Crosstalk: December 16, 2015

The Conference of the Parties (COP 21) Summit recently took place in Paris. It was the most recent in a series of conferences, the first being the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where there was the adoption of a U.N framework on climate change. They're acting on the premise that we must take aim at stabilizing our atmosphere and concentrations of greenhouse gasses and avoid dangerous, man-made interference with our climate system. The goal is to implement policies around the world to stop so-called man-made climate change. Joining Jim to discuss this topic was Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. Dr. Beisner is the founder and national spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Dr. Beisner has taught theology, apologetics, ethics, church history, economics and other disciplines. He has written four books on population, resources, economics and the environment; eight other books, contributions to over 30 books and hundreds of articles. He has testified as an expert witness on the ethics and economics of climate policy before congressional committees and lectured for churches, schools, colleges, seminaries and conferences around North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. There was a lot of fanfare that came out of the agreement/deal from this conference. What was decided? It sounds like nothing was accomplished. In fact, Dr. Beisner paraphrased James Hansen, a global alarmist who is the recently retired head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA. Hanson basically said that this agreement is a total fraud and that it achieves absolutely nothing. Why nothing? Dr. Beisner noted that the agreement is a statement of intentions and pledges but nothing in it is enforceable. Even if it was enforceable and implemented 100%, it would have no significant impact on global temperatures which is what they're trying to achieve. How does Dr. Beisner know this? In order to meet the U.N.'s goal, we would have to cut Co2 emissions by 6,000 gigatons between now and the year 2030. The problem is, all of the pledges from the Paris agreement added all together would only reduce emissions by 56 gigatons by 2030. That's less than 1% of the needed emissions cuts according to the U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the end, while fully implementing the pledges would not have nations reaching their environmental goal, it would have great impact upon the poor. This is because it would deprive people of access to the abundant, affordable and reliable energy sources that people need to rise out of and remain out of poverty. What is the future for coal? Why are gas prices so low? Are climate change summits really about wealth redistribution? These and other questions related to so-called 'climate change' and the Paris summit are looked at on this edition of Crosstalk.