Category: Two Views

In the mid-14th century, Italian officials and scientists became convinced that the paint in frescoes covering the inside walls of many churches was causing the Black Plague, then ravaging Europe. Desperate to “do something,” leaders ordered the frescoes whitewashed.

The Plague was unaffected, of course, but frescoes painted by great medieval artists, including Lorenzetti and Giotto di Bondone, were destroyed. Ironically, some masterpieces survived only because parishes couldn’t afford whitewash.

I thought of that futility when I read that Houghton students attended a New York City climate-rally. Environmentalists claim that human-produced CO2 is overheating Earth and altering the climate. Al Gore – who has made gazllions preaching Apocalypse – says the climate-science is “settled.” Some scientists agree; many others do not. 24/7 news coverage makes people think hurricanes, tornadoes and floods are worsening, but the data do not support this.

I lack credentials to judge climate science, but I know something about computational models. A career in simulation and modeling taught me that models are only as good as the mathematical representations and empirical data informing them. “Garbage in, garbage out” was our watchword. Experts admit that current models can’t correctly predict contemporary weather-patterns. Yet draconian government-policies, costing billions, are based on those models.

Renowned climate scientist James Lovelock recanted his earlier warnings, admitting his models were “primitive.” Judith Curry, president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network, wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 9, 2014) that the climate warming “hiatus,” since 1998, “…raises serious questions as to whether the climate-model projections of 21st century temperatures are fit for making public policy decisions.”

Climate-activism has been called a “new morality.” The NYC marchers believe they occupy that morality’s high ground, but do they realize they could be just as wrong as those long-ago whitewashers? And do they understand what their advocacy might cost the poorest of the world’s poor, as well as themselves?

This new climate-morality has a “dark side” – unknown to most Americans and seldom mentioned by mainstream media. President Obama disclosed it in his recent UN speech, when he asked poor countries to remain undeveloped to combat climate-change.

African delegates must have thought Mr. Obama mad. No sane politician wants his country to stay primitive and dirt-poor. Yet Western governments have agreed to block Third World development on alarmists’ tenuous predictions. This grotesque conspiracy should arouse every Christian’s indignation.

Worldwide, 2 billion people lack reliable electricity. Most cook and heat with smoky, open fires, burning wood or dung. In these unhealthy environments, 4 million children a year die from respiratory ailments. There is no electricity for lights, hot water, refrigeration, heat, or cooling. Industrial development is impossible. The modernity Americans expect simply doesn’t exist.

One African official said, “The West cannot imagine how hard life is without electricity.” He bitterly denounced “romanticizing” primitive African existence that no westerners (including students!) would tolerate. It’s racism at its ugliest, most degenerate level – truly, a cause to march for. But is it even mentioned on college campuses?

Africa’s vast energy resources could enrich the continent and improve its people’s lives: oil reserves of 975 billion barrels (a 100-year world-supply); 484 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; incalculable coal reserves. Western engineers and technicians could develop Africa’s resources and industry, making it an emerging powerhouse. Its potential is virtually unlimited.

Environmentalists and western politicians want Africa limited to solar panels and windmills, although electricity so generated is unreliable and three times as expensive as from coal-fired plants. Rich countries can afford to experiment, observed the above-mentioned official, while poor countries must use the most expensive, inefficient forms of power-generation. He added:

“The African dream is to develop. You might power a light bulb with a solar panel, but you can’t run steel mills and factories with power generated that way.”

European leaders want Africa kept primitive because they fear the economic threat that Africa’s huge resources and 800 million nutrition-and-work-starved people represent to Europe’s declining populations and stagnant economies. Economic Imperialism is the Climate movement’s really dirty secret.

Fundamentally, the Green movement is anti-human. Its strategists consider people “the problem.” Their vision is a green, non-industrial Earth – sparsely populated by hunters, gatherers, and hand-tillers of the soil. One doubts that stock-brokers, car salesmen, bankers, doctors, lawyers, or politicians will be among them.

Ordinary citizens consider the movement benign – like pollution-cleanup. Green is hip. Businesses cheerfully offer to “save the planet” by eliminating paper bags and charging extra for plastic. The danger is great because the movement’s true aims are concealed.

Climate politics seem invincible. Opposition is stomped or ignored. Both political parties ride the Climate Bandwagon. The US Environmental Protection Agency regulations will destroy the coal industry, send fuel and electricity rates soaring, cripple the American economy and impoverish our most vulnerable citizens. It’s a politician’s dream-issue because its effectiveness (or not) won’t be discernible for 100 years.

