EARTH RELIGION DISPLACES THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST

The founder of the faith focused all his attention on salvation. It seems a mite strange that all those who claim to follow him do not focus similarly: "My Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36)

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is no longer the organization it was only a few years ago. Its Washington office has been trending green. Risk Policy Report wrote on October 25 that NAE had been planning soon to release a policy statement on global warming that would call for mandatory greenhouse gas controls. There is now more reason to hope that reason and NAE traditional values - rather than unproven science - will win the day.

NAE president, the Reverend Ted Haggard, commented in March 2005 to Laurie Goodstein, a reporter for the New York Times: "The question is, `Will evangelicals make a difference?' and the answer is, `The Senate thinks so.' We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to."

Months earlier, NAE had issued "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," which included a plank on "creation care." It emphasized that government must fight "environmental degradation" and it drew the signatures from many evangelical leaders. Richard Cizik, NAE Vice President for Government Affairs, cited a biblical passage, Genesis 2:15, which states "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." He has been active in promoting a greener NAE stance on global warming and other environmental issues.

According to a recent article by New York Times reporter Michael Janofsky, the draft of the policy statement in support of a global warming policy favored by greens was supposed to be reviewed by NAE leadership. The NAE leadership vote, had it been unanimous in support of the draft, was to have been issued as a policy statement. If only a majority voted in support, it would have been released but only as "an evangelical statement on climate change."

NAE will be out of step with many leaders in the religious community if it supports mandatory reductions in greenhouse emissions. A new coalition called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA) has a membership that includes prominent leaders and thinkers in the Evangelical, Catholic and Jewish Faiths. The Reverend Dr. D. James Kennedy, president of Coral Ridge Ministries, is a member of the Advisory Council. Others include Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of Toward Tradition; Father Richard John Neuhaus, president of the Institute on Religion & Public Life; Father Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; and Dr. Marvin Olasky, professor of journalism and history at the University of Texas, Austin.

ISA maintains that too many religious leaders in recent years have let their desire to do good trample a clear-headed understanding of how, through the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are to relate to nature. ISA advisers were among those who issued the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship in April 2000 to clarify the relationship between man and his environment. Here are excerpts that distinguish between legitimate and false concerns regarding the environment:

While some environmental concerns are well founded and serious, others are without foundation or greatly exaggerated. Some well-founded concerns focus on human health problems in the developing world arising from inadequate sanitation, widespread use of primitive biomass fuels like wood and dung, and primitive agricultural, industrial, and commercial practices; distorted resource consumption patterns driven by perverse economic incentives; and improper disposal of nuclear and other hazardous wastes in nations lacking adequate regulatory and legal safeguards.

The problems cited above are not global in scope but can be dealt with through practical policies, including the use of market incentives to upgrade facilities and technologies. The fact is that global warming is a highly speculative theory and the draconian solutions advocated by environmentalists stand to have an adverse impact on the economies of the developed world. In short, the alarmism by the greens is an even greater threat to the economic security of the world than global warming. The Cornwall Declaration reminds us:

"Public policies to combat exaggerated risks can dangerously delay or reverse the economic development necessary to improve not only human life but also human stewardship of the environment. The poor, who are most often citizens of developing nations, are often forced to suffer in poverty with its attendant high rates of malnutrition, disease, and mortality; as a consequence, they are often the most injured by such misguided, though well-intended, policies.

The Cornwall Declaration concludes by saying its signers aspire to a world in which "widespread economic freedom" makes available more environmentally sound technologies, products and practices. Were that to occur, the world's population and its environment would be mutual beneficiaries.

The intent of the supporters of the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, which mandates emissions controls, is absolutely contrary to the intent of the Cornwall Declaration. Margot Wallstrom, European Union (EU) Commissioner for the Environment, has said: "[Global warming] is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big business throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious."

Indeed, our country's adherence to the Kyoto Treaty would choke our economic engine, according to a study by Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, which is cited by Senator James M. Inhofe in a booklet, "The Facts and Science of Climate Change," issued by the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, a private consulting firm the founders of which were professors at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, estimates that implementation of the Kyoto Treaty would cost 2.4 million jobs; our country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be reduced by 3.2 percent; prices would rise for food, housing, heating.

