Self-professed evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, a professor in (significantly) the political science department of Texas Tech University, published, as paid content, her essay “Love Thy Neighbor: The Christian Case for Climate Action,” in Christianity Today on August 30, 2024. Its appearance a month after the release of Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda was quite ironic. Basham repeatedly, and convincingly, charges various evangelical leaders with abusing the Second Great Commandment to “love thy neighbor” by pinning it to every political policy they want—climate action, open borders and unrestricted immigration, opposition to the death penalty, adoption of Critical Race Theory, approval of the LGBTQ+ agenda, and more.[1] Indeed, in her chapter on climate change, Basham presents as an example of such abuse a lecture by Jonathan Moo (professor of environmental studies at Whitworth College), delivered at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, titled “Loving God and Neighbor in an Age of Climate Crisis.”
1. Disclosure: Basham writes positively of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, the nonprofit I founded, and about me.
So, I was tempted to title this essay “Love Thy Neighbor: The Christian Case AGAINST Climate Action.” But precisely in light of Basham’s above critique, I’ll refrain from that. Is “climate action” really loving your neighbor? Is it ever enough to say, “I did it because I loved”—when that’s such a common excuse for violations of God’s clear commands, e.g., against adultery and fornication? Or might Christian economist Walter Williams have gotten something right when he wrote, in his book The State Against Blacks, “truly compassionate policy requires dispassionate analysis”? So, dear reader, when you finish this article, I’ll leave it to you to decide what love of neighbor calls for in response to claims of catastrophic climate change and demands for radical action to combat it.
Someone Pulled the Fire Alarm, But Where Is the Fire?
In May of 2023, former Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking as President Joe Biden’s special envoy on climate, told a gathering in Washington, D.C. that the world must achieve drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture to avoid what Reuters called “the worst impacts of climate change.” Claiming “A 2-degree future could result in another 600 million people not getting enough to eat,” Kerry added, “You can’t continue to warm the planet while also expecting to feed it.”
(Purveyors of panic prefer to provide protection for their predictions by adopting frightening but equivocal language. “Could result” also means “could fail to result.” If the quasi-prediction proves wrong, Kerry can always say, “Well, I didn’t say it would; I only said it could.”)
On the basis of this sort of reasoning, and at the urging of climate-change catastrophists the world over, President Joe Biden pledged that the U.S. would reach “net zero” greenhouse gas (primarily carbon dioxide) emissions by 2050.
Kerry’s speech was at the AIM Climate Summit—the “Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate.” It advocates for “climate-smart agriculture,” i.e., growing food in ways that don’t increase global atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions (more on this later).
In the case of agriculture, the principal component of such emissions is nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is, molecule for molecule, 230 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, the most well-known villain (the alleged, but probably not, sole driver) of global warming (aka climate change). And since the whole world has been taught that carbon dioxide emissions are evil because carbon dioxide warms the planet, and warming the planet is evil (never mind that cold kills far more people than warmth), it’s a no-brainer that nitrous oxide emissions must be 230 times more evil. Quod Erat Demonstrandum—the prosecutor rests his case.
Not So Fast
As I pointed out nearly two years ago, the devil’s in the details—details called “radiative forcing,” that is, the capacity of a molecule of a greenhouse gas to absorb infrared radiation (heat) moving from Earth’s surface out toward space and send some of it back down to the surface, thus impeding Earth’s ability to cool its surface.[2] Those who reason that since nitrous oxide is 230 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas neglect, I explained,
2. My apologies, but what follows is going to have to get into some numbers and science. To avoid littering this article with dozens of references to technical sources, let me simply state that support for most of the details and all of the overall picture appears in Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism [Regnery, 2024]. I co-edited this volume with my colleague, award-winning climatology professor Dr. David R. Legates, and it contains sixteen chapters by nine climate scientists, three economists, three energy experts, and myself.
. . . two important things. First, nitrous oxide’s concentration in the atmosphere is about 0.334 parts per million, while carbon dioxide’s is nearly 1,300 times as high: 420 parts per million. Second, and more important, carbon dioxide’s concentration is increasing at a rate some 3,000 times that of nitrous oxide. Consequently, the contribution of each year’s addition of nitrous oxide to the annual increase in forcing is 230 divided by 3000, or about 1/13th [7.7 percent] that of carbon dioxide. . . .
To cut to the chase, it can be calculated, based on the well-understood physics of radiative transfer, that the combined radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide that are being added to the atmosphere is enough to raise global average atmospheric temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius (0.18 degree Fahrenheit) per decade, or 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) per century. But since the rate of increase of nitrous oxide’s concentration in the atmosphere is much, much lower than that of either carbon dioxide or methane, it turns out that the radiative forcing of nitrous oxide being added to the atmosphere is only about 0.01 degree Fahrenheit per decade, or 0.1 degree per century—one eighteenth of the combined warming from all three gases.
