10.29.08 
Environmentalist, economist, and climatologist challenge global warming theories at Southeastern forum

By Southeastern University

The world isn't coming to an end, and even if it was, humans wouldn't have much to do with it.

That's the opinion of a climatologist, economist, and environmentalist who spoke at Christians & Global Warming: A Biblical Approach to Evangelical Engagement, a recent forum at Southeastern. The October 9-10 conference included lectures in chapel, classes, and Tuscana Ristorante, Southeastern's dining facility.

Southeastern professor of mathematics David Revell organized the conference as part of Southeastern's Furthering the Integration of Religion, Science, and Technology (FIRST) initiative to promote science in the community. The forum also gave Southeastern students a chance to interact with a trio of world-class experts, Revell said.

The conference was funded by a portion of a $30,000 grant from Metanexus, an institute that promotes interdisciplinary understanding of critical issues, such as global warming.

Dr. David Legates, a climatologist and a professor of geography at University of Delaware, downplayed human involvement in global warming during his October 10 presentation. The rise in the Earth's atmospheric temperature is due to an increase in the sun's temperature, he said. Dr. Legates presented several charts that supported this theory; one showed a striking correlation between the hot and cooler temperature cycles of the sun and the hot and cold temperature cycles of the Earth's atmosphere.

Dr. Legates also addressed the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In the film, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a team of scientists postulate that global warming is increasing the severity of the world's floods, droughts, and hurricanes, Dr. Legates said.

Countering claims in the film, Dr. Legates said flooding increases when humans cover moisture-soaking ground with moisture-repelling concrete and asphalt. In regards to droughts, Dr. Legates presented slides that showed the average moisture levels in U.S. soil are not abnormal compared to those in other drought seasons in the last 100 years. Concerning hurricanes, Dr. Legates shared the opinion of National Hurricane Center director Bill Read. Dr. Legates quoted Read as saying the "link between global warming and hurricanes is still to be determined...there are a lot of unresolved issues in the science."

In his chapel presentation, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the Christian environmental group Cornwall Alliance, emphasized the importance of protecting the environment and the poor. According to Dr. Beisner, impoverished countries are hurt by U.S. policies designed to protect the environment.

To support his point, Dr. Beisner referred to a June 2007 U.S. Senate energy bill that required production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. As a result of the bill, the price of corn, the main ingredient in U.S.-produced ethanol, jumped because of its value to ethanol production, he said. The cost hike reached all corners of the globe, putting poor nations in a financial bind, Dr. Beisner said. In his estimation, it's possible that millions of poor people starved because they couldn't afford the increased price of their necessary foods.

During his chapel presentation, Dr. Kenneth Chilton of the Institute for Study of Economics and the Environment at Lindenwood University (St. Charles, Mo.), covered the basics of economics and related them to the current global warming issue. Dr. Chilton said environmental policies like the Kyoto Protocol, a 1999 treaty created to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are not cost-effective. The Kyoto Protocol, Dr. Chilton said, would cost $100 billion to $1 trillion and would have only a two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit effect on the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere. That money, he said, would be better spent on creating better living conditions for the world's poor.

The research of Southeastern Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Sheila Abraham, who also presented at the conference, could contribute to such an improvement of lives in developing nations--by protecting food supplies. Dr. Abraham researched the digestive system of the yellow mealworm, which destroys grain stores in developing nations by infesting the grain and eating it. Her research contributes to the search for effective ways of curbing the infestations and protecting food supplies in developing countries.

The conference ended with a brief panel discussion in which Drs. Legates, Beisner, and Chilton answered questions from students.