Environmental Stewardship News Round-Up
The following items appear in the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation Newsletter, May 29, 2007:
1. Coalition to advocate environmental balance
by Tom Strode, May 8, 2007
2. Silly statement of the month: Nancy Pelosi declares “Climate change is a reality”
Berlin (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw “firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality,” and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue. . . .
Comment: “Climate change is a reality” is about as significant as “water is wet.” Climate change has been happening throughout geologic history. What’s more, whatever Pelosi saw going on in Greenland is no evidence of global warming, because temperatures in Greenland have not risen significantly in the last several decades, and the total ice mass on Greenland has grown slightly rather than shrinking slightly.--ECB
3. Harvard Astrophysicist Debunks CO2 as Climate Driver, Presents Strong Case for Solar Variations Instead
In a presentation to the Council on National Policy May 11, 2007, Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon presented extensive evidence against the reigning paradigm of climate change (that it is caused largely by variations in atmospheric CO2) and for a competing paradigm--that it is caused largely by variations in solar output. Soon showed that in geologic history CO2 changes tend to follow, not lead, temperature changes. He compared the claim that CO2 changes cause temperature changes merely because the two correlate with the claim that lung cancer causes cigarette smoking merely because the two correlate. What is crucial is the temporal relation between them. He also showed, using the following graph, that the fairly smooth curve of CO2 change from 1880 to 2000 does not correlate well with the rising and falling cycles in temperature.
Then Soon showed that the solar/temperature correlation is much more robust by setting that graph alongside another:
4. New findings indicate today’s greenhouse gas levels not unusual
by Tim Ball and Tom Harris, Canada Free Press, May 14, 2007
[The article shows that pre-industrial CO2 levels might have been significantly higher than manmade global warming alarmism assumes, thus throwing off all computer modeling of the CO2/climate relationship. Included in it is the following graph, showing CO2 data included and excluded from the typical story.
Caption: Early CO2 data ‘cherry-picked’ to prove humanity was causing a massive increase.
Bottom line: Manmade change in CO2 levels may be badly exaggerated, leaving the CO2/climate change connection baseless.--ECB]
5. Overreaching: Global-warming zealots want to make policy wonks out of pastors
by Marvin Olasky, World, May 19, 2007
6. Evangelical Climate Initiative leader builds a straw man and knocks it down
In an article titled “Why some evangelicals decide to forego creation care,” Evangelical Climate Initiative leader David Gushee (with whom I debated the ECI last fall--and we distribute the DVD while, so far as we can tell, he doesn’t) refers no fewer than four times to those who “resist creation care” and once to “resistance to creation care,” but he never names so much as a single resister. Perhaps he should ask himself whether some of those he thinks “resist creation care” believe in creation care but reject some of the empirical claims or Biblical interpretations he uses. But then, it’s always easier to build straw men and knock them down than to engage in civil, rational discourse over substantive disagreements.--ECB
7. Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming
May 15, 2007
8. ERAU professor seeks balance in global warming debate
by Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal, May 12, 2007
DAYTONA BEACH -- Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.
“After watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ I was relatively convinced,” Shipley said one day last month in class. "(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.
“After watching ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ my thinking completely changed,” he said. “I kind of did a complete flip-flop.”
College students aren’t the only ones being confronted with climate change, its causes and what -- if anything -- can be done about it.
A Democratic Congress, an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” and continuing United Nations’ proclamations have all contributed to the drumbeat for reducing carbon dioxide emissions as a strategy for fighting global warming. Some scientists are concerned the forces that are shaping debate and making policy decisions are not based on truths -- convenient or not.
James Wanliss, a space physicist who teaches at Embry-Riddle, showed students the two films in an honors course titled “The Politics and Science of Fear” because he said more and more the public is being sold one side of an issue with many dimensions.
“I fear that attempts are being made to purposefully subvert the public understanding of the nature of science in order to achieve political goals,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Science is not about consensus, and to invoke this raises the hackles of scientists such as myself. The lure of politics and publicity is no doubt seductive, but it nevertheless amazes me that so many scientists have jumped on the bandwagon of consensus science, apparently forgetting or ignoring the sad history of consensus science.” . . . .
