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Newsletter (April 1, 2010)
Above the Foldby E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
April 1, 2010
. . . Law is what God requires of us. Gospel is what God has done for us because we didn't obey. Law is commandment; gospel is news—good news.
The Apostle Paul said the gospel was "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). He explained the implications of these three things elsewhere at length, but in the final analysis, that's the gospel.
There's no command there, only news. Though because of our sins we deserved to die, Christ died in our place, bearing the penalty for our sins. His resurrection showed that God accepted His death on our behalf so that all who trust Him might be forgiven and reconciled to Him.
There are more kinds of good news than just that. It's good news that the plumber can replace my leaking water heater today. It's good news that the police caught and confined a serial killer. But when we talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have this specifically in mind: Christ died for our sins, He was buried, He rose again from the dead.
Now, the Bible does require us to do justice. About that, the proponents of the "social gospel" and "social justice" are correct. But they still make two mistakes.
First, by equating the gospel with the command to do justice they confuse law with gospel—a deadly mistake.
Second, drawing more from Karl Marx than from the Bible, they define social justice as equality, or some approximation of it, in distribution of wealth. That's why they automatically decry the gap between rich and poor as "injustice." . . .
Read the rest.In this issue
Featured- A National Survey of Television Meteorologists About Climate Change: Preliminary Findings
Debate- Restraining Climate-Science Diversity
- 'Change' Is Not New
Science- James Lovelock: 'Fudging Data Is a Sin Against Science'
- An Example of Why a Global Average Temperature Anomaly Is Not an Effective Metric of Climate
- Environmentalists Are Killing Environmentalism
Economics- U.S. EPA Goes Unconstitutional: Time to Rein in a Rogue Agency
- Federal Sting Uncovers Potential for Energy Star Fraud and Abuse
- The Trillion-Dollar Question Is: Who Will Now Lead the Climate Battle?
- Blowing Smoke on Wind Energy
Upcoming Events
Briefly Noted
Meet the Critics: Robert C. Balling, Jr., Ph.D.
Landmark Documents from the Cornwall Alliance
Featuredby Edward Maibach, Kristopher Wilson, and James Witte
Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, March 29, 2010
. . . Weathercasters hold a wide range of beliefs about global warming. Survey participants responded to a variety of questions assessing their beliefs in and attitudes about “global warming,” questions that have been used previously in our public opinion research. [2] More than half of our respondent (54%) indicated that global warming is happening, 25% indicated it isn’t, and 21% say they don’t know yet. About one-third (31%) reported that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, while almost two-thirds (63%) reported it is caused mostly by natural changes in the environment. Half indicated that they have thought “a lot” about global warming, and a large majority said they are fairly or very well informed about the causes of global warming (93%), the consequences of global warming (89%), and the ways to reduce global warming (86%)—numbers that are much higher than public responses to the same questions. Over half of weathercasters indicated that humans could reduce global warming (58%), and that the U.S. should reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do (63%). Almost half (47%) felt they needed some or a lot more information before forming a firm opinion about global warming, and almost one-third (30%) said they could easily change their mind about global warming. Just over one quarter (27%) agreed with the statement by a prominent TV weathercaster: “global warming is a scam.”
Only one third of TV weathercasters believe that there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Despite the strong scientific consensus among climate scientists, almost two-thirds (61%) of TV weathercasters think there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening. Perhaps partly as a result, 79% of our respondents indicated that coverage of climate change science must reflect a “balance” of viewpoints just as coverage of political or social issues are covered. Prior research conducted by others, however, has shown that “balanced” news coverage about climate change is misleading in that it tends to give audience members the false impression that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening. . . .
Read the rest (PDF).
Related item:
Forecasters at Odds About Warming Threat
by Jennifer Harper
Writer, Washington Times
March 30, 2010
Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming
by Leslie Kaufman
Writer, New York Times
March 29, 2010Back to top Debateby Anthony J. Sadar
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Washington Times, March 17, 2010
. . . A careful, dispassionate look at the enormous complexity of the Earth-atmosphere system and what we think we know about it reveals that we know very little. Mountains of data have been collected on our land masses, oceans and atmosphere - thermal properties, structure, chemical composition, short- and long-term fluctuations and the like. But the integration, interpretation and confident, long-term predictive powers that might someday emerge from the data seem to be a knowledge reserved for the distant future. Nevertheless, numerous scientists and politicians speak with one voice that not only do we know enough about how the climate operates to alter its operation, but that there is a strong, even overwhelming, consensus in this supposedly confident knowledge.
