|
Newsletter (August 20, 2010)
Above the FoldJames Wanliss is both a Christian and a physicist whose book Resisting the Green Dragon brings his religious and scientific understandings to consideration of twenty-first century environmentalism. It is an amusing, informative and easy read that deserves to be read by all Christians and all others who care for the natural world. He says, “Christianity is a religion professing the greatest affinity for truth, Jesus even calling himself, ‘the truth.’ Christians must care, therefore, that they do not misguidedly accommodate the world spirit of this age under the guise of caring for the environment.”
Wanliss assesses the “truth” of environmentalist claims by comparison to Biblical texts, theological studies and historical events, many within living memory. He calls modern environmentalism the “Green Dragon,” and he concludes:
What gives is that the Green Dragon would be well content with the withering away of Christian religion, a silencing of the Biblical view that man is a special creature, spiritually sensitive to his closeness to God and cognizant of his lordship over the rest of creation. Irrationalism serves as a point of contact with the increasingly unreasonable mainstream Christianity. And the Dragon is content to use the self-proclaimed weaknesses of the Church against its mortal enemy; if the Church wishes to make its own hanging rope, the Dragon will not stop her. He accepts that “environmentalist critiques or prescriptions are not necessarily wrongheaded in every instance,” but he points out: “Yet in spite of the doom saying, human welfare in a host of categories including health, education, wealth, and so on, is actually improving. Environmental quality, at least in societies most strongly influenced by Christian values, continues to improve.”
And he provides evidence that according to prominent environmentalists “the problem is not so much that we have done an evil to the creation, but that we have touched it at all.”
However, Wanliss argues; “Of course the hand of man has changed the wilderness, has tamed it. And the change is, for the most part, beautiful. Deliberate, even massive, change to the wilderness is not necessarily bad; it can be, in fact, good.”
And he justifies that.
I commend this book for everyone to read and enjoy.
--Rev. Richard S. Courtney, Methodist Minister, Consultant to the U.K. government
and the U.K. and European parliaments on energy and the environment,
Expert Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Resisting the Green Dragon takes its cue from James 4:7, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Click here to take advantage of pre-publication discount for the book and the related 12-lecture DVD series, great for churches, Sunday schools, families, students, and small groups. Click here to register for regular email updates as more names and resources are announced in the coming weeks.In This Issue
Featured- Comments to the InterAcademy IPCC Review: Is It Time to Start Over?
Science & Ecology- Comments on Miskolczi’s (2010) Controversial Greenhouse Theory
- Global Death Toll From Extreme Weather Events Declining
- Sea Surface Temperatures Still Cooling
Economics & Energy- Wood to Coal to Oil to Natural Gas and Nuclear: The Slow Pace of Energy Transitions
- Old-Style Coal Plants Expanding
- The World Drills On
Religion & Ethics- Worldview Radio Worldview Weekend Features Cornwall Alliance Spokesman
Politics & Debate- The Climate Climate: Cool and Getting Colder
- Why the Climate Talks in Bonn Ended in Failure
Briefly Noted
Meet the Critics: Vincent R. Gray, Ph.D
Landmark Documents from the Cornwall Alliance
Featuredby Paul C. Knappenberger
Administrator, World Climate Report; Writer, MasterResource
August 3, 2010
In May 2010, the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was selected to “conduct an independent review of the IPCC processes and the procedures by which it prepares its assessments of climate change.” In June, economist David (P. D.) Henderson shared with MasterResource his rather critical comments submitted to the IAC which centered around the IPCC’s lax adherence to their own set of governing principles. In this article, we highlight several other submissions to the IAC that Dr. Henderson thought MasterResource readers may find particularly interesting.
Additionally, we offer a compilation of all other IAC submissions that we could find scattered across the web—a service that the IAC does not itself provide.
Background
The IAC bills itself as “a multinational organization of science academies created to produce reports on scientific, technological, and health issues related to the great global challenges of our time, providing knowledge and advice to national governments and international organizations” and as such has been asked by the United Nations to:
[E]stablish a Committee of experts from relevant fields to conduct the review and to present recommendations on possible revisions of IPCC processes and procedures. In particular the IAC Committee of experts is asked to recommend measures and actions to strengthen the IPCC’s processes and procedures so as to be better able to respond to future challenges and ensure the ongoing quality of its reports. Such a review has been welcomed by all quarters—and is especially relevant considering the revelations of the apparent shortcomings of IPCC procedures that have been revealed both directly from the contents of the Climategate emails as well as the increased scrutiny it has received as a result of the Climategate revelations.
