On Monday, thousands gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark, for an international conference on climate change over the next two weeks. While those in attendance believe that the science of global warming (or climate change) is “settled,” there are tens of thousands of noted scientists who disagree, something I’m quite sure you’ve not heard about if you’ve been listening to the usual media outlets.
While the biased nature of news reporting was not enough to find disturbing, several weeks ago the world learned that scientists themselves were guilty of bias in THEIR reporting. “On November 23rd, someone hacked a server used by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and disseminated more than a thousand e-mails and other documents. Climate change skeptics charge that the e-mails show collusion by climate scientists to skew scientific information in favor of manmade global warming. The leaked documents “show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of manmade global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and concealed apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law,” CBS News reported. One climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research was quoted as saying: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” ’ – from Newsmax.com, Dec. 7
To give some balance to the reporting that you will likely hear in the next two weeks coming out of the conference in Copenhagen, I will present here on each posting under the title “What You Haven’t Heard from Environmentalist” several past articles by Chuck Colson and others addressing the climate change/global warming THEORIES we often hear.
Before I present some articles, I’d like to share several quotes I found at: GlobalWarmingHoax.com:
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical. “The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
"Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
“So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.” - Scientist Dr. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland, author of 200 scientific publications and former Greenpeace member.
“Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.” - Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
Global Warming and the Media By Chuck Colson 2/3/2009, Breakpoint.org
Give Us All the Facts
You may have noticed that some of President Obama’s most ardent supporters speak of him in almost messianic terms. But there’s one public figure who apparently means it literally: James Hansen of NASA. Hansen, who is the “father” of the global warming movement, recently told the U.K. Guardian that the new President “has only four years to save the world.” Unless we implement drastic measures like a “moratorium on new power plants that burn coal” and a hefty “carbon tax,” we face an apocalyptic future—“global flooding, wide-spread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns.”
Of course, Hansen’s warnings made headlines around the world. Not only because “doom and gloom” sells, but because the mainstream media treats any claim about man-made global warming with the utmost credulity. Thus, last summer, when a “researcher” claimed that global warming might lead to more violent earthquakes, news outlets trumpeted the story. In their haste, they neither asked how warmer temperatures can cause earthquakes nor checked the researcher’s credentials. These included previous pieces on something called the “Thiaoouba Prophecy” and reading auras. Really. The story was quickly deleted from the outlets’ websites without retraction or comment.
Less comical but no less telling are the stories about the “disappearing” Arctic ice. A year ago, we were told that the Arctic had reached a “tipping point” and that Arctic ice could be “completely” gone, with dire consequences for polar bears and Santa Claus, within five years. What you probably haven’t heard is that, by October, that same Arctic ice covered 29 percent more area than it did the year before and that by the end of the year, it was approaching its greatest mass since 1979. And it’s still growing. There are countless other examples of where real-world facts conflict with global warming theory, not the least of which is that the Earth has been cooling since at least 2003 and arguably since 1998.
As the chairman of the International Geological Congress has asked, “For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?” Those of us shivering this winter have been asking the same question. It’s possible that he and other critics are wrong, of course. What is certain is that we are not getting anything resembling a complete presentation of the facts. The media reports the dire claims, and by the time the claims have been debunked, they have already moved onto the next one. Given the level of dissent and skepticism on the subject, we ought not to let ourselves be panicked and stampeded into taking drastic and costly measures. Nor should we allow the claims about “scientific consensus” to cow us. First, remember, there is no such consensus; and, second, scientists are just as prone to peer pressure and groupthink as everybody else.
This is a major issue. The costs here are immense, not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of human flourishing. I recommend we take a biblical perspective on environmental stewardship. The Acton Institute has produced just such a booklet—a wonderful tool. Come to BreakPoint.org or call in, and we’ll tell you how to get it.
For Further Reading and Information
Read the Acton Institute’s Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition.
“Arctic Ice Could Be Gone in Five Years,” Telegraph (UK), 12 December 2007.
“Arctic Ice Melting ‘Faster Than Predicted’,” Telegraph (UK), 24 April 2008.
Dennis Avery, “The Worst Climate Predictions of 2008,” Canada Free Press, 28 December 2008.
“Arctic Sea Ice Now 28.7% Higher than This Date Last Year - Still Rallying,” Watts Up With That?, 15 October 2008.
Regis Nicoll, “Climate Change Science: Long on Faith, Short on Fact,” BreakPoint Online, 5 December 2008.
“Stimulus through Contraception?: Fewer Kids to Feed,” BreakPoint Commentary, 2 February 2009.
“Just Do It: Good Stewardship and Global Warming,” BreakPoint Commentary, 2 November 2007.
The EPA's Assault On Carbon Dioxide (Forbes.com Commentary, 4/12/09) - Richard A. Epstein
The passing of the environmental torch between the Bush and Obama administrations became ever more evident last week when EPA head Lisa Jackson announced that carbon dioxide is now an official pollutant. Not just any pollutant, mind you, but one that moves in the fast company of methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride--all notoriously bad stuff.
