china. even then, you have to have also fuel on these reserves. it doesn't always work. >> you mentioned that you went to oxford with david cameron. in the united states, we often look at large universities. up many liberal professors and etc. is that the case as well in the uk? >> i think that almost all of them have been hijacked by the liberal left to a greater view. i was never aware of politics at the time. up i was never a winner in that way. i was not aware.

it was affecting the miners strike and it was very fashionable to be left wing in reaction to the government. it was fashionable to talk about the place -- naming it the mandela room and stuff like that. and i really hope and pray that my children do as well. one of my greatest fears is that my kids might turn out to be card-carrying lefties or green activists. that would be the worst thing. >> in 2009, the book "welcome to obamaland" was published by james delingpole. what is your perspective? >> that is what i was talking about. i saw your feature, america, i told you it didn't work. there was nothing to do about it for four years.

so what did you go into? you went and voted the guy back in. i warned you that "welcome to obamaland" would be a disaster for the economy. i want you to realize that i warned you about green measures on the economy. for instance the shale gas miracle, which has nothing to do with the official environment or energy policy. the epa is desperate to destroy the economy. this is an institution full of environmental zealots. it seems like you are increasing your debt monstrously. i have warned you. >> as an author and columnist, where you write?

>> i write in the spectator. i have a blog in the telegraph as well. i do podcasts for an american conservative website. >> you talk about biodiversity as well. what is biodiversity? >> it is very interesting, early i raised an eyebrow about this. i talked about a form of totalitarianism. but it is totalitarianism nonetheless. what you see is the climate change.

and then you have this whole field of environmentalists talking about conservation and biology and it was invented by thomas lovejoy in the 1970s, it has become this massive yield and a lot of people want to get jobs working in national parks and whatever. in order for this industry to generate money the rockefeller foundation, all of these rich foundations, we became asked didn't on an epic scale. it generates money from these noble causes. we are told about these

organizations that we are experiencing extension of a thousand species a week. they plucked it from the air. so where are the bodies? well, you know, in the last 500 years, the total number of birds on the planet, everywhere, it is something like 129 bird species that have been lost in the last 500 years. so i think this is interesting. so if you talk to a lot of people, they would be surprised. there are animals that we are talking about, and they say that animals are dying. but they are not. they are just not.

>> in regards to responsibility to protect the elements and etc., what do you think about this? >> welcome i do know that the top species on the planet, we do have eight deep duty to keep the planet as pleasant as we can. as biodiversity can. i would much rather have tigers than no tigers. elephants and no elephants. that being said, there is a lot of nonsense talked about this as well. about conservation and i think that conservatives, i believe in conservation. i believe in ecology, which is a different thing. ecology is the belief that man is just one species among many. we are no better than the back carrier. we are no better than the fungi. i look at my kids and i think, you are better than the

mollusks. i would not have a brighter future than plankton because you are special. you are my kids. i believe that we as humans, we have created great things. i don't share the pessimism in humanity that runs through this. there is a large portion of the human race for us to be wiped off the face of the human earth. i do believe that we are belong here. >> what is the national trust and why did you resign from a? >> it is -- i'm not really sure what that u.s. term is. but it's british and it looks after ancient buildings. and it preserves the buildings were prosperity.

it is a charity and you can join many of the oldest and grandest houses are part of this. i used to go with my family, we used to go and sit in the gardens. now, among her previous achievements was to push through many of the measures that i believe are destroying our economy and that countryside at the same time.

she thinks that one this green energy view is a good thing. etc. i can see that if she just takes on the job of the renewable energy association. if she becomes a spokesman for the wind industry, that is one thing. but if you live in a country like i do, the thing that people talk about more than anything else is how do we get rid of the wind farm, which is destroying our favorite views. which is keeping us awake at night. which is killing all the birds and bats. i think that i love america as

well. god bless you, you have your companions and you have all sorts of things. there is nowhere more beautiful than the world than the british countryside and this includes the purple covered hills, i live in a state with oaks and sometimes these things are destroyed. so here is this woman who is in charge of the heritage body, saying that wind farms are a good thing. >> wasn't that a couple of years ago that you talked about this? that you had a big policy argument about foxhunting? >> guess that was part of my

beefs. fox hunting is the most exciting thing that i have done in my life heard you feel like you did in your printing company, your leather cut boots. this is part of the english landscape and english heritage. it's like you read about foxhunting. this has been going on in our

country. so in this way, certain things have gotten banned, like foxhunting. less people are giving it. so they have not repealed the ban. david cameron has not repealed the ban. >> james delingpole, his book "365 ways to drive a liberal crazy." another one of his books. what is another way to drive a little crazy?

>> i prefer to take each day as it comes. the thing they hate the than anything else is fax. the other side is a debate. when you get into a debate with them, either through odds and ends, you get a lot of that and

who are you to argue with the national academy of sciences. and nafta. i mean, nafta, how can they be wrong about this. i mean, you have to explain this. let's have a look at the facts, shall we? and we are being corrupted by the system, not just looks at the facts. i believe in the values of enlightenment. that is what made us great. we have this contact. people talked about the e-mails and it seems like i would be really grateful.

the battle to restore liberty to our country comes from this. the battle against this, it is quantitative easing. i believe that one day things are going to become very unstuck and we are probably going to have to go back to some kind of standard. >> when is your next book coming out? >> the next book is coming out next year and it is called little green book.