The IAC invited and received a number of opinions from “knowledgeable experts and thoughtful observers regarding IPCC’s processes and procedures for producing assessments.” However the IAC does not seem to be making the submissions public prior to the release of the its final report (and even then, is planning on stripping the names from the comments). As many of these comments may be of immediate interest, we have collected together the IAC submissions that we could find scattered about the web. We include a link to these comments at the bottom of this article. Undoubtedly there are others that we have overlooked. If any one knows of any that we have missed, please feel free to draw our attention to them (providing links if possible ) in the Comments section of this post, and we’ll do our best to add them to our main collection.
Comments by David Henderson . . . McKitrick Comments . . . Gordon Hughes Comments . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Science & Ecologyby Roy W. Spencer
Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville; Author, DrRoySpencer.com; Author, Climate Confusion and The Great Global Warming Blunder
August 5, 2010
Executive Summary
Using both radiative transfer theory and radiosonde (weather balloon) observations to support his views, Miskolczi (2010) builds a case that the Earth’s total greenhouse effect remains constant over time.
While this might well be true, I do not believe he has demonstrated from theory why this should be the case.
His computation of a relatively constant greenhouse effect with 60 years of radiosonde observations is tantalizing, but depends upon the reality of high humidities measured by these sensors before the mid-1960s, data which are widely considered to be suspect. Even with today’s radiosonde humidity sensors, the humidity accuracy is not very high.
On the theory side, much of what he claims depends upon the validity of his statement,
"for..two regions (or bodies) A and B, the rate of flow of radiation emitted by A and absorbed by B is equal to the rate of flow the other way, regardless of other forms of (energy) transport that may be occurring."
If this statement was true, then IR radiative transfers cannot change the temperature of anything, and Earth’s natural greenhouse effect cannot exist. Yet, elsewhere he implies that the greenhouse effect IS important to temperature by claiming that the greenhouse effect stays constant with time. The reader is left confused.
His italicized statement, above, is an extreme generalization of Kirchoffs Law of Radiation, where he has allowed the 2 bodies to have different temperatures, and also allow any amount of extra energy of any type to enter or leave the 2-body system. No matter what else is going on, Miskolczi claims there is no net radiative energy exchanges between two objects, because those 2 flows in opposite directions are always equal.
This appears to fly in the face of people’s real world experiences.
Nevertheless, Miskolczi’s (and previous investigators’) calculations of a NEAR-equality of these IR flows are quite correct, and are indeed consistent with current greenhouse theory. Others trying to understand this issue need to understand that greenhouse theory already “knows” these flows are almost equal. If the imbalance between them was not small, then the temperature changes we see in nature would be much larger than what we do see.
But it is their small departure from equality that makes all the difference.
Read the rest.Back to top by Indur M. Goklany
Author, The Improving State of the World and Clearing the Air
Observatory, August 15, 2010
. . . the decline in the death toll from droughts, in particular, is that global food production has never been higher than it is today (Goklany 1998, 2007). This is largely due to improved seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and farm machinery. This entire suite of technologies also enabled the Green Revolution. But fertilizers and pesticides are manufactured from fossil fuels, and energy is necessary to run irrigation pumps and machinery. Without them, the benefits of improved seeds would be for naught. And in today’s world, like it or not, energy for the most part is synonymous with fossil fuels. . . .
. . . These improvements, which occurred despite increases in the populations at risk, can be attributed largely to the combination of greater economic development and technological change. Together they enable society to protect against — and cope with — adversity in general, and extreme weather events in particular. . . .
. . . Currently many advocate spending trillions of dollars to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases, in part to forestall hypothetical future increases in mortality from global warming induced increases in extreme weather events. Spending even a fraction of such sums on the numerous higher priority health and safety problems plaguing humanity would provide greater returns for human well-being (Goklany 2009a, 2009b). No less important, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would slow, if not retard, economic development and/or make fossil fuels scarcer and more expensive thereby militating against the very factors that have reduced deaths and death rates from extreme weather events.
Read the rest.Back to top by Roy W. Spencer
Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville; Author, DrRoySpencer.com; Author, Climate Confusion and The Great Global Warming Blunder
August 19, 2010
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) measured by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite continue the fall which began several months ago. The following plot, updated through yesterday (August 18, 2010) reveals the global average SSTs continue to cool, while the Nino34 region of the tropical east Pacific remains well below normal, consistent with La Nina conditions. (click on it for the large, undistorted version; note the global SST values have been multiplied by 10):
Anomalously High Oceanic Cloud Cover
The following plot shows an AMSR-E estimate of anomalies in reflected shortwave (SW, sunlight) corresponding to the blue (Global) SST curve in the previous figure. I have estimated the reflected SW anomaly from AMSR-E vertically integrated cloud water contents, based upon regressions against Aqua CERES data. The high values in recent months (shown by the circle) suggests either (1) the ocean cooling is being driven by decreased sunlight, or (2) negative feedback in response to anomalously warm conditions, or (3) some combination of (1) and (2). Note that negative low-cloud feedback would conflict with all of the IPCC climate models, which exhibit various levels of positive cloud feedback.
