The Vatican Begins Its Search For ET
From an article by Tom Chivers:
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding a conference on astrobiology, the study of life beyond Earth, with scientists and religious leaders gathering in Rome this week [November 16-22]. . . .
Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and one of the organizers of the conference, said: “As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God. . . .”
The Academy conference will include presentations from scientists – by no means all of them Christians – on the discovery of planets outside our solar system, the geological record of early life on Earth, how life might have started on Earth, and whether “alien” life of a different biochemistry to our own might exist here without our knowing, among many other things.
Obama’s “Science Fiction” Advisor
Written by Gary Bauer:
Many people are totally perplexed by the Obama Administration’s push to impose a massive “cap and trade” tax on energy production in the middle of a severe recession. By President Obama’s own admission, “under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.” Cap and trade will kill jobs in energy-intensive industries like manufacturing, hike consumer prices on virtually every product, and may well push America over the brink from recession to depression. Why are we doing this? It could well be that President Obama is acting in part on the recommendations of his science advisor, Dr. John Holdren.
CNSNews reports that during the 1970s Holdren was an advocate of “de-development”. What is “de-development”? It’s exactly what it sounds like – a radical idea to destroy America’s economy, especially its industrial base, via environmental regulation. These “progressives” literally wanted to take us backwards in time economically. Don’t believe me? Consider this passage from his book:
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.”
He goes on to label certain technological advances as undesirable, things like “fission power, giant automobiles, plastic wrappings, genetic engineering, disposable packages and containers, synthetic pesticides…”, and adds that “the halcyon days of unquestioning public acceptance of technological ‘progress’ must disappear forever.”
In other words, capitalism is out; communism is in. Government bureaucrats and central planners will provide you a “decent life,” presumably with plenty of candles to light your hut. At least Holdren had enough common sense to understand that his workers’ paradise might present a major challenge to economists. That’s because centralized government planning doesn’t work. That’s why the Soviet Union no longer exists. I don’t want to try to recreate that failed experiment in socialism here.
The Obama Administration, with the support of most Democrats in Congress, is pushing a cap and trade scheme that will redistribute wealth through higher energy taxes on businesses and successful families and greatly facilitate the “de-development” of the United States.
Believe it or not, it gets worse. [Several] weeks ago I told you about Holdren’s support for “compulsory population control laws,” including “compulsory abortion.” Here’s more about his view of human life: “The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.”
Did you catch that little nuance? In Holdren’s mind, a living baby “during the crucial early years after birth” is not yet fully human, but “will ultimately develop into a human being.” That kind of dehumanizing rationalization naturally leads one to support “compulsory abortion” and euthanasia. To the central planners, each life is not an asset, but rather a liability to Big Government’s bottom line. The passages in the ObamaCare bill about “end of life” counseling for our senior citizens could have been plagiarized from one Dr. Holdren’s books.
It’s shocking that this man survived the vetting process. Administration officials, including President Obama, should be forced to explain his appointment. Members of Congress should take every opportunity to put this man on the record about his beliefs. If Holdren does not repudiate his own writings, he should be forced to resign.
Caging Christianity
Written by Gary DeMar:
There are numerous Christians who believe that a personal, private faith is all the gospel requires. Os Guinness described this as “The Private-Zoo Factor,” a religion that is caged so that it loses its wildness. When true Christianity is applied to any part of the world, it blossoms far more fully and colorfully than any other worldview. Contrary successful worldviews must borrow from the Christian worldview in order for them to work. When pagans stopped believing that they lived in “an enchanted forest” and that “glens and groves, rocks and streams are alive with spirits, sprites, demons” and “nature teems with sun gods, river goddesses, [and] astral deities,” at that moment the world and everything in it changed. Everything seemed possible within the boundaries of God’s Providence and law. A Christian worldview made science possible and civil government ministerial rather than messianic. Stanley Jaki, the author of numerous books on the relationship between Christianity and science, comments:
“Nothing irks the secular world so much as a hint, let alone a scholarly demonstration, that supernatural revelation, as registered in the Bible, is germane to science. Yet biblical revelation is not only germane to science—it made the only viable birth of science possible. That birth took place in a once-Christian West.”
