OPINION:
“Human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing long term catastrophic climate change.” This is the kind of “settled science” narrative that is countered by “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” edited by E. Calvin Beisner and David R. Legates. Mr. Beisner is founder of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, and Mr. Legates, a veteran climatologist, is a senior fellow at the Cornwall Alliance.
There is much scientific evidence to challenge the climate change mantra. So, “why don’t you learn of climate realism from science journals or mainstream media?” The prologue to “Climate and Energy” answers this key question.
This aptly titled, cogent book further expands the real-world horizon of climate and energy knowledge and practice in 16 readable chapters.
These chapters cover the spectrum of climate and energy concerns. In addition to giving the history and politics of climate change, the book clearly explains the science of climate, climate models, the pertinence of the scientific method, and crucial aspects of the energy economy.
“Climate and Energy” clarifies the role of the sun, the oceans and the water cycle, and the clear and opaque connections between climate policy and energy economics, especially the economics that affect the poor in the developing world. After all, economists provide not only the budgetary balance to the climate change issue, but also broaden the understanding of the human toll of climate change.
Climate is largely set by water in all its forms: as liquid in oceans and clouds, as solid in ice sheets and snow, and as invisible vapor in air. In addition, as water changes phases, the process either cools or warms the atmosphere, depending on whether evaporation or condensation is occurring.
“Climate and Energy” addresses the role of water in climate change in lucid detail. For instance, climate scientist Roy Spencer discloses that water vapor is “the strongest of Earth’s greenhouse gases. Together with the clouds we see, water vapor accounts for about 75% of the greenhouse effect.” In addition, “the processes that limit how much water vapor accumulates in the atmosphere — precipitation — are not known in enough detail to predict how the weak direct-warming effect of CO2 will be either amplified or reduced by precipitation limits on water vapor.”
The book makes a strong case that the “uncertainties associated with water vapor, cloud, and precipitation processes regarding their impact on global warming estimates cannot be overemphasized.”
“Climate and Energy” includes further challenges to the oft-cited catastrophic climate change narrative such as discussions of the impact of urbanization on temperature records since the mid-1800s, when consistent, widespread surface-based measurements began, and the comparison of natural temperature oscillations with the established surface observations.
Not to be missed is the appendix prepared by Mr. Legates in which he provides individual synopses of 44 important historical scientific papers on climate change science, beginning with Svante Arrhenius’ 1896 work quantifying carbon dioxide’s impact on air temperatures.
The vast majority of papers explored are by authors who provide reasonable challenges to the popular climate storyline. The papers by these well-qualified atmospheric science and statistics authors were published in journals such as Science, Nature, Geophysical Research Letters and the Journal of Climate.
Subject matter includes early work on El Nino (the warming of ocean water off the coast of Peru that has a huge effect on weather across the globe including in the U.S.); air-sea interactions and their enormous impact on climate change; statistical analysis of the infamous “hockey-stick graph” that purportedly showed steady global temperatures for the past couple of thousand years until a dramatic uptick beginning the last half of the 20th century; the impact of the sun on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends; and other critical topics.
“Climate and Energy” is authored by exceptionally well-qualified climate scientists, economists and professionals immersed in climate and energy analysis and policy. The intelligent perspective delivered in this book is sorely needed to clear today’s climate change atmosphere polluted with too much politics and scientism. “Climate and Energy” proposes a return to hard science and solid reasoning when addressing one of the defining issues of our time.
• Anthony J. Sadar is an adjunct associate professor at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and co-author of “Environmental Risk Communication: Principles and Practices for Industry” (CRC Press).
• • •
Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism
Edited by E. Calvin Beisner and David R. Legates
Regnery Publishing, March 19, 2024
464 pages, $29.99
Please read our comment policy before commenting.