Climate change: Seven indisputable facts

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This is an excellent article by Rep. Lamar Smith. 

The Hill, September 09, 2015, 07:00 am

By Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)

President Obama last week visited Alaska to preach about the inevitable doomsday scenarios the world will face if Americans fail to embrace his extreme climate change agenda. Like all climate alarmists, the president wants Americans to believe there is no uncertainty about climate change. They pretend to know exactly how much human actions contribute to the changing climate. By denying any uncertainty, their goal is to shut off debate. ‘Just trust us. We know what’s best for you.’

But the truth is there are more questions about climate change than there are answers. For instance, even the most advanced climate models all failed to predict the lack of warming the Earth has experienced over the last 18 years. But the president and his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refuse to let facts get in the way of their determination to impose greater government control over the lives of the American people.

Below are seven irrefutable facts about climate change that are ignored because they do not fit into the alarmists’ scare tactics. These facts are not disputed.

1. For the past 18 years, weather satellites have not measured a global increase in temperatures although carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased over that same period.  Weather satellites are the most advanced instruments for measuring global temperatures.  The fact that these satellites have not detected a measureable temperature increase despite an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere calls into question the correlation climate change alarmists preach between carbon emissions and temperature.

2. According to EPA’s own data, U.S. carbon emissions have decreased nine percent since 2005.  These carbon reductions have occurred as a result of technological advancements and free market forces, which will continue. This raises the question of whether burdensome regulations are necessary.

3. The natural cycle of global temperatures has resulted in both higher and lower temperatures over the past 1,000 years than exist today.  These temperature fluctuations occurred before significant fossil energy use.  So temperatures the Earth is experiencing now have been seen before.

4. If implemented, the Obama administration’s Climate Action Plan would reduce global temperatures by only 0.01, or one one-hundredth of a degree Celsius.  President Obama’s former Deputy Secretary for Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy, Charles McConnell, said that EPA’s carbon rules will have only a minor impact on global climate change.  Yet regulations will cost billions of dollars and jeopardize thousands of jobs.

5. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that there is little or no connection between extreme weather and climate change. According to a 2012 report, IPCC stated that there is “high agreement” that long-term trends in weather disasters “have not been attributed to… climate change.”  Climate change alarmists point toward hurricanes, tornadoes and other global weather disasters as a proof that man-made carbon emissions are hurting our planet.  However, as the IPCC report stated, the opposite is true. There is scientific agreement that weather disasters are not caused by climate change, despite President Obama repeatedly trying to connect the two.

6. Population growth, especially in the developing world, will account for even more global carbon emissions. Carbon emissions from developing countries are projected to increase by over 125 percent by 2040. And world population is expected to surge by over 2 billion people by 2050, an increase of more than 30 percent. Yet few climate scientists acknowledge the potential impact of population growth on carbon emissions.

7. Carbon dioxide accounts for a very small part of the Earth’s overall atmosphere and those levels have fluctuated throughout the Earth’s history. Carbon dioxide currently accounts for only .038 percent of our planet’s atmosphere. And human-made carbon dioxide only makes up about three percent of that. Put another way, if all the gases in the atmosphere were represented by the length of a football field, only the last 1/10 of an inch would be carbon emissions caused by humans. It’s hard to believe that such a small amount would supposedly have such huge consequences.

The EPA and other government agencies too often fail to present all the facts. Their agenda comes first; accuracy comes second. Climate change has many explanations — and unanswered questions.  The American people need good science, not science fiction promoted by alarmists.

Lamar Smith has represented Texas’ 21st Congressional District since 1987. He chairs the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and also sits on the Homeland Security and the Judiciary committees.

Obama needs to pay attention to the ‘stuff of governance’

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This letter was published in The News-Sentinel on Dec. 20, 2013.

As usual, columnist Charles Krauthammer is correct in his understanding of political situations. His Dec. 16 column in the Forum section was precise in his description of Barack Obama, titled in The Washington Post as "Obama the Oblivious."

