Cornwall in the News

Moody Radio: Up For Debate
Cornwall Alliance National Spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner appeared on Moody Radio hosted by Julie Roys Saturday, May 19, discussing whether Christians should involve themselves with the environmentalist movement. Rev. Jim Ball also appeared on the program representing the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Scripture for the Week

Genesis 7:17-18, 22 (ESV) The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth… Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. ... He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

Fun Facts for the Week

Hybrid Buyers Aren't Repeat Buyers (AOL News, 4/10/12)
“Only 35 percent of hybrid owners maintain loyalty to hybrid models when they return to buy another car, according to a survey released [April 10] authored by automotive researchers at R.L. Polk & Co…. Roughly two out of three [hybrid buyers] don't buy another [hybrid car].” The average fuel economy of a mid-size sedan is frequently 30-35 mpg. Hybrids aren’t much more economic than that, but cost much more. More here.

Recent Significant Developments

Religion & Ethics

Only global poverty can save the planet, insists WWF - and the ESA! (Lewis Page, The Register, 5/16/12)
“Extremist green campaigning group WWF [World Wildlife Fund]—endorsed by no less a body than the European Space Agency—has stated that economic growth should be abandoned, that citizens of the world's wealthy nations should prepare for poverty and that all the human race's energy should be produced as renewable electricity within 38 years from now. [T]he green hardliners demand that the enormous numbers of wind farms, tidal barriers and solar powerplants required under their plans should somehow be built while at the same time severely rationing supplies of concrete, steel, copper and glass.”

Federal judge gets drop on Tombstone (Bub Unruh, World Net Daily, 5/15/12)
“Historic Tombstone, Ariz., has long been known as the ‘Town Too Tough To Die,’ [until U.S. District Court Judge Frank Zapata] refused permission for the town to repair the water system in the nearby Huachuca Mountains from which it has drawn H2O for more than a century…. ‘Requiring Tombstone to seek federal permits to repair its municipal water supply is like demanding a federal permit before the city can make repairs to a fire truck,’ said Nick Dranias, Goldwater Institute director of constitutional studies and lead attorney in the case.” More here.

Law, Regulation, & Litigation

Brazil to Cut Electricity Taxes to Boost Economy (Brian Winter, Reuters, 5/15/12)
“Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff plans to cut and simplify taxes for electricity producers and distributors, two senior officials told Reuters, as part of a strategy to reduce Brazil's high business costs and stimulate its struggling economy. Brazil has been on the brink of recession since mid-2011 as high taxes, an overvalued exchange rate and other structural problems squeeze what had previously been one of the world's most dynamic emerging economies. Rousseff has in recent months announced targeted tax cuts for stagnant sectors such as the automotive industry, embracing an incremental approach to reform that has drawn criticism from investors who say more drastic changes are needed.”

Is Obama’s EPA Deliberately Destroying America’s Economy? (Ron Arnold, Washington Examiner, 5/17/12)
“Who would accuse President Obama's top bureaucrats of intentionally damaging the industrial strength of America? Quite a few people[…. Senator John] Barrasso [R-WY] said, ‘This administration has finalized 1,330 rules that have been deemed what's called “economically significant”’—those with an annual impact on the economy of $100 million or more—‘and they've proposed over 1,300 additional economically significant rules.’ We've seen thousands of American jobs lost already, and others are on the chopping block now, just because of these rules. The intent appears to have been to destroy the coal industry. Barrasso said, ‘Fifty-seven coal-fired power plants have already announced their closure because of the “cumulative effect” of these rules on just this one industry.’” More here, here, and here. Regulation always presents a barrier to entry, and an increased cost in some form. “According to a newly released Heritage Foundation analysis, the annual cost of federal regulations ($1.752 trillion) is 83% greater than the entire revenue expected to be collected from federal individual income taxes for 2011 ($956 billion). “

Politics & Debate

Leaked Strategy Paper: EU Plans To Phase Out Green Energy Subsidies (Hendrik Kafsack, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5/19/12)
“The economic cost of the expansion of renewable energy could become prohibitively expensive. Subsidies in the EU for solar and wind power should be phased out as quickly as possible. That is what the European Commission says in an internal draft strategy paper that EU Energy Commissioner, Günther Oettinger, will present in Brussels early next month.” This may have led to German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, relieving her environmental minister, Norbert Röttgen, of his duties. More here.

No Virginia, There Is No Sanity Clause In Obama Drilling Permit Policy (Larry Bell, Forbes, 5/15/12)
“In 2007, the Federal Government had designated certain offshore areas as available for oil and gas leases.” Virginia was, for a time, the only state to have licenses from the Federal Government to drill offshore, but under President Obama, on the eve of commencement, Virginia was dropped from the licensing agreement. The offshore drilling moratorium soon followed despite U.S. production of natural gas and oil being historically high, thanks to state owned and privately owned land production. The Federal Government’s land is not being used, and the energy policy of the Obama administration seems to be entirely set against fossil fuel.

Food & Agriculture

Our Too-Thirsty Forests (Helen M. Poulos and James G. Workman, L.A. Times, 5/8/12)
“Today, the hottest and thirstiest parts of the United States are best described as over-forested. Vigorous federal protection has stocked semiarid regions of public land with several billion trees too many. And day after day these excess trees deplete a natural resource that has become far more precious than toilet paper or 2-by-4's: water. Scientists and water managers report that 39 states face water scarcity, [and] we must also now implicate the escalating thirst of unnatural forests.”

Corn Is Busting Out All Over (Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 5/15/12)
“About a year ago … Dr. Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who warned… that global warming would inflict major losses on U.S. corn crop production… I noted that long-term U.S. corn production was increasing, including in areas where average summer temperatures exceed 84°F, the threshold beyond which corn yields fall, according to Field. Well, this just in, courtesy of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA): USDA projects the U.S. corn crop for 2012 to reach 14.79 billion bushels, the biggest ever.”

Science & Ecology

Is The Stratosphere Responsible For Global Warming? (Dr. David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 5/15/12)
“Variations in ozone in the lower stratosphere could be the main reason for the global warming seen in the past few decades, according to a new paper in press at the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. It is claimed that the new model is capable of explaining 82% of the total Earth temperature variability…. [S]mall fluctuations of the H2O vapour (in the most arid regions of the troposphere) influences the radiation balance of Earth in a highly non-linear way meaning small changes in the Sun results in a big change in Earth’s temperature.”

Future Southwest Drought in Doubt? (World Climate Report, 5/14/12)
“One of the most 'robust' signals from global climate models run under scenarios of increasing human greenhouse gas emissions is an even drier climate in the Southwestern U.S. than exists there currently.” Many climate alarmists, but most importantly the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have promoted this theory. “But new research published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that the USGCRP, the IPCC, and consequently, the EPA may be overdoing things a bit.” Regional climate models point to the contrary of the IPCC and EPA’s global climate model saying the influence of the southwestern U.S.’s mountainous terrain will keep the region from climatic desiccation. More here.

Economics & Energy