Mr. Obama promises more “aid” for desperate Third World countries. But we should be spending any available bucks to help those nations develop – not waste it on foolish attempts to affect the climate that will do nothing except burn up precious funds.

If primitive Africa is ever going to escape squalor, disease and hunger, it must use every available resource. Windmills, solar panels, dirt-floor huts, rats running around, and smoky fires burning buffalo crap won’t do it. I’m ashamed that we’re involved in crippling Third World development. I urge Houghton students to view all aspects of the climate issue with a very critical eye.

Follow the money.

-Woody Zimmerman

Woody is a ’64 Houghton Alumnus.

 

I hear it all the time, and I couldn’t agree more; “Don’t listen to the alarmists!”  The world is full of people on both the right and the left spouting endless claims about global warming—claims loaded with assertions but too often devoid of facts.

Fortunately, the scientific community offers a clear and consistent picture that helps us cut through the rhetoric and get straight to the data.  Last year the non-partisan, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a 1,500-page report assessing our knowledge of the global climate system based on more than 30,000 peer-reviewed publications.  More than 600 of the world’s top climate experts representing 39 countries contributed to the report.  Their conclusions were explicit, referring to global warming as “unequivocal” and stating that the “human influence on the climate system is clear.”

Indeed, no fewer than 97% of climate scientists agree with this assessment–along with every major national and international scientific association. The simple truth is that the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence points toward one inescapable conclusion—burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases, which warm the planet. In other words, the world is warming; humans are causing it; and it’s leading to serious consequences. Perhaps it’s time to move past the so-called “debate” about global warming’s existence and instead ask ourselves, “Why does it matter?”

During the past 100 years, the world has warmed by about 1° Celsius. While this may not seem like much, we can already measure the impacts from this seemingly small change in the form of rising seas, more heat waves, changes in precipitation patterns, species migration, ocean acidification, and more intense storms. If current levels of fossil fuel consumption continue scientists warn that we can expect to see a further 3° – 5° C rise this century, and that problems will get much worse.

Importantly, such changes don’t occur in isolation, but have direct humanitarian and economic costs on the global human population. Decreased global food production, increased conflict, spreading disease vectors, water insecurity, more natural disasters, and mass human displacement will each become increasingly common as the world attempts to cope with unprecedented climatic changes. Sea level rise alone will permanently displace 20 million Bangladeshis and inundate entire island countries.

Unfortunately, the brunt of this impact will fall on the poor in developing countries—those least able to cope with such changes. This is where climate change becomes a social justice issue. Those hurt the most by a changing climate are the ones who have done the least to cause it. Meanwhile, those of us responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions (industrialized countries) are fortunate to be located where climate impacts won’t be felt quite as acutely.

We have unwittingly become party to the most widespread social injustice in human history—one that literally impacts every human on the planet. The question is, “what will we do about it?”

Many claim that climate mitigation is just too expensive, though nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do climate mitigation policies generate jobs through new industries and infrastructure, but they also reduce costs in the areas of health care, disaster cleanup, energy demand, pollution abatement, refugee resettlement, etc. The reality is that the cost of inaction will far exceed the cost of acting quickly to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

Some well-meaning, but deeply misinformed, individuals claim that climate action will actually hurt the poor. The truth is that no one has more to gain from climate action than the poor, who already suffer on the front lines of climate change and are literally begging industrialized nations to slow down their carbon emissions. One Bangladeshi man was recently quoted as saying, “Forget about making poverty history. Climate change will make poverty permanent.” As a Christian eager to fulfill Jesus’ second greatest commandment this statement from a development expert in one of the world’s poorest countries concerns me.

Should a Christian get involved in climate action? You’ll have to answer that for yourself, but first I suggest you ask the Malawian farmers who no longer know when to plant their crops because the rainy seasons have changed. Or residents of the Maldives who are developing a national evacuation plan to escape the rising seas. Or the families that lost their homes in Superstorm Sandy. Or the California farmers who can’t grow crops because of the epic drought. Or the Native Americans of Shishmaref, Alaska, whose homeland is rapidly eroding into the rising ocean.

As for me, I choose to believe the word of those who have devoted their careers to studying the global climate system over those who talk about it on their blogs. And I choose to stand with those who are suffering. What will you do?

-Brian Webb

Brian is the Sustainability coordinator and the intercultural student programs coordinator.