Comment: This is the kind of education that actually teaches students how to think, not just to embrace the “right” conclusions. We commend Dr. Wanliss for his efforts and offer his example for other teachers to follow. Studies have shown that students who see both sides of controversial issues generally learn more about each side than they would about either if taught only one side.--ECB
9. Telling the truth about climate change could be hazardous to your job
10. Children “bad for planet”
by Sarah-Kate Templeton in London, The Australian, May 7, 2007
Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.
The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.
John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.
“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.” . . .
Comment: It would be a little difficult for most British couples to have one less child. The UK’s total fertility rate is now about 1.66 (about half a child below the replacement rate of 2.1); one fewer would be 2/3 of a child.
The mentality behind Guillebaud’s perspective sees human beings principally as consumers and polluters, a fundamentally anti-Biblical perspective. The Biblical world view sees human beings, created in God’s images, as principally producers and stewards. For more on this, check out the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship (PDF).
A better thing for British couples to do to help the future of the planet would be to have as many children as they want, raise them to be godly, hard-working, self-sacrificing people who love to serve others, and encourage them by precept and example to promote economic development for the world’s poorest countries.--ECB
Related item:
11. A world full of good news
by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, May 13, 2007
12. Ethanol’s Bitter Taste: Congress is choking on corn-based fuel
by Kimberley A. Strassel, The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2007
13. Sometimes reality knocks: New U.S. coal plants inevitable despite Green angst
The Washington Pest, May 18, 2007
A load of coal is about to hit the green fan. Earlier this month we attended a conference on coal-fired electric power. A titanic collision is in progress, albeit unseen so far. An iceberg ahead in the night. The ship unable to swerve. Here’s the deal.
US peak power use increases pretty steadily about 20,000 MW a year. It has for 40 years, an incredible straight line in a world of economic wiggles. We handle this growth with spurts of power plant construction. The last spurt was around 2000 and we quietly built about 150,000 MW, all natural gas-fired because gas was cheap and green. That is roughly 150 large power plants.
Now gas is prohibitively expensive, we are once again running out of power, and coal is the only large scale option. So the industry is gearing up to build a huge new fleet of coal fired power plants. They will do so for there is no option. You can’t make electricity out of political rhetoric, would that you could.
What this cold shot of reality will do to the great green political movement presently underway remains to be seen. It will not be a pretty picture.
Enjoy the show.
Related items:
And Green Europe is no different
C02-Handel, May 21, 2007
The European Commission is upholding its system of billions-worth of state subsidies for coal mining. In a report on the subsidies for the sector, the Brussels authority on Monday concluded that there is “no need for changes”. The environmental protection organization Greenpeace criticized the commission for failing to wind down coal production. If Europe is serious about climate protection, tax payers money should be plugged into technologies for renewable energies instead of subsidising dirty coal, Greenpeace demanded. In 2005, the EU provided some 4.1 billion euro in state aid to eight European Union countries, corresponding to 11 million euro per day....
ANALYSIS-Germany’s coal power plans threaten EU climate goal
REALITY CHECK: REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS PUSH COAL
14. Europe isolated, U.S. leading on climate policy at G8 summit
Kyoto is kaput. Headlines and links courtesy of CCNet:
INDIA REJECTS GREENHOUSE GAS LIMITS
Agence France-Presse, 29 May 2007
CHINA BLOCKS EUROPEAN CALLS FOR EMISSION CUTS
Deutsche Presse Agentur, 28 May 2007
RUSSIA SAYS NJET: KYOTO OFF THE AGENDA
St Petersburg Times, 29 May 2007
US AND GERMANY SPLIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Financial Times, 28 May 2007
PELOSI NON-COMMITTAL ON US CLIMATE STANCE FOR G8 SUMMIT
Agence France-Presse, 28 May 2007
JAPAN OFFERS G8 CLIMATE COMPROMISE
Carbon Positive, 28 May 2007
BUILDING BRIDGES, CANADA SUPPORTS JAPAN’S CLIMATE PLAN
The Canadian Press, 27 May 2007
GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS WARN AGAINST BREAK WITH U.S. OVER G8 CLIMATE DISPUTE
Reuters, 25 May 2007
G8 CLIMATE CHANGE MEMO IS A REALITY CHECK
The Times, 25 May 2007
OPINION: G8 FAILURE AND EUROPE’S ISOLATION
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 27 May 2007
POLES AND CZECHS SUE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EU Business, 25 May 2007
(WARSAW) - Poland and the Czech Republic said Friday they would appeal an EU decision sharply cutting their carbon dioxide emission quotas for 2008-2012 for industries with high energy consumption.
