The Sustainable Development Hoax

"Sustainable Development" (SD) is basically a slogan without a specific meaning. Linked to Earth Day (April 22), it masquerades as a call for clean air, green energy, and suggests a pristine bucolic existence for us and our progeny -- forever. But in reality, it has become immensely useful to many groups who use the slogan to advance their own special agenda, whatever they may be.

The term itself was invented by Gro Harlem Bruntlandt, a Norwegian socialist politician and former prime minister. After her term there, she landed in Paris and, together with Club of Rome veteran Alexander King, began publicizing SD. Indeed, the concept is a successor to the neo-Malthusian theme of the Club of Rome, which began to take hold around 1970 and led to the notorious book "Limits to Growth." In turn, the "Limits to Growth" concept was developed a few years earlier by US geologists like Preston Cloud and King Hubbert. In a report published by a panel of the National Academy, they promoted the view that the world was running out of resources: food, fuels, and minerals. According to their views, and those of the Club of Rome and Limits to Growth, most important metals should have become unavailable before the end of the 20^th century.

(King Hubbert, of course, is best known for the concept of "Peak Oil" which achieved wide-spread popularity in the past few years. Princeton geologist Kenneth Deffeyes gained fleeting fame for his book "Hubbert's Peak," which predicted that world oil production would peak in 2008. Of course, it must peak sometime, but the date will be set by economic and technological factors that are difficult to predict.)

In turn, these neo-Malthusian concerns were opposed by the so called "Cornucopians." Their leading apostle was certainly the late Julian Simon, who went somewhat overboard in the other direction. Many will remember Julian Simon's famous bet with Paul Ehrlich, the noted Stanford University doomsday prophet, concerning the unavailability of minerals by 1990. Simon won the bet but he was certainly off-base in predicting that there would be no end to crude oil on this planet. Fossil fuels, of course, are essentially non-renewable. No matter how slowly they are used up, once used up, they are gone and not replenished over any reasonable time periods.

But in a certain sense this does not matter. Oil may become depleted -- at least low-cost oil -- but its essential function is to produce energy. And there we have a variety of ways to create energy for many millennia or even longer -- based on nuclear fission.

The debate between neo-Malthusians and Cornucopians came to a head in a 1969 symposium of the AAAS, published as a book titled "Is there an optimal level of population?" Both sides recognized that population levels and growth rates are equally important in discussing the possible depletion of resources. Those proposing larger populations, like Julian Simon, seemed oblivious also to the environmental costs that would rise rapidly as the natural ability of the environment to absorb waste is exceeded.

But all this is history. SD lives on because it is useful in selling various policies. Some examples are:

1) Restrictions on the use of fossil fuels, under the guise of "saving the climate"
2) Transfers of resources to less developed nations - now justified for climate resons (but of course, quite contrary to resource conservation)
3) Striving for world government and UN sovereignty -- all for "sustainability",
4) Promoting a green energy future, using a solar and wind,
5) Advocating negative population growth, etc.

Among the worst policies being pushed with the help of SD is a scheme called Contraction and Convergence (C & C). The idea is that every human is entitled to emit the same amount of CO2. This of course translates into every being on earth using the same amount of energy -- and, by inference, having the same income. In other words, C & C is basically a policy for a giant global income redistribution.

Since the SD concept has been popularized, it has become a fashionable topic for research papers, especially in the social sciences. We may yet live to see the day when trendy universities establish programs to teach SD -- and eventually even departments of SD and endowed academic chairs. Never underestimate the drive for expansion in the academic world.

For Earth Day 2011, the National Association of Scholars, composed mostly of Conservative-leaning academics, released a Statement that critiques the campus sustainability movement. NAS president Peter Wood said:

"Sustainability sounds like a call for recycling and clean drinking water. But its proponents are much more ambitious. For them, a sustainable society is one that replaces the market economy with top-down regulation. They present students a frightening story in which the earth is on the brink of disaster and immediate action is needed. This is a tactic aimed at silencing critics, shutting down debate, and mobilizing students who never get the opportunity to hear opposing views."

Here are some excerpts from the Statement itself:

"Sustainability" is one of the key words of our time. We are six years along in the United Nations' "Decade of Education for Sustainable Development." In the United States, 677 colleges and universities presidents have committed themselves to a sustainability-themed "Climate Commitment." Sustainability is, by a large measure, the most popular social movement today in American higher education. It is, of course, not just a campus movement, but also a ubiquitous presence in the K-12 curriculum, and a staple of community groups, political platforms, appeals to consumers, and corporate policy.

The sustainability movement arrived on campuses mainly at the invitation of college presidents and administrative staff in areas such as student activities and residence life. That means that it largely escaped the scrutiny of faculty members and that it continues to enjoy a position of unearned authority. In many instances, the movement advances by administrative fiat, backed up by outside advocacy groups and students recruited for their zeal in promoting the cause. Agenda-driven organizations-such as the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment(ACUPCC)-have taken advantage of academic sensibilities to turn sustainability into what is in many cases, a campus fetish. Sustainability also gets promoted by resort to pledges, games, competitions, and a whole variety of psychological gimmicks that bypass serious intellectual inquiry.