Cap And Trade Socialism
A study recently published by a group of scientists in the Journal of Geophysical Research has documented that any climate change that has occurred in the past several decades is a result of Mother Nature, not your neighbor’s carbon footprint. “The surge in global temperatures since 1977,” says the study’s co-author Chris de Freitas, “can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Nino conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Nina conditions less likely.”
Yet Al Gore and his cronies continue to vilify all of us “deniers” as they try to push their cap-and-trade programs and the rest of their socialist agenda. It brings to mind another quote, one from the late writer H.L. Mencken: “The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.” Whether it applies to global warming, health care or a host of other issues on today’s political table, it appears Mencken is right on the money.
Staying The Course
Pioneer 10
Craig Brian Larson uses an interesting illustration in his book, “Pastoral Grit,” that is very applicable to everyone in the Body of Christ:
“In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target.
“But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun.
“And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. ‘Perhaps most remarkable,’ writes Jaroff, ‘those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.’
“The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
“So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits.” (Philippians 3:12-14, Hebrews 12:1, Mark 10:45)
Not Evil – Just Wrong
Not Evil Just Wrong is the film that reveals the true human cost of Global Warming hysteria. It shows how Global Warming alarmism and the tax increases that go along with it are going to increase costs for working families during one of the worst recessions in living memory.
Al Gore and his allies want to ban fossil fuels in the developed world. This would devastate the American economy and drive jobs to India and China.
Faith And Science
Written by Ken Connor:
Religious bigotry is alive and well in the scientific community, as evidenced by its response to President Obama’s decision to appoint Dr. Francis Collins as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Though renowned for leading the team of scientists that successfully mapped the human genome, Dr. Collins is making headlines for something else: his faith. In spite of his professional qualifications and accomplishments, many in the scientific community are less than enthusiastic about the President’s decision to appoint a self-described evangelical Christian to lead the world’s leading organization for scientific research.
This skepticism results from a prejudice against a theistic worldview that has become entrenched in the scientific community—an irrational attitude born of historical ignorance and intellectual myopathy that is increasingly dismissive of moral questions and ethical concerns.
The idea that a tension exists between science and theism is relatively new. The most brilliant philosophical minds of the western intellectual tradition—dating all the way back to the time of Plato and Aristotle—operated on the assumption that our existence came into being through the actions of a divine creator, described as the First Cause or Unmoved Mover. For centuries after, theology reigned as queen of the sciences, and scientific inquiry was animated by the belief that human reason was a gift imparted by God so that man might gain knowledge about Him, His attributes, and the laws which govern His creation.
Without this belief that the physical world is the result of an intentional design governed by fixed laws—laws which we discover through reason and experience—there would have been little cause to engage in scientific pursuits. Faith in the goodness of God’s creation and the intelligibility of its design inspired history’s great minds to forge ahead into new worlds of knowledge and discovery.
Environmental Eschatology
Quoting Daniel Greenfield:
Environmentalist eschatology may be short on theology, but it’s long on nightmarish apocalyptic visions of eco-disasters with technology taking the place of vice, industry replacing sodomy, and excessive use of water and power taking the place of debauchery. After God had been replaced with the one-two combination of the Big Bang and Evolution, environmentalism developed a godless theology of sin and damnation, apocalypse and salvation preached by eco-televangelists like Al Gore soliciting your money to help stop the plastic devil and his CFC archdemons from destroying the earth.
Of course a Marxist coined theology was bound to focus on resource consumption and wealth, wealth and resources being the sin and good works of Marxism. And like its Marxist godfather, environmentalism is perpetually obsessed with what you have, how much of it you have, how much of it you use, and what you can do to make up for it all. Which most people would consider rude and annoying– unless you frighten them with visions of the environmental apocalypse devouring all of mankind’s works, because too many people flushed their toilets once too often and used plastic instead of paper.
The power of eco-nightmares is leveraged to frighten and intimidate people into surrendering power over their lives and pumping untold billions into a variety of schemes to stop a crisis that doesn’t actually exist.
