Update, 2021: In 2018 the Cornwall Alliance became independent of the organization under which it and CVT both once worked. Since the death of its founder, David Rothbard, in 2018, CVT has become dormant. What really works to lift whole societies out of poverty? Anyone who thinks it’s largely charitable activity needs to learn some history. As Henry Hazlitt showed in The Conquest of Poverty, charity’s never played a leading or even a major role. Not that charity has no role—it’s crucial in … [Read more...]
Arm Yourself and Your Friends Against the Fatal Cult of Anti-Humanism!
“In the event that I were reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”—Prince Philip of England, patron of the World Wildlife Fund, environmentalist “World population must be stabilized, and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”—Jacques Cousteau, famous oceanographer, producer of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, environmentalist “A total population of 250–300 million people, a 95% decline from present … [Read more...]
Standard of Living: The Real Hockey Stick
The long-debunked Hockey Stick graph depicts global average temperature as rapidly increasing since the 1950s along with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It is alarming if you are unaware of the statistical follies employed: confirmation bias (excluding contrary data) and the choice of a bogus principal components method that will generate a hockey stick even from random data. But there is another Hockey Stick that is statistically sound and far more important to human life—the correlations … [Read more...]
A Story of Change – But What Kind of Change?
The Story of Change, the sequel to The Story of Stuff, should be renamed The Story of Changing to a Marxist Political Economy, though its creator might not understand her own political views well enough to recognize that. The Story of Stuff (of which there is an excellent four-part critique on YouTube) started as an Internet viral movie in 2007 designed to inculcate environmental conscientiousness via product choices. In the twenty-minute animated video, shown to countless school-age children … [Read more...]
Prominent Signers of “An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming”
Read "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming." Updated List: Prominent Endorsers of An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming through January 14, 2010 Organization and title are listed for identification only, and do not imply organizational endorsement. Members listed in italics are climate scientists. Scientists (including 13 Climate Scientists) and Medical Doctors Robert Stephen Adams, M.D., FACOG, private physician John Baumgardner, President, Logos Research … [Read more...]
Facing Fears & Global Warming
With all of the pending disasters blamed on global warming blasting their way through the media, I can understand why many might fear the future climate. We are told emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), are destroying not only polar bears and petunias, but the planet as a whole. If we don’t “stop global warming,” The End will surely come. I am a climate scientist. My research and that of many others does not lead me to be afraid for the climate’s future. However, I am … [Read more...]
Why the UN’s ‘Developed Countries Should Pay’ Theory Is Flawed
[A]lthough greenhouse gas emissions can be blamed on nations based on the location of emission activities, these emissions are the effluvia of civilization and all its activities. In today's interconnected world, economic activity in one country helps provide livelihoods and incomes for many inhabitants elsewhere, and vice versa. A substantial portion of economic growth in developing countries is attributable to trade, remittances, tourism and direct investment from industrialized … [Read more...]
Norman Borlaug: Still Feeding the World
Norman Borlaug just turned 94 – and is still going strong. During the “Eat This” segment of their docu-comedy series BS, Penn Jillette beat Teller in a round of their “Greatest Person in History” card game. Penn needed just one card: Norman Borlaug. This Iowa farm boy and University of Minnesota agriculture graduate lived Thomas Edison’s maxim to the fullest. “Invention,” Edison once remarked, “is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Dr. Borlaug did most of his 99% in the sweltering fields of … [Read more...]
Biofuels Forcing World to Ration Food Aid
The World Food Program is preparing to ration food aid for the world's hungriest poor. Why? Primarily because we're burning food in our automobiles. The rich-country mandates for biofuels have doubled and tripled world food prices in less than three years. The World Food Program's costs are rising by millions of dollars per week and the donations aren't, warns WFP executive director Josette Sheeran. The WFP is trying to feed more than 70 million people in 78 countries with voluntary … [Read more...]
Few French Fried in 2006
In the history of global warming scare stories, the 2003 European heat wave was a landmark event—it was the first time that a rash of human deaths were specifically linked to global warming. Many of you probably recall that a widespread exceptionally hot and dry spell hit Western Europe in August, 2003. Depending on how you count the bodies, up to 35,000 people suffered premature death during this heat wave with the lions-share occurring in France, which happened to be heat wave ground zero. … [Read more...]
