No Sure Bet: Two Replies to Andy Crouch’s “Environmental Wager”

The August 2005 issue of Christianity Today (vol. 49, no. 8, p. 66) carried an alarmist piece about global warming by Andy Crouch titled “Environmental Wager” that condemned critics of global warming alarmism and prescribed endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate global warming as a new variation on Pascal’s Wager that is so obviously the right thing to do that anybody who objects must be a cretin. The article generated critical responses from two founders of the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (Now The Cornwall Alliance).

The tone of Andy Crouch’s column, “Environmental Wager”, in the August issue of Christianity Today, is very typical of proponents of prescriptive climate change policies. “A few vocal skeptics” dare to challenge the “theory taken for granted by nearly every scientist working in the field.” Because they dared to refuse to join with the climate change alarmists, Focus on the Family is held up as an example of the “ready audience among evangelical Christians” who listen to these vocal skeptics.

Crouch says the IPCC concluded in 2001, “most of the warming observed in the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.” Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, writes in a draft of a paper he is presenting at a scientific gathering later this month, “This statement is simply dishonest. In point of fact, the impact of man remains indiscernible simply because the signal is too small compared to the natural noise.”

The article quotes Sir John Houghton as saying, “No assessments on any other scientific topic have been so thoroughly researched and reviewed.” This is a good example of resorting to bombast in order to suppress valid criticisms of the climate change models and their overly pessimistic predictions.

Crouch concludes “…we have little to lose, and much technological progress, energy security, and economic efficiency to gain, if we act on climate change now – even if the worst predictions fail to come to pass.” This is a leap of faith, not the “sure thing” he suggests. Initiating polices today that would make energy much more costly would decrease economic growth and, quite possibly, do more environmental harm than good.

Making large expenditures today to forestall what are highly uncertain risks, means we will have to sacrifice funding for other critical endeavors that could benefit mankind and the environment to a far greater degree: we cannot have it all.

Sincerely,
Kenneth W. Chilton, Ph.D.
Director, Institute for Study of Economics and the Environment and
Associate Professor of Management
Lindenwood University
209 South Kingshighway
St. Charles, MO 63301

Andy Crouch’s “Environmental Wager” (CT 49/8, p. 66) is a fine example of what logicians call the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi: proving the wrong conclusion. In the scientific and public policy debates surrounding climate change, the question is not whether the greenhouse theory per se is sound, whether climate change is occurring, or even whether average global temperature has risen over the last century. I know of no climate scientists who would deny any of those claims. But many question the magnitude of temperature increase over the last century and various portions thereof, the mix of causes of that increase, the proportionate role of human activity, the effectiveness of various proposals (such as the Kyoto Accords) to mitigate that role and possible future increased temperatures, and the cost/benefit ratios of said proposals. It is therefore simply irrelevant for Crouch to argue that there is an “all-but-unanimous scientific consensus that human beings are changing the climate.” His claim that “There is in fact no serious disagreement among scientists that human beings are playing a major role in global warming” is either false (if we are to give any significant meaning to the word major) or similarly irrelevant (if major means something like “perhaps measurable someday but at this point still unknown”). What, after all, does Crouch mean by “major”? Are human beings the cause of 1 percent of the past century’s warming–i.e., assuming warming of about 1 degree Fahrenheit, about 0.01 degree? Or 10 percent–i.e., 0.1 degree? Or 50 percent–0.5 degree? I bet Crouch can’t begin to answer that question, and it probably never occurred to him when he wrote to ask it, which is a sure indicator of just how unlike a scientist he was thinking when he wrote. (Ironically, ignoratio elenchi actually means “ignorance of confutation” and implies that the one who commits it is ignorant of the actual matter being debated. Crouch’s whole article demonstrates his ignorance of the actual debates swirling around climate change.)

The truth is that the various policy proposals to reduce human contributions to global warming all have costs and benefits to them. The positive impacts on human health and longevity from economic growth are well known and historically proven, and the anti-global warming policies would all result in reductions (if not reversals) of economic growth and consequently of improvements in human health and longevity.3 There are also demonstrated benefits from rising atmospheric CO2 concentration in terms of increased plant growth (which improves crop yields and so makes food more affordable; increases plant range and consequently reduces desert expanse; and sequesters more carbon, thus acting as a negative feedback on the CO2/climate change ratio).

Crouch turns a blind eye to both the costs of CO2 emission reduction and the benefits of increasing CO2. His wager is a false analogy to Pascal’s. In Pascal’s, there was nothing to lose if the believer in God turned out wrong but everything to gain if he turned out right; in Crouch’s wager, there are many costs and benefits of varied kinds to be identified, measured, and compared regardless which of a myriad of optional responses we make to the information (accurate or in-) we face about global warming.

Sincerely in Christ,
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D.
Author of Where Garden Meets Wilderness: Evangelical Entry into the Environmental Debate
Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Social Ethics
Knox Theological Seminary, 5554 N. Federal Hwy., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33308

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