Senate Climate (Cap And Trade) Bill Will Devastate US Economy
According to FreedomWorks, a cap and trade bill introduced yesterday by Senators John Kerry (D, Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) will devastate the U.S. economy and yet have no tangible environmental benefit. The previous estimates of the consequences of cap and trade legislation include over 2.3 million jobs lost, $4 a gallon gas, and increased annual energy costs of $1,300 per American household which would now be far exceeded by the cost of the Senate bill. FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe commented:
“Senators Kerry and Boxer have found a way to make a bad idea worse with the introduction of their cap and trade bill. The cap and trade bill passed by the House already threatens to enact a new energy tax, cost millions of Americans’ their jobs, and drive gas prices back up above $4 per gallon. With its call for even greater reductions on carbon emissions, the Kerry-Boxer bill exacerbates these already gloomy estimates and raises the threat level that cap and trade poses to the U.S. economy.”
It is also troubling that the Senate is rushing forward with a climate bill despite the fact that important portions of the bill have yet to be written.
A Recycled Health Care Speech
From the David Horowitz Freedom Center:
The president’s health care speech last night consisted of discredited canards bookended by emotional manipulation. Between his distortions, token gestures for opponents, and lengthy bouts of tongue-lashing, Barack Obama signaled he will continue pushing forward toward socialized medicine. However, it seems likely he will move incrementally through a final bill that will nationalize health care a year after the next presidential election. . . .
The bulk of his speech consisted of recycled falsehoods long since dismissed. To note the highlights, one can begin with the moment that caught everyone’s attention: Obama’s denial that “our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. . . .
Obama did lie. The Congressional Research Service found, “Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on non-citizens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.” The Democrats’ plan contains no requirement that patients verify citizenship, just as the National Council of La Raza requested this summer. . . .
More egregious is his promise that nationalized health care would not result in, well, nationalized health care. ”Let me be clear,” the phrase he characteristically utters while muddying the waters. “It [the “not-for-profit public option”] would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance.” A seismic change in the insurance landscape will affect everyone with insurance, and everyone who pays taxes. The Congressional Budget Office found at least 3 million Americans will move from employer-provided insurance to the public “option” by 2016, because their employers will drop their coverage.
Obama vowed, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.” The Lewin Group reported the House health bill would run a $39 billion deficit in its first decade, rising to more than $1.1 trillion in its second. . . .
A Problem For The Darwinian View
From: The Pen of Dr. Benjamin Wiker
Charles Darwin argued that the origin of each species was ultimately a kind of accident, the confluence of random variation and the consequent selection of traits that happened to fit the environment better or provided some advantage in the struggle for existence.
Three seemingly evident “truths” followed from this. First, the more complex some biological trait was, the less likely that it could evolve even once, let alone several times. Second, since a complex trait could only have evolved once, then whatever living thing had that trait must be directly related. Third, to use the late evolutionist Stephen Gould’s famous quip, if one could magically reverse the “tape” of evolution, and let it play back again, the winding paths of evolution would produce entirely different biological creatures. Creation would take a radically different path each time we hit replay because the creator is ultimately the great and fickle god Chance. Most importantly, Gould claimed, man wouldn’t exist in any of the replays. We are the greatest accident of all.
The problem for the Darwinian view, as scientists in Fitness of the Cosmos for Life, point out is that evident “truth” number one turns out to be false. The plant and animals kingdoms are shot through with endless examples of convergence, that is, the multiple development of the same complex traits from entirely unrelated species: wings in birds, bats, and insects; the complex camera eye of squids and mammals; echolocation in whales and bats; the existence of strikingly similar and sometimes nearly identical animals from entirely different origins like the hedgehog and porcupine, the marsupial flying squirrel of Australia and the placental flying squirrel, the marsupial and placental moles, anteaters, and mice; and the list goes on. Convergence blows a hole in the second “truth,” because similar complex traits do not give us a sure indication of common ancestry. And the third “truth”? Convergence leads us to believe that, if the tape were played again, creation would pretty much come out the same way—all the way up to human beings.
This third point has monumental implications if we couple it with the fact that the biochemical makeup of the cosmos is superfit for life. The reason that convergence occurs is that life is written into cosmos, and channels it according to definite patterns.
From Ruler Of Earth To An Ingredient In Someone’s Soup
From: The Pen of Gary DeMar
For several months I have been working on an extended project that explores the relationship of pop-culture to societal norms and worldview shifts. In addition to comic books, film, and music, I’ve been looking at science fiction and the search for extraterrestrial life. Science and science-fiction have converged on the subject for quite some time. “Nicholas of Cusa (Kues, German, 1401–1464) was a theologian who in De docta ignorantia endorsed the idea of other inhabited worlds in the mid-fifteenth century. Remarkably, Nicholas even affirmed that the inhabitants of the planets were superior to Earth’s human residents.”[2] It’s surprising how much interest and writing there has been on the subject for more than 500 years! It was surprising.
