Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Twitter Facebook YouTube Mastodon MeWe

RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds

Posted on 2 October 2014 by dana1981

The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation is a conservative evangelical Christian public policy group that promotes a free-market approach to protecting the environment. The organization recently published a list of ten reasons it opposes policies to reduce carbon pollution and slow global warming, purportedly to protect the poor. As the first point on the list illustrates, the group essentially believes that the Earth’s climate will be able to correct any damage done by humans.

1. As the product of infinitely wise design, omnipotent creation, and faithful sustaining (Genesis 1:1–31; 8:21–22), Earth is robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting.

The group includes climate scientist Roy Spencer and professor of geography David Legates. Spencer’s research is among the 2–3% of peer-reviewed climate papers disputing that humans are the main cause of global warming. He has often argued that climate policies will harm the poor, and has not been shy in making political and free market statements, having gone as far as to make comments about “global warming Nazis.” Legates is known for disputing the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming.

The Cornwall Alliance has tried to use scientific arguments to support its religious beliefs about the resiliency of the global climate, claiming,

3. While human addition of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), to the atmosphere may slightly raise atmospheric temperatures, observational studies indicate that the climate system responds more in ways that suppress than in ways that amplify CO2’s effect on temperature, implying a relatively small and benign rather than large and dangerous warming effect.

By itself, a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise global surface temperatures by about 1.2°C. By claiming the climate suppresses more than it amplifies that warming, the group is arguing that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is less than 1.2°C.

To put that in perspective, ‘sceptics’ Nic Lewis and Judith Curry recently published a paper with one of the lowest best estimates for the Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity, at 1.64°C global surface warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Their study only included some of the lowest estimates of ocean and surface temperatures, and hence likely underestimated the climate sensitivity, as climate scientist Kevin Trenberth explains,

Lewis and Curry not only low-balled their estimates of climate sensitivity by selective use of datasets but they also failed to take the other datasets into account in assigning error bars or uncertainties. They chose low values of temperature change without factoring in the biases of not adequately sampling the Arctic and the huge changes that have occurred there (see Cowtan and Way). They ignored many papers that document the best and most comprehensive estimates of changes in ocean heat storage such as those by Balmaseda et al (2013), Trenberth et al. (2014) and Chen and Tung (2014). There are a number of ocean heat content change estimates based on Argo data, but these miss many regions including the Indonesian region and Arctic, which contribute perhaps 30% of the total. The result is that the Lewis and Curry estimates are perhaps 50% too low, and their uncertainties are much too low.

Nevertheless, even the low-ball Lewis & Curry best estimate puts the climate at over 37% more sensitive to carbon pollution than the Cornwall Alliance believes.

The Cornwall Alliance’s policy positions are similarly misguided. On the issue of energy in developing countries, they argue,

To demand that they forgo the use of inexpensive fossil fuels and depend on expensive wind, solar, and other “Green” fuels to meet that need is to condemn them to more generations of poverty and the high rates of disease and premature death that accompany it.

Much of my colleague John Abraham’s work involves the design and installation of clean and robust energy sources in remote parts of the world. Based on his firsthand experience, Abraham says the Cornwall Alliance has got it all wrong.

This statement is made by people without much experience in energy or in emerging economies. My own team has led multiple projects where we bring low-cost clean energy solution to very remote and impoverished areas of the globe. Not only can we deliver energy at a competitive (and sometimes lower) costs, but small-scale distributed energy systems such as wind and solar generation provide local control over distribution. What we find is that cleaning the environment also cleans the politics associated with energy.

Abraham also told me about the moral challenge surrounding this subject – poorer countries tend to be the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In subsistence farming regions, people live and die by the weather and agriculture. I have seen firsthand how changes to climate are affecting real people and real communities. In the United States, it is an intellectual exercise to think about how the changing climate will affect our future economy and society. In Africa, South America, and Asia, this theoretical exercise is occurring in real time. Climate change costs are already occurring around the world, they impact the world’s poorest the most. Surely these social and economic costs should be part of our calculus as we think about solving this problem.

Top frame: national per capita carbon pollution emissions.  Bottom frame: Vulnerability Index from Samson et al. (2011). Top frame: national per capita carbon pollution emissions. Bottom frame: Vulnerability Index from Samson et al. (2011).

