Many people are asking us for questions they can raise at various public meetings—at churches, schools, universities, community organizations, etc.—to expose the errors of climate alarmism. Here are five:
1. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman once said the “key to science” was realizing that if your theory about how the world works yielded predictions contradicted by observations, your theory was wrong. Since the only basis for fears of dangerous, manmade global warming is the predictions by computer climate models, and since on average the models predict twice the warming observed over the relevant period, and 95 percent predict more rather than less warming than observed (implying that their errors are not random but driven by some kind of bias, whether honest or accidental), and none predicted the complete absence of statistically significant global warming over the 18 years and 8 months through September, and therefore the models are invalidated, what remaining basis is there for any policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
2. Since poverty brings much greater risks to human health and life than any climate change, and since reducing carbon dioxide emissions to reduce climate change slows, stops, or reverses economic growth by depriving people of the abundant, affordable, reliable energy from fossil fuels without which no society has ever grown out of poverty, why would we want to do that?
3. Since the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III’s scenarios for the future show that the world’s poor are better off—wealthier, with better health and longer lives—with more warming than with less global warming, because the same economic growth that drives the warming also reduces poverty, why would you prescribe climate policies that trap these people in poverty for more generations by limiting their use of the most abundant, affordable, reliable sources of instant-on-demand, reliable electricity and other energy sources, namely, fossil fuels?
4. The overwhelming consensus of scientists used to be that continents don’t move, but that eventually was overturned by evidence for continental drift. That’s why, though consensus is a political value (you count votes to know who won an election), it’s not a scientific value (you don’t count votes to know how much global average temperature will rise in response to increasing CO2, you study the data). Why, then, do you respond to evidence that the models are wrong, exaggerating the warming effect of CO2, by claiming scientific consensus?
5. You and others often appeal to scientific consensus for dangerous, manmade global warming. The actual studies purporting to find that consensus have only asked respondents whether they thought global average temperature had risen over the last 100 to 150 years and whether human activity had contributed significantly to that warming, something to which even the vast majority of “climate skeptics” would agree. They have not asked whether human activity had caused most of the warming, whether the human-caused warming was or was likely to become dangerous, and not whether it was advisable to spend trillions of dollars trying to reduce it. Why do you and others claim consensus for those things when it doesn’t exist?
This article was originally written in response to the Paris Climate Summit, but it’s five questions are great for any event promoting climate alarmism.
George Pett says
Excellent summation! Off on a bit of a tangent, why would Pope Francis want to get onboard this travesty?
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D. says
I assume that Pope Francis’s concern for the world’s poor is sincere, and he sees fighting global warming as necessary for protecting their welfare but isn’t aware of the solid scientific evidence against dangerous manmade warming or the solid economic arguments that trying to reduce manmade warming would do more harm than good to the poor. Combine that unawareness with his lifelong embrace of Liberation Theology, which views capitalism as evil and wants to replace it with socialism, and the fact that fighting global warming would require a global bureaucracy controlling every aspect of every nation’s economy, and you probably have a pretty full explanation.
E. Calvin Beisner says
Recommended sources for more depth on these five questions:
Question 1
https://cornwallalliance.org/2016/04/why-was-march-2016-was-the-warmest-march-in-the-satellite-record/
https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-114-SY-WState-JChristy-20160202.pdf
Question 2
https://cornwallalliance.org/product/what-is-the-most-important-environmental-task-facing-american-christians-today/
https://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities?language=en
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-professor-who-claims-the-global-warming-fight-is-too-expensive/article24950894/
Question 3:
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2012/12/Goklany-Number-One-Threat.pdf
Questions 4 & 5:
https://www.cornwallalliance.org/docs/a-call-to-truth-prudence-and-protection-of-the-poor.pdf, pages 9-12.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/consensus-paper-revised-final.doc (automatically downloads a Word document)
https://cornwallalliance.org/2016/02/rico-and-climate-consensus-putting-the-chill-on-science-speech-and-human-flourishing/
https://cornwallalliance.org/2015/08/curry-deals-another-blow-to-climate-consensus/
https://cornwallalliance.org/2015/07/is-john-cook-97-consensus-author-an-identity-thief/
https://cornwallalliance.org/2014/07/climate-consensus-nonsense/
https://cornwallalliance.org/2010/03/wanted-for-premeditated-murder-how-post-normal-science-stabbed-real-science-in-the-back-on-the-way-to-the-illusion-of-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming/
https://cornwallalliance.org/2016/03/more-saber-rattling-by-the-enemies-of-free-speech-and-real-science/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHyd-Y6haMg
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/03/one-third-of-ams-members-dont-agree-with-climate-change-orthodoxy/
On all the questions at once:
https://www.cornwallalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/A-Call-to-Truth-Prudence-and-Protection-of-the-Poor-2014-The-Case-Against-Harmful-Climate-Policies-Gets-Stronger.pdf
Graydon Tranquilla says
E. Calvin Beisner….
Naomi Klein author of – “This Changes Everything” is 1st and 4most an anti-global capitalist who more recently jumped on the rad green bandwagon for reasons of economy. She implies in her book that Sir Francis Bacon’s “scientific method” set the judeo-christian societies towards a path of destruction as a consequence of his religion. Later she maligns the judeo-christian societies then aligns herself with ancient NA aobirinal spiritualism. She and others have found a way to cut the Christian scientific method complete out of the picture by violating parts 1 and 2 of Opus Majus….please examine the following (parts 1 and 2) if possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Majus
The Opus Majus is divided into seven parts:
Part one considers the obstacles to real wisdom and truth, classifying the causes of error (offendicula) into four categories: following a weak or unreliable authority, custom, the ignorance of others, and concealing one’s own ignorance by pretended knowledge.
Part two considers the relationship between philosophy and theology, concluding that theology (and particularly Holy Scripture) is the foundation of all sciences.
Russell Cook says
May I suggest a sixth question (one you may remember from reproducing my then-current “The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant” AmericanThinker article in your December 29, 2010 Cornwall Alliance newsletter)?
Which is the bigger sin, failing to stop a so-called global warming crisis which has increasing credibility problems with its underlying science assessments, or siding with those who break the 9th Commandment when they call skeptic scientists and others ‘paid fossil fuel industry shills’, as a reason why you can just ignore what those skeptics have to say?
I detailed that massive problem more recently in my blog post “The Moral Imperative to Stop Global Warming” http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=865 , which includes a link to my original 2010 AmericanThinker article.