Using Earth’s Blessings to Better Mankind and Planet

by David Legates, Ph.D., Professor of Climatology, University of Delaware; Senior Fellow, Cornwall Alliance

Although he has rarely been willing to discuss or debate energy or environmental issues with those who do not share his views, environmentalist David Suzuki frequently challenges them on other grounds. In his recent article, “Religious Right is wrong about climate change,” Suzuki claims that some US and Canadian scientists hold religious views that are anti-science.

Suzuki asserts that some climate scientists—including me, by name—put “misguided beliefs above rational thought.” His implicit assumption is that conservative Christian views are irrational and incompatible with science, and that I have replaced Almighty God with the “almighty dollar,” believing the economy matters more than the environment.

As a coauthor of the Cornwall Alliance’s Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science and Economics of Global Warming, which forms the basis for the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming that Suzuki criticizes, I know the Cornwall Alliance fully and carefully integrates scientific, economic, ethical and theological reasoning to support its conclusions. There’s nothing at all irrational about it—unless you consider religion irrational per se.

However, Suzuki is correct regarding one aspect of my belief: the economy does matter as much as the environment. Good environmental stewardship requires sound financial footing—and improving and safeguarding human health and welfare requires maintaining a strong, vibrant, innovative economy that can sustain continued environmental progress.

When a country is in dire need of food, clothing, shelter and other necessities for life, it cannot possibly be concerned with environmental issues. … Only when economic improvements allow technological advancements to increase the quality of life, provide ample food and clothing, house citizens, provide clean drinking water, and treat and eradicate diseases can a thus wealthier society turn its attention to caring for the environment. …

Unfortunately, some so-called environmentalists wish to keep Africa and other developing nations in perpetual underdevelopment. They pay them off to be “environmentally conscious,” by giving them handouts—food and monetary aid—to keep them alive and perhaps have little solar panels on their huts. But they also ensure that those poor families never prosper or become middle class—so as to perpetuate environmentalist notions of “noble natives,” supposedly “at one” with their environment and living a “sustainable” existence. …

In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus told of a master who gave one of his servants a single talent, and then condemned him for hiding it in the earth and not putting it to use. Often we think of the talent only as money or ability, but it really stands for every resource – including natural resources. How will the Master of all creation judge us if we hide our resources in the earth, and then on Judgment Day say, “Behold, you have what is yours”?

If we do not use the resources God has set before us in the earth to care for those in need, our Creator will likely condemn us, saying: “You kept buried what I gave you, instead of using and investing it. You failed to employ my gifts to care for the poor, the hungry, the sick, and those who were dying from disease. You have been worthless, irresponsible stewards of my creation.” We would deserve the same fate as the servant the master called “wicked and lazy.”

I fail to understand how anyone thinking rationally can argue that poverty and economic hardship will enhance environmental stewardship, or that the planet is more important than the people who live on it. [Read the whole article.]

Scripture for the Week

Genesis 6:11–22: “Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and … filled with violence. … And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark …. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. … Also take with you every sort of food ….’ Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” (Read the whole passage.)

Cornwall in the News

Response to David Suzuki Critique of Scientists (G. Cornelis van Kooten, Resource Economics & Policy Analysis [REPA] Group, 4/9/12)
Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow G. Cornelis van Kooten, Ph.D. (economics), takes Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki to task for his article “Religious Right’s Rejection of Science is Baffling,” which portrayed global warming skepticism as irrational. Another CA Senior Fellow, James Wanliss, Ph.D. (physics), also rebutted Suzuki in “The virtue of questioning ‘science,’ in World Magazine, April 3. From these and David Legates’s piece that leads today’s newsletter, it appears Suzuki is the irrational one, not CAGW skeptics.

Lord Christopher Monckton - Agenda 21 and Environmental Marxism

“On March 18, 2012 Lord Christopher Monckton spoke to supporters of the International Free Press Society–Canada at Windermere Manor in London, Ontario. Topics of his speech included the United Nations, environmentalism, science, reason, Agenda 21, Marxism, Islam, and abortion as a major reason for the eventual downfall of the West.” More by Christopher Monckton on alarmist thought here.

Fun Facts for the Week

What Comes After the Renewabubble? (Kenneth Green, American Enterprise Institute, 4/18/12)
“A team of analysts from the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the World Resources Institute have put out a meaty report on the pending collapse of the renewabubble as the inflating power of the Obama administration’s ‘stimulus’ (ARRA) from 2009 runs out …. Federal clean tech spending is poised to decline to $11 billion by 2014, a 75 percent decline relative to the high of $44.3 billion reached in 2009.” More here.

Recent Significant Developments

Economics & Energy

U.S. Coal Usage Below 40%; Arkansas at 48% (Wesley Brown, The City Wire, 4/30/12)
“Cheap shale-produced natural gas, a relentless anti-coal campaign, and tight federal regulations have helped to cancel or retire dozens of coal-fired plants across the U.S…. And although coal is still the largest single fuel for electricity generation, its share of monthly power generation in the United States is declining fast.” Coal has been under attack in more than the U.S., but in every place rising energy prices raise other prices and destabilize economies. Last winter Germans were in fear of a collapsing power grid and deadly winters (both articles in German). This winter the same fears are expected in Germany. More on American energy here and here; on Canadian energy here.

