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...]
Less than Promising: Promised Land Slanders Safe, Reliable, Affordable Energy
Superstar Matt Damon’s latest politically charged movie, Promised Land, promised quite a bit that it didn’t deliver. The hydraulic fracturing that creates a focal point for the plot is of great concern to the Cornwall Alliance. Promised Land centers on a land-lease buyer, Steve Butler (played by Damon), who goes to rural towns and purchases the rights to hydraulically fracture the ground for natural gas. Coming from a rural background himself, Butler relates well with the people—a fact key to … [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...]
Four Bombshells in Next IPCC Report Undermine the Case for CAGW
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boldly declared in its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures [GAT] since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas [GHG] concentrations.” That conclusion rested in no small measure on another conclusion: variations in the Sun’s activity had little impact on global average temperature. On the basis of those two … [Read more...]
Congress’ Move to Stop the War on Coal Needed to Rescue Poor
Originally Published by Religion Today. God is certainly no respecter of man (Acts 10:34–35; Rom 2:9–11; Eph 6:8–9, etc.); He shows no favoritism, and neither does His son, Jesus Christ (Matt 22:16). But God does care for the weak, poor, timid, and defenseless—He is a compassionate God, and He expects the same of us (Deut 10:18). In America, as with the rest of the planet, coal plays a crucial role in energy production, yet it is under attack in America. The Environmental Protection Agency’s … [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...]
Climate Change: Who Speaks for You?
If you believe global warming is cyclical and mostly natural; human contribution is minor and not dangerous; and attempting to prevent human influence by cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions would cost trillions of dollars, trap billions of people in developing countries in poverty, and so do more harm than good … … then you need to know something and be prepared to act: President Barack Obama has said that “the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change.” … [Read more...]
The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ethics and Economics of the War on Conventional Energy
Read the Full Cost of Good Intentions (PDF) The pastoral call requires shepherding a congregation through difficult circumstances, including challenges from the spiritual message and economic consequences of environmentalism. It is difficult to develop the knowledge and wisdom necessary to give biblical counsel on such issues, especially in light of complex scientific problems and intense policy debates. Yet the church must evaluate alarms raised about the environment and policies to address … [Read more...]
Climate Policy: Theological, Scientific, and Economic Considerations
A Panel Presentation to the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change Download the full presentation (PDF). I’m grateful to James Taylor, Joe Bast, and the Heartland Institute for asking me to speak. My remarks today in part abridge, condense, and supplement what the Cornwall Alliance has said in a 76-page interdisciplinary research paper we published last December, A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and … [Read more...]
