BY E. CALVIN BEISNER , CP OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Climate change: The greatest challenge facing humanity? A manageable problem? Just par for the course on a planet whose climate has always changed?
What should we do about it? Indeed, what can we do about it?
Would drastic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions save the world from disaster, or make no significant difference in future climate? Would the cuts cost little, or condemn much of the world to more generations of abject poverty, disease, and premature death?
Are wind, solar, and other alternatives to coal, oil, and natural gas as abundant, affordable, and reliable, or would switching to them drive up energy prices and cause costly and dangerous brownouts and blackouts?
Whose opinions about climate change, and climate policy, matter?
Some climate scientists, associated with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who publish dire warnings of catastrophe, say only their opinions count. But what about other climate scientists, including those with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, plus more, who think human contribution to climate change is relatively small and not dangerous?
How about economists, who understand the economic impact of proposed climate policies? Or energy engineers, who understand the challenges of providing, abundant, affordable, reliable energy, without which societies cannot climb or stay out of poverty? Or political scientists, who study the impact of environmental regulations on liberty?
How about theologians and philosophers, who can speak to the philosophy of science and the ethics of policy to questions of justice and charity, of human life and dignity, of rights and responsibilities? Or pastors, aid workers, and others who deal with people in need - the elderly, the poor, and others who are hardest hit, whether by changing climate or by policies meant to address it?
And what about ordinary citizens, whose lives will be influenced by climate change, whether it’s largely manmade or natural, and by policies meant to respond to it, whether by trying to prevent it, or by adapting to it? It’s ordinary people, after all, who pay utility bills affected by energy policies driven by climate concerns.
Climate change and climate policy are among the most complex issues humanity encounters. No group - not even climate scientists - should have a monopoly on advising policymakers about them. Instead, this multifaceted challenge requires input from thinkers of many backgrounds.
A network of Christian theologians, scientists, economists, and other scholars believes people of all these backgrounds and more are stakeholders in the decisions facing America and other nations around the world. They can have well-informed opinions on climate change and climate policy, and they deserve to be heard by policymakers.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which I lead, has issued a declaration, Protect the Poor: Ten Reasons to Oppose Harmful Climate Change Policies, signed by over 140 individuals so far. Nearly 50 scientists, including 21 climate scientists, are among the signers, along with 21 economists, including specialists in environmental economics; 48 theologians, philosophers, and pastors; 29 ministry leaders, and 10 media figures who believe today’s climate change policies will hurt society’s most vulnerable.
The 21 climate scientists among signers are particularly significant. Last year, an opposing group published a statement that some people, including a reporter for the prestigious ClimateWire, a publication of Energy & Environment Publishing, Inc., took to have been endorsed by nearly 200 evangelical climate scientists; it turned that only 5 (2.6%) were climate scientists.
Among 20 climate scientists endorsing the declaration are Joseph D’Aleo, co-founder of The Weather Channel and chief meteorologist of weatherbell.com and Icecap.us; Neil L. Frank, former Director, National Hurricane Center; and Roy W. Spencer, Principal Research Scientist in Climatology at the University of Alabama and an award-winning NASA climate researcher. Economists include Kenneth Chilton, Founder and Senior Environmental Fellow, Center for Economics & the Environment, Lindenwood University; George Gilder, author of Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World; and Shawn Ritenour, Professor of Economics, Grove City College. Theologians, philosophers, and pastors include Bradley G. Green, Associate Professor of Christian Thought and Tradition, Union University; Henry Krabbendam, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies, Covenant College, and President of Africa Christian Training Institute, Uganda; and Jeffrey Riley, Professor of Ethics, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
The declaration is backed by a new study, A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor 2014: The Case against Harmful Climate Policies Gets Stronger, written by two outstanding scholars, Dr. David R. Legates, Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware, and Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, Professor of Economics and Research Chair in Environmental Studies and Climate at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia. I provided an introduction from the perspective of a theologian and ethicist concerned about the impact of climate policies on the world’s poor.
Both the declaration and the study are available on the Cornwall Alliance’s website, www.CornwallAlliance.org.
Summarizing some of the study’s findings, the declaration states that Earth’s climate system is robust, resilient, and self-correcting, reducing rather than magnifying the impact of added CO2 to the atmosphere, and that natural cycles outweigh human influence global temperature.
It points out that computer climate models, on which predictions of dangerous warming rest, have been falsified by real-world observations, which show CO2-driven warming to be far less than expected, and thus far less dangerous, possibly even mostly beneficial. And aside from its minuscule effect on temperature, “Rising atmospheric CO2 benefits all life on Earth by improving plant growth and crop yields, making food more abundant and affordable, helping the poor most of all.”