Green Power Failure (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, 5/11/12)
“Global-warming-related catastrophes are increasingly hitting vulnerable populations around the world, with one species in particular danger: the electricity ratepayer. In Canada, in the U.K., in Spain, in Denmark, in Germany and elsewhere the danger to ratepayers is especially great, but ratepayers in one country—the U.S.—seem to have weathered the worst of the disaster.” Wind energy is in no small way to blame for many of these rate increases, though that is hopefully soon to stop with waning political support for the production tax credit, which keeps wind solvent. Wind is an utter failure considering the purpose it is supposed to serve.

Religion & Ethics

Fossil Fuel Shill Sierra Club Bites the Hand That Fed It (Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 5/7/12) 
The Sierra Club has gone backstabber on a former patron, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon. He donated $26 million “between 2007 and 2010 for their Beyond Coal campaign.” Condemning the natural gas industry, the Sierra Club said, “The natural gas industry is dirty, dangerous, and running amok.” Apparently the Sierra Club doesn’t always repay favors. Remember this next time someone dismisses an NGO’s position because it got funds from so-and-so. If Sierra Club can refuse to play prostitute, so can others—including CAGW skeptics.

Panetta’s Agenda (Douglas Gregory, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, 5/15/12)
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said that climate change was a national security issue. Given many environmentalists’ proclivity to make skepticism a moral issue, or even a crime of various sorts, such a statement causes some trepidation. There is no argument to be made for military intervention in the case of disastrous climate events, which warming is not exacerbating. The Cornwall Alliance stands firmly in the gap between radical environmentalists and citizenry.

Law, Regulation, & Litigation

Acton and Parliamentary Privilege (Andrew Montford, Bishop-Hill.net, 5/10/12)
The University of East Anglia claims parliamentary privilege and academic freedom in response to questions about its academic integrity surrounding Climategate. Similarly, the University of Virginia’s claims academic freedom amidst accusations that it has protected Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann and contributed to academic malfeasance.

Politics & Debate

How I Learned Not to Deny Climate Change (Robert Tracinski, Real Clear Politics, 5/1/12)
The real climate change deniers are not skeptics who question the severity of anthropogenic global warming, but those who believe Earth’s climate was stable and constant until man started emitting gases into the atmosphere. Michael Mann, who took pains to excise relevant data from his infamous “Hockey-Stick” graph to make climate appear stable when it was not, is the one in denial about variable climate. Mounting evidence from scientists like Henrik Svensmark shows real Earth temperature has not risen dramatically and depends more on the Sun than man, contrary to the politics of climate alarmism. More here.

Brian Sussman’s Eco-Tyranny Exposes Marxist Roots of Environmentalism (Douglas Gregory, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, 5/15/12)
Brian Sussman, author of Climategate, published his new book, Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda Will Dismantle America, to expose the historical and ideological connection between environmentalism and Marxism. Sussman does a fair job, despite certain weaknesses. Overall environmentalism’s goals overlap heavily with those of Marxism.

Food & Agriculture

Here’s to Your Health! … Courtesy of Carbon Dioxide (Idso S.B. et al., Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, 5/9/12)
Idso et al. studied the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on plant growth. "In doing so, they found that the 75% increase in the air's CO2 concentration resulted in a 48% increase in aboveground plant biomass and a 56% increase in belowground bulb biomass. In addition, the extra CO2 also increased the concentrations of five bulb constituents that possessed anti-cancer and anti-viral properties. [C]ombined with the 56% increase in bulb biomass, the net result was a mean active-ingredient increase of 75% due to the 75% increase in the air's CO2 concentration."

Science & Ecology

UAH Global Temperature Update for April 2012: +0.30°C (Dr. Roy Spencer, drroyspencer.com, 5/9/12)
“The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly increased again in April, 2012, to +0.30°C., with warming in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres, but slightly cool conditions persisting in the tropics.”

U.S. Temperature Update for April, 2012: +1.28 deg. C (Dr. Roy Spencer, drroyspencer.com, 5/1/12)
“The April, 2012 U.S. [emphasis added] temperature anomaly remained above average (+1.28 deg. C), but down considerably from the very warm March anomaly (+3.62 deg. C). That very unusual March warmth was traced to record strong southerly flow, which (as I discussed here) is difficult to blame on ‘global warming’ because it must be matched by an equal amount of anomalously strong northerly flow elsewhere.”

Tropospheric Humidity and CO2-Induced Global Warming (Paltridge, G., Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change, 5/9/12)
Paltridge et al. conclude that “negative trends in [specific humidity] as found in the NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.”

Resisting the Green Dragon

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Landmark Documents from the Cornwall Alliance

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., Founder and National Spokesman
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation

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