A letter signed by prominent evangelical leaders will soon be sent urging NAE to refrain from taking any position on global warming. Many evangelicals believe there is no consensus on the climate issues and that NAE should instead focus on major issues upon which there is widespread Christian agreement - such as abortion, abstinence and AIDS prevention. At the same time ISA will work to galvanize prominent Jewish, Protestant and Catholic leaders to advocate the sound environmental principles of the Cornwall Declaration. I am pleased to say that Kyle Fisk, NAE executive administrator, called me recently and indicated his organization's willingness to cause NAE to refrain from issuing the global warming statement.

However, there is a vociferous and unrelenting faction within the evangelical community more concerned with global warming than upholding the sanctity of life and traditional marriage and addressing other truly important moral issues. They will not relent in their efforts, particularly if Reverend Haggard tries to reinstate NAE on a proper course in which it refrains from endorsing speculative science in regard to global warming and concentrates its efforts on the moral issues that most of its leading members view to be most important from biblical and moral perspectives.

Liberal foundations have been spending millions of dollars to cause people of deep faith - Jews and Christians - to become sidetracked from addressing important moral issues, diverting resources toward addressing a problem of science that is highly speculative and has divided the scientific community. Their effort had started to permeate the Washington leadership of a prominent evangelical organization.

Responsible leaders and the grassroots must start campaigning to assure that the leftward drift is completely halted and that its Washington leadership respects the wishes and values of the churches and congregations outside the Beltway. Let's hope the grassroots becomes motivated to halt this leftward drift on global warming and other issues. Otherwise we will be a much poorer nation both spiritually and materially.

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Bill Gates invests in ethanol

Smart move

Bill Gates seems to want a piece of the action when it comes to renewable energy. The billionaire's investment company, Cascade Investment, has agreed to invest $84 million in Pacific Ethanol which will help it finance construction of several planned fuel-additive plants on the West Coast. Cascade's investment gives Gates a 27% stake in Pacific Ethanol. Gates will be sharing the company with petroleum distributor SC Fuels, which owns the majority stake in the ethanol producer and is one of its biggest customers. It could be a lucrative investment, since federal law requires that the U.S. nearly doubles the amount of ethanol it uses annually to 7.5 billion in 2012 from 4 billion gallons in 2006.

More here

For background on ethanol as a solution to the "peak oil" non-problem, see here




Hostile Takeover of Fox News

AIM comments:

While Bob Woodward's belated acknowledgement of a secret source in the CIA leak case has attracted a lot of attention and criticism, another journalism scandal has come and seemingly gone involving the Fox News Channel (FNC). The "fair and balanced" network that usually gives conservatives a fair shake was taken over by radical environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. and his liberal-left allies. Kennedy, a liberal lawyer and Democratic Party activist, became a "special correspondent" for an FNC special program on global warming that was so extreme as to be laughable. Kennedy was a star in the show.

This was new territory for FNC, which is frequently accused of being a propaganda organ of the Republican Party. Kennedy has written a book accusing President Bush of "crimes against nature" and "hijacking our democracy." He calls Bush "the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history" and says that Bush policies spawned Hurricane Katrina. He implies that the Bush Administration is fascist or Nazi-like. Kennedy, who had previously criticized Fox News and other "right-wing media" for misinforming the American people on critical public policy issues, has apparently changed his opinion. But what is behind FNC giving a platform to Kennedy and his ilk?

It was almost the reverse of the situation decades ago when conservative Senator Jesse Helms was reported to be interested in taking over CBS News through a shareholder revolt and becoming Dan Rather's boss. That never happened, of course. In this case, the liberal-left managed to take over FNC, at least on a temporary basis, with the connivance of FNC chairman Roger Ailes, a long-time Republican. This astonishing media coup was greeted with cheers on the liberal-left while most conservatives remained silent, apparently afraid to say anything for fear of offending Ailes and getting blacklisted from future appearances on FNC.

At Accuracy in Media, where our founder Reed Irvine taught us to pursue truth no matter where it leads, the truth in this bizarre case has to be told. FNC's November 13 program on global warming, "The Heat is On," was a piece of junk_or more specifically, junk science. Indeed, Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com, told AIM, "I am disappointed that almost no effort was made to qualify, balance and challenge the wild assertions of manmade catastrophic global warming. Even more disappointing was the program's effort to dismiss, diminish and denigrate those who question global warming alarmism." Milloy is being kind. The program was one-sided to the point of being comical. Viewers expecting a serious treatment of the issue found FNC offering up actors such as Alan Alda, dressed up in a tuxedo at a Hollywood premier, offering their thoughts on global warming as if they were "experts" on science, technology and energy issues.

