Was it wise for President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement? The President offered mostly economic reasons for his decision. Although they’re important, it’s also important to know whether there’s good scientific basis. As some critics reason, “So what if the economy booms? What if the earth dies?”So here’s a 15-point summary of relevant facts, mostly scientific but some economic: 1. Global average temperature has risen and fallen cyclically, driven by … [Read more...]
What Would the Precautionary Principle Imply for Ethanol?
In 2007 Congress passed a law requiring the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study and report every three years to Congress on the environmental impact of EPA’s ethanol mandate. And in the intervening nine years, EPA has complied with the law once—in 2011. Now it says it’ll be 2024 before it can manage it again. So by the time it should have filed five such reports and be working on its sixth, EPA expects to file its second. Meanwhile, multiple studies not done by EPA have … [Read more...]
Solar Impulse: Poster Child for the Impracticality of Solar Power
Solar energy has some legitimate uses in isolated cases, such as providing electricity where there is no other source available, and when you need it so badly you are willing to pay a premium, say, for use on your sailboat. But the inherent physics limitation to solar energy is that it is so diffuse (so little solar energy falls on each square meter of ground), the efficiency of conversion to electricity is so low (typically 15% or so), and it is so expensive to convert it to electricity with … [Read more...]
Climate Science, Energy Policy, Poverty, and Christian Faith: How do they Connect?
(Editors Note: Click graphs to enlarge) In the March 16, 2016, issue of Forbes astrophysicist Ethan Siegel’s article "The Next Great Global Warming ‘Hiatus’ is Coming!" sought to refute skeptics of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) by arguing that the apparent lack of statistically significant global warming over roughly the last 18 or 19 years is just one in a series of lulls in a long-term warming trend for which human action is responsible. His article, deftly argued and … [Read more...]
Sin, Deception, and the Corruption of Science: A Look at the So-Called Climate Crisis
Summary The climate crisis agenda provides an excellent training opportunity for Christians to “test all things, hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) because it involves a revival of ancient pagan themes in science, the educational establishment, business, and politics. Sadly, it demonstrates how those themes are corrupting the scientific method that has contributed so much to the prosperity of Western civilization, founded as it was on several basic Biblical principles. Christians … [Read more...]
Why Can’t Solar Provide Abundant, Affordable Electricity?
Nuclear engineer James H. Rust, over at the Heartland Institute, has just posted a clear, concise, factual piece refuting the claim that there's a "dirty war" to stop expansion of solar energy in the United States. I won't get into the stuff about the "dirty war"---which is entirely bogus, and Rust demonstrates just why---but thought it helpful to pass on just a little of the factual information about why solar has such difficulty competing with nuclear and fossil fuels. Rust writes: In the … [Read more...]
Practically Everything You Thought You Knew about Fukushima Is Wrong
When University of Edinburgh graduate student Claire Leppold attended a lecture on the aftermath of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear accident, caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, she expected to learn about high cancer and birth defect rates because of exposure to high radiation levels. She wrote that what she learned shocked her: I knew there had been a nuclear accident in Fukushima. I assumed this had led to dangerous radiation levels and increases in cancers. I had never … [Read more...]
Why You Should Mourn Implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement
The climate agreement reached in Paris last December will become effective on Earth Day, (Friday, April 22) with a ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. We’ll all hear of heroic world leaders who joined together in Paris to ensure the planet’s survival. The Obama administration will try to enforce the agreement (which meets all the legal criteria of a treaty though the President chooses not to call it that to evade Senate disapproval) by imposing the Environmental … [Read more...]
Did You Want Electricity with Your Fried Eagle?
Let's see now. The controversial Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, financed with $1.5 billion in federal loans, using sunlight reflected from 170,000 mirrors to heat boilers atop 450-foot-high towers, received on average $200 per megawatt-hour during summer months and $135 for the rest of the year but is likely to go bust. Meanwhile, PG&E pays $57 per megawatt-hour for power generated by more conventional solar plants, and $35 per megawatt-hour for power generated by natural gas … [Read more...]
What Good Are Fossil Fuels Other than for Energy?
In the midst of a worldwide “holy crusade” to demonize fossil fuels, blaming them for alleged (but not real) catastrophic global warming, it is increasingly essential that more and more ordinary citizens like you and me understand what’s at stake. The war on fossil fuels threatens not just minor adjustments at the margins of our luxury but enormous reductions in human welfare in developed countries—and the permanent captivity of one-third of humanity in desperate poverty. That’s why we’re … [Read more...]