However, his closing lines were unfortunately omitted. After aptly pointing out that Obama "has shown little aptitude and even less interest" in the "stuff of governance," Krauthammer added these sentences:

"'I don't write code,'" said Obama in reaction to the Web site crash. Nor is he expected to. He is, however, expected to run an administration that can."

Exactly.

The greatest love of all is God’s love for us

By Donna Volmerding

“Learning to love oneself is the greatest love of all.” That’s what the song tells us, that self-love is the ultimate goal. How often are we told that we can’t learn to love others until we learn to love ourselves? Our society is saturated with this kind of specious reasoning, even in the church body itself. However, this kind of thinking is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ and everything that the Bible tells us.

The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” is paramount above all the others. God is telling us that we can only learn to love others by learning to love Him first. Never did He command us to love ourselves above all else; in fact, He never even commanded us to love ourselves. He commanded us to love our God, and He commanded us to love others as we love ourselves, understanding better than we do how much we already do love ourselves.

As a chosen people, bought for a very high price by a great and loving God, we have good reason to esteem ourselves, however. We are special; we are children of the King. But this esteem must come because of what God has done for us, never because of who we are in this world and what we have accomplished. So, what is the greatest love of all? The greatest love of all is God’s love for us. That we could never duplicate.

Render unto God and care for the poor

By Donna Volmerding

“For the poor you have with you always, but you do not always have Me.” Jesus Christ

In a September 30 Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) letter to the editor, Pastor Rick Pettys wrote that “… if we are authentic Christians, we are always on the side of the poor, the marginalized, the least, the last and the lost.”

Authentic Christians do not dispute the fact that they are to be caring servants, but discussions about how best to care for the poor is when the water gets muddy.

Today in America, there are 47 million people on food stamps. I am certain that many of them do not want to be on public assistance; they want a job. There are some, however, who feel entitled to take from the public trough.

In his book “How Should Christians Vote?,” the Rev. Dr. Tony Evans, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, Dallas, Texas, writes: “Government assistance for able-bodied citizens should be temporary and not designed to produce long-term dependency and an entitlement mentality. There should be accountability tied to the assistance so that the person receiving the assistance has to perform some sort of work or volunteerism that is connected to what they receive.”

It is not biblical that Christians and/or the government are to provide an unending supply of food, goods, money, etc., for those who refuse to help themselves, for those who are takers only.

“If a man does not work, you do not offer him a welfare check to pay him for his irresponsibility. You don’t look to the government to pay for laziness while taxing others to cover the bill,” Evans says.

Charity is personal giving from the heart. It is an act of love to God and one’s fellow man. It is enlightening, enriching and elevating for the one receiving the gift as well as the one who gives it. However, when a bloated, powerful government usurps money from those who work to dole out to those who do not, it is not philanthropy; it is theft.

Evans paraphrases St. Paul in Romans 13: “The one overarching job of civil government … can be defined as … ‘under God, the government is to promote the conditions for the well-being of the citizenry for good, while protecting the citizenry against the proliferation of evil.’”

Government should “create an environment for compassion to flourish,” Evans says. Otherwise, “the state becomes an all-encompassing promoter of federal economic dependency (that leads) to illegitimate and irresponsible personal and corporate welfare.”

Yet limited government does not mean a government that lacks compassion. Instead, “civil government should provide a safety net specifically and intentionally designed to produce self-sufficiency and not long-term dependency,” Evans says.

Unfortunately, the welfare state in America is a mile wide and an inch deep. Those who are truly disabled, mentally or physically, and cannot provide for themselves must have a long-term safety net. Yet when able-bodied people are not providing for themselves or their families, they take precious public funds away from the truly needy. This is a monstrous scandal and fraud perpetrated on taxpayers through deception. Supporting bureaucratic waste that squanders billions of dollars — our hard-earned money — has nothing to do with kindness, caring or compassion; it has everything to do with the federal government amassing enormous sums of money, and power and control.

