This article was co-authored by E. Calvin Beisner. Curiously, the mainstream media seem to have ignored the story, but it’s an important one. Buzzfeed reported August 7 that “YouTube Is Fighting Back Against Climate Misinformation.” As of July 9, “YouTube is now adding fact checks to videos that question climate change … as a part of its ongoing effort to combat the rampant misinformation and conspiratorial fodder on its platform.” But neither YouTube nor Wikipedia, the source … [Read more...]
Climate Science, Energy Policy, Poverty, and Christian Faith: How do they Connect?
(Editors Note: Click graphs to enlarge) In the March 16, 2016, issue of Forbes astrophysicist Ethan Siegel’s article "The Next Great Global Warming ‘Hiatus’ is Coming!" sought to refute skeptics of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) by arguing that the apparent lack of statistically significant global warming over roughly the last 18 or 19 years is just one in a series of lulls in a long-term warming trend for which human action is responsible. His article, deftly argued and … [Read more...]
Curry Deals Another Blow to Climate Consensus
Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry dealt a serious blow to the appeal to consensus on climate change in her paper "Climate Change: No Consensus on Consensus," three years ago. She pointed out (among lots of other valuable things) that, whatever value consensus might have in science (as opposed to politics), consensus is significant only if it arises spontaneously, but the alleged consensus on climate change had been assiduously manufactured by the IPCC. She's followed the subject a good … [Read more...]
Why Biblical Worldview and Sound Science Generate Skepticism about Manmade Global Warming
In 1 Thessalonians 5:21, the Apostle Paul tells us to “test all things, hold fast what is good.” That, among other things (such as belief that a rational God designed the ordered world to be understood and ruled by rational human beings made in His image), is the Biblical basis for modern science, which arose only once in history and in only one place: Medieval Europe, which was shaped by the Christian worldview. Such thinking gave rise to scientific method, the key to which is skepticism, as … [Read more...]
Cornwall Alliance: “Playing Silly Games with Pseudo-Science”?
Is dangerous manmade global warming as certain as that Jesus of Nazareth existed? If you’re a well-informed person with a tolerable knowledge of the overwhelming historical evidence for Jesus’ existence and the enormous and complex controversies over global warming, your answer, after brief reflection, should be easy: No. And if you’re a thinking Christian who recognizes the Bible as the Word of God, your answer should be instant and without hesitation: Definitely no. Shockingly enough, … [Read more...]
Science Publisher Calls for Better Communication – But Not of Science
Originally published on WattsUpWithThat.com. Alan Leshner is worried. It seems scientists are having a hard time getting the public to understand science, and since “Public understanding of science … contributes to the extent of support for scientific research,” something must be done. Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Executive Publisher of its flagship publication, Science, wrote in a recent editorial, “There is no shortage of topics where … [Read more...]
My Nobel Moment
Excerpted from an article originally published in the Wall Street Journal. Read the full article here. I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over … [Read more...]
Scientific Orthodoxies, Politicized Science, and Catastrophic Global Warming: Challenges to Evangelicals Navigating Rough Waters in Science and Policy
Click here to download the full paper. The year 2006 has seen a major division among evangelicals over a strange, multifaceted issue: whether human action is causing potentially catastrophic global warming and what, if anything, should be done about it. That division quite possibly had enormous political consequences in the mid-term elections just completed, contributing to both diminished voter turnout among evangelicals and a decline in their support for Republican candidates from 75 percent … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