For years, the Bush EPA refused to mount even a partial attack on carbon dioxide. In part, its opposition rested on the uncertain science about CO2's uncertain contribution to global warming. In part it rested on the view that the patchwork programs of the Clean Air Act (CAA) did not afford a sensible platform on which to launch such a huge and risky initiative.
Traditional administrative law principles seemed to give the EPA lots of leeway in backing off carbon dioxide. Courts routinely block agencies from implementing programs that go beyond their statutory marching orders. But courts are most reluctant to coax any agency to devote its limited resources to a program it doesn't want to undertake. It is too risky to let different courts order a single agency to march off in different directions. And it is nearly impossible for any court to monitor agency progress on a project that it doesn't want to carry out.
For these reasons, it was a surprise when, in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court pulled that trigger in Massachusetts v. EPA. That decision ordered the EPA to investigate whether it should classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant under section §7251(a)(1) of the CAA, which says that the administrator shall "prescribe by regulation standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
Justice Stevens held that the EPA's only wiggle room under this statutory command was to decide whether carbon dioxide either caused or contributed to air pollution in ways that endangered public health. Otherwise it had no discretion to back off. And it is hard to deny that carbon dioxide might contribute something to global warming. Nonetheless, most people find it a bit odd to take after poor CO2 as a pollutant when its presence in the atmosphere is a necessary element to sustain life on earth. The rub is that too much carbon dioxide might choke the environment--assuming we could find that tipping point, which looks more uncertain with each passing day.
The science isn't what's troubling with the EPA's recent decision. That honor belongs to targeting new sources of pollution under the CAA, from tail pipes, or for that matter, coal plants. Congress chose to regulate new sources under the CAA in the naïve belief that old ones would quickly fade away. But that grandfathering decision induced people to keep older, more deadly, cars on the road--and power plants stay on line--far longer than they should.New technology produces better pollution controls than old ones--period. For automobiles, the EPA estimates that new cars today emit on average somewhere between 10% and 25% the amount of pollutants that new cars did in 1970 when the EPA became law. The worst new car is better than the best of the old cars, whose inferior pollutant systems only deteriorate with age. Suppose it were 100% sound for the EPA to attack carbon dioxide, then the available strategies under the CAA are the worst possible way to encourage the shift to safer technologies.
No sane libertarian favors death by asphyxiation. The reason we need something like the EPA is because ordinary private lawsuits cannot keep pace with pollution that comes from so many sources and harms so many people. But the legitimacy of ends does not excuse sloppiness on means. First, "do no harm," remains good social policy. The EPA needs to hold off its regulatory offensive against carbon dioxide until it gets statutory authority to tax or regulate those older sources that do most of the damage. And then it has to consider whether a comprehensive attack on CO2 is worth the candle.
Richard A. Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, and a visiting professor at New York University Law School.
Don’t Waste Time Cutting Emissions
By BJORN LOMBORG, Op-Ed Contributor, April 25, 2009,
WE are often told that tackling global warming should be the defining task of our age — that we must cut emissions immediately and drastically. But people are not buying the idea that, unless we act, the planet is doomed. Several recent polls have revealed Americans’ growing skepticism. Solving global warming has become their lowest policy priority, according to a new Pew survey. Moreover, strategies to reduce carbon have failed. Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, politicians from wealthy countries promised to cut emissions by 2000, but did no such thing. In Kyoto in 1997, leaders promised even stricter reductions by 2010, yet emissions have kept increasing unabated. Still, the leaders plan to meet in Copenhagen this December to agree to even more of the same — drastic reductions in emissions that no one will live up to. Another decade will be wasted.
Fortunately, there is a better option: to make low-carbon alternatives like solar and wind energy competitive with old carbon sources. This requires much more spending on research and development of low-carbon energy technology. We might have assumed that investment in this research would have increased when the Kyoto Protocol made fossil fuel use more expensive, but it has not. Economic estimates that assign value to the long-term benefits that would come from reducing warming — things like fewer deaths from heat and less flooding — show that every dollar invested in quickly making low-carbon energy cheaper can do $16 worth of good. If the Kyoto agreement were fully obeyed through 2099, it would cut temperatures by only 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Each dollar would do only about 30 cents worth of good.
The Copenhagen agreement should instead call for every country to spend one-twentieth of a percent of its gross domestic product on low-carbon energy research and development. That would increase the amount of such spending 15-fold to $30 billion, yet the total cost would be only a sixth of the estimated $180 billion worth of lost growth that would result from the Kyoto restrictions.
Kyoto-style emissions cuts can only ever be an expensive distraction from the real business of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. The fact is, carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. Coal burning provides half of the world’s electricity, and fully 80 percent of it in China and India, where laborers now enjoy a quality of life that their parents could barely imagine.
No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now. Given substantially more research, however, green energy could be cheaper than fossil fuels by mid-century. Sadly, the old-style agreement planned for Copenhagen this December will have a negligible effect on temperatures. This renders meaningless any declarations of “success” that might be made after the conference. We must challenge the orthodoxy of Kyoto and create a smarter, more realistic strategy.
Bjorn Lomborg is the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center at Copenhagen Business School and the author of “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.”
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