Climate And Energy: A Textbook Case For Adaptation

By Duggan Flanakin ~

Spearheaded by E. Calvin Beisner, who in 1999 composed The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship and six years later founded the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism provides a blueprint for changing the hearts and minds of an emerging generation that has been heavily indoctrinated in the belief that planet Earth is “dying” because humanity has sinned by using fossil fuels to escape the drudgery of worldwide poverty.

Beisner and his co-editor, renowned climatologist David Legates, contribute their own chapters and solicited chapters from nine climate scientists, two environmental and energy economists, and two energy scientists/engineers. All the chapters have copious references, and Legates also provides a list of 44 climate change papers dating back to Arrhenius’ 1896 paper that first described the so-called “greenhouse effect.”

The climate catastrophism that permeates “mainstream” rhetoric and policy is described by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Benjamin Zycher, one of 27 reviewers whose praise for the book is included. In Zycher’s words, “Characterized by an unprecedented degree of scientific dishonesty, bureaucratic empire-building, corporate pursuit of government favors, and media ignorance and biases, the public debate over climate policy has been dismal even by the shameful standards of Beltway discourse.”

Hopefully, as theologian Wayne Gruden of Phoenix Seminary says, this book “could change the entire debate over climate change and energy policy.” And, as engineering professor James Wanliss of Anderson University adds, it exposes the shameful fact that “much of the ruling caste in the West has decided that energy poverty is necessary to ‘save the planet’ [even though] energy poverty means inevitable destruction of infrastructure essential to a successful modern civilization.”

As Vijay Jayaraj recounts in the book’s final chapter, “The developing world is nowhere close to having sufficient energy to eradicate extreme poverty, open education and employment opportunities, and elevate economic prospects.” To their shame, Jayaraj points to climate activists’ lack of compassion for “billions of people across the developing world [who] worry about whether they will obtain food, water, health care, and other necessities that their wealthier neighbors take for granted.”

It is that moral compass, perhaps influenced by Beisner’s own childhood in India, that drives the central question of this book: Is climate change such a threat to the planet that the “battle” to maintain a constant global temperature justifies the denial of life-giving energy to half the world’s people? Or is there another solution to the real and perceived threats to the status quo?

In the Prologue, Legates shows how the alarmist narrative has for decades crowded out serious questions in the West about the ethical implications of denying the developing world the tools that made the West rich. Beisner’s Introduction suggests that the wealthy West can address any climate challenges far better through adaptation – the path taken by countless generations throughout history – than by self-flagellation and forcing sacrifices on the poor. He asserts that poverty is a far greater risk to human health and life than anything related to climate and weather.

In a chapter on “the history and politics of climate change,” Legates shows how the fear-mongering on climate has thrown out the scientific method in favor of “post-normal science” in which feelings matter as much as facts and even to “post-modern science.”

A second Legates chapter discusses the role of greenhouse gases and explains how even a doubling of carbon dioxide would cause only minor impacts on climate change. The reason? The effect of greenhouse gases on atmospheric temperatures is a strongly logarithmic decay; therefore, climate sensitivity decreases with increasing concentration.

In two chapters, climate scientist Roy Spencer addresses the science of climate and the role of evaporation, precipitation, and clouds, notably explaining that the greatest impacts on global temperature from “greenhouse gases” are the baselines that keep the Earth warm enough and provide sufficient oxygen for human life.

The late Patrick Michaels discussed the differences in weather and climate forecasting, noting that climate models (unlike weather forecasting models) are “parameterized” [fudged] to quantitatively estimate important factors that the models cannot reliably generate from scientific first principles. As such, climate modeling typically targets an “anticipated acceptable range” of results – a scheme that Michaels dismissed as “not even science.”

In a chapter on the role of the Sun, Michael and Ronan Connolly and Willie Soon point out that Earth is currently in a relatively mind “interglacial period” but still in an ice age, given the vast amounts of ice in glaciers and at the poles. They also discuss the impacts of urban heat islands.

Anthony Lupo has chapters on the role of the oceans and on the effects of human-induced global warming. In the first, he discusses the natural oscillations (El Nino and La Nina are but two) that exert influence on each other and on weather and climate. The relationship between longer-term oceanic cycles and global temperature may, he says, play a bigger role in climate change than current climate science recognizes.

In the second, Lupo notes that the media and policymakers only emphasize negative impacts of global warming on biodiversity and human health while ignoring positive effects like increasing vegetative production. El Nino derided as an economic negative, led to lowered use of fossil fuels for winter heating in the U.S.

Nicola Scafetta’s chapter on quantifying climate sensitivity is admittedly “not easily understood by nonscientists,” according to the editors, but his conclusion is much easier to comprehend. “Clearly,” he says, “this is unsettled science, challenging climate alarmism and the necessity of urgent and expensive mitigation policies.”

Timothy Terrell shows that affordable, accessible energy, mostly from fossil fuels, has been the primary driver in human thriving. He chastises the West for demanding the developing world find another pathway to prosperity. The hypocrisy of energy colonialism is rapidly being rejected by developing nations, led by China and India, whose reliance on coal has brought hundreds of millions out of abject poverty.

Robert Hefner V reminds us that 95 percent of world energy today is sourced from coal, oil, gas, hydro, and nuclear, with renewables supplying only 5 percent. Fossil fuels and nuclear energy are hundreds to thousands of times more efficient than wind or solar systems in both energy density and land use requirements. He also notes that the information technology sector is the world’s third-largest consumer of electricity, behind only China and the United States.

Bill Peacock argues that the moral and effective way to improve mankind and the planet is through citizens’ free choices, from which optimal solutions evolve naturally, not from government mandates. Most interventions in markets, he states, do not improve human rights but rather degrade them. As Fredrich Hayek put it, the decisions of regulators will always be inferior to those made by buyers and sellers acting on information transmitted by market prices.

G. Cornelis van Kooten has two chapters on climate change and energy economics. The first shows that an energy transition away from fossil fuels cannot happen rapidly without major disruptions, if at all. The second reiterates that the push for Net Zero is incompatible with economic growth for developing nations. China, India, and other emerging nations, while forced to pay lip service, ignore the demands of the West to build their economies.

All in all, Climate and Energy is valuable as a textbook both on the science and policy implications of climate change and on the ethics of policies that harm the world’s poor and the citizens of developed nations as well. Beisner, Legates, and their colleagues show that the alarmist response is not only unattainable but would wreak far greater damage to the planet and its people than adaptation measures that are compatible with human flourishing.

Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundations, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas.

Read more excellent articles at CFACT  http://www.cfact.org/

Tagged: CFACT (Duggan Flanakin), Climate Change Alarmism, Climate Change Realities, Energy Reality, World Energy Consumption

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