“With my characteristic optimism, my 1997 paper on global warming remarked that ‘We should know a lot more about this issue in the next 10 to 20 years.’ Unfortunately, there has been a rush to judgement on this issue without a significant increase in the information on which to base this judgement.”

– William Niskanen, 2008

Part I yesterday presented the key questions regarding the climate-change issue from William Niskanen’s Fall 1997 symposium essay, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?” Part II today reprints a lead section from that essay, How Good is the Science of Global Warming? followed by Niskanen’s eleven-year retrospective. I conclude with a brief comment as a twenty-one year retrospective.

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The current debate in the scientific community about global warming is based on only a few hard facts: The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nearly 30 percent higher than in pre-industrial times; the average (measured) global temperature has increased about 0.5°C since the 1880s; and the increased concentration of carbon dioxide may have contributed to the increase in temperature. …

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Why some rural communities are fighting back against wind development

Wind turbines delivering next to nothing to grid despite hysteria

Environmental activists ignore energy security realities

America’s Next Energy Crisis

Short video: Overcoming Bias in Energy Conversations

The World Bank’s anti-energy policy betrays its core development mission

Offshore Wind States: Beware

Wind Projects Worry Federal Meteorologist

Environmental justice and the expanding geography of wind power conflicts

Duke Energy Considering Extending Nuclear Plant Life to 80 years

Study: Wind turbines impact bat activity, leading to high losses of habitat

Study: Gone with the Wind – Wind Development and Raptors

All wind energy avian mortality research and reporting is just deception

Solar panels could be a source of GenX and other perflourinated contaminants

Study: Model falsifiability and climate slow modes

IPCC report deleted uncertainties about human caused climate change

Climate Change, Catastrophe, Regulation and the Social Cost of Carbon

Climate Change Wackos Exposed in California Court

Four Questions on Climate Change

DDP: Ten Key Questions about Climate Change

A Challenge to the American Planning Association (re Sustainability)

Startling New Discovery Could Destroy Global Warming Doomsday Forecasts

Scott Pruitt – Warrior for Science

Crushing the Global Warming Cult at the EPA

Inventory of U.S.…

“Models, models. Experts, experts. At every step of each Malthusian episode, the latest science is cited as proof of the alarmist position. The Club of Rome studies in the 1970s to Peak Oil studies of recent decades. And the latest climate-model averaging today.”

Why engage with an anonymous climate alarmist (see the exchange yesterday)?

First, ‘mafarmerga” presented serious arguments in the public domain–and identified himself as a professor with peer-review responsibilities in climate science. [Editor update: he has identified himself]

Second, I really like my arguments relative to the opposition. Isn’t it nice that intellectual trends, not only political ones, are going against this latest Malthusian scare? Good for mankind–good for the worldview of economic and political liberty.

Third, going toe-to-toe forces me to better consider opposing arguments and to revisit mine.…

[Editor note: This exchange at the R-Street Institute website (no longer visible) is posted here and here.]

“From the Club of Rome to the present–with scientific models and articles in Science magazine from the ‘consensus’–the verdict has been wrong, wrong, wrong, and trending wrong. And this is before even considering (non-libertarian) public policy of taxes, tariffs, equity adjustments, private/public cronyism, etc.”

So why have neo-Malthusian natural scientists been so incorrect for so long? We have nearly a half-century of (falsified) doom-and-gloom.

Josiah Neeley of R-Street, once a critic of climate alarmism and wind power (see yesterday), is now desperately trying to make a case to libertarians and conservatives that the climate is in crisis and a carbon tax (and all the global government that goes with it) is necessary.…