Authentic Christians must understand that giving from the heart is a personal act. It is rendering unto God what is God’s. Rendering unto Caesar is not charity; it’s called taxes.

Blog: ptft.blogspot.com.

Never worked? The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world

This article was published in the April 19, 2012, issue of The News-Sentinel
By Donna Volmerding
“(She) never worked a day in her life.” Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen about Ann Romney, wife of presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney This remark by Ms. Rosen has sparked a firestorm of controversy; it certainly touched a nerve with me. In the ‘70s, when I gave birth to my first child and became a stay-at-home mom, I discovered quickly how utterly exhausting a new baby is, and I developed a profound new respect for stay-at-home moms who worked very hard.
We breast-fed, gardened, sewed, cooked, cleaned, shopped, washed our own diapers (paper diapers were too expensive), scrimped and fell into bed each night in sheer exhaustion. Never worked?
The budget went in free fall, too. I remember vividly the time when my husband and I wanted to buy a cup of coffee at a fast-food restaurant, and we didn’t have enough money, even combining our change.
I envied women with nice clothes who took great vacations. I wore sweats and stained shirts; my big day out was packing peanut-butter sandwiches and taking the kids to the park. Never worked?
Many of my college-graduate “sisters” took a different path. Although many became mothers, too, several felt the cultural pressure of the times, as well as the economy, and headed to the office or the classroom.
The “working” moms I knew also worked very hard, and I respected their choice, and they respected mine. Yet, the siren song of the women’s movement, and its smug arrogance, was condescending and insulting. The left insinuated that (educated) women who stayed at home were wasting their talents, selling out the sisterhood by depending on a man to support them. It was often said that we “never worked.”
Besides, everyone knew that mothers’ minds turned to mush. How could they not? What kind of intellectual stimulation is it to wipe sticky faces and clean dirty bottoms?
When my children were in grade school, and I headed to the office, I was amazed when, on my first day, another woman brought coffee to me! I also realized that staying at home with small children was far more strenuous than my office job.
We stay-at-home moms endured the disdainful snobbery of NOW and others who respected no other path but their own. Our efforts, our concerns and our abilities were disparaged, often with high disgust. This was, and I think still is, the mindset of the left. This isn’t just a war against women; it’s a war against women who dare to go against their cultural dictates. Many on the left truly believe that stay-at-home moms and homemakers “never worked.”
This dispute will not end until all women (and men) understand and respect the contribution of mothers who work at home and outside of the home. Homemaker moms have as much insight into the economy, national security, good government and the culture wars as “working” moms. They have earned a place in the public forum to make their voices heard.
As the saying goes, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