>> james delingpole has been our guest. this is booktv on c-span2. >> next from london, award-winning journalists max hastings discusses his research and writings on both world wars. you're watching the tv on c-span2. we are in london. conducting interviews with various authors. joining me now is the server max hastings. he has a new book coming out on world war i. up mr. up hastings, can we start with world war ii. is there a scholarship coming out on this time. not we met. >> but i would never have guessed when i started writing about this book in 1979, which was a long time ago, that i

would still be doing it. one reason is that almost everyone sees world war ii is a good thing. it is still true with some exceptions. that 270,000 people day died in world war ii. sixty people died and the whole conflict. this was the most greatest conflict. people are still interested in us. up. you can still surprise people.

so he said, well, maybe 60%. and i said what percent of british casualties are american? he said maybe 20% percentage. i said, the true figure is that it was 2% americans and 2% british. so this includes the 21st century audience in the united

states. i mean, i grew up when i was a young man. my father, who adored world war ii, he was such a proponent for a british magazine. he got me up to look on it as a great adventure. many people joined the war. they needed fighter pilots or tankers or whatever. my father brought me up in the boy scout way to believe that i should continue on this great adventure. but almost everything that has happened to me in the 40 or 50 years since i was a child, looking up at my father, it has been a process of getting educated, getting real about this. to give you one example, remember when i was writing a

book and i was sitting at a little on the low east of england. in his pilot had won a posthumous place. after it had been badly damaged in the air. the pilot went down with the ship. all these years later, the navigator says to me, i wish we could remember the last night in the pub. before we went on the last thread. he was 19 years old and he admitted that he was egotistical of his life. what he said would total me. and i thought maybe wars in general, the second principle is

that i would say everything that has happened to me is important for growing up. the audience, in the united states or britain or whatever, they have grown up as well. many of them, some americans, they say that when we were kids -- we never quite realized it was quite like this. everyone is so much more responsive and they understand more about how the war is for women. they understand that more civilians died than soldiers. all growing up. >> everyone in the united states thought that they won the war single-handedly.

churchill constructed this great legend. this great legend. the truth was that with every bit of evil, the only thing that makes stalin that much less than hitler is that he had no single in normandy to match the holocaust. but in every other respect, at that time, stalin had killed far more people than hitler. stalin had massacred millions of his own people.

all dreadful things that have gone through his rule. it is incredible. the russians lost 27 million people in the war. 11 million were soldiers. but one in four of the russian soldiers that died in the war, they were -- i think it was one and 20 british servicemen and one in 30 americans died. so the russians did a lot of the heavy lifting. i don't think that we have any reason to be grateful to stallman that stalin was an unbelievably -- one of the things about him is that he went to berlin. he saw a picture with him.

you would think that it was something terrible. you know, he was basically represented as unspeakable evil. stalin was. >> 27 million russians come 11 million russian soldiers. how many english soldiers and americans? >> it was about 400,000 for the united states and britain both.

so they said, don't think for a moment that in my respect for what that generation has gone through, what the united states and britain day. it is just -- we can't take this in the same way. a lot of people don't know china was in the war. 50 million chinese that fought in the war. it is amazing. we all know about d-day. those are the things that we know about. we all know about that with britain. we all know that there is a lot about the united states, namely in the pacific, where i personally think the united states navy was the greatest allied fighting force in the

war. what the united states navy was up against. so we know a lot about all that stuff. there were a lot of other things that we didn't know so much about. especially, i have come to realize that although you have to tell the story of the battles, because who wins the battle besides the war, there is a huge thing that i have mentioned. now people like me will, we write a lot about it. which is about all of these countless millions of people, especially women who suffered in the war. this includes all of the wives and mothers who were separated. many in europe occupied the world and in china as well.

especially on a manageable scale. so many people had the audacity to think about watching your child in occupied europe. they saw their children starve to death. most americans think that the vietnam war in which the united states was involved. you know, many vietnamese said that the experience with the japanese occupation in the same world war was worse than the 60s and 70s. 1 million vietnamese died of starvation. because of japanese policies which involved this in japan. everything that vietnam produced was shipped straight to japan by ship. the vietnamese themselves starved. 1 million vietnamese. and how many people accept the

most dedicated students of world war ii. always something new you can tell people. >> how would world war ii ended if the eastern front had not opened? >> well, i think that the united states, in the end it had been a terribly long time. one thing that we got wrong is that we all think that -- certainly in britain we think that the first world war was much worse. in the second world where we had better generals. but the truth was we were able to defeat an enemy of industrial strength.

the french and the british and the russians, actually, they lost a lot of people as well. the french and the british lost enormous number of people on the battlefield. it was the russians and eastern front who did it. especially d-day was a huge and fantastic event with the allies that they ran brilliantly well. the allied casualties are much worse. especially in the weeks after d-day. so when it comes to the first world war, we were going head-to-head with this

fantastically powerful german army, battering away at each other. the german army broke and then of course there was the great allied sweep across france. and we lost to the allies by about, if i remember about 300,000 total. days later in the normandy campaign, that is what we saw. >> this is booktv and c-span2. we are in london. currently we are talking with author max hastings. he is a former editor of the daily telegraph and he has written several books on world war ii and a new book coming out on world war i, which we will get to in just a moment. we are here in london. what would the city have them like in world war ii? >> unbelievably great.

many cities were terribly depressed. it was completely black out. right after 1945, not a light shone in the city. that was terribly depressing, especially in the winter when the darkness went on for a long time and people found the longer they were here, it ate at their spirits. if you share the light in any form, you would have a warden jumping out of at you and you were sent to court and find $100, which in that case was a lot of money. for shining a light especially. a lot of accidents and so on. more people died in accident