15. Briefly Noted
Take rising methane from melting permafrost off list of global warming fears
Take warming-induced ice age through Gulf Stream shut-down or reversal off list of global warming fears (Honest! Even the New York Times says so!)
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell in 2006 despite growing economy
while
Europe’s carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise despite sluggish economy
and consequently
G8 is unlikely to address climate change rules this time around (1, 2, 3)
Hurricane numbers and strength are determined more by El Nino and African monsoon than by sea surface temperatures--defanging another global warming fear
Why the Third World won’t join environmental alarmism
Al Gore hates free speech when it doesn’t agree with him on global warming
Ethanol isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Despite all attempts at reductions, world CO2 output is likely to rise by 60 percent by 2030
One man tells how he left environmental (and other kinds of) apocalypticism behind
Carbon offset trading needs regulation
Why paying now to reduce climate change later is economic nonsense
U.S. House democrats concerned that fighting global warming may harm economy
Czech President Vaclav Klaus denounces global warming “hysteria”
European car makers balk at low CO2 emissions targets
How Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” gets used in Canadian (and other) schools
Why the father of modern climatology, Reid Bryson, rejects GW alarmism
1. Coalition to advocate environmental balance
by Tom Strode, May 8, 2007
2. Silly statement of the month: Nancy Pelosi declares “Climate change is a reality”
Berlin (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw “firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality,” and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue. . . .
Comment: “Climate change is a reality” is about as significant as “water is wet.” Climate change has been happening throughout geologic history. What’s more, whatever Pelosi saw going on in Greenland is no evidence of global warming, because temperatures in Greenland have not risen significantly in the last several decades, and the total ice mass on Greenland has grown slightly rather than shrinking slightly.--ECB
3. Harvard Astrophysicist Debunks CO2 as Climate Driver, Presents Strong Case for Solar Variations Instead
In a presentation to the Council on National Policy May 11, 2007, Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon presented extensive evidence against the reigning paradigm of climate change (that it is caused largely by variations in atmospheric CO2) and for a competing paradigm--that it is caused largely by variations in solar output. Soon showed that in geologic history CO2 changes tend to follow, not lead, temperature changes. He compared the claim that CO2 changes cause temperature changes merely because the two correlate with the claim that lung cancer causes cigarette smoking merely because the two correlate. What is crucial is the temporal relation between them. He also showed, using the following graph, that the fairly smooth curve of CO2 change from 1880 to 2000 does not correlate well with the rising and falling cycles in temperature.
Then Soon showed that the solar/temperature correlation is much more robust by setting that graph alongside another:
4. New findings indicate today’s greenhouse gas levels not unusual
by Tim Ball and Tom Harris, Canada Free Press, May 14, 2007
[The article shows that pre-industrial CO2 levels might have been significantly higher than manmade global warming alarmism assumes, thus throwing off all computer modeling of the CO2/climate relationship. Included in it is the following graph, showing CO2 data included and excluded from the typical story.
Caption: Early CO2 data ‘cherry-picked’ to prove humanity was causing a massive increase.