Some results are relatively trivial. For example, at certain institutions, cafeteria trays have been banned to save food, water, and energy, leaving students and staff to juggle dishes, cups, and utensils as they move between counters and tables. Many campuses have also banned the sale of disposable to reduce plastic waste. Yet however laughable, such petty annoyances have a sinister penumbra. They advertise a willingness to bully that creates a more generalized climate of intimidation, spilling over into other domains.

In practice, this means that sustainability is used as a means of promoting to students a view that capitalism and individualism are "unsustainable," morally unworthy, and a present danger to the future of the planet.

Fascination with decline and ruin are nothing new in Western thought. The sustainability movement combines a bureaucratic and regulatory impulse with an updated version of the Romantics' preoccupation with the end of civilization, and with hints of the Christian apocalyptic tradition. These are the "end times" in the view of some sustainability advocates-or potentially so in the eyes of many others. The movement has its own versions of sin and redemption, and in many other respects has a quasi-religious character. For some of the adherents, the earth itself is treated as a sentient deity; others content themselves with the search for the transcendent in Nature.

As a creed among creeds, sustainability constitutes an upping of the ideological ante. Feminism, Afro-centrism, gay-liberation, and various other recent fads and doctrines, whatever else they were, were secular, speaking merely to politics and culture. The sustainability movement reaches beyond that, having nothing less than the preservation of life on earth at its heart.

The religious creeds of faculty members and students are their own business, but we have reason for concern when dogmatic beliefs are smuggled into the curriculum and made a basis for campus programs as though they were mere extensions of scientific facts.

The sustainability movement is, in a word, unsustainable. It runs too contrary to the abiding purposes of higher education; it is too rife with internal contradictions; and it is too contrary to the environmental, economic, and social facts to endure indefinitely.

Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service. His book "Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a New York Times best-seller. He is the organizer and chairman of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change), whose reports reach conclusions that contradict those of the UN-supported IPCC. Other books he has written or edited, including a monograph on the price of world oil, deal with energy and similar resource topics.

Dear Hinckley buzzard

Your observation about the way Fred singer operates is perceptive. When it suits his purpose Fred suggests [below] that temperature is falling but this is completely at odds with those who record it as rising: -
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.pdf

At the same time Fred expresses confidence in the BEST programme on global temperature and their recent report to Congress shows that so far they have not had a significant disagreement with the data generally available that temperature has been rising for ~150 years.

Fred, frequently quoted as reasonable and expert, accepts the Keeling curve for rising atmospheric CO2 data [see below] here: - http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#global_growth and noone including Fred seriously challenges that this is explained by rising CO2 emissions from human sources.

When asked about this he just clams up.

Cheers

Dear Dr Singer

Since you wrote to me stating that global temperatures are falling, I asked if you could demonstrate any evidence that temperature is falling.

Sadly you declined to respond. However, you did apparently write this recently about the BEST programme: -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/19/fred-singer-on-the-best-project/
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project aims to do what needs to be done: That is, to develop an independent analysis of the data from land stations, which would include many more stations than had been considered by the Global Historic Climatology Network. The Project is in the hands of a group of recognized scientists, who are not at all “climate skeptics” which should enhance their credibility.

The Project is mainly directed by physicists, chaired by Professor Richard Muller (UC Berkeley), with a steering group that includes Professor Judith Curry (Georgia Tech) and Arthur Rosenfeld (UC Santa Barbara and Georgia Tech). I applaud and support what is being done by the Project a very difficult but important undertaking. I personally have little faith in the quality of the surface data, having been exposed to the revealing work by Anthony Watts and others. However, I have an open mind on the issue and look forward to seeing the results of the Project in their forthcoming publications.
BEST has just published their: -
STATEMENT TO THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Richard A. Muller
Professor of Physics
University of California, Berkeley
Chair, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project
31 March 2011

This charts these data-sets for global temperature: -

Dr Muller went on to say: -
“The Berkeley Earth agreement with the prior analysis surprised us, since our preliminary results don’t yet address many of the known biases. When they do, it is possible that the corrections could bring our current agreement into disagreement. Why such close agreement between our uncorrected data and their adjusted data? One possibility is that the systematic corrections applied by the other groups are small. We don’t yet know.”
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Muller_Testimony_31_March_2011

This hardly constitutes proof of ‘falling global temperature’ or that you are in fact in disagreement with BEST. If anything the opposite comes across.

At the same time your article in ‘American Thinker’ denouncing C&C has now elicited ludicrous commentary such as this: -
“When someone proposes the preposterous idea, say, that everyone is entitled to exhale the same amount of CO2, then that imbecile should be treated to a swift and thorough laugh in the face. And then a prolonged time of stinging rebuke and public scorn. No quarter should be given. We cannot allow these schemes, and I hate this word, to attain gravitas.”

I appreciate that you didn’t write these ludicrous remarks. What you wrote was in ‘American Thinker’ was: -

“Among the worst policies being pushed with the help of SD is a scheme called Contraction and Convergence (C&C). The idea is that every human is entitled to emit the same amount of CO2. This of course translates into every being on earth using the same amount of energy — and, by inference, having the same income. In other words, C&C is basically a policy for a giant global income redistribution.”

Responding to this, I sent them the following correction which they simply disallowed: -

“It is a pity that someone as expert as Fred Singer should be making statements like this. The entire basis on which his view rests is that there is no problem with climate change or the aggravation of it by human emissions from fossil fuel burning.

C&C is not about ‘global income re-distribution’ it is about ‘global emissions pre-distribution’ subject to the limit that achieves compliance with the objective of the UN Climate Change Convention.

Mr Singer is entitled to his view. However, it is by no means one that is universally shared. For the considerable body of people, no less expert than himself for whom there is a problem with climate change and the emissions from humans burning fossil fuels that aggravate it, C&C is portrayed as a sensible way on which the world as a whole can come to terms to address and resolve this problem: - http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/endorsements_high_res_.pdf

The diverse and extensive collection of people referred to here are at least broadly in agreement with C&C. These are likely to be people of reasonable judgement, I hope you would agree. But given all this, it is not at all clear what the standards for consistency are that you work to. Perhaps you can suggest why a corrective comment like this should be disallowed by AT, but the drivel like this below is apparently encouraged. It provides considerable cause for doubting the judgement and the motives of all the people involved: -

“When someone proposes the preposterous idea, say, that everyone is entitled to exhale the same amount of CO2, then that imbecile should be treated to a swift and thorough laugh in the face. And then a prolonged time of stinging rebuke and public scorn. No quarter should be given. We cannot allow these schemes, and I hate this word, to attain gravitas.”

As I say you are welcome to your views, but I’d be concerned if they extended to include views such as this.

With kind regards

Aubrey Meyer

At 23:42 22/04/2011, you wrote:

... except when temp are falling ....
Stop digging

S. Fred Singer, PhD
Chairman, SEPP
singer@.sepp.org
703-920-2744

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: “Aubrey Meyer” <aubrey.meyer@btinternet.com
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 6:37 PM
To: singer@sepp.org
Subject: re: Your comments on C&C

The rising temperature average that is indexed to the Keeling curve and other GHG.

If the problem didn’t exist there wouldn’t be a need to denounce the solution. So it seems that your logic is to deny the problem otherwise why bother to denounce the solution.

Before Kyoto, the coal lobby said there isn’t a problem and you can’t solve it without developing countries. The NGOs said there is a problem and you can solve it without developing countries.
Both positions were illogical. Byrd Hagel [BH] said logically there is a problem and you can’t solve it without developing countries. C&C answered BH and a deal was on that was near at COP-3: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/COP3_Transcript.pdf

At 22:53 22/04/2011, you wrote:
Yes, we all agree that co2 is increasing and is a GH gas.
But can you demonstrate any climate effect?
Pls work on yr logic

S. Fred Singer, PhD
Chairman, SEPP
singer@.sepp.org
703-920-2744
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: “Aubrey Meyer”
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 4:52 PM
To: singer@sepp.org
Subject: re: Your comments on C&C

Start with Keeling Curve.

At 20:57 22/04/2011, you wrote:
In reply, I can only say: You are of course entitled to your view.
But can you cite any solid evidence to support significant AGW?

S. Fred Singer, PhD
Chairman, SEPP
singer@.sepp.org
703-920-2744
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: “Aubrey Meyer”
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 2:34 PM
To: singer@sepp.org
Subject: Your comments on C&C

Dear Dr Singer
In response to the recent article on ‘Sustainable Development’ by you at: -
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_sustainable_development_ho.html
I note your points about ‘Contraction and Convergence’ . . . “Among the worst policies being pushed with the help of SD is a scheme called Contraction and Convergence (C&C). The idea is that every human is entitled to emit the same amount of CO2. This of course translates into every being on earth using the same amount of energy — and, by inference, having the same income. In other words, C&C is basically a policy for a giant global income redistribution.” . . . . and respond as follows: -
It is a surprise that someone as expert as yourself should be making political statements like this. The basis on which your view rests is that there is no problem with climate change or the aggravation of it by human emissions from fossil fuel burning. That said, C&C is not about ‘global income re-distribution’ it is about ‘global emissions pre-distribution’ subject to the limit that achieves compliance with the objective of the UN Climate Change Convention. In other words it
is a logical proposition to which there have [inevitably] been a range of ideological reactions. You are of course entitled to your view. However, it is by no means a view that is universally shared. For the considerable body of people, no less expert than yourself for whom there is a problem with climate change and the emissions from humans burning fossil fuels that aggravate it, C&C is portrayed as a sensible way on which the world as a whole can come to terms to address and resolve this problem: - http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/endorsements_high_res_.pdf
With kind regards
Aubrey Meyer
GCI

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