The Green Movement and Climate Change Discussed
Climate change. It’s a topic that has given rise to a wide range of environmental discussions and decisions such as curbing fossil fuel use, shutting down coal plants, developing wind and solar projects, planning and building carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines and measuring methane emissions from cows. Perhaps it’s fair to ask: What initiated the green movement? What are greenhouse gases? What good or harm is carbon dioxide? How impactful and economical are wind and solar energy? Is climate change real? What percent of mainstream climate change headlines are based on objective facts? Where can scientific climate change resources be found? What might citizens do?
One place to seek answers for such questions is the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a 20-year-old think tank of natural scientists, economists, policy experts, theologians, philosophers and leaders who are Evangelical Christian scholars.
Green movement initiated
Dr. Cal Beisner, who is founder, chairman and president of the Cornwall Alliance, holds a Ph.D. in Scottish History from the University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He noted in an October 22, 2024 radio interview on Northwestern Media Faith Radio Network’s Afternoons with Bill Arnold, based in St. Paul, Minn., that the green movement is rooted in a 1798 book titled, “An Essay On (the Principle of) Population,” written by late 18th century/early 19th century pastor and self-taught economist, Thomas Robert Malthus.
“The big lesson that people took away from that essay is that human population grows exponentially, that’s 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc., but crop production grows only arithmetically 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.,” Beisner explained. “Obviously, if that’s so, population is going to rapidly outstrip food production and you’re going to see population collapse due to famine, disease or warfare.”
Malthus didn’t like the possibility of those three challenges, so he thought it necessary to control birth rates. “He was subjected to very, very strong criticism back at the time,” Beisner said on the radio program that is available at https://youtu.be/I_84kUDlkVE?si=NPNGVryY1mY5lHv0. “For instance, in a review of that book, John Stewart Mill (English philosopher and economist, 1806-1873) pointed out that Malthus was forgetting that human creativity can result in food production rising faster than population, which in fact it had been doing in Britain for decades prior to Malthus’s book,” he stated. Beisner said Malthus changed his view on population and food production in the second edition of the essay on population. “The problem is, most of Malthus’s followers never heard that,” he said.
In the century and a half that followed, leading up to the mid-1900s, Malthusians believed population would outstrip resources and that population control was necessary. Beisner explained, “That got combined with the growing ecology movement of the late 19th/early 20th century which said ‘Ok, if we’re still managing to feed these people it’s only because we’re decimating the planet to do so.'” The thought was that people were using up the earth’s resources and removing all the nutrients from the soil.
“This was a plausible idea, but if we’re doing good science we have to go back to empirical observation,” Beisner said on the Bill Arnold Show. “What was not noticed was that we actually make more resources than we consume. We can actually improve farmland by putting more nutrients into it through, for example, nitrous fertilizers made largely from natural gas. So actually, food production has continued to outstrip population growth by a very large margin.”
Whether mineral, vegetable or animal, resources extracted from the earth have been getting more abundant, not less abundant, over time. “That can be proven by their price trends,” Beisner explained. “Price is a measure of scarcity: as scarcity rises, price rises. As scarcity falls, price falls. The prices of all of the resources that we extract from the earth long-term are downward, adjusted for inflation and especially adjusted for wages,” he noted.
Hence, the green movement combined Malthus’s mistake with the ecologists’ mistake, thinking that nature is best untouched by human hands. Beisner said, “As a result, it (the green movement) endorses all kinds of policies that prevent our using Earth’s resources and that’s what constrains economic development and human flourishing.”
Greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide
How does all this relate to fears about human-induced climate change? “It’s an interesting, historical puzzle,” Beisner said, answering questions for the Tri-State Livestock News. “In the latter half of the twentieth century, more and more of the environmental movement abandoned its roots in the conservation movement. The conservationists had operated on the assumption that it was legitimate to use nature to meet human needs, needs they prioritized over the needs of a forest or a local population of a species. The environmentalists largely abandoned this priority on human welfare and switched to planetary welfare, and, understandably looking at various kinds of pollution over the prior hundred years or so, decided planetary welfare and human prosperity through industry were incompatible.”
Beisner referenced the tremendous problems with air and water pollution as societies industrialized. Those problems were real, he said, but they were also transitory.
“As a society makes the transition from subsistence agriculture to early industrialization,” he said, “pollution tends to increase. But life is full of tradeoffs, and although the pollution was obvious to anyone with eyes and a nose, the benefits of all that industry weren’t so instantly noticeable. Yet they were every bit as real. First, of course, things like food, clothing, and shelter became increasingly affordable, because industrialization simultaneously raised people’s wages and lowered prices. But second, as food, clothing, shelter, and then transportation, communication, and medical care became increasingly affordable, people became healthier and lived longer –– changes that took a while to recognize.”
Environmental and developmental economists refer to this as the “environmental transition,” Beisner explained. “Early industrialization does tend to increase pollution, even while it improves human wealth, health, and longevity. But that improved wealth also means that pretty soon people begin to address the pollution itself, and now they can afford to do something about it. So, while pollution rises early in the transition, it peaks and then falls, and before long the air and water are cleaner than before the industrialization.
“That’s something that serious scholars began figuring out in the 1960s and 1970s,” Beisner said, “leading to such books as Julian Simon and Herman Kahn’s ‘The Resourceful Earth,’ and Simon’s ‘The Ultimate Resource’ and later ‘The State of Humanity,’ and then, remarkably, Bjørn Lomborg’s ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist.’ It’s now pretty much universally understood.”
But, that didn’t “close the book on environmentalists’ agendas,” he told the TSLN. “Some of them simply refuse to recognize those findings. Others act as if the findings don’t matter – sometimes because they’re committed to socialism, such as those that abandoned communism in the late 1960s and started Green parties. They reasoned that they could better justify state-planned economies on environmental grounds than on grounds of human thriving – or as if simply increasing human population and prosperity are an inherent threat to the global ecosystem. So, they look for ways to undermine industrialization.”
One way some found was to argue that creating all the energy necessary for modern industrial societies threatened ecological catastrophe through global warming.
“It had long been understood that carbon dioxide, which absorbs heat radiating from Earth’s surface out to space and sends some of it back to the surface, makes the surface warmer than it would otherwise be,” Beisner explained. “Burning fossil fuels –– the main energy sources for industrialization –– adds CO2 to the atmosphere. That leads to global warming. And, voila, now we have a ‘catastrophe’ to blame on industrialization and fossil fuels. So, let’s demand we stop using fossil fuels, which will lead to de-industrialization, which will make it impossible to sustain such a large human population, which will mean we restore ‘ecological balance’ to the Earth.”
While it’s true that carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas,” and adding it to the atmosphere should, all other things being equal, lead to some global warming, “All other things aren’t equal,” Beisner explained. “In reality, carbon dioxide is a bit player in controlling Earth’s temperature. Natural cycles –– in energy emitted by the sun, in ocean currents, in cloud formation, and more –– dominate.”
According to chapter 8 of the book, “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” edited by Dr. Beisner and retired University of Delaware climatology professor Dr. David R. Legates, nitrogen and oxygen make up 99 percent of Earth’s dry air atmosphere while argon makes up most of the remaining one percent. These previously listed gases don’t contribute to the “greenhouse effect” and “Only trace amounts of the greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, ozone, methane and nitrous oxide) are present (in earth’s atmosphere). Water is added to these, varying in concentration by volume from nearly zero percent (polar dry air) to four percent (humid tropics). Carbon dioxide concentration is very small at 0.04 percent, which is why it is reported in parts per million (ppm).”
Beisner explained that percentage on the Bill Arnold Show, noting that carbon dioxide makes up 420 parts per million or about 42,000ths of one percent. “That’s very, very little,” he said.
“Water vapor and clouds (which are condensed water vapor), account for about 95 percent of earth’s entire greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide (CO2) accounts for about 4.5 percent, but about 90 percent of the 4.5 percent of carbon dioxide is natural, not human emitted,” Beisner said on the radio program, “So carbon dioxide is definitely not a big problem as far as temperature is concerned. The wonderful thing, as far as food growth is concerned, all plants need carbon dioxide to do photosynthesis. The more of it they get the more they grow.”
He noted that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) estimates that since 1960, the global leaf area index, that is, the amount of the area of the earth’s surface that is covered by leaves and plants, has increased an amount equivalent to all the vegetation in the continental United States due solely to the carbon dioxide that’s been added to the atmosphere. Beisner said, “That’s fantastic! And it includes greater yield from crops all over the world, which means that food is more abundant and more affordable for everybody, and the people who benefit the most from that are the world’s poor.”
How much of the 42,000ths of one percent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a result of human activity? “It’s very difficult to be precise about that because there are all sorts of confounding factors in trying to measure it,” Beisner told Bill Arnold. “But let’s just assume that human activity has made all the difference between carbon dioxide’s concentration since the Industrial Revolution, so figure from 1750 to today,” he continued. “Before the Industrial Revolution carbon dioxide constituted about 28,000ths of one percent of the atmosphere. Today it’s about 42,000ths of one percent of the atmosphere. That means we’ve added about 50 percent to what it previously was. But that still leaves it at just 42,000ths of one percent of the atmosphere …. (So) I ask myself, would increasing from 28,000ths to 42,000thsof one percent cause catastrophic results for the world’s climate system making an existential threat to human survival? For me,” Beisner said, “That just doesn’t fit well with my Christian understanding that an infinitely wise, powerful, faithful God designed and sustains the earth and its climate system … He made the climate system to be robust, resilient, and self correcting. That’s exactly what we find as we watch the way it works.”
“In reality,” Beisner told the TSLN, “warming due to human carbon dioxide emissions is very slight –– possibly as little as 0.25 degrees Celsius, maybe as much as 2 degrees C, per doubling. Because the infrared (heat) radiation bands CO2 absorbs are almost “saturated” –– meaning CO2 already in the atmosphere has absorbed almost all the heat in those bands –– we could now add more and more CO2 without contributing significantly to warming.” He explained, “It’s like painting a glass window white. The first coat blocks a lot of light, but some gets through. The next coat blocks pretty much all the remainder, but a tiny amount gets through. The next coat blocks, for all intents and purposes, all the remainder –– and after that you can add all the coats of paint you want without blocking any more light.
“Nonetheless, because too few people, especially politicians, understand this, demands to fight global warming by reducing and finally ending the use of fossil fuels persist,” Beisner said. So, what do the green activists want to use to replace them?
Wind and solar energy
Beisner said on the radio show, “Billions and billions of dollars (are) being spent to subsidize wind and solar energy systems which are intermittent, unreliable and much more expensive to produce electricity from…(as compared to) coal, natural gas or nuclear. As a result, energy prices rise and since energy is used in all of production and all of transportation, all of the prices of all of the goods and services that we consume rise as well.”
Defenders of wind and solar believe the abundance of both resources make them the obvious choice for energy production. “Solar is huge. The amount of energy coming into the earth every day from the sun is enormous. That’s true,” Beisner agreed. “The question is not how much is there,” he continued. “The question is how much does it cost to transform that from the extremely low-density form in which it comes into the earth’s atmosphere to the extremely high-density form that we need in electricity? The answer is: It costs a whole lot more than it does to take the extremely high density energy in coal and natural gas and petroleum and transform that into extremely high density energy that we need in electricity or fuels for our vehicles.”
He noted that “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” Chapters 11 through 15 address the costs of energy from wind and solar versus energy from fossil fuels or nuclear. Beisner added, “The defenders of wind and solar will refer to the ‘levelized cost of electricity.’ They’ll show that by golly, in some circumstances, getting electricity from wind and solar can be cheaper per megawatt hour than getting it from natural gas or coal. What they’re not telling you is that this measure, levelized cost of electricity, does not include all the costs of keeping backup generating stations that use coal or natural gas or nuclear running all the time so that they can take over when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing.” Beisner added, “They’re also not telling you that that levelized cost of electricity does not include the subsidies and the tax write offs that go especially to the wind and solar industries.” For example, per megawatt hour of electricity generated, solar gets in the neighborhood of 500 times as much in the way of subsidies and tax write offs as do coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear. “If I remember correctly wind gets about 30 times as much,” he said. If the levelized costs are added to the subsidies and tax write offs and the costs of running the backup plants for when it’s not sunny or windy, it turns out that wind and solar are far more expensive. “But the advocates of them don’t really want that news getting out there,” Beisner told Bill Arnold.
The United States is far and away the world’s leading producer of petroleum and natural gas. “It could be the leading producer of coal if our public policies were not preventing that,” Beisner said on Faith Radio. “The more we produce, the lower the world price is going to be. Besides that, other countries depend hugely on the United States for income from trade, but if we reduce our use of fossil fuels and try to replace them with wind and solar, we’re putting more and more of our purchasing into wind and solar and that leaves us less and less to spend on imports of food, clothing, vehicles, whatever, from other countries around the world. That means that they don’t benefit from that trade. So, as a matter of fact, the United States’ keeping a good, healthy, strong economy – part of the condition of which is having abundant, affordable, reliable energy – is good for every nation around the world. And that’s true of every nation. Every nation’s good, strong, healthy economy is good for every other nation. That’s why you don’t want to adopt policies that are harmful to any nation’s economy if you’re looking to see all the world rise and stay out of poverty.”
Is climate change real?