Bottom line: Manmade change in CO2 levels may be badly exaggerated, leaving the CO2/climate change connection baseless.--ECB]
5. Overreaching: Global-warming zealots want to make policy wonks out of pastors
by Marvin Olasky, World, May 19, 2007
6. Evangelical Climate Initiative leader builds a straw man and knocks it down
In an article titled “Why some evangelicals decide to forego creation care,” Evangelical Climate Initiative leader David Gushee (with whom I debated the ECI last fall--and we distribute the DVD while, so far as we can tell, he doesn’t) refers no fewer than four times to those who “resist creation care” and once to “resistance to creation care,” but he never names so much as a single resister. Perhaps he should ask himself whether some of those he thinks “resist creation care” believe in creation care but reject some of the empirical claims or Biblical interpretations he uses. But then, it’s always easier to build straw men and knock them down than to engage in civil, rational discourse over substantive disagreements.--ECB
7. Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming
May 15, 2007
8. ERAU professor seeks balance in global warming debate
by Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal, May 12, 2007
DAYTONA BEACH -- Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.
“After watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ I was relatively convinced,” Shipley said one day last month in class. "(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.
“After watching ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ my thinking completely changed,” he said. “I kind of did a complete flip-flop.”
College students aren’t the only ones being confronted with climate change, its causes and what -- if anything -- can be done about it.
A Democratic Congress, an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” and continuing United Nations’ proclamations have all contributed to the drumbeat for reducing carbon dioxide emissions as a strategy for fighting global warming. Some scientists are concerned the forces that are shaping debate and making policy decisions are not based on truths -- convenient or not.
James Wanliss, a space physicist who teaches at Embry-Riddle, showed students the two films in an honors course titled “The Politics and Science of Fear” because he said more and more the public is being sold one side of an issue with many dimensions.
“I fear that attempts are being made to purposefully subvert the public understanding of the nature of science in order to achieve political goals,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Science is not about consensus, and to invoke this raises the hackles of scientists such as myself. The lure of politics and publicity is no doubt seductive, but it nevertheless amazes me that so many scientists have jumped on the bandwagon of consensus science, apparently forgetting or ignoring the sad history of consensus science.” . . . .
Comment: This is the kind of education that actually teaches students how to think, not just to embrace the “right” conclusions. We commend Dr. Wanliss for his efforts and offer his example for other teachers to follow. Studies have shown that students who see both sides of controversial issues generally learn more about each side than they would about either if taught only one side.--ECB
9. Telling the truth about climate change could be hazardous to your job
10. Children “bad for planet”
by Sarah-Kate Templeton in London, The Australian, May 7, 2007
Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.
The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.
John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.
“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.” . . .
Comment: It would be a little difficult for most British couples to have one less child. The UK’s total fertility rate is now about 1.66 (about half a child below the replacement rate of 2.1); one fewer would be 2/3 of a child.
The mentality behind Guillebaud’s perspective sees human beings principally as consumers and polluters, a fundamentally anti-Biblical perspective. The Biblical world view sees human beings, created in God’s images, as principally producers and stewards. For more on this, check out the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship (PDF).
A better thing for British couples to do to help the future of the planet would be to have as many children as they want, raise them to be godly, hard-working, self-sacrificing people who love to serve others, and encourage them by precept and example to promote economic development for the world’s poorest countries.--ECB
Related item:
11. A world full of good news
by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, May 13, 2007
12. Ethanol’s Bitter Taste: Congress is choking on corn-based fuel
by Kimberley A. Strassel, The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2007
13. Sometimes reality knocks: New U.S. coal plants inevitable despite Green angst
The Washington Pest, May 18, 2007
A load of coal is about to hit the green fan. Earlier this month we attended a conference on coal-fired electric power. A titanic collision is in progress, albeit unseen so far. An iceberg ahead in the night. The ship unable to swerve. Here’s the deal.
US peak power use increases pretty steadily about 20,000 MW a year. It has for 40 years, an incredible straight line in a world of economic wiggles. We handle this growth with spurts of power plant construction. The last spurt was around 2000 and we quietly built about 150,000 MW, all natural gas-fired because gas was cheap and green. That is roughly 150 large power plants.
Now gas is prohibitively expensive, we are once again running out of power, and coal is the only large scale option. So the industry is gearing up to build a huge new fleet of coal fired power plants. They will do so for there is no option. You can’t make electricity out of political rhetoric, would that you could.
What this cold shot of reality will do to the great green political movement presently underway remains to be seen. It will not be a pretty picture.
Enjoy the show.