Many evangelical Christians recognize this moral angle of human-caused climate change, and also view the issue as one of stewardship of the Earth. For example, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian herself, and often speaks to like-minded groups. She recently did an interview with Bill Moyers that’s well worth watching. Hayhoe told me,

The foundation of the Christian faith is about loving others as Christ loved us, and it is clear from the work that I do myself as well as I see from other colleagues that those with the least resources to adapt to a changing climate will be most affected by our actions.

The National Association of Evangelicals has likewise acknowledged the reality of human-caused global warming and concluded,

Click here to read the rest

0 0

Printable Version  |  Link to this page

Comments

Prev  1  2  

Comments 51 to 54 out of 54:

  1. [Moderator's Comment]

    Please refrain from responding to future comments posted by paul until a Moderator has had time to review them. If his future posts constitute trolling and/or sloganeering, they will be summarily deleted. 

    0 0
  2. Non-Scientist@50

    I disagree with you. The per capita approach is a good measurement. Taking your example, then a household of 14 people who produce a total CO2 figure that is double of a smaller household (of one) is indeed better and more efficient.

    The fact is those 14 people are most likely using fewer resources and use less energy each. If they copied the other household, then they would be producing 7 times as much CO2 (0.5 x 14) as the 14 person household.

    CO2 emissions is all about people. It's about how individuals can live whilst minimising their  impact.

    0 0
  3. Hi folks,  need a little advice,  in correcting some information contained in our small town newspaper written by Joe D'Aleo, it seems that Dr legates has come to his defense regarding the Cornwall alliance.  It seems Joe is taken to writing Alex Jones style diatribes,  im not sure i can devote the time to continue to correct his misrepresentations?  I'm a not a scientist, and I think I'm a bit over my head.  Any advice or assistance would be appreciated.  I know a little bit about these folks, and as I learn more, I'm shocked by what they espouse.

    Thanks

     

    0 0
  4. I think if I just stick to the facts, cite my sources, and keep it polite, I'll be fine.

     

    Thanks!

    0 0
  5. I received an email from an old acquaintance mired in conspiracy theories. An article, Climate Science’s Myth-Busterboosting, by  Judith Curry.

    Would anyone share a remark about “findings”? I see that SKS has much about her past denialism.

    Wikipedia has a nice description of Curry, I know.  I'm just curious if there's something recent, more revealing, if that's possible.

    0 0
  6. One Planet Only Forever at 05:42 AM on 13 February 2023
    It's the sun

    I should have read the Curry comments this morning before posting comments. Your post hits the mark.

    "People who want to prolong harmful misunderstandings demand that presentations of harmful misunderstanding must be 'protected freedom of thought and expression'
    Those same people declare that it is unacceptable to ridicule people who present understandably ridiculous beliefs. They have a ridiculous belief about community-building. They believe that community-building requires acceptance of harmful people who want to promote and prolong harmful misunderstanding. Ridiculing people who persist in resisting learning to change their mind about harmful misunderstandings is deemed to be 'harmfully divisive'."

    0 0
  7. EddieEvans @55,

    there's a large number of Dr Curry's own articles (among others) to be seen on her blog "Climate Etc"  (at judithcurry.com) .  But you may find it rather tiresome to wade through a good sample of them.  Her modus operandi is to be vague & misleading to the naive/layman reader, by throwing up clouds of maybe & could-be & might-be.

    At first glance you might feel that she is being a cautious scientist, in keeping her mind open to possible alternative explanations for modern global warming.  But as you look at her track record and persistent line of do-nothingism "until we are really truly exactly sure of the precise amount of warming which is anthropogenic if any" . . . then you see that her AGW policy is in lock-step with the Oil Lobby.  Basically she is a propagandist who seriously distorts mainstream climate science, in her own unique way.  Plus a smattering of grievance about her persecution by those dreadful mainstream scientists (i.e. the 99%) .

    # Thank you for the 2019 article you link to.  A short but interesting article, authored by an economist Guy Sorman [age 78].  Sorman seems to have genuine virtues personally . . . though being an Old School free-marketeer (the Market is the solution to all problems).

    However, Sorman has re-hashed much of Dr Curry's usual blend of half-truths and misleading information  ~ great grist for his "conservative" readers of that City Journal for which he is a contributing editor ( I gather ).  But very bad science.

    0 0

Prev  1  2  

You need to be logged in to post a comment. Login via the left margin or if you're new, register here.



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us