Extraterrestrial superiority is the norm for modern-day space-travel theorists. Evolution is the driving force behind most of it. It’s the belief of these writers and theorists that space exploration is the hope of mankind. In Star Maker (1937), Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) “placed humanity on a cosmic evolutionary journey that ends in near divinity. . . . [He] believed we needed a new mythology for the dawning of the technological age.” The claim is made that the inherent principles of evolution will make space a utopia because science and scientists will lead the way.
C.S. Lewis was one of the first modern writers to spot the obvious flaw in space-utopia thinking. In a letter to Arthur C. Clarke dated December 7, 1943, Lewis wrote: “Technology is per se neutral: a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the universe. . . .
Given the evolutionary overtones of so many scientists and science fiction writers, how is it possible to make any moral assessments? Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys? How do we know what’s good or bad? Evolution on earth is a history of “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” Why is it now wrong to be equally misanthropic in the pursuit of greater evolutionary development? Philosopher Richard Rorty (1931–2007) provided a thought-provoking moral experiment for naturalistic philosophy to grapple with. Rorty challenges atheists to offer a compelling satisfactory naturalistic answer to the following:
“Aliens from another planet, with vastly superior intelligence to humans, land on earth in order to consume humans as food. What argument could you make to convince the aliens not to eat us that would not also apply to our consumption of beef?”
The Death Panel
Written by Andrew Klavan:
The people behind the long table do not know what they’ve become. The drug of power has been sugared over in their mouths with a flavoring of righteousness. Someone has to make these decisions, they tell their friends at dinner parties. It’s all very difficult for us. But you can see it in their eyes: It isn’t really difficult at all. It feels good to them to be the ones who decide.
“Well, we have your doctor’s recommendation,” says the chairwoman in a friendly tone. She peers over the top of her glasses as she pages through your file.
You have to clear your throat before you can answer. “He says the operation is my only chance.”
“But not really very much of a chance, is it?” she says sympathetically. Over time, she’s become expert at sounding sympathetic.
“Seventy percent!” you object.
“Seventy percent chance of survival for five years—five years at the outside—and even that only amounts to about 18 months in QALYs: quality-adjusted life years.”
“But without this procedure, I’ll be dead before Christmas.”
You try to keep the anger out of your voice. The last thing you want to do is offend them. But the politicians promised you—they promised everyone—there would never be panels like this. They made fun of anyone who said there would. “What do they think we’re going to do? Pull the plug on grandma?” they chuckled. The media ran news stories calling all rumors of such things “false” or “misleading.” But of course by then the media had become apologists for the state rather than watchdogs for the people.
In fact, the logic of this moment was inevitable. Once government got its fingers on the health-care system, it was only a matter of time before it took it over completely. . . .
Good And Evil In Outer Space
Written by Gary DeMar:
Michael G. Zey of Montclair State University in New Jersey writes: “People want to believe that there is superior life in the universe, and that these aliens will be able to upgrade our own lives. This is a form of wish fulfillment.” This is especially true since, as the late Michael Crichton made clear, “the belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief.” Similar to the way the “evidence” for evolution is designed to rid God from the cosmos, space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI) are designed to make man the next best thing to a god.
There are at least two problems with space optimism: (1) Evolution can go in any direction. You could get Kanamits, Terminator-like Aliens, or space vampires. There is no guarantee that you’ll meet E.T. or the child-like aliens that showed up at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here’s how one commentator put it: “we are no more likely to find other planets inhabited by benign vegetarian philosophers than the Americas were.” (2) If humans ever explore other planets in earth-like solar systems (an unlikely prospect in the near or even far future given what we know about the distance of stars and the length of time it takes to travel to the nearest one), they will take their fallen natures with them.
One of the best films to make the second point is Forbidden Planet (1956). It takes place on a distant planet in the early part of the 23rd century. The storyline is based loosely on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. “Of all Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest sets forth most fully and delightfully the biblical story of humankind: the tempestuous nature and thorny way of fallen man. . . .”
Liberal Myths
From: The Pen of John Hawkins
Almost every program the Left supports to “help” the poor in this country is surreptitiously designed to de-motivate them and keep them dependent on the government. The Left saps their will to work with welfare and food stamps, the Left reduces their income and puts them out of jobs by encouraging illegal aliens to enter the country, and the Left fights voucher programs that would allow poverty-stricken students to go to the same schools as the rich Americans. . . .
Liberals love to talk about education, but education in what? Global warming? Gay marriage? Self-esteem exercises. . . .
The liberals will tell you they’re the best friends Hispanic immigrants have ever had because they believe anyone who manages to sneak across the border should be made into a citizen. Meanwhile, Hispanic immigrants in this country who spent years waiting and spent thousands of dollars in fees to get through a bureaucratic nightmare because they loved and respected this country, are being played for chumps. It’s ironic really: liberal support for illegals puts Hispanic Americans out of jobs, takes food off of their families’ tables, and makes a mockery of their willingness to obey our laws — and then the liberals demand that they be treated like heroes by the same people they’re selling out so they can hire gardeners and nannies on the cheap. . . .
Cap-And-Trade Legislation Will Cost $8 Billion For Additional Government Employees
David Kreutzer, a senior policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, tells OneNewsNow that if cap-and-trade legislation — sometimes referred to as “energy ration and tax” by opponents — passes the Senate, it will add more than $8 billion in additional government staff.
“This is not the cost to the economy from the higher energy prices — that’s much, much higher; that will be thousands of dollars per family…$9.4 trillion over the first 24 years,” Kreutzer explains. “The eight billion [dollars] is just for the staff in Washington to handle the paperwork.”
Christianity And The Conspiracy Theory Of Government
From: The Desk of Stephen C. Perks
[Society], having rejected Christianity, is of course returning to the old religion of politics that governed the world before Christ. Modern politics is secular religion. The irony is that Christians on the whole have failed to see this because they have bought into the lie that “Christianity is not political.” They have also bought into the lie that “Christianity is not a religion.” These two common errors have been devastating for Christian civilization. In fact modern atheists have no more problems with religion than they have with politics, though they do not like the term “religion” (because they perceive it as referring to Christianity, Judaism or Islam); but with the concept of religion (i.e. an overarching belief system that structures the life of both the individual and the society to which he belongs) the modern secular world has no problems and is just as religious as every society ever has been. But the religion that is dominant today is the religion of secular humanism, the chief idol of which is the secular State. This is the new secular religion of politics. It is the logic of this idolatry that is now working itself out in our society and in our politics, and it is this idolatry that the . . . conspiracy theory of government fails to recognize.
It is not really conspiracy that is driving modern political religion but idolatry that is driving men politically, who will of course conspire to achieve their politico-religious utopias, whatever their nature. The real point is the religious apostasy of the age, not the conspiracies. Conspiracy theory misses the point because it does not recognize the real issue. Our politics is being driven by idolatry of the secular State, which has usurped the role of God in our lives and society. For the modern atheist God is dead; but men cannot live without their gods and so someone or something has to replace the true God that modern men believe they can live without. The institution that has in our society, as a result of the decline of belief in God, inherited the attributes of deity, though in a secularized form, is the State. The insights . . . on government by conspiracy . . . are virtually non-existent, and those who are taken in by it will miss the real point about how [the state] is governed and what is happening in the modern world of politics. . . . We are returning to the religion of the ancient world, but in a modern secularized form. Our modern politics is highly religious. The Church has not only failed to see this idolatry for what it is, but has become severely compromised with it. We face the return of ancient idolatry today in a secularized form. The Church faces a threat she has not seen for a long time, and has no idea how to deal with it, indeed does not even realize the nature of the threat.
The issue at point here is the fact that the logic of this idolatry will work itself out in all spheres in society, including the political. But Christians no longer believe their faith is a religion that must work itself out in all spheres of life.
Is Global Warming A Sub-Prime Science?
Other scientists are openly declaring global warming a non-issue, the political viability of which is on the decline. One such man is Philip Scott, Professor Emeritus of Biogeography at the University of London:
“With a world likely to cool during the next decade,” Scott said, “with a world economy set in austere mode, and with the new politics of China, India, Brazil and the rest, Big Global Warming’s boom days are surely coming to an end. ‘Global warming’ is sub-prime science, sub-prime economics and sub-prime politics, and it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage.”
Making Billions From Global Warming Science Fiction
From: The Desk of The Lid
A new scientific paper says that the only warming that is man made is the heat coming from under Al Gore’s collar. The highly regarded Journal of Geophysical Research presented a peer reviewed study by 3 Australasian researchers which shows that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate. According to this study little or none of the late 20th century global warming and cooling can be attributed to human activity.
The research, by Chris de Freitas, a climate scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, John McLean (Melbourne) and Bob Carter (James Cook University), finds that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a key indicator of global atmospheric temperatures seven months later. As an additional influence, intermittent volcanic activity injects cooling aerosols into the atmosphere and produces significant cooling.
“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” says corresponding author de Freitas.
“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.”
Climate researchers have long been aware that ENSO events influence global temperature, for example causing a high temperature spike in 1998 and a subsequent fall as conditions moved to La Niña. It is also well known that volcanic activity has a cooling influence, and as is well documented by the effects of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption. . . .
Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.
“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.”
“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”
Of Course, the true believers of the Church of Global Warming Moonbats will not be moved by the study. They say that global warming is a done deal, debate is over. I seem to remember similar discussions 30 years ago, but that was about “the coming Ice Age.”
Global Warming advocates have too much invested in perpetuating the myth. Remember people like Al Gore, the Grand Poobah of Global Warming, stand to make billions of dollars should Cap and Trade be enacted in the US.
Don’t expect to see anything written about this study in the mainstream media. This study simply does not fit the preferred narrative that the world is dangerously warming, and its all the fault of man made CO2 and, of course, bovine flatulence.
What Is The Greatest Mystery In American History?
From: The Pen of Bruce Deitrick Price
Here are the towering facts: The U.S. spends a huge amount on education; more per student than anyone else; more and more every year. Simultaneously, over the last 70 years, literacy has fallen, SAT scores have fallen, American competitiveness has fallen, and the general knowledge of ordinary citizens has fallen. Teenagers graduate from high school who can’t read their diplomas; the country now has 50,000,000 functional illiterates. I recently saw on television that the wealthiest, most successful country in the world–that would be us–hovers around 18th internationally on reading, and 25th in science.
I submit that all of these facts taken together are paradoxical; one might say, impossible. It’s as if I told you that an ordinary man consumed 5000 calories a day and lost weight. So this, I submit, is the greatest mystery in our history.
But why have our educators allowed this decline to take place? Or is “allowed” a trick word, and they have actually abetted this failure? Ah, mystery on top of mystery. This is a puzzle that academic historians should be trying to solve. . . .
It goes beyond a failure to find ideas that increase education; many have embraced ideas that are clearly destructive. Our experts really don’t seem all that interested in education as most people understand this term. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, for example, don’t seem to be priorities. What we see in education makes sense only if we assume that our educators have an agenda we don’t know about, or that they are malevolent, or both.
So what agenda, you’re wondering, are they actually focused on? What’s the answer to the mystery? Here is my deduction: that those at the top of the Education Industrial Complex, since the time of John Dewey, have been collectivists first, and educators second or third.
About This Blog
22 “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you. . . .” (1 Samuel 15:22-23, ESV)
“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” – Augustine
“Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.” – John Calvin
- “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle.” – George Washington
“The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas-a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideals to which we are dedicated.” – Ronald Reagan
“One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. And sooner should I seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which the Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.” – Abraham Kuyper
The purpose of Samuel at Gilgal is to assess politics and culture through the lens of a Christian Worldview.
ABOUT ME
- Samuel Cain
- Retired Educator
- Reformed Presbyterian
- Independent Conservative
- Passions: History, Theology, & Teaching
- icrjcalvin@gmail.com
I AM CURRENTLY READING:
Calvin by T. H. L. Parker
Truth For All Time by John Calvin
RULES: Please Read Before Commenting
Make your argument or comment but remember this is a Christian web site and I expect Christian civility. Stay on-topic. If you have an argument with an opinion expressed here, your purpose is to provide a rebuttal of the argument – not the person. I will delete comments with profane or unwholesome words, whether abbreviated or otherwise disguised. Offensive comments or personal attacks will result in your future comments being banned. I may not reply to your comment but I encourage others to do so.
John Calvin
