Many climate scientists argue that we need to mitigate global warming because otherwise it will be the poor who will be hurt the most. Apparently these scientists do not understand their own models.

Projections from climate models are based on the rates of poverty reduction, with the highest (‘worst’) temperature projections resulting when the poorest people in the world increase their incomes from $246 (measured in constant 1990 USD) to $49,000 per year (approximately equal to U.S. GDP per capita in 2014) by the end of the 21^st century. The lowest (‘best’) temperature projections result when per capita income of the poorest people rises to only $3,850 annually, which though some 15 times more than now still does not ensure levels of health, long life, and other benefits people in the developed world have taken for granted for a generation or more.

There are huge benefits to health and every other measure one cares to choose when one overcomes poverty. Rich people can cope not only with natural catastrophes but also with different climates—from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, from Death Valley to the Amazon rainforest—better than poor people. Adequate wealth more than outweighs any damage from climate change.

It follows that what the advocates of AGW mitigation prescribe, because mitigation can only be achieved to the extent that economic growth is reduced, is to reduce global warming by trapping the world’s poor in their poverty and all the suffering that entails.

Given the underlying foundations of the climate predictions, the only realistic policy, if one is truly interested in the wellbeing of poor people, is to permit them to get rich, even if that means allowing the climate to warm—and it is unlikely that it would warm enough to pose danger, especially danger as great as what comes from poverty.

Preventing climate change does not help the poor, it dooms them! Poverty simply kills more people than climate. Consequently, it would be immoral to deny the poor the ability to develop by curtailing their access to abundant, affordable, reliable energy, all in pursuit of an environmental objective that only interests one billion rich people.

That’s a good reason to sign An Open Letter on Climate Change to the People, their Local Representatives, the State Legislatures and Governors, the Congress, and the President of the United States of America.

Note: This is an excerpt from a letter sent to Christian college faculty members by

• Charles Clough, M.S. (Atmospheric Science), Th.M. (Dallas Theological Seminary), Retired Chief US Army Atmospheric Effects Team, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, Retired Lt. Col. USAF Reserve Weather Officer, President Biblical Framework Ministries
• Neil Frank, Ph.D. (Meteorology), Former Director, National Hurricane Center; retired Chief Meteorologist, KHOU-TV, Houston,TX
• Wayne Grudem, Ph.D. (New Testament), Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary, Scottsdale, AZ
• Jeffrey Haymond, Ph.D. (Economics), M.S. (Mechanical Engineering), Dean and Associate Professor, School of Business Administration, Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH
• Tracy C. Miller, Ph.D. (Economics), Associate Professor of Economics, Grove City College, Grove City, PA
• Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. (Meteorology), Principal Research Scientist in Climatology, University of Alabama, Huntsville, since 2001; U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (the source of satellite global temperature data) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite
• David Wells, Ph.D. (Theology), Distinguished Research Professor, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA

To learn more watch our Greener on the Other Side video series.

 

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Featured Image Courtesy of Alexandru Visan/Flickr CC