In short, nitrous oxide’s contribution to global warming is minuscule. How minuscule? Well, consider that:
- in locales around the world, a fairly typical range from nighttime low to daytime high is about 30 degrees F (about 17 degrees C), and from winter low to summer high about 100 degrees F (about 56 degrees C), and no one panics about those;
- peak global average temperature in the Holocene Climate Optimum (generally thought to have been about 6,500 years ago) was probably about 1.8 to 3.6 degrees F (1–2 degrees C) warmer than the present;
- since 1979 (the start of satellite global temperature monitoring—the best we have), global average temperature has risen an average of about 0.288 degree F (0.16 degree C) per decade, which extrapolates out to 2.8 degrees F/1.6 degrees C per century, assuming an unchanging rate, (see the last bullet below);
- the Holocene Climate Optimum is named such because living conditions for all kinds of life, animal and plant, were better than prior and following times, including the present, indeed, optimal;
- at warming’s rate since 1979, it would take over a century to reach the Holocene Climate Optimum’s peak temperature; and
- natural cycles (especially solar), more likely to bring about cooling than warming, could slow, stop, or reverse the warming well before then.
As with carbon dioxide and methane (the other two main greenhouse gases aside from water vapor, which accounts, with cyclical variations, for anywhere from about 80 to 95 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect), nitrous oxide must be addressed in terms of tradeoffs. Just as it’s silly to think, “This medication has some negative side effects, therefore I won’t take it,” when its benefits outweigh its harms, so also it’s silly to say, “This gas can warm the atmosphere, so let’s stop emitting it.” What if the benefits of the gas itself (such as enabling plants to do photosynthesis—without it, they all die, and so do all the people and critters that depend on them) and the benefits of the emitting activities (providing energy from coal, oil, and natural gas, enabling us to make more food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, and all the other material things on which long, healthy lives depend) outweigh the emissions’ harms?
Well, there are all kinds of reasons to doubt that a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit (2-degree Celsius) rise in global average temperature would devastate global agriculture. We might start with the fact that greenhouse warming theory says warming happens mostly toward the poles, mostly in winter, and mostly at night. Why is that important? Because it means most warming is in places and times that are cold. And cold is far worse for agriculture (and people) than heat. Global warming lengthens growing seasons by making the first freeze in autumn later and the last freeze in spring earlier. So, it expands the area we can farm successfully and allows multiple cropping in places where it can’t be done in a colder world!
We might also point out that the higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—which Kerry and other climate-change alarmists blame for most of the warming—enables plants to grow better in both warmer and cooler temperatures and in wetter and drier soils, to make better use of soil nutrients, and to resist diseases and pests better, resulting in an average 35 percent improvement in plant growth efficiency. All of those, too, expand plants’ growing ranges, and it also makes more food available for everything that depends on plants—meaning all the rest of life on Earth. Oh, and—by the way—who benefits most from that? Poor people, for whom food gets more affordable. But animals do, too—as the plants on which they depend expand their ranges, pressure toward their extinction declines.
When Helping Hurts
Nonetheless, let’s assume that Kerry is right as a starting point for considering the tradeoffs of implementing climate change policies versus the alleged harms of the resulting climate change. If the world doesn’t achieve “net zero,” and so global average temperature rises by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C), 600 million people won’t get enough to eat. Let’s assume, in fact, that they’ll die.[3]
3. We can only assume that by “a 2-degree future” Kerry meant a future with global average temperature about 2 degrees C/3.6 degrees F warmer not than today but than before modern warming began about 1850. If he means two degrees warmer than today, it will take longer for any associated harms to happen, which makes his fears less justified. He didn’t specify, but that’s typical practice among climate scientists, climate policymakers, and climate activists.
What must we do to achieve “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions? Let’s start with what must happen in farming.
Farmers would have to greatly reduce their use of machinery driven by gasoline or diesel fuels, which emit carbon dioxide when burned. This by itself would greatly reduce their productivity. Precisely how much hardly matters to our calculation, but it’s helpful to recall that in 1850, average U.S. wheat yield per acre was about five to fifteen bushels (depending on region), and in 2023 it was about 48.6 bushels. A fair amount of that difference is due to mechanization. Again, we’re not aiming for precision here, just for concept, so let’s assume this reduction of fuel-powered machinery results in half the difference, or 16.8 to 21.8 bushels per acre. We could provide similar figures for other crops, but the point is clear: de-mechanizing farming would hugely reduce its productivity, making food more scarce and therefore more expensive, and thus making it more difficult for the world’s poor to get enough to eat.
