Which Is More Important – People, Animals, or the Earth?

Man’s desire to worship something is seen throughout history. It would be a rare thing to find a period of history that was devoid of man putting his faith and desires into something – the God of the Bible, a carved god idol, the earth, other people, animals, man himself, etc. The desire to set something up as a higher authority must be innate in mankind.

The current prevailing philosophy of our culture is to downplay the Biblical pattern and place the good of “the earth” above all else. The roots of environmentalism go back many years, but the trend seems to gain followers every year. Al Gore and the concept of global warming may be damaged goods, but our society has not replaced the radical environmental movement with anything much different than what has gone before. Indeed, whether the fear is global warming, or the coming of a new Ice Age, the environmentalist cry is still the same – mankind is messing up the earth, and should be stopped.

I was very disheartened to read the following editorial in our local paper last week. I think it is indicative of a spirit of misunderstanding that troubles our nation:

Dear God, when you told us to “be fruitful and multiply”, did you intend for this multiplying to go on, unchecked, forever?

Perhaps it’s time for new orders, like “Stop! Enough with the multiplying! I gave you brains to figure out family planning. By now you should have had the sense to use it.

“You humans are spoiling my beautiful planet. You’re using up all the resources and filling the land and seas with garbage. Your wars wreak havoc on everyone and everything in their paths. Your greed and your sheer numbers are pushing my other creatures into extinction. Enough, already!

“You could have limited your numbers humanely, but you chose not to. Now I’m turning this over to Mother Nature, who will reduce your numbers the old-fashioned way – through war, pestilence, famine and disease.”

We have seen a lot of wars, famine and disease lately, along with earthquakes, floods and tornados. The threat seemed a little light on the pestilence, but now, here come the bedbugs. (The Fort Collins Coloradoan, January 12, 2011)

All of this makes me want to ask the writer a few questions:

1) God told us to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28) He has given us no instructions to do otherwise (in fact, He appears to counsel against “family planning” in the Bible – Genesis 38:8-10). So, what makes the writer think that God now has new orders to give? Who decides when it is “time for new orders”?

2) “You humans are spoiling my beautiful planet.” To me, using natural resources to make goods and to improve our living state is exactly God’s design. What does the writer mean by “spoiling”, and by what authority do we choose “spoiling” above “stewardship”? Is drilling for oil inherently “bad” when the result of energy exploration is fuel to keep people warm and the ability to move great distances – in minutes or hours, on only a few gallons of gasoline? If, instead, the resources were to stay in the ground forever, and man decided to live in cold caves, eating uncooked vegetables – is that better for everyone? Is that what we really want?

3) The author of the editorial seems to feel that too many people are getting in the way of some greater good – the common myth of population explosion. So, whose children does the writer propose to eliminate? Mine? The children of the person reading this article? Their own? Where would they start? Is human life really that cheap? So cheap that they would place it below the worth of creatures and the environment?

To truly answer the question about what is more important, we have to realize that someone must have authority over the decision. Mankind cannot and will not ever agree on the hierarchy of worth between man, animals, and the earth. Is the ultimate authority going to be me, my congressman, or the President?

For me, the only answer to this question is that there is one, and only one, ultimate authority – God – and His words on this question are the only ones that matter. Mankind may try to argue that someone else has the authority. For the Christian, the answer must be God. And if we choose an authority – God – we must endeavor to find out what He thinks about the value of human life versus the value of animal life or the environment.

1) God set up man to be above all creation - Genesis 1:26, Genesis 9:2 and Psalm 8:5-8 make it clear that man is above the earth, and only a little lower than the angels. If God placed us over the earth, then I have faith that He gave us ample resources to survive until He decides to send His Son back for us. He even left many “closed-loop systems” in place to compensate for our resource use – systems which are self-sustaining, such as the conversion of carbon dioxide into oxygen by trees and algae, and the obvious observation that trees and plants can spring up and grow anew from where they have been harvested. Scientists continue to “discover” and marvel at how resilient and self-repairing our ecosystem proves to be. They should – God made it that way.

2) Preserving the earth is not the ultimate goal of God - Ultimately, the earth will be destroyed. 2 Peter 3:10-11 says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives”. God has not intended for the earth to survive in some model, pristine way for all eternity. He has something better coming. He intends to destroy by fire all of these resources that our society holds so dear. The fact that He will destroy the earth, but take His people to live with Him for eternity, is clear evidence of God’s priorities. We do not abuse or show poor stewardship of this planet, but we keep it in perspective to God’s eternal plan.

3) The purpose of man is to honor God - Revelation 4:11 says, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” See also Psalm 86 and Psalm 16:5-11. So, it stands to reason that having more people on earth brings more opportunity to glorify God. Conversely, limiting the number of children born into this world is simply a way of removing glory from our God. That is a hard concept to swallow in today’s culture. But God told us to “fill the earth and subdue it”. He has not yet told us to do any differently. Why would we presume to know better?

The increasing population of the world is not the cause of death, destruction, famine or pestilence as our editorial author suggests. The cause is sin. God has provided us with resources to use for His glory. Bringing glory to God is the one, ultimate goal which overwhelms everything else. I wonder – would our culture like to see that concept printed in our local editorial section? We need to pray for a world that is still trying to function apart from God. Without Him, all we would have left is people, animals and the planet. Hmmm….

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If you want to read more about how environmentalism has replaced God in our culture, please visit my Radical Environmentalism series.

Radical Environmentalism – Which Is Worse, An Ecological “Disaster” or the Federal Government? (Part 13)

The Gulf oil spill news has certainly waned in the last few weeks. I guess people got tired of watching each drop spill on national television. And while I don’t approve of lackadaisical methods by companies such as BP, who are ