Keith's Journal

Philip Stott, Professor Emeritus of Biogeography at the University of London, wonders how much longer the media can ignore what’s really happening with our climate:

I must ask a very serious and urgent question of our media. Why do you continue to talk glibly about current climate ‘warming’ when it is now widely acknowledged that there has been no ‘global warming’ for the last ten years, a cooling trend that many think may continue for at least another ten years? How can you talk of the climate ‘warming’ when, on the key measures, it isn’t?…

Such media behaviour exhibits a classic condition known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. This is experienced when belief in a grand narrative persists blindly even when the facts in the real world begin to contradict what the narrative is saying. Sadly, our media have come to have a vested interest in ‘global warming’, as have so many politicians and activists. They are terrified that the public may begin to question everything if climate is acknowledged, on air and in the press, not to be playing ball with their pet trope.

But that is precisely what is happening. Since 1998, according to all the main world temperature records, including the UK Met Office’s ‘HadCRUT3’ data set [a globally-gridded product of near-surface temperatures consisting of annual differences from 1961-90 normals], the world average surface temperature has exhibited no warming whatsoever…

And now a Mexican expert, Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera (National Autonomous University of Mexico), is warning that the Earth will enter a new ‘Little Ice Age’ for up to 80 years due to decreases in solar activity… He describes the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as “erroneous”.

If this cooling phase really does persist, it will be illuminating to observe how long our media can maintain its befuddled state of ‘cognitive dissonance’.

Generous Conservatives
January 20, 2008 | By: John Piper
Category: Commentary


Surveys and statistics are maddeningly fickle. So don’t exult too much in what follows. I only cite it in case you have been discouraged or elated by surveys saying the opposite.

It’s better just to be a good follower of Jesus and not put your finger in the wind.

In the current issue of Books and Culture Jon Shields reviews the book, Who Really Cares, by Arthur C. Brooks which argues that religious conservatives (of all religious stripes) as opposed to liberals are more generous. Here are some quotes from the review.

Drawing on some ten data sets, Brooks finds that religiosity is among the best predictors of charitable giving. Religious Americans are not only much more likely to give money and volunteer their time to religious and secular institutions, they are also more likely to provide aid to family members, return incorrect change, help a homeless person, and donate blood. In fact, despite expecting to find just the opposite, Brooks concluded: "I have never found a measurable way in which secularists are more charitable than religious people."

Consider some examples. Religious citizens who make $49,000 gave away about 3.5 times as much money as secular citizens with the same income. They also volunteered twice as often, are 57 percent more likely to help homeless persons, and two-thirds more likely to give blood at their workplace. Meanwhile, those who insist that "beliefs don't matter as long as you're a good person" are not as good as those who do think beliefs matter. The former group gave and volunteered at much lower rates.

. . . The secular citizen with a religious upbringing is nearly twice as likely to give to charity.

For instance, Arkansas (where citizens give away some 3.9 percent of their income) is among the most charitable states, while Massachusetts (where citizens give away 1.8 percent of their income) is one of the least charitable. Likewise, the citizens of South Dakota give away 75 percent more of their household income than those in San Francisco.

Of the 25 states that gave a percentage of household income above the national average, 24 went to Bush in 2004.

It is not that liberals are somehow inherently less charitable than conservatives. Rather, the lifestyles and beliefs that contribute to charity are simply more likely to be found in conservatives than liberals.

Citizens are also more charitable when they oppose greater income redistribution and less charitable when they support it. . . They are also more likely to return change to a cashier, give food or money to a homeless person, and donate blood. In fact, the blood supply would decline by about 30 percent if we were a nation of government aid advocates.

Row over religious themes in Compass

The church is a central theme of Philip Pullman's acclaimed novel Northern Lights, but there is no mention of it in a new blockbuster Hollywood adaptation.

The Golden Compass, a $US180 million ($204 million) picture to be released on December 7, is caught between a US Catholic group that has called for a boycott of what it sees as an attack on religion and Pullman purists who do not want the original watered down.

The US-based Catholic League has urged Christians not to see the movie, fearing even a diluted version of the book might draw people to read the best-selling "His Dark Materials" trilogy.

Calling Pullman "a noted English atheist," the group said on its website: "It is his objective to bash Christianity and promote atheism. To kids.

"Though the movie promises to be fairly non-controversial, it may very well act as an inducement to buy Pullman's trilogy, 'His Dark Materials'."

In the fantasy world created by Pullman, the church and its governing body, the Magisterium, are linked to cruel experiments on children aimed at discovering the nature of sin and attempts to suppress facts that would undermine the church's legitimacy and power.

Pullman's main character in the books, a girl named Lyra, battles the dark forces controlled by the Magisterium.

On June 28, in an historic move the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the expert review comments and responses to its latest assessment of the science of climate change.

The IPCC report is the primary source of data for Al Gore's movie and book titled An Inconvenient Truth.

Many of the comments by the reviewers are strongly critical of claims contained in the final report, and are directly at odds with the so-called "scientific consensus" touted by Gore and others calling for immediate government action.

For example, the following comment by Eric Steig appears in Second Order Draft Comments, Chapter 6; section 6-42: In general, the certainty with which this chapter presents our understanding of abrupt climate change is overstated. There is confusion between hypothesis and evidence throughout the chapter, and a great deal of confusion on the differences between an abrupt "climate change" and possible, hypothetical causes of such climate changes.

Source: Heartland Institute

Gore confronted by "own" scientists - BLOG - Global Warming Hysteria