Informed voters want country back, want to remove bloated government

This article was published in the July 26, 2011, issue of The News-Sentinel newspaper.
By Donna Volmerding
In his July 12 guest column, B. J. Paschal asks the question, “Will the voters be snookered again in 2012?” Perhaps, especially if voters are as misinformed as he is.
He stated that Wall Street is the cause of our economic woes. Certainly, Wall Street played a part in the financial meltdown of 2008, but the cause stems from flaky ideology and government intervention.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act. According to Business Insider, “The CRA … evolved over the years from a relatively hands-off law focused on process into one that focused on outcomes. Regulators, beginning in the mid-nineties, began to hold banks accountable in serious ways. Banks responded … by increasing the CRA loans they made, a move that entailed relaxing their lending standards.”
In many cases, the banks were strong-armed into making loans to those who couldn’t afford them — at lower-than-market interest rates.
Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two quasi-governmental lending institutions at the epicenter of the financial implosion, assured the banks that these loans would be solvent because the full support of the U.S. government was behind them.
Subprime lending was vastly expanded in the early ‘90s under President Bill Clinton, which led directly to the housing crisis. Several former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, including President Obama’s cronies Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, are being investigated.
According to a Reuters article by Jim Meyers dated April 1, 2011, “Top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were paid more than $35 million in the past two years while the two bailed-out mortgage finance giants were receiving $153 billion in support from taxpayers.
“Although the enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) have lost billions of dollars and continue to depend upon federal support to remain in business,” states a report by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General, “their senior executives continue to receive multi-million dollar salaries.”
Even after the 2008 financial debacle, congressional liberals asked Fannie and Freddie to ease mortgage-loan standards. This is from a June 22, 2009, press release from Reuters:
“Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.”
Who were those lawmakers who wrote the letter to the CEO’s of both companies? Representatives Barney Frank, former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner, now disgraced former congressman.
(For more information, read “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon” by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.)
Yet Obama’s financial regulatory bill is a “disaster,” said former Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who sat on the Senate banking, budget and appropriations committees, and its proposed consumer protection agency would create a Fannie and Freddie “on steroids,” he said.
“The bill is a disaster because it doesn’t address the fundamental underlying causes of the economic issue. You’ll basically have a consumer protection agency which decides to … say, ‘well, everybody who’s XYZ should have a loan, even though the local community bank says XYZ shouldn’t have a loan, because if we give them a loan, we know they’re not going to pay back,’” Gregg said. “It’s going to become an agency that defines lending on social-justice purposes instead of safety and soundness purposes.”
Paschal asks “Why do we Americans ‘believe’ against our own self-interest by not blaming Wall Street for causing our financial mess?”
Perhaps it is because informed voters want to rescue (and preserve) the great country we once had and remove via ballot a despotic, bloated central government that is responsible for the 2008 financial catastrophe.
Will the voters be snookered again in 2012? Gee, I hope not.

US must not turn its back on our only real friends in the Middle East

This article was published in the Friday, June 3, 2011, issue of The News-Sentinel newspaper.
By Donna Volmerding
On June 4, 2008, Obama addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and said, “Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state with secure, recognized, defensible borders, and Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”
Obama said he spoke “from his heart and as a true friend of Israel.” Then in May 2011, in a dramatic about-face, he said that Israel must give up the land it has owned and occupied, and return to pre-1967 levels, which would necessarily include the division of Jerusalem. (The six-day war in 1967 was not started by Israel, but it was finished by Israel.)
Obama reneged on a promise “as a true friend of Israel,” and he cut that friendship off at the knees. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, termed Obama’s decree “indefensible” and said “that asking Israel to negotiate with Hamas is like asking the United States to negotiate with al-Qaida.”
Recently, wrote Jordan Sekulow, director of policy and international operation for American Center for Law and Justice, “Fatah, the U.S.-backed Palestinian National Liberation Movement, signed an agreement to form a unity government with Hamas, a U.S.-listed foreign terror organization. ... Hamas’ own foreign minister has stated that Hamas ‘believe(s) that negotiations with the Israeli enemy are in vain.’
“The Hamas charter calls for Islam to ‘abolish’ Israel and for Muslims to ‘fight the Jews and kill them.’ It further proclaims, ‘There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except jihad.’”
Israel is a country that is about 8,000 square miles with a population of about 7.5 million. It is surrounded by Arab countries that will not even acknowledge its right to exist.
Netanyahu said, “If Arab nations would lay down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel would lay down its arms, there would be no Israel.”
Yet Arab Palestinians, Arab countries and President Obama want little Israel to give up its land. Why? Why can’t Arab nations give a portion of the millions of acres of land they own to help their brother Palestinians?
The Middle East is on fire, with great unrest, revolutions and economic turmoil in Arab countries. Palestinian Arabs have now united with a terror organization, and Muslim leaders are threatening the total annihilation of Israel.
Arab nations have so much land, so much wealth, so much oil, yet they want to deny little Israel the land it won in a war they started.
We cannot turn our backs on our only real friends in the Middle East, the Jewish people, the state of Israel and the only stable, democratic government in the region.