“Bacteria species found in glacial ice could pose disease risk as glaciers melt from global warming.”Such was the headline at Phys.org for an article announcing that Chinese researchers obtained snow, ice and cryoconite from several glaciers; attempted to grow the bacteria they scraped up; and sequenced all the DNA they found. The article went on to identify four potential threats that could lead to a new pandemic:I think the risk of glacier melt causing another pandemic is greatly exaggerated, … [Read more...]
Scientific Code of Values: Do Climate Alarmists Measure Up?
A few days ago I began reading Harold J. Berman's Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (1983). It's a scholarly tour de force covering an amazing range of subjects in law, history, theology, ecclesiology, and even the rise of science (particularly how Christian thought generated that).These paragraphs, from pages 155--6 and 157--8, particularly caught my attention:Although science, in the modern Western sense, has usually been defined only in methodological terms, … [Read more...]
Taxing Sheep and Cow, Uh, Burps
Get ready, farmers. The climate catastrophists are after you!New Zealand's Ministry for Environment on June 8 released a draft plan to tax farmers for the methane their sheep and cattle produce---because, of course, that methane causes climate change, aka global warming, and we all know that's an existential threat to humanity.Except that the moderate warming actually to be expected from rising greenhouse gas levels will bring benefits as well as costs, and it's entirely possible that the … [Read more...]
States’ Opposition to Federal Social Cost of Carbon Use Survives Supreme Court Decision
For years the federal government, especially its Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has sought to use “social cost of carbon” (SCC) as justification, at the cost of billions of dollars, for regulations making it more difficult to drill for and use fossil fuels. That practice can continue—for now.On May 26, the Supreme Court declined a request from 11 states to block the Biden Administration from using the estimated SCC in regulatory activities. The states had argued that the modeling to … [Read more...]
Claim: Great Barrier Reef Devastated by Manmade Warming
In the last few weeks various media have reported that Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world's largest coral reef system, is experiencing a "sixth mass bleaching" that threatens lasting devastation. NPR, CNN, and The Guardian, with many others, all told essentially the same story.But actual experts on the GBR challenge the narrative.In Quadrant Online marine biologist and reef specialist Leonard Starck writes:Contrary to the incessant bleating of office-based Great Barrier Reef … [Read more...]
A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition
I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum. The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy. Mine is one of twenty papers. A range of topics are covered. My article is the least alarmed among them. You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben.Here is the text of my article:Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat, and most recently as ‘code red.’ Climate change … [Read more...]
Playing Telephone with a Climate Report: Politicians Obscure Science, Media Fall in Line
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its latest big report, this one titled Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (a mere 2,913 pages). Practically nobody will ever read it. (I confess haven't.) Its Technical Summary is just 142 pages. (No, haven't read that yet, either.) Its Summary for Policymakers is a mere 64 pages. (Still nope---though this one I might actually try to read in the next week or so.)Why would I write about a report of … [Read more...]
Does Climate Change Threaten a Surge in Low-Salt Hospitalizations?
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, speculate that an increase in global average temperature of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit could cause heat waves that would boost hospitalizations for hyponatremia (insufficient amount of salt in the bloodstream to sustain proper body electrical function) by 6.3%, and warming of 3.6 degrees F would boost hospitalizations by 13.9%."Without adaptive measures, this suggests that over the next decades rising global temperatures alone will increase … [Read more...]
House Members Wrong Not Just on Priorities But also on Facts about Climate Change
When it comes to addressing the crisis of our rapidly warming planet, the February 28th, 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forcefully concluded that time is running out: “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation,” the world’s scientists wrote, “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” Leading the world in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius … [Read more...]
Hundred-Year-Old Mistake Comes Back to Bite US
In 1920, to protect American shipping from foreign competition, Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, also known as the Jones Act. Section 27 requires that ships carrying goods from one US port to another be built and flagged in the US and owned and crewed mostly by Americans.While they can make sense in terms of national defense if they prevent the country from becoming dependent on hostile foreign nations for commodities and manufactured goods critical for national defense, such … [Read more...]
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