Even more importantly, farmers would have to greatly reduce their use of nitrous fertilizers—the source of their nitrous oxide emissions. Danish environmental economist and statistician Bjørn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus, points out, “Half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas. If we rapidly ceased using fossil fuels, four billion people would suddenly be without food.”
And that number is only counting deaths due to depriving farming of natural gas-derived fertilizers. Additional billions of people depend on fossil fuels for electricity, heat, steel, cement, plastics, and, of course, transportation. Eliminating fossil fuels—which Kerry wants—would mean depriving people of all those things, too. So, Lomborg concludes, citing a study by economist Neil Record, the result would be around six billion deaths.
If what we do to prevent 600 million deaths causes six billion deaths—or even just four billion—have we done well?
That’s not all that’s wrong with Kerry’s demand. Even according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°, “Under the no-policy baseline scenario [that is, if no climate change measures are adopted], temperature rises by [6.59°F, or] 3.66°C [from the pre-Industrial Revolution of late 1700s, but they would only rise by 4.46°F/2.46°C from 2018 onward] by 2100, resulting in a [Gross World Product—the combined sum of every country’s income] loss of 2.6% ….” Keep in mind that a world 4.46° Fahrenheit / 2.46 degrees Celsius warmer than 2018’s is a lot warmer than the “2 degree future” Kerry probably had in mind—2 degrees C warmer than before the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. That would be only about 0.8 to 0.1 degrees Celsius [1.44 to .18 degree Fahrenheit] warmer than today’s.
“Nonetheless,” you think, “we sure don’t want to lose 2.6 percent of gross world product, do we?” Hold on. That would be 2.6 percent not from present production, but from production about nine times higher than the present, because, in moderate terms, according to the Center for Global Development, barring another world war, even with unconstrained global warming we can expect about 3.1 percent annual growth in global production. (Despite the two world wars, average annual GWP growth in the twentieth century was about 3 percent, and technological advances, especially automation and AI, make it likely that it will be faster in the twenty-first.) From now to the end of the century, that would raise annual global production to just short of nine times what it is today. During the same time, global population, according to the United Nations Population Division, will rise to about 10.3 billion. In other words, with unconstrained warming, as illustrated in the graph below, the average person in the world would have annual income in 2100 almost nine times higher than he has today. Do you suppose that would make people better able to afford food?
If you said, “Yes,” go to the head of the class. And along the way, point out to your classmates that all that increased wealth has other life-saving side effects, too, like better and more affordable housing, communication, transportation, education, and health care.
Nonetheless, the same John Kerry who demanded drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from farming, on March 4, 2024, cheered that “We now have an agreement globally that we have to transition away from fossil fuel, that we have to do it with urgency, immediately in this decade, beginning now ….” Never mind about the ensuing 4 to 6 billion deaths.
Okay, so much for John Kerry. What about the general demand to pursue net zero?
Here I’ll draw further from Bjørn Lomborg. Writing in The Wall Street Journal March 13, Lomborg made the following helpful six points, which I summarize:
- Climate policy needs to take into account the costs of draconian measures, which are enormous.
- It is absurd to count only the benefits and not the costs of any proposed policy. For example, we could eliminate the roughly one million deaths worldwide from auto accidents by reducing speed limits to three miles per hour. But the consequences would be far more deaths from other causes.
- Saying “just follow the science” is a copout. Science might tell us how much warming comes from how much greenhouse gas emissions, but it doesn’t tell us how to balance the benefits and costs of the warming and its causes. As Lomborg puts it, “When politicians tell us we must ‘follow the science’ toward extreme climate policies, they are really trying to shut down the discussion of enormous, unsustainable costs. We shouldn’t let them.”
- Climate change brings some real problems, but so do other things, and fighting climate change might reduce our ability to handle those other problems.
- Risks from poverty far outweigh risks from global warming, as is made clear by the fact that even while the world has warmed, human deaths from climate-related disasters have declined by over 98 percent.
- While unconstrained climate change might reduce global production by about 2.6 percent by the end of the century—from a level about nine times what it is today—achieving net zero would cost an average $27 trillion per year from now to the end of the century, at which the annual cost would have risen to about $60 trillion per year. Those costs far outweigh any costs from climate change itself.
Lomborg concludes, and I quote, “Our goal in forming climate policy should be the same we bring to traffic laws and any other political question: achieve more benefits than costs to society. A richer world is much more resilient against weather extremes. In the short term, therefore, policymakers should focus on lifting the billions of people still in poverty out of it, both because it will make them more resilient against extreme weather and because it will do so much good in a myriad of other ways.”
I couldn’t agree more. Chasing net zero is insanity.
To learn more, visit www.CornwallAlliance.org and read Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism.
