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 … [Read more...]
Climate Scientists Admit Exaggerated Warming
Last week, a group of scientists sent shock waves through the climate-science community. They boldly pointed out that current climate models exaggerate greenhouse warming. In other words, they confirmed what climate skeptics have been arguing all along: that most computer climate models forecast unrealistic warming -- warming not observed anywhere in the real world. Could this be a turning point for climate science? Has the hitherto staunch resistance to any kind of scrutiny regarding the … [Read more...]
Katharine Hayhoe strikes again
Earlier this week someone sent me a link to Katharine Hayhoe's column "I'm a Climate Scientist Who Believes in God. Hear Me Out," published in the New York Times October 31. In it Hayhoe, whose Ph.D. is in atmospheric science but who teaches in the political science department at Texas Tech University, criticizes the thinking of fellow evangelicals who disagree with her about the causes, magnitude, consequences, and appropriate responses to climate change/global warming. Referring to … [Read more...]
Never Have US Health Professionals Been So Foolish
Last month, 74 US medical and public health groups released a “U.S. Call to Action,”declaring climate change a “true public health emergency” that can be solved by “urgent action.” The statement calls for a transition away from hydrocarbon energy and a move to a low-carbon economy. But actual weather and health trends don’t support either the alarm or the demanded actions. The statement was endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American … [Read more...]
Chuck Todd Devotes an Hour to Attacking a Strawman
Chuck Todd, on a recent episode of Meet the Press, highlighted the issue of global warming and climate change. He unapologetically made it clear that he wasn’t interested in hearing from people on the opposing side of the scientific issue, stating: “We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is … [Read more...]
Are We “Lukewarmers”?
A friend of the Cornwall Alliance wrote us recently, saying: I've just read Roy Spencer's Global Warming Skepticism Busy People, and I am a little surprised at how much he concedes to the alarmists, e.g., there is warming, it is partially anthropogenic, a majority of scientists do believe in anthropogenic warming, a rise of 5 degrees Centigrade would be a problem, etc. Are these all positions with which Cornwall Alliance agrees? Roy describes himself early in the book as a "lukewarmer." Is … [Read more...]
History 1, Hansen 0
In 1988, James Hansen confidently predicted that the world would be about 1 degree Celsius warmer today than it was then. Actually, he offered three scenarios: A, "business as usual," with rapidly rising carbon dioxide emissions, which would bring that 1 degree; B, "most plausible," with emissions remaining constant at 1988 levels, which would make the world 0.7 degree warmer today; and C, with emissions rising from 1988 to 2000 and then stabilizing, which would make the world about 0.3 … [Read more...]
What’s a “Climate Skeptic”?
In his recent article “Four Reasons Alarmists Are Wrong on Climate Change,” Cornwall Alliance Research Associate for Developing Countries Vijay Jayaraj distinguished what, following widespread usage, he called climate-change alarmists, deniers, and skeptics. The “alarmists” generally think that human emissions of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) are driving global warming so rapid and eventually of such great magnitude as to be dangerous or even catastrophic and that the appropriate … [Read more...]
Climate Alarmist Consensus—About to Shatter?
Is this the End of the Beginning, or the Beginning of the End? On November 10, 1942, after British and Commonwealth forces defeated the Germans and Italians at the Second Battle of El Alamein, taking nearly 30,000 prisoners, Winston Churchill told the British Parliament, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” In The Hinge of Fate, volume 3 of his marvelous 6-volume history of World War II, published eight years later, he … [Read more...]
Taking Politics Out of Climate Science
[Excerpted from the Washington Times] A red team, blue team match would test the assumptions of man-made global warming. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt wants to adopt a red team, blue team approach to weighing the scientific pros and cons about man-made global warming. According to E&E News reporter Emily Holden, “Climate scientists express concern that the ‘red team, blue team’ concept could politicize scientific research” related to global … [Read more...]
