Recently, many companies have pledged to go “net-zero.” “Net-zero” means the greenhouse gases a company emits are balanced by the greenhouse gases it removes from the atmosphere. The Paris Agreement suggests such goals. Although former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it, many companies feel the need to demonstrate they are pursuing the targets set in Paris, as we rejoined it under President Biden. In theory, net-zero can be accomplished by reducing emissions or … [Read more...]
Jordan Peterson Knows Psychology, Including ‘Global Warming’ Groupthink
Five days before the recent snowstorm rocked the Mid-Atlantic region, the ECMWF weather model had forecast more than 30 inches for portions of Delaware, coastal Maryland, and southern New Jersey. The model had overestimated snowfall by up to a factor of three. My criticism of the model will likely not anger many in the political arena. Why not? Because, as we are often told, weather is not climate. Weather is very difficult to forecast because it is highly variable, and weather models … [Read more...]
A Simple Explanation of Why Climate Models “Run Hot”
The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6) has been released, much to the excitement of and fanfare from the mainstream media. It was expected that gloom and despair would permeate the document – unless, of course, we adopt a draconian carbon-dioxide-reduction strategy – and the IPCC did not fail to deliver. So, where do these extreme climate scenarios originate? One could assume that they could be “made up”; after all, climate change … [Read more...]
Is the Science Settled?
With respect to climate change, we have often heard the refrain “The Science is Settled!” screeched anytime you attempt to disagree with the alarmist dogma. But a recent series of publications in arguably prestigious journals have underscored the truism in science that it is never settled. On Monday, March 15, an article[1] was published in Nature Geoscience (one of the journals in the stable of Nature journals) that argued “the sequence of recent [central] European summer droughts … [Read more...]
A carbon tax would harm the poor
I recently gave a talk to a local group of outstanding young people in Delaware who aspire to be leaders in and around our state. I presented them with observed, empirical facts: Delaware’s climate is not changing disastrously. Restricting carbon dioxide will have little impact on our climate. Nevertheless, many still wrote to me to say they firmly believe the most significant problem facing Delaware is the adverse impact the consumption of fossil fuels has on our environment and that … [Read more...]
Fauci-Birx climate models?
Honest, evidence-based climate models could avoid trillions of dollars in policy blunders. by Paul Driessen and David Legates President Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force presented some frightening numbers during their March 31 White House briefing. Based on now 2-week-old data and models, as many as 100,000 Americans at the models’ low end, to 2.2 million at their high end, could die from the fast-spreading virus, they said. However, the President, Vice President Pence, and … [Read more...]
It’s Not about the Climate—It Never Was
Generally, I conclude most of my climate change presentations with the phrase, “It’s not about the climate; it never was.” Here, I would like to start with that statement. In this brief article, I will discuss why carbon dioxide isn’t the dangerous gas it is made out to be, why climate change is not an ‘existential’ threat to the planet, and why the Green New Deal is not a solution to climate change. Let me begin with a series of questions. Is our climate changing? The answer is clearly … [Read more...]
Climate Change and the Christian Faith
Professor Katharine Hayhoe spoke on "Climate and Faith in the Public Arena" in her John Stott London Lecture November 16. Like Dr. Hayhoe, I'm a climate scientist; like her, I'm a Christian; like her, I care about my neighbors and want to protect them from harm; and like her, and I'm committed to stewardship of God's wonderful creation. Nonetheless, for these very reasons I cannot help questioning some of what she has said about climate change. In announcing the lecture, A Rocha … [Read more...]
Climate Science or Climate Advocacy?
For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today. Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, hydrology, … [Read more...]
Does the “Precautionary Principle” Favor Fighting “Climate Change”?
Proponents of efforts to mitigate climate change often appeal to the “Precautionary Principle”—Principle #15 of the Rio Declaration in 1992: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities … [W]here there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” In light of that, we … [Read more...]
