Thomas Sieger Derr

The second UN Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development”Rio + 20, for short”is underway in Brazil, and the main issue seems little to have changed since the first one twenty years ago. The principal tension is between environmentalists, mainly from developed nations, who think human activity is leading to climate disaster, and the poorer nations who prize development above any environmental restrictions… . Continue Reading »

The strident attempt to silence the skeptics who question the popular thesis that humans are adversely affecting the earth’s climate hit a new high over the past couple of weeks with the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) report from a group of scientists centered . . . . Continue Reading »

First came Climategate. Hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia (UEA) showed that CRU researchers were defending the thesis that humans are causing global warming by suppressing contrary evidence … Continue Reading

I have always thought that the global warming, or “climate change” debate, was as much about social psychology as science. Now we have the perfect example in the unseemly row over a thousand purloined e-mails to and from the scientists of the Climate Research Unit at the University of . . . . Continue Reading »

Saving Creation: Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes Rolston III by Christopher J. Preston Trinity, 256 pages, $25.95 I have long admired, with a few caveats, the work of Holmes Rolston III, an environmental philosopher distinguished for a gifted pen, a thorough grounding in the biological . . . . Continue Reading »

House speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to bring the Waxman-Markey bill to a vote on Friday over the objections of farm- and coal-state Democrats and almost all Republicans, figuring that she has the votes to pass it. Then it will go to the Senate, where everyone expects it will die. The opposition . . . . Continue Reading »

Two recent books on what may be called “environmental theology,” one rooted explicitly in the Christian tradition, the other in a kind of loose deism, reveal an oft-overlooked theme of modern environmentalism. While neither is overly occupied with the policy concerns of the larger . . . . Continue Reading »

It has become commonplace to say that environmentalism is a new religion. One reads it everywhere, from friends and foes alike. Typical is Nigel Lawson, former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his new book, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming : “The new religion of . . . . Continue Reading »

Despite the “science is settled” and “consensus” claims of the global-warming alarmists, the fear of catastrophic consequences from rising temperatures has been driven not so much by good science as by computer models and adroit publicity fed to a compliant media. The lack . . . . Continue Reading »

Jody Bottum referred to the old story of the Holy Cross alumni magazine that showed an FBI agent leading away in handcuffs a priest at an anti-Vietnam protest—with both identified by their graduation years from the school. He treated the story as possibly apocryphal, but it is, in fact, true. . . . . Continue Reading »