Where did such single-minded confidence originate? The halls of academia offer a good place to start. Atmospheric science has blossomed tremendously since I was a meteorology student at Pennsylvania State University in the mid-1970s. From slide-rule calculations, paper maps and lumbering mainframe computers, the field exploded, not only with new theories and models and lightning-speed computer products, but in celebrity as well. Meteorologists seemed to handle the increased attention and authority in a reasonable, measured manner, whereas climatologists, not accustomed to being in the limelight, seemed to relish the sometimes fawning attention. After all, climatology jumped from a cloistered and tedious compilation of facts and figures to a field trusted not to make mundane daily and weekly weather forecasts for Podunksville, USA, but to prognosticate years, even decades, into the future for Planet Earth. Upon these momentous outlooks, world economies would rely, living conditions would be altered, personalities would be exalted. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Thomas Sowell
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Columnist, Examiner
March 31, 2010
When ancient fossils of creatures that live on the ocean floor have been found in rock formations at the summit of Mount Everest, that ought to give us a clue that big changes in the earth are nothing new, and that huge changes have been going on long before human beings appeared on the scene.
The recent statement that the earth was warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today, made by the climate scientist who is at the heart of the recent scandal about "global warming" statistics, ought to at least give pause to those who are determined to believe that human beings must be the reason for "climate change."
Other climate scientists have pointed out before now that the earth has warmed and cooled many times over the centuries. Contrary to the impression created in much of the media and in politics, no one has denied that temperatures change, sometimes more than they are changing today. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Scienceby Leo Hickman
Writer, Guardian
March 29, 2010
In his first major interview since the climate-change emails scandal, James Lovelock says he is disgusted by the actions of some scientists, applauds 'good' climate sceptics, and warns that global warming could even lead to war . . .
. . . in person Lovelock has a becalming presence, even when firing off verbal thunderbolts at the various "dumbos" with whom we have bestowed our collective fate: namely, "the politicians, scientists and lobbyists".
The past four months, he says, have only hardened his disdain for this grouping; a turbulent period that has seen efforts to tackle climate change undermined by the online release of the hacked University of East Anglia emails, the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference, the (forced) admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that its latest report contained some minor mistakes, and the onset of an exceptionally cold winter across some parts of the northern hemisphere.
Leaning back into his swivel chair in his modest office-cum-laboratory, from where he writes and conducts the odd commissioned experiment for the Ministry of Defence and MI5 ("it's nothing that interesting; just health-and-safety work", he says when probed for more detail), Lovelock directs his first wave of ire at the reports that climate scientists had been caught up in the email scandal. He was, he says, "utterly disgusted" when he first heard about the allegations. (He didn't read the actual emails when they were posted online, adding that: "Oddly, I felt reluctant to pry.")
During this discussion, Lovelock recalls the "corruption of science" that occurred during the attempts to link chlorofluorocarbons with the hole in the ozone layer in the 1980s. "Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do."
Lovelock says the events of the past few months have seen him warm to the efforts of some climate sceptics: "What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek.
"The good sceptics have done a good service – but some of the mad ones, I think, have not done anyone any favours. Some, of course, are corrupted and employed by oil companies and things like that. Some even work for governments. For example, I wouldn't put it past the Russians to be behind some of the disinformation to help further their energy interests. But you need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic."
And the sceptics are right, he says, to be deeply distrustful of scientists who are overly reliant on computer models, particularly when it comes to predicting future climate scenarios: "We're not that bright an animal. We stumble along very nicely and it's amazing what we do do sometimes, but we tend to be too hubristic to notice the limitations. If you make a model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it's a model and think of it as the real world." . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Roger Pielke, Sr.