It goes on to say:
Abundant, affordable, reliable energy, most of it now and in the foreseeable future provided by burning fossil fuels, which are the primary source of CO2 emissions, is indispensable to lifting and keeping people out of poverty. Mandatory reductions in CO2 emissions, pursued to prevent dangerous global warming, would have little or no discernible impact on global temperatures, but would greatly increase the price of energy and therefore of everything else. Such policies would put more people at greater risk than the warming they are intended to prevent, because they would slow, stop, or even reverse the economic growth that enables people to adapt to all climates. They would also harm the poor more than the wealthy, and would harm them more than the small amount of warming they might prevent.
“[B]illions of the poor desperately need to replace dirty, inefficient cooking and heating fuels, pollution from which causes hundreds of millions of illnesses and about 4 million premature deaths every year, mostly among women and young children,” the declaration says. “To demand that they forgo the use of inexpensive fossil fuels and depend on expensive wind, solar, and other ‘Green’ fuels to meet that need is to condemn them to more generations of poverty and the high rates of disease and premature death that accompany it.”
The declaration’s signers call on:
“Christians to practice creation stewardship out of love for God and love for our neighbors - especially the poor”;
“Christian leaders to study the issues and embrace sound scientific, economic, and ethical thinking on creation stewardship, particularly climate change”; and on
“Political leaders to abandon fruitless and harmful policies to control global temperature and instead adopt policies that simultaneously reflect responsible environmental stewardship, make energy and all its benefits more affordable, and so free the poor to rise out of poverty.”
The war on fossil fuels is, in the end, a war on the poor. It’s time to end it.
Not only are all the climate claims made by the administration wrong, but the benefits of climate policies were shown by independent fact checkers to also be unwarranted.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) President Barack Obama glossed over some inconvenient truths Tuesday in his climate-change speech to the United Nations. For one, as the U.S. cleans up emissions at home, it’s sending dirty fuel abroad to pollute the same sky.
As well, the U.S. is not cleaning up quite as aggressively as Obama implied in his remarks.
Obama was among scores of world leaders at the gathering, which followed by days a mass demonstration in New York City in support of action to combat global warming. Among those who marched: Al Gore, whose 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” shed light on the problem.
A look at some of Obama’s claims and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA: “Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution by more than any other nation on Earth."\
THE FACTS: Europe as a whole has cut a bigger proportion of its emissions. From 2005 to 2013, the period cited by Obama, the European Union reduced carbon dioxide by 13.9 percent, compared with a 10 percent reduction in the U.S. Because the United States pollutes more, it has reduced more raw emissions than the EU -cutting raw tonnage by 649 million tons since 2005, compared with Europe’s reduction of 614 million tons. But Europe has cut a bigger proportion of its emissions.
From 1990 levels, the benchmark year from which the EU measures progress, emissions were down about 18 percent in Europe. Meanwhile, compared with 1990, U.S. emissions are up about 10 percent, based on data from the Global Carbon Project.
OBAMA: “So, all told, these advances have helped create jobs, grow our economy, and drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly two decades - proving that there does not have to be a conflict between a sound environment and strong economic growth.”
THE FACTS: About half of the 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions the U.S. has achieved in recent years can be attributed to the economic recession, not any specific actions from the Obama administration. Obama’s comments also left out that U.S. carbon emissions rose 2.9 percent from 2012 to 2013, the first increase since 2007, because higher natural gas prices spurred more coal use.
OBAMA: “We’re helping more nations skip past the dirty phase of development, using current technologies, not duplicating the same mistakes and environmental degradation that took place previously.
THE FACTS: The U.S. is actually sending more dirty fuel abroad even as it takes steps to help other nations transition to cleaner energy. The U.S. has cuts its own coal consumption by 195 million tons in six years. But according to an AP analysis of Energy Department data, about 20 percent of that coal was shipped to power plants and other customers overseas. Emissions from that coal were not eliminated but rather moved to other countries. As well, the U.S. exported more products refined from oil another dirty fuel than it imported, starting in 2011.
On the other side of the pollution ledger, the Obama administration has placed restrictions on U.S. financing of coal plants overseas that don’t control for carbon dioxide and wants to lower tariffs on trade in clean energy technology.
OBAMA: “Today I’m directing our federal agencies to begin factoring climate resilience into our international development programs and investments.”
THE FACTS: Not an entirely new effort. The U.S. Agency for International Development already factors climate-change impact in its assistance programs, says Oxfam America. Raymond C. Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president, welcomed news that more U.S. agencies will do the same while saying that amounts to “a drop in the bucket” without additional financial commitments.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: From a White House background document: “The Climate Action Plan is working. In 2012, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell to the lowest level in nearly two decades.”
THE FACTS: That plan has nothing to do with reductions in emissions in 2012 because it was not announced until June 2013. Moreover, two of its cornerstone regulations controls on new and existing coal-fired power plants are at this point just proposals. The administration isn’t expected to complete those rules until next year and some states may not submit plans until after Obama leaves office. The statement also leaves out the fact that in 2013, emissions in the U.S. rose for the first time since 2007.
