Climate Change

Genesis 1-2 make it clear that theologically, Christians affirm God as the source of life and all that is. Colossians 1:15-19 make it clear that creation by the Father was through the Son. Humanity has the responsibility to care for this earth and appreciate its beauty. Our patriotic hymns even refer to the beauty of this land. The question I raise here is whether the alarm regarding climate change is such that requires massive government curtailment of the free market to resolve issues related to the environment. My primary purpose here is show that reasonable people can differ in the matter of whether significant climate change occurs due to human activity. I posted a blog a few years ago discussing Roy W. Spencer in Climate Change. Morita Noon wrote an article in 2013 that I found interesting about congressional hearings in 2013.

Here is your chance to check out some heavyweight scientists specializing in weather and climate, instead of taking Al Gore's movie or the pronouncements of government bureaucrats and politicians as the last word. Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the American weather satellite system, and who published some years ago a book titled Hot Talk, Cold Science. More recently, he has co-authored another book on the subject, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years. Another serious scientist who is not on the global warming bandwagon includes a professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen. Another is a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels, who refers to the celebrated 2001 IPCC summary as having "misstatements and errors" that he calls "egregious." A professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, David R. Legates, likewise referred to the 2001 IPCC summary as being "often in direct contrast with the scientific report that accompanies it." Duncan Wingham, a professor of climate physics at the University College, London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University also has expressed disagreement with the consensus.

            Award-Winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Robert H. Austin, who has published 170 scientific papers and was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, lamented the current fears over global warming. He told the minority staff on the Environment and Public Works Committee on March 2, 2009,

“Unfortunately, Climate Science has become Political Science…It is tragic that some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomena which is statistically questionable at best.”

            As George Will noted in “Inconvenient Kyoto Truths,” on February 12, 2007 the consensus about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening; 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault; 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways; 4. If it continues, we are in grave danger; 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming; 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs. Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet's climate? We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. We do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Are we sure that the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that we must preserve it, no matter the cost? It could cost tens of trillions (in expenditures and foregone economic growth, here and in less-favored parts of the planet) to try to fine-tune the planet's temperature. We cannot know if these trillions would purchase benefits commensurate with the benefits that would have come from social wealth that we would not produce.

Robert J. Samuelson has offered the best explanation of the issues involved that I have seen.

What counts are the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's these concentrations that are said to trap heat and raise temperatures. The concentrations have gone from roughly 280 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in preindustrial times, around 1800, to about 315 ppm in 1960 to 400 ppm now. As long as concentrations increase, so does the potential for more warming. Such is the theory, and the debate ought to revolve around how much of this is the cause of humans, how much economic growth are people willing to eliminate, and so on.

George Will expresses the concern for stifling discussion on this issue.

If you would like to read a quick reminder of the failed predictions within climate change history, Robert Tracinski has collected some good ones, beginning with the prediction of global cooling and ending with global warming, with five more quick ones in between. Walter Cronkite warned in 1972 that the earth was cooling. Some activists will focus upon a particular event. Walter Williams commented on the draught in California in this regard. Victor Davis Hanson notes that California has had droughts 1929-34, 1976-77 and 1987-92, the point being that much of what California is the result of poor management of an issue with which California has had to deal for quite some time.

Stephen Moore defends the reasonableness of opposition to the notion, in that it is not in the same class as those who promote a flat earth or deny the holocaust. Walter E. Williams has also presented a brief article on this matter. Stephen Moore has also presented a good summary of the good things happening regarding the resources of the earth, energy, pollution, and population. Climate studies can become a battle of statistics, which confuse people like me. However, a study from Duke University (not a conservative institution) suggests that variations in heat and cold over the past 1000 years have natural causes. Christopher Booker has done the same on differing official methods for determining the temperature of the earth. Susan Stamper Brown wonders what has happened to common sense in this debate.

Patrick Michaels discusses the failure of the climate models, and then wonders what it will take for climate scientists to say they were wrong.

Pope Francis issued an encyclical Laudato Si’​ (“Praise Be to You”) fully behind climate change. Debra J. Saunders says it is not surprising that the church has had this strong move toward the Left, including calling for a world political authority. Conrad Black offers a reasonable assessment of the encyclical, considering it a mixed blessing. George Will offers a sharp criticism of the Pope and his views on the climate.

I have offered what I think are reasonable grounds for doubting that the crisis exists. I will also suggest that the agenda is not climate at all. The agenda is to use environment to bring socialism and reduction of freedom.