Meteorologist; Author, Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
March 19, 2010
Roy Spencer and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville have reported in their Global Temperature Report that February 2010 was the 2nd warmest February in 32 years (e.g. see Roy’s summary). [UPDATE: Thanks to Phillip Gentry for providing this figure!]
Their spatial map of the anomalies, however, shows that most of the relative warmth was in a focused geographic area; see
The global average is based on the summation of large areas of positive and negative temperature anomalies.
As I have reported before on my weblog; e.g. see What is the Importance to Climate of Heterogeneous Spatial Trends in Tropospheric Temperatures?, it is the regional tropospheric temperature anomalies that determine the locations of development and movement of weather systems [which are the actual determinants of such climate events as drought, floods, etc] not a global average temperature anomaly.
Read the rest.Back to top by Timothy F. Ball
Professor of Climatology, University of Winnipeg; Chairman, Natural Resources Stewardship Project; Senior Fellow, Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Canada Free Press, March 19, 2010
Aesop (620-564 BC) the Greek writer famous for his fables told of the boy who falsely cried wolf. Environmentalists have falsely cried wolf and effectively undermine environmentalism the need to live within the confines of a finite planet. They misled, exaggerated and made a multitude of false predictions to the detriment of the environment and people’s willingness to be aware and concerned. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was a major starting point that blamed DDT for many things including thinner eggshells none of which proved correct.
Indeed, as Paul Driessen identified in Eco-imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, banning DDT led to millions of unnecessary deaths from malaria that exceed deaths from AIDS in Africa.
A myriad of false stories made headlines over the last 40 years. All are conditional that is they’re prefaced by words like, ‘could’ and ‘maybe’, but the public generally remembers the terse and unconditional headlines. Ultimately almost all the stories were subsequently proved incorrect, but that never makes the headlines. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Economicsby Marlo Lewis
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
MasterResource, March 30, 2010
When did Congress tell the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to license California and other states to adopt non-federal fuel economy standards within their borders? When did Congress tell EPA to act as co-equal or even senior partner with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in setting fuel-economy standards for the auto industry?
When did Congress tell EPA to establish climate and energy policy for the nation? And when did Congress tell EPA to “tailor,” that is amend, the Clean Air Act to avoid an administrative debacle of its own making?
The answer, of course, is never, never, never, and never. EPA is flouting federal law and the Constitution. . . .
Section 108 of the Clean Air Act obligates EPA to initiate a NAAQS rulemaking for “air pollution” from “numerous or diverse mobile or stationary sources” that may “reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” Carbon dioxide is obviously emitted from numerous and diverse mobile and stationary sources, and EPA’s endangerment finding declares that the associated “air pollution” (whatever that is) endangers public health and welfare.
What is more, EPA attributes endangerment to the “elevated concentration” of GHGs in the atmosphere (p. 66516). By “elevated,” EPA means elevated above pre-industrial levels. Substantively, EPA has already made the case for establishing NAAQS for CO2 set below current atmospheric levels.
And there’s the rub. Even a global depression lasting several decades would not be enough to lower CO2 concentrations from today’s level (389 parts per million) to 350 ppm – the new politically-correct “stabilization” target advocated by Jim Hansen, Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri, the Center for Biological Diversity, and many others. Yet under the Clean Air Act, states are obligated to attain NAAQS within five years or at most 10 years. The endangerment finding thus sets the stage for eco-litigation groups to transform the Clean Air Act into a deindustrialization mandate — an economic suicide pact. The Murkowski resolution would nip all this mischief in the bud.
Read the rest.Back to top by Quena Gonzalez
Director for Research and Strategy, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
April 1, 2010
. . . the Government Accountability Office concludes (PDF) that “Energy Star is for the most part a self-certification program vulnerable to fraud and abuse.” In a nine-month sting, the GAO was able to register the majority (15 out of 20) of its bogus products made by fake manufacturers.
The products range from the realistic to the ridiculous (PDF). Mainstream appliances, like a refrigerator and a computer monitor, got quick approvals (in one case, in less than 30 minutes) without any independent verification, but other items should probably have raised flags. Three applications for products were certified, despite claiming to be at least 20% more energy efficient(!) than their nearest competitors; one of them initially triggered questions, but its improbable claims were accepted after the (fake) manufacturer responded by email without supplying any proof.
Setting a new bar for creativity by government employees, the GAO included several obviously bogus products in the sting, including a gas-powered clock radio the size of a small electrical generator (described in the application as “easy on your electric bill, and surprisingly quiet”!), and an air room cleaner that was actually a feather duster attached to a space heater. To the chagrin of late-night TV comedians everywhere, we may never know what an “electric office hammer” is or whether it would have been approved . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Paul Harris, John Vidal, and Robin McKie
The Observer, March 28, 2010
Some of the planet's most powerful paymasters will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss a nagging financial problem: how to raise a trillion dollars for the developing world. Those charged with achieving this daunting goal will include Gordon Brown, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord (Nicholas) Stern and Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economics adviser.
As an array of expertise, it is formidable: but then so is the task they have been set by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. In effect, the world's top financiers have been told to work out how to raise at least $100bn a year for the rest of this decade, cash that will be used to help the world's poorest countries adapt to climate change. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Nick Loris
Research Assistant, Heritage Foundation
March 19, 2010
President Obama has been quite adamant about his push to transition to a clean energy economy, most notably by subsidizing wind and solar energy sources. He argues we need the government to invest in renewable energy to strengthen our economy and reduce the earth’s fever before it’s too late. Despite the Congress’s attempt to address the nation’s economic concerns and the government’s climate concerns, Washington’s policy prescriptions may not be all they’re cracked up to be. Consider a new study from MIT on wind power says that large wind farms could increase temperatures:
Using a climate model developed by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, the researchers simulated the aerodynamic effects of large-scale wind farms — located both on land and on the ocean — to analyze how the atmosphere, ocean and land would respond over a 60-year span.
For the land analysis, they simulated the effects of wind farms by using data about how objects similar to turbines, such as undulating hills and clumps of trees, affect surface “roughness,” or friction that can disturb wind flow. After adding this data to the model, the researchers observed that the surface air temperature over the wind farm regions increased by about one degree Celsius, which averages out to an increase of .15 degrees Celsius over the entire global surface. . . . Read the rest.Back to top Upcoming EventsFriends of Coal Tennessee and the Tennessee Mining Association are hosting Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer for a screening of their documentary, Mine Your Own Business on April 7, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. at the historic Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, Tenn. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and a brief panel discussion will begin at 7:00 p.m., followed by the movie starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for $5.00 plus a small processing fee on the Belcourt Theatre website. Proceeds from the event support Friends of Coal Tennessee. . . .
Register online.Back to top The purpose of ICCC-4 is the same as it was for the first three events: to build momentum and public awareness of the global warming “realism” movement, a network of scientists, economists, policymakers, and concerned citizens who believe sound science and economics, rather than exaggeration and hype, ought to determine what actions, if any, are taken to address the problem of climate change. Speakers will include over a hundred scientists, economists, and other scholars from around the world.
Register online.Back to top Briefly NotedICECAP Features Beisner: 'Does High Urban CO2 Concentration Threaten Health?'
Tonkowich: 25 Years for FREE
Chesser: Christie Takes Down Global Warming ParanoiaBack to top Meet the CriticsMeet the Critics gives you basic information on 64 of the leading critics of dangerous manmade global warming. Today's critic:
Robert C. Balling, Jr., Ph.D.
Robert Balling, Jr., director of Arizona State University's climatology laboratory, has served as a climate consultant to, among other organizations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Environment Program, and the World Meteorological Organization. Balling says that "the Earth was probably warmer in the past than our records indicate and, therefore, the change in temperature that we now observe is not as great as it appears." In addition to his many scientific papers, such as The Increase in Global Temperature: What it Does and Does Not Tell Us, Balling has authored three books books on climate change, including The Heated Debate: Greenhouse Predictions Versus Climate Reality and The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming.
Back to top Landmark Documents from the Cornwall Alliance
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., National Spokesman
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, http://www.cornwallalliance.org/
Information in this newsletter is for scholarly and educational use only and may not be copied or reproduced for any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright holders.
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