Obama did invest in renewable energy and boost fuel economy before announcing the climate plan. But the plan can’t be credited with improving anything before it came into existence.
Awareness grows that faulty science would keep millions in the dark
By Willie Soon and Christopher Monckton - - Thursday, September 18, 2014
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sensibly declined to attend yet another climate summit - this time called by Ban Ki-moon for Tuesday in New York under the auspices of the United Nations - which profits handsomely from much-exaggerated climate scares. Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel likewise intend to skip the event.
Environmentalists have complained about Mr. Modi’s decision. They say rising atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause droughts, melt Himalayan ice, and poison lakes and waterways in the Indian subcontinent.
However, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has already had to backtrack on earlier assertions that Himalayan glaciers would be gone within 25 years, and the most comprehensive review of drought trends worldwide shows the global land area under drought has decreased throughout the past 30 years.
The spiritual yet down-to-earth Mr. Modi knows that 300 million Indians still have no electricity. His priority is to turn on the lights all over India. In Bihar, four homes in five are still lit by kerosene.
Electric power is the quickest, surest, cheapest way to lift people out of poverty, disease, subsistence agriculture and childhood death - thereby stabilizing India’s population, which may soon overtake China’s.
The world’s governing elites, however, no longer care about poverty. Climate change is their new focus.
For instance, in late August, the Asian Development Bank predicted that warmer weather would cut rice production, rising seas would engulf Mumbai and other coastal megacities, and rainfall would decline by 10 percent to 40 percent across in many Indian provinces.
Garbage in, gospel out. In truth, rice production has risen steadily, sea level is barely rising, and even the U.N.’s climate panel has twice been compelled to admit that there is no evidence of a worldwide change in rainfall.
Subtropical India will not warm by much. Advection would take most of any additional heat poleward. Besides, globally there has been little or no warming for almost two decades. Climate models did not predict that, casting doubt on all of the U.N. climate panel’s “projections.” The panel, on our advice, has recently all but halved its central estimate of near-term warming.
Sea level is rising no faster than for the past 150 years. From 2004 to 2012, the Envisat satellite reported a rise of one-tenth of an inch. From 2003 to 2009, gravity satellites actually showed sea level falling. Results like these have not hitherto been reported in the mainstream news media.
More than two centuries of scientific research have failed to make the duration or magnitude of monsoons predictable. Monsoons depend on sea and surface temperatures and wind conditions in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans, the timing of El Ninos in the equatorial Pacific, variations in Eurasian and Himalayan winter snow cover, and even wind direction in the equatorial stratosphere.
In 1906, forecasts depended on 28 unknowns. By 2007, scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology were using 73. So insisting that just one variable - atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels - will drive future monsoons is unscientific.
IPCC climate models said monsoons would become more intense. Instead, they have weakened for 50 years.
Models also failed to replicate the 60-year and 200-year cycles in monsoon rainfall linked to solar cycles that are reflected in studies of ocean sediments from the Arabian Sea.
A new study led by K.M. Hiremath of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics shows a strong, possibly causative correlation between variations in solar activity and in monsoon rainfall.
Governments also overlook a key conclusion from the world’s modelers, led by Fred Kucharski of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics: “The increase of greenhouse gases in the 20th century has not significantly contributed to the observed decadal Indian monsoonal rainfall variability.”
Not one climate model predicted the severe Indian drought of 2009, followed by the prolonged rains the next year - a one-year increase of 40 percent in most regions. These natural variations are not new. They have happened for tens of thousands of years.
A paper for the scientific journal Climate Dynamics co-authored by B.N. Goswami, recently retired director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, shows why the models relied upon by the U.N. climate panel’s recent assessments predict monsoons inaccurately.
All 16 models examined have the same fatal flaw: They predict rain too easily, by artificially elevating air and water masses in the atmosphere.
Models are not ready to predict the climate. Misusing computers to spew out multiple “what-if” scenarios is unscientific. This approach simply means “if all our unproven assumptions are correct, this could happen.”
Most of the fundamental problems in our still immature understanding of climate have remained unresolved for decades. Some cannot be resolved at all. The U.N.’s climate panel admitted in 2001 what has been known for 50 years: Because climate is a “coupled, non-linear, chaotic object,” reliable long-term climate prediction is impossible.
Misuse of climate models as false prophets of doom is costly in lives as well as treasure.
To condemn the poorest of India’s poor to continuing poverty is to condemn many to an untimely death. Mr. Modi is right to have no more to do with such murderous nonsense. It is time to put an end to climate summits. On the evidence, they are not needed.
Willie Soon is a solar physicist and climate scientist based in Cambridge, Mass. Lord Monckton is a former expert reviewer for the Fifth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013) of the U.N.’s climate panel.