Every so often the truth seeps out that significantly reducing global greenhouse gas emissions will require enormous sacrifices, meaning profound losses of welfare on people's part. Bear that in mind when you hear politicians’ promises of “net zero by X date” or “50 or 80 percent carbon dioxide reductions by year X.”In the Western world, the energy cuts and lifestyle changes required to hit net zero will mean going back to early-1800s levels of emissions. This will force enormously negative … [Read more...]
Energy Poverty Kills
Guest column by Alex EpsteinLast week we looked at the need for a process of producing energy that is cheap, plentiful, and reliable—and we saw that solar and wind cannot produce cheap, reliable energy.How Germany embraced solar and wind and ended up in energy povertyLet’s take a look at this in practice. Germany is considered by some to be the best success story in the world of effective solar and wind use, and you’ll often hear that they get a large percentage of their energy from solar and … [Read more...]
EU’s Carbon Border Taxes and Joe Biden’s Clean Energy plans: A double threat for developing countries
The introduction of the European Union’s Carbon Border Taxes and Joe Biden’s announcement of Clean Energy plans has raised double alarm in developing countries.The new European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) law will impact all countries exporting to EU, especially those countries without carbon pricing mechanisms. Countries like India, China, Indonesia, Philippines, and even developed ones like Australia, Poland are likely to significantly affected by the CBAM.Climate Justice and … [Read more...]
A Plea to My Evangelical Friends for Biden
October 20, 2020 by Dr. Peter JonesHow should genuine Christians vote in the up-coming presidential election? Recently a group called “pro-life evangelicals for Biden” sought to answer that question. The group includes many prominent evangelical leaders whom I respect who believe “that a biblically shaped commitment to the sanctity of human life compels us to a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end.”[1] Essentially in using the … [Read more...]
“Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden” Commit Two Major Mistakes in Ethics
In my years as a seminary professor of ethics, I saw few things more sinister and devious than the seemingly innocuous statement, “a biblically shaped commitment to the sanctity of human life compels us to a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end.” That’s not because life isn’t sacred from beginning to end, but because those who use it do so consistently to hide a serious ethical confusion.Recently a group calling itself “Pro-Life Evangelicals for … [Read more...]
Choosing the Economy over People’s Lives?
The current novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has stimulated all kinds of questions. As more and more people begin to demand that the more extreme measures to curb its spread---those that are shuttering a large part of our economy---come to an end, one of the most common is whether such thinking involves prioritizing the economy over lives. Is it not pro-life to insist that we continue the widespread shutdown of our economy in the name of saving lives?That's what drew this email from one … [Read more...]
Who Really Cares about the Environment?
A dozen years ago Arthur Brooks, now President of the American Enterprise Institute, shook the "Look at how much I care! I support government action for the poor!" crowd with his book Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide--Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters.What he revealed, from painstaking statistical research, is that political liberals, who justify all kinds of government entitlement programs by saying that anyone who really cares about the poor should embrace them, give hardly … [Read more...]
Are Wind Factories a Clear Case of Environmental Injustice?
Not many people can combine downright poetic writing with clear arguments about justice and economics. Radio broadcaster Bob Lonsberry did it today on his blog, "To the Metal Beasts on the Hilltop." Here's the start: Why do you think wind and solar projects in New York invariably end up in the poorest, most rural and politically powerless communities? Seriously. In this day and age, are we going to look the other way as community after community across upstate New York is stuck with … [Read more...]
Why Is the Cornwall Alliance Offering a Booklet on Social Justice?
About a month ago I was among the earliest signers of a public statement that has since gained widespread attention and even stirred up controversy, the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. Some people wonder why I signed. Their curiosity grows in light of the Cornwall Alliance’s offering my booklet Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel, to our friends this month. Why would we do that? I understand the question. It’s not clear at first why … [Read more...]
Does the San Francisco Jury Verdict against Monsanto Spell Doom for Roundup?
Now that jurors in a San Francisco court have awarded a man $289 million in damages in his lawsuit against Monsanto (and its parent company Bayer) claiming that his exposure to Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller gave him cancer, some people wonder whether the Cornwall Alliance will reverse its view that Roundup (the brand name for the active ingredient glyphosate) is not a carcinogen. The answer: No. The reason: Because the case provides no convincing evidence that glyphosate causes … [Read more...]
