It’s not climate
change – but energy restrictions based on climate fears – that threaten the
poor
Paul Driessen
Pope Francis plans
to deliver an encyclical on climate change this summer. To pave the way and
outline the Pope’s positions, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences is
holding a workshop on the topic, April 28 in Rome. The Committee For A
Constructive Tomorrow and Heartland
Institute will be there.
Cardinal Peter
Turkson, director of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and an author
of the draft encyclical, says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change has determined that “our planet is getting warmer.” Christians have a
duty to help the poor, “irrespective of the causes of climate change,” and
address what Pope Francis apparently believes is an imminent climate crisis.
The encyclical will likely present global warming as “a critical moral issue”
and increase pressure for a new climate treaty.
That raises serious
questions, which I have addressed in many articles
– and which prompted Dr. E. Calvin Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance
for the Stewardship of Creation to write an open letter
to Pope Francis. The articles and letter reflect our years of studying climate
change assertions and realities, and the ways climate-related restrictions on
energy harm poor families far more than climate change will.
At the most
fundamental level, too many IPCC reports and the apparent new papal position
represent the rejection of Judeo-Christianity’s illustrious tradition of
scientific inquiry, which has brought monumental improvements to our
understanding of nature and creation – and to humanity’s once “nasty, brutish
and short” lives on this planet. As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard
Feynman explained, we begin with a guess about a law of nature. Then we compute
the consequences that would result if our hypothesis is correct – and compare
actual observations, evidence and experimental data to the predicted
consequences.
If the hypothesis
and predictions are borne out by the observations, we have a new rule. But if
the hypothesis “disagrees with the experiment, it is wrong,”
Feynman says. That is honest, genuine science.
Alarmist climate
science is precisely the opposite. That distorted version of science
began with the hypothesis that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions from
fossil fuels cause global warming. It served as the basis for computer models
that assume rising CO2 and GHG levels will cause planetary temperatures and sea
levels to soar, and hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts to increase in
number and intensity. The models predicted many such “scenarios” over the
coming decades.
But Earth stopped warming 18 years ago; no major hurricane hit the USA
for a record 9-1/2 years; seas are rising at barely seven inches per century;
and even IPCC experts agree that long-term trends in weather disasters are not
out of historic norms and are not attributable to human causes. The CO2-driven
global warming disaster hypothesis and models do not reflect reality and are
obviously wrong.
So alarmists began
talking about “climate change,” blaming extreme weather events on human
emissions and manipulating temperature data. They say terrible things are
happening at unprecedented levels, when they are not. Worst, they say we must
slash hydrocarbon energy use that has brought once unimaginable health,
prosperity, living standards and life spans to billions of people, after
countless millennia of crushing poverty, malnutrition, disease, and death
before age 40. Fossil fuels still represent 85% of the world’s energy – and
they are essential if the rest of humanity is to catch up and improve their
lives.
Denying humanity
the use of still bountiful hydrocarbon energy is thus not simply wrong. It is
immoral – and lethal. This is the real reason that climate change is a
critical moral issue. No one has a right to tell the world’s poor they
cannot use fossil fuels to improve their lives, or to tell others they must
reduce their living standards, based on speculation and unfounded fears about a
manmade climate crisis.
As Dr. Beisner
notes, “Alongside good science in our approach to climate policy must be two
preferential options: for humanity and, among humanity, for the poor.” This
does not mean pitting humanity against nature, any more than to pit the poor
against the rich. It means any effort to protect the environment must be
centered on scientific truth and human well-being, and in particular the
well-being of the poor, because they are more vulnerable, and less able to
protect themselves. Climate alarmism does not do that.
Over the past three
decades, fossil fuels helped 1.3 billion people get electricity and escape
debilitating energy poverty – over 830 million because of coal. China connected
99% of its population to the grid and increased its steel production eight
times over, mostly with coal, energy analyst Roger Bezdek points out.
Abundant, reliable,
affordable motor fuels and electricity empower people and support mobility,
modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights
and refrigerators, job creation, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing,
safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives. In conjunction with
property rights and entrepreneurship, protected by laws enforced by limited,
responsive, responsible governments, fossil fuels will continue transforming
lives and nations the world over.
They will also
enable people to respond and adapt to future climate changes and extreme
weather events, floods and droughts, heat waves, new “little ice ages”
and other disasters, natural or manmade. More plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would enhance wildlife
habitats and food production.
However, 1.3
billion people (the population of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe
combined) still do not have electricity. In India alone, more people than live
in the USA still lack electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 730 million (equal to
Europe) still cook and heat with wood, charcoal and animal dung. Hundreds of
millions get horribly sick and four million die every year from lung and
intestinal diseases, due to breathing smoke from open fires and not having
clean water, refrigeration and safe food.
Imposing fossil
fuel restrictions and renewable energy mandates – in the name of stabilizing
planetary climate that has never been stable – would perpetuate Third World
poverty, disease and death. In developed nations, it would reduce living
standards, affect everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do – and cause
thousands to die during cold winters, because they cannot afford to heat their
homes properly.
It
would be a needless tragedy – an unconscionable crime against humanity – if the
world implemented policies to protect the world’s still impoverished and
energy-deprived masses from hypothetical manmade climate dangers decades from
now, by perpetuating poverty and disease, and killing millions tomorrow.
Just
eight years ago, Pope Benedict XVI warned
that any proposed “solutions” to global warming and climate change must be based
on solid evidence, and not on computer models, unsupported assertions and
dubious ideology. He suggested that concerns about man-made emissions melting
ice caps and causing waves of unprecedented disasters were little more than
fear-mongering. He argued that ecological concerns must be balanced against the
needs of current and future generations of people.
Pope
Francis apparently does not share his predecessor’s view about climate change
fears. However, if he is truly committed to advancing science, the poor and
creation, he should reject climate chaos claims unless and until alarmists can
provide solid evidence to back up their assertions and models.
He
should recognize that the issue is not global warming or climate change. It is
whether human actions now dominate climate and weather fluctuations that have
been common throughout Earth and human history – and whether those actions will
cause dangerous or catastrophic
changes in the future. Science-based answers to these questions are essential
if we are to forecast future climate and weather accurately – and safeguard
poor families, modern living standards and environmental quality.
It is unwise and
unjust to adopt policies requiring reduced use of fossil fuels, unless it can
be conclusively shown that doing so will stabilize Earth’ fickle climate and
prevent future climate disasters, Dr. Beisner concludes. “Such policies would
condemn hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings to ongoing poverty.” We
therefore respectfully ask Pope Francis to advise the world’s leaders to reject
those policies.
Paul Driessen is
senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death, and
coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth
money machine.