 June 10, 2009
Dear Friend, As you read this week's WeGetIt.org Wednesday Bulletin, please be thinking of friends who would benefit from it, and then forward it to them. Thanks for your support! IPCC climate scientist calls legislation "all cost and no benefit"
As estimates of the cost of cap and trade soared this week (the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office scores the current bill at $973 billion), some experts are beginning to ask what we're getting for such a hefty price. Climatologist John Christy, distinguished professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, recently said he thinks legislation to reduce global warming is "all cost and no benefit" and that as more economic studies drive home that point, "some of the people will take one step backward and say, Let me investigate the science a little more closely." When they do that, Christy believes, they'll find that human influence on climate change is much smaller than even the moderate forecasts by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, let alone the catastrophic predictions driving much of the current discussion. An ordained Baptist pastor and former missionary teacher in Kenya, Christy is a voice to be reckoned with in the field. The award-winning and widely published climatologist was contributor or lead author on every major report of the IPCC and a co-author of the 2003 American Geophysical Union report, which, he said, made no claims "about disaster or catastrophe." Christy believes surface temperature data are biased upward by poor placement and maintenance of temperature stations. Satellites and weather balloons give more reliable results--showing much less warming. He also points out that computer models, like those done by NASA scientist and leading global warming alarmist James Hansen, have grossly overestimated the warming that's occurred and should not be trusted for the future. Asked whether we should still take action just in case the extreme models turn out right, he replied, "The solutions being offered don't provide any detectable relief from this so-called catastrophe. Congress is now discussing an 80% reduction in U.S. greenhouse emissions by 2050. That's basically the equivalent of building 1,000 new nuclear power plants all operating by 2020. Now I'm all in favor of nuclear energy, but that would affect the global temperature by only seven-hundredths of a degree by 2050 and fifteen hundredths by 2100. "We wouldn't even notice it." Obama's first Supreme Court nominee glows green Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter, has a track record on environmental litigation that indicates that she's willing to make new law from the bench rather than simply interpreting and enforcing the laws already on the books. That's good news for activists who want to use the courts to vastly expand environmental regulation. In 2006, while serving on the Second Circuit, Sotomayor ruled in favor of eco-activist groups in Riverkeeper v. EPA. Riverkeeper sued the Environmental Protection Agency, saying it wasn't adequately enforcing a provision of the Clean Water Act to prevent fish and other aquatic animals from being sucked into power-plant cooling-water intakes. Citing the Act's language that required plants to use the "best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact," the plaintiffs argued that cost must not be a factor. The EPA responded that the statute allowed weighing the cost. Sotomayor ruled for Riverkeeper, flouting Supreme Court precedent that government agencies could use a "reasonable" interpretation governing statutes. The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to reverse Sotomayor's ruling in 2008. American Enterprise Institute environmental policy expert Steven Hayward said Sotomayor's "judicial activism extends in this area to always being on the side of state power, used on behalf of environmental groups." New York Post columnist Meghan Clyne, in an article on Sotomayor's environmental record, said "she'll have plenty of opportunity to help green activists write environmental regulations through judicial fiat. 'Climate change' is the new religion in Washington--with a raft of legislation in the works that will keep lawsuit mills like Riverkeeper in business for years." GreenWatch America commented on Sotomayor's nomination:
Where do environmental fears come from? Many Christians have long recognized that absorbing fears about money, health, and many other things are signs that people either lack faith in God or don't apply that faith to those aspects of their lives. As a psalmist put it, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear" (Psalm 46:1-2, emphasis added). Is it possible that environmental fears have the same root? Through the Prophet Jeremiah God said something that should give us pause:
Though it's obscured in English, the Hebrew poetic structure emphasizes "me" by putting it near the start of each of the first two lines. This suggests that if God's people feared Him, they wouldn't be afraid of other things--in this instance, the sea, around which God placed the sand as "a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass." Might today's widespread fears about rising sea level subside if people feared God--the God who promised never again to destroy the world with a flood, and to sustain the geophysical cycles on which life depends (Genesis 9:8-11; 8:21-22)--instead of manmade global warming?Now, please forward this message to your pastor, other Christian leaders, and friends and urge them to sign the WeGetIt.org Declaration, too! The more people sign, the stronger the message our leaders will hear that Biblical principles and factual evidence, not media hype about speculative fears like global warming, should guide our care for the environment and the poor.Gratefully, We value your privacy. If you received this from a friend, you can join the campaign at www.WeGetIt.org. This message was originally sent to [email address suppressed] because someone signed the WeGetIt.org Declaration as "fullname." Edit your name | Bulletin Archives | Unsubscribe | Inquiries |