Related items:
And Green Europe is no different
C02-Handel, May 21, 2007
The European Commission is upholding its system of billions-worth of state subsidies for coal mining. In a report on the subsidies for the sector, the Brussels authority on Monday concluded that there is “no need for changes”. The environmental protection organization Greenpeace criticized the commission for failing to wind down coal production. If Europe is serious about climate protection, tax payers money should be plugged into technologies for renewable energies instead of subsidising dirty coal, Greenpeace demanded. In 2005, the EU provided some 4.1 billion euro in state aid to eight European Union countries, corresponding to 11 million euro per day....
ANALYSIS-Germany’s coal power plans threaten EU climate goal
REALITY CHECK: REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS PUSH COAL
14. Europe isolated, U.S. leading on climate policy at G8 summit
Kyoto is kaput. Headlines and links courtesy of CCNet:
INDIA REJECTS GREENHOUSE GAS LIMITS
Agence France-Presse, 29 May 2007
CHINA BLOCKS EUROPEAN CALLS FOR EMISSION CUTS
Deutsche Presse Agentur, 28 May 2007
RUSSIA SAYS NJET: KYOTO OFF THE AGENDA
St Petersburg Times, 29 May 2007
US AND GERMANY SPLIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Financial Times, 28 May 2007
PELOSI NON-COMMITTAL ON US CLIMATE STANCE FOR G8 SUMMIT
Agence France-Presse, 28 May 2007
JAPAN OFFERS G8 CLIMATE COMPROMISE
Carbon Positive, 28 May 2007
BUILDING BRIDGES, CANADA SUPPORTS JAPAN’S CLIMATE PLAN
The Canadian Press, 27 May 2007
GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS WARN AGAINST BREAK WITH U.S. OVER G8 CLIMATE DISPUTE
Reuters, 25 May 2007
G8 CLIMATE CHANGE MEMO IS A REALITY CHECK
The Times, 25 May 2007
OPINION: G8 FAILURE AND EUROPE’S ISOLATION
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 27 May 2007
POLES AND CZECHS SUE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EU Business, 25 May 2007
(WARSAW) - Poland and the Czech Republic said Friday they would appeal an EU decision sharply cutting their carbon dioxide emission quotas for 2008-2012 for industries with high energy consumption.
15. Briefly Noted
Take rising methane from melting permafrost off list of global warming fears
Take warming-induced ice age through Gulf Stream shut-down or reversal off list of global warming fears (Honest! Even the New York Times says so!)
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell in 2006 despite growing economy
while
Europe’s carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise despite sluggish economy
and consequently
G8 is unlikely to address climate change rules this time around (1, 2, 3)
Hurricane numbers and strength are determined more by El Nino and African monsoon than by sea surface temperatures--defanging another global warming fear
Why the Third World won’t join environmental alarmism
Al Gore hates free speech when it doesn’t agree with him on global warming
Ethanol isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Despite all attempts at reductions, world CO2 output is likely to rise by 60 percent by 2030
One man tells how he left environmental (and other kinds of) apocalypticism behind
Carbon offset trading needs regulation
Why paying now to reduce climate change later is economic nonsense
U.S. House democrats concerned that fighting global warming may harm economy
Czech President Vaclav Klaus denounces global warming “hysteria”
European car makers balk at low CO2 emissions targets
How Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” gets used in Canadian (and other) schools
Why the father of modern climatology, Reid Bryson, rejects GW alarmism
Comments
#1 2007-05-30 11:07 (Reply)
Regarding #6: Gushee wrote something similar in CT that I saw and had the same initial reaction as you. I’ve argued before that care for the environment is not simply identical to action on global climate change.
Of course, that goes both ways. For those who advocate action, environmental stewardship gets reduced to a litmus test on carbon caps or some other policy. But for those who are skeptical of these claims, the conversation is dominated by attempting to refute the so-called “consensus.” How many of the pieces in this newsletter are not related to the climate change question?
If politically conservative but environmentally-conscious Christians spent more time talking about constructive ideas to properly steward the environment (beyond the climate change debate), maybe Gushee and others would have even less justification for their conflation of creation care and climate change.