Referring to the book, “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” where each chapter has a two-page topic summary that makes it graspable for folks who are not scientists and not economists, Beisner said, “This shows that while induced climate change is real, it is not catastrophic. Instead, the benefits will probably outweigh the costs and the cost/benefit ratio of adapting to whatever future climate we face is a lot better than the cost/benefit ratio of trying to mitigate that climate change, trying to control global temperature by substituting wind and solar and other renewable energy sources for the fossil fuels whose abundance, affordability, and reliability have lifted much of mankind out of poverty and have replaced short life-spans over the past two centuries with longer ones.” He explained, “So if we choose adaptation instead of mitigation, life after climate change is going to be better than it is today or ever has been. But if we try to choose mitigation – if we try to slow, stop, or reverse global warming – we will impoverish people all over the world … and frankly, poverty is a much greater risk to any human well-being than anything related to weather and climate.”
Are headlines based on objective facts?
Radio host Bill Arnold asked Beisner, if a person were to search and read ten climate change news headlines, what percentage were likely to be solid reporting with objective facts. Beisner said, “Maybe 5 percent would be reasonably filled with objective facts and about 95 percent would be fear mongering. That’s my guess. In fact, about eight years ago one of the larger climate activist organizations basically paid the Associated Press, the AP – the source of news used by newspapers and magazines all over the world but especially here in the United States – to become basically a conduit of articles on climate change that have the alarmist perspective. So that now thoroughly dominates.”
Scientific climate change resources
In contrast, Beisner recommends that those who seek scientific resources check the following organizations/websites: The Global Warming Policy Foundation at thegwpf.org; The Heartland Institute at heartland.org; The CO2 Coalition at co2coalition.org; The Heritage Foundation at heritage.org; and of course his organization, The Cornwall Alliance at cornwallalliance.org. Recommended books include the Cornwall Alliance’s, “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism,” “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” by Steven Koonin, and “Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response,” by Judith Curry.
“You have to hunt around and learn to be very discerning in how you read,” Beisner said. “A key is to first, recognize the difference between simulations and models and actual real-world observations.” Real-world observations of global average temperature run well lower than the output of the vast majority of computer climate models. The Cornwall Alliance’s “Climate and Energy” book has a chapter on why planet modeling diverges so far from the actual observed world. “Second, notice the difference between forecasting and the real world,” he said. “We see an awful lot of news that says, ‘this is going to happen,’ but often it will use the language, ‘this may be, this could be.’ Remember that ‘may be’ or ‘could be’ also means ‘may not be,’ or ‘could turn out otherwise.’ That’s a cover-your-rear way of saying, ‘This is what I think might happen but I don’t want to be precise about it (and)…held accountable for it.'”
Beisner further noted the failure of some science publishing to live up to high standards of evidence. For example, a December 2, 2010 article in Science magazine, one of the world’s two most prestigious scientific journals, published an article titled, “A Bacterium That Can Grow By Using Arsenic Instead Of Phosphorous.” He said, “That paper made enormous headlines and was downloaded 31,000 times (more than 37,000 times as of March 2025). The average peer-reviewed paper gets downloaded, maybe 100 to 500 times. It’s been cited 348 times (373 times as of March 2025) and what’s average is about 10 or 20. So, this is a really major paper. It turns out that that paper has been proven to be completely false, and yet it hasn’t been retracted. It’s still on Science magazine’s website and there’s no notice there that it’s been proven false, although Science itself, elsewhere, in a different (website) page, acknowledged this. So people who are doing research, when they get to that article they’ll never know that that’s what happened. This is one illustration among many of the fact that the whole ‘peer review’ process, which is supposed to try to minimize the numbers of scientific articles that get published that are not really sound … has become almost completely ineffective.”
What might citizens do?
On the Bill Arnold radio program he stressed that to oppose the climate change movement, “A very important thing that we can do is be politically active ourselves, to support policies that are friendly to fossil fuels, because fossil fuels are the best source that we have – aside from nuclear, so I’d say be friendly to nuclear as well – of affordable, abundant, reliable energy, which is indispensable to lifting and keeping any whole society out of poverty. Support those candidates for political office who will favor fossil fuels over wind and solar and who will get us to stop the whole climate change band wagon of trying to control the earth’s temperature.”
In conclusion, Beisner stressed to the TLSN that landowners and agricultural producers need to be aware “that demands for reduced greenhouse gas emissions to slow, stop, or reverse global warming are not justified scientifically, economically, or ethically.” He added that “implementing them will severely restrict land owners’/agricultural producers’ ability to use their land profitably, even at a subsistence level, let alone a level that supports fairly normal American standard of living.”