Milloy urged the program's viewers to check out climatologist Pat Michaels' review of the program on JunkScience.com. Michaels said the show was "more one-sided than anything I've seen in the entire sad history of climate change journalism." Milloy has contributed articles to the Fox News website that make mincemeat of some of the arguments that were made in favor of man-made global warming that peppered the FNC program. For example, an October 13 Milloy piece, "What Arctic Warming?," completely undermined the theory, which was stated as fact in the program, that human activity is melting the polar regions.

Marc Morano, a guest on FNC when he exposes the left, didn't get any invitations to go back on the network when he reported on CNSNews.com that FNC Chairman Ailes had approved the one-sided program after Kennedy "dragged" him to a lecture by former Vice President Al Gore on the topic. When asked about this, Ailes was unavailable for comment, Morano reported.

In advance of the show, the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a letter to Ailes pleading for fair and balanced treatment of the issue. While the host for the special, Rick Folbaum, had written that "the vast majority of the scientific community says we're witnessing a unique and troubling kind of climate change" and that "no one can argue with this," CEI said that "Many scientists have gone on record disputing this, many of whom are readily available to tell you that science does not support global warming alarmism, and that no one can credibly predict climate change over the next century." A "disclaimer" was read before the show by a Fox News anchor justifying its slanted nature. She said, "Tonight we are presenting "The Heat is On." You'll hear primarily from those experts and citizens who believe that global warming is a crisis. Many people disagree with that statement. We will continue to investigate the science and hear from others in future Fox programming."

"The earth is sending out a desperate alarm," is how Folbaum began the program. The statement was made as viewers heard the "tick, tick, tick" of a loud clock, as if we were running out of time to save Mother Earth. Viewers saw thick smoke billowing from industrial smokestacks, a dead fish and traffic jams. It went from bad to worse. As noted by Dr. Michael R. Fox, who has 40 years of experience in the energy field, one of the silliest parts of the program was when FNC put forward an Indy race car driver as an energy expert. The driver favors the use of ethanol for race cars. "It's well known among energy experts that in most cases ethanol is NOT a net source of energy," Dr. Fox commented. "The reason for this is that it requires a great deal of energy to make a gallon of ethanol. In fact, it requires more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than can be obtained from burning the gallon of ethanol. Taken in its entirety, an ethanol fuel system is a net energy consumer." Near the end, Folbaum provided a free commercial for a radical environmental group led by Laurie David, a "global warming activist," and plugged her website.

But not only was the show biased, Kennedy was on FNC the day before the airing of the program to attack scientists who don't buy into his beliefs as "biostitutes." This smear was a clever play on the word "prostitute," suggesting that those opposing the Kennedy view have been paid off. The "fair and balanced" network had no one on to rebut Kennedy.

Dr. Fox asked, ".what is it about the green lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, which Fox News finds so appealing? Is he an energy expert? Or is he just a noisy Kennedy lawyer, unskilled in physics, chemistry, and engineering? And what is it about Laurie David, the self-appointed energy expert that Fox News found so appealing? What do these people know about climate, energy, and how energy is made, converted, and transported? What are their qualifications, and did Fox News look for anyone more qualified?"

Even more ridiculous, FNC offered Jeffrey Nachmanoff as an expert. He is the screenwriter behind "The Day After Tomorrow," the Hollywood production that depicts global warming producing tidal waves that envelop New York City. Folbaum said Nachmanoff was "alarmed by the message of his own movie" and now saves energy by installing high-efficiency light bulbs in his home.

Folbaum offered the most ridiculous comments of all, saying at the end of the slanted show that FNC was still fair and balanced. "It is our position here at Fox News to examine issues fairly and openly," he claimed. "We do not and will not advocate any position to our viewers. We report .You decide."

There has to be some rational explanation of what happened here. Did FNC chairman Ailes really find Al Gore persuasive? That's hard to believe. Or was putting on the program a clever strategy by Ailes? Did he realize that the environmentalists would make fools of themselves by going to extremes if he let them have the run of the network? The trouble with this theory, of course, is that the credibility of FNC was also damaged in the process.

Some observers think FNC turned its airtime over to Kennedy because he may be in a position to help or hurt them. It has been reported that Kennedy wants to run for high office in New York, where FNC parent News Corporation is based. FNC is said to be cozying up to New York Senator Hillary Clinton for the same reason.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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