“Models and the numbers they generate are not evidence. Models are our hypotheses about how the world works, and the numbers they generate are our predictions. We test the models by comparing those predictions with real-world observations.”
Catholic bishops from around the world issued an appeal to the upcoming UN climate conference in Paris for a “complete decarbonization by mid-century” of the world’s energy systems.
As Reuters reported, their “document said ‘reliable scientific evidence’ suggests global warming is the result of ‘unrestrained human activity’, current models of progress and development, and excessive reliance on fossil fuels.”
We can dispense with the bishops’ two most obvious errors quickly.
First, carbon dioxide is not toxic at any concentration. It is essential to all life, plants growing better and hence making more food for all animals, including man (the poor benefiting the most), at higher concentrations than lower, and animals needing it to regulate respiration.…
Continue Reading“Big Green consists of several ‘environmental’ organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), each with $100+M budgets, each springing from high-minded useful beginnings, each with more high-priced lawyers than you can shake a stick at. EDF … was chief architect of the disastrous Kyoto lemon. NRDC proudly claims credit for Obama’s EPA strategy and foolishly allows it to migrate to Paris.”
“The danger is that Paris will lay a Kyoto.”
– James Hansen, “Isolation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Part I,” November 27, 2015.
James Hansen speaks truth to power when it comes to the politics of climate change. (On the science, he has staked out an alarmist position that he cannot seem to shake, even at this late date.) In previous posts, I have noted Hansen’s recalcitrance toward cap-and-trade, whether federal, state (California), or in another country (Australia or Quebec/Ontario).…
Continue Reading“The true meaning of Thanksgiving is the triumph of Capitalism over the failure of Collectivism in all its forms.”
This time of the year, whether in good economic times or bad, is when Americans gather with their families and friends and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together. It marks a remembrance of those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to make a new start in Plymouth, Massachusetts. What is less appreciated is that Thanksgiving also is a celebration of the birth of free enterprise in America.
The English Puritans, who left Great Britain and sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620, were not only escaping from religious persecution in their homeland. They also wanted to turn their back on what they viewed as the materialistic and greedy corruption of the Old World.…
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