Climate Change Hits Mars

Hasn't anyone told the Martians to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions?

On the bright side, maybe Al Gore will be making the trip to investigate.

More on Global Warming

Here's another documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle," produced by a British media organization. It goes even more in-depth into the problems with the theory of human-influenced global warming, including the history of the movement and some of the effects it's having around the world. Just a few of the interesting and disturbing points I noted from the film:

- Carbon dioxide levels do rise roughly in conjunction with global temperatures--but they lag behind the temperature variations by as much as hundreds of years.

- The oceans relase vastly more CO2 into the atmosphere than humans--so do animals, bacteria, decaying plants, and volcanoes.

- The sun is a huge factor in global temperature variations. Solar astronomers have become remarkably accurate at predicting long-term temperatures, more so even than terrestrial climatologists and meteorologists.

- Political attention on human-influenced global warming began as a political strategy employed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s as a way to promote nuclear energy over coal and oil. She didn't trust the middle east, and her government was having problems with labor strikes by the UK's miners.

- US federal funding for global warming-related research went from $178 million to over $2 billion in the early 1990s. It is now over $4 billion. A lot of science that has little or nothing to do with global warming is being clothed in global-warming language so that the researchers can get funding for their own pet projects.

- In the name of preventing more carbon dioxide "pollution," the developing world is essentially being encouraged not to develop, not to touch their oil and coal resources. This has disastrous consequences for public health--whole rafts of illnesses and causes of early death can be directly linked to not having access to electricity.

I am increasingly worried about the consequences of this whole global warming mess. Not concerned about what might happen if we don't somehow check the warming, but rather about what the consequences of the hype itself might be. Too, it is a disturbing illustration of how a few loud voices can deceive an entire society by capturing the media and public attention, completely ignoring the truth.

Update: If you want to see a shorter version of the documentary than the hour-and-a-quarter version I link to above, go to Eric Langborgh's website, here.

Global Warming

The Friar over at Reason & Revelation links (1, 2) today to a very interesting documentary challenging the prevailing opinion on human-induced climate change. Produced by a researcher named Hayward who works with, among others, the American Enterprise Institute, the video shows that much of the hype about global warming being propagated by Al Gore, among others, is just that--hype.

Several interesting points:
- There's good evidence for a medieval (pre-industrial) warm period that mirrors the present warming trend.
- Contrary to most people's assumption, environmental quality in most of the US is getting better, not worse.
- The most dire predictions about rise in global temperature are based on wildly implausible forecasts about industrial and economic growth--such as North Korea's exceeding US economic levels by 2100.
- The most conservative predictions about rise in global temperature are based on current emissions growth levels that have basis in actual fact.

There seems to be general consensus that global warming is happening. The science available does back that up. What there is considerably less consensus about--despite what many journalists and politicians would have us believe--is why that warming is taking place, to what extent it will contiue or worsen, and how drastic its effects will be. I'm not yet convinced that the most prominent voices' message--that humans are destroying the planet--is anything more than hype with little or not basis in fact.

Friedman and Freedom

Economist Milton Friedman died today, at the age of 94. Friedman is much admired by conservatives and libertarians for his work as the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics. Friedman also wrote much on public policy, with the overarching goal of promoting individual liberty in society.

I have some admiration for the man myself, a remaining influence of my conservative upbringing and education. I am no economist, but Friedman undoubtedly did much to work against the harmful effects of a Keynesian approach to monetary policy and its promotion of a directed economy. However, I find myself increasingly at odds with conservatives, to some extent, and libertarians, to a much greater extent, when they promote individual freedom as the goal of public policy and the greatest good in society.

Part of this disgreement stems from my belief that the individual is not the basic unit of society--that is, all institutions, phenomena, mechanisms, cultures, and such cannot merely or fundamentally be thought of as a bunch of individuals working together in a particular way or for a specific purpose. To look at them through the lens of the individual is potentially to miss the created structure of these institutions as such, and so to misunderstand their nature. For example, a family is an institution created by God with a specific structure--father, mother, children--and ordained for particular roles and ends in the world. It is not merely a collection of individuals who bond together to express and experience love and commitment. Therefore, two men can't be or have a family together--biological considerations aside. Likewise, to assume that government exists to promote the liberty of individuals is to wrongly account for government's existence, structure, and purpose.

A related principle is that any government or institution created by God is obliged to be ordered by God's law. He reveals this law to us in part through nature, and more fully and more clearly in Scripture. The only model of a society ordered by divine law that we have in Scripture is that of Israel in the Old Testament. Looking at the law given to Israel seems to show that promoting right relationships, not individual freedom, is the greatest good in society. Thus a purely free market that takes no account for human selfishness (as sin, not simple economic self-interest) fails to properly restrain man's own impulses that would destroy relationships and twist them for his own purposes.

Now, freedom is not a bad thing. Jesus Christ came to set men free. But freedom, defined wrongly, is an idol that conservatives and liberals and libertarians alike must repent of. Freedom is found in loving submission to the Lord God, and that has implications for all of life. So as you think about the legacy of Milton Friedman, think carefully and critically. His work contains keen insight, but, like any man's, should be examined in light of the Word of God.