Related item:
Caryl: One of Our Hemispheres Is Missing!Back to top Economics & Energyby Robert Bryce
Managing Editor, Energy Tribune; Author, Gusher of Lies and Power Hungry
August 16, 2010
. . . Wood’s reign as the most important fuel in the United States lasted longer than any other. For 265 years after the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, and for 109 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, wood was the dominant source of energy in America. It wasn’t until 1885 – the year that Grover Cleveland was first sworn in as president – that coal finally surpassed wood as the largest source of primary energy in the US.
For the next 75 years, coal was king. During the first two decades of the 20th century, coal was supplying as much as 90 % of all the primary energy in the US, fueling factories, heating homes, and providing boiler fuel for essentially all of the nation’s electric power plants. But coal’s dominance was not to last. Thanks in large part to the booming demand for kerosene for lighting and more particularly, for gasoline to fuel automobiles, oil began whittling away at coal’s market share.
World War II was a turning point. The massive production of airplanes, ships, and motor vehicles during the war years accelerated the demand for oil. And prolific oilfields in Texas and Oklahoma were ready and able to provide nearly all the gasoline and diesel fuel that consumers and industry wanted. Between 1945 and 1950, the number of cars on US roads increased by 60%. Over the next ten years, the US auto fleet grew by another 50%.(1) The increasing mobility of the average American resulted in a huge increase in demand for oil. In 1949, coal accounted for about 37.4% of the US primary energy market, with oil trailing close on its heels with a 37.1% share. But in 1950, oil hit the tipping point, surpassing coal as the biggest source of US primary energy. And for the last 60 years, oil’s primacy has not been challenged. In fact, in 2008, oil’s share of the US energy market was at the exact same level as it was back in 1950: 38.4%.(2)
While oil has been the undisputed champion, the jockeying for second place has been ferocious. In 1958, natural gas sped past coal to become the second-largest source of primary energy in the US. And gas kept its second-place status behind oil for nearly two decades. By 1971, the US was consuming nearly twice as much energy in the form of natural gas as it was in the form of coal.(3) But Congress and federal regulators decided that the market couldn’t be trusted. And thanks to their ham-handed interventions, coal rebounded in a big way. In 1986, coal overtook natural gas to re-claim second place in the US primary energy market. Since then, coal and natural gas have been running neck-and-neck with each claiming about 25% of the US primary energy market.
The decades-long jousting for primacy among the various hydrocarbons provides more evidence for just how difficult it will be to replace them. As Vaclav Smil explains in his 2008 book, Global Catastrophes and Trends, there’s no reason to expect that the transition toward renewable sources like solar and wind will be done quickly. In fact, he says to expect the opposite:
There is no urgency for an accelerated shift to a nonfossil fuel world: the supply of fossil fuels is adequate for generations to come; new energies are not qualitatively superior; and their production will not be substantially cheaper. The plea for an accelerated transition to nonfossil fuels results almost entirely from concerns about global climate change, but we still cannot quantify its magnitude and impact with high confidence. . . . Read the rest.Back to top by Matthew Brown
Writer, Associated Press
August 17, 2010
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come. . . .
The construction wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois and South Carolina to Washington, and comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and social costs of fossil fuels, demonstrated by tragic mine disasters in West Virginia, the Gulf oil spill and wars in the Middle East.
The expansion, the industry's largest in two decades, represents an acknowledgment that highly touted "clean coal" technology is still a long ways from becoming a reality and underscores a renewed confidence among utilities that proposals to regulate carbon emissions will fail. The Senate last month scrapped the leading bill to curb carbon emissions following opposition from Republicans and coal-state Democrats. . . .
Read the rest.
Related items:
McFeatters: Coal Is the Fuel of Today - and Tomorrow
Stratton: Coal-Fired Power Stations Win ReprieveBack to top Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2010
With reason to hope that the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is being brought under control, it's time to start thinking into the future. The Obama Administration is sticking by its ruinous deepwater drilling moratorium, when it would be better to take a hint from the rest of the world's oil-producers. Their response to the Gulf disaster? Learn from it, and drill on.
Norway, run by the very model of modern environmentalists, announced a deep-water drilling halt until the spill is done. However, its ban applies only to new drilling, unlike the Obama Administration's total ban. . . .
Brazil is accelerating its drilling pace, announcing it would spend some $200 billion the next five years to tap newly discovered offshore reserves at depths to 23,000 feet. State-controlled Petrobras, the world's biggest deep water producer, recently struck oil three miles under Brazil's sea—a reserve that could yield 380 million barrels of oil and natural gas.
Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has offered 31 new leases off his country's coast that allow for wells at twice the depth of the BP Macondo. . . .
New Zealand has authorized its first permit to drill off the east coast of its North Island, with Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee saying it is vital that the country "attract investment" from the same oil companies that U.S. politicians are bashing.
Canada continues to allow drilling in deep water off Newfoundland and Labrador and is moving ahead with exploration licenses in the Arctic. The U.K. is still drilling in deep water in the North Sea. . . .
These are hardly rogue nations. What they share is an understanding that environmental concerns must be balanced with the reality that oil and gas remain crucial to economic growth, and that their reserves are increasingly in deep water. The leaders of these nations are also confident that the oil industry has the technology and know-how to do this right, with proper oversight.
America's oil and gas reserves are no less essential to the U.S. economy, notwithstanding President Obama's romance with "green jobs." Every day the Administration spends trying to justify its moratorium is one more day when the U.S. is losing jobs that may not return.
Read the rest.Back to top Religion & EthicsWorldview Radio, August 18, 2010
Dr. Cal Beisner and Jan [Markell] consider the agenda of the environmental movement. This movement targeted conservative and evangelical churches 15 years ago and now we see that playing out. Beisner answers the question about what has happened to the oil in the Gulf? Beisner's organization has started a program called Resisting the Green Dragon which cautions churches about the environmentalism agenda coming to their way. Why have evangelicals fallen for this?
Listen to the interview.Back to top Politics & Debateby Terence Corcoran
Editor and Columnist, National Post
August 13, 2010
And now for the climate weather: It may be hot outside, but the political environment for climate science is in a deep freeze. In Washington, plans for a national carbon-trading system are colder than the ice in the mint juleps at the Round Robin Bar. The economy comes first in the U.S. Senate, where a new climate bill ran into a brick wall, putting an end to environmentalists’ hopes for a national cap-and-trade system any time in the next few years. “We fell victim to much broader politics that were beyond our control,” said a leading green activist.
In Bonn last weekend, climate politics got so cold that negotiators working on a new global climate treaty to replace the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol walked away from the talks, saying that the policy direction was going backward rather than forward. As part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Control, the Bonn talks were aiming at recovering from last year’s Cop-out in Copenhagen. “These negotiations have if anything gone backwards,” said Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate action commissioner. The world is still divided over — among other issues — carbon-emission reduction targets, without which any convention would be useless. Another attempt to regroup will take place in China in October in preparation for a grand Meeting of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico, in December.
Forecast for sunny Cancun in December: Pack a parka. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Corbin Hiar
Writer, UN Dispatch
August 11, 2010
. . . The only thing all negotiators seemed to agree upon was that their efforts in Bonn had been unsuccessful. "These negotiations have if anything gone backwards," said the EU's climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard. “All parties seem to be having a difficult time coming to convergence and the text is larger than it has to be,” America’s Pershing told the press. He claimed that during the talks some countries had been “walking back from progress made in Copenhagen." Dessima Williams of Grenada, who served as the spokeswoman for the 43-nation Association of Small Island States, concurred: "There seems to be some backsliding. This is very lamentable and very unhealthy."
The Guardian’s John Vidal tried to find the thinnest sliver lining in the very dark clouds over Bonn. Referring to the controversial Danish text, which would have sidelined the UN and abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, and the nonbinding Copenhagen Accords that President Obama helped cobble together at the last minute of the previous climate summit, Vidal suggests that perhaps “what we are seeing is the welcome, overdue correction to last year's kamikaze global diplomacy which fatally destabilised the global talks and ended in the Copenhagen fiasco. This analysis would say the negotiations are back on track, the majority of world countries are involved as opposed to just a few, and, with a fair wind and a raised level of ambition by everyone, it could lead to a much more balanced agreement.” . . .
Read the rest.Back to top Briefly NotedSamuelsohn: GOP Candidates Knock Global Warming
Evangelical Environmental Network
Macrae: More Than Half of Britain's Wind Farms Have Been Built Where There Is Not Enough Wind
Weather Blocker: Jet Stream Stops and Causes DisastersBack 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:
Vincent R. Gray, Ph.D
Vincent Gray, an expert IPCC reviewer and research scientist with experience in numerous countries, is a founder of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and has produced its NZClimate & EnviroTruth newsletter. In his book The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001", Gray concludes that "no convincing evidence has been presented by the IPCC, or anyone else, that a surface temperature increase has resulted from increases of greenhouse gases." Among his many other publications are The Global Warming Scam, Problems with Surface Temperature Data, Unsound Science by the IPCC, The IPCC: Spinning the Climate, The Triumph of Doublespeak, and The Environmentalist Creed.
Back to top Landmark Documents from the Cornwall Alliance
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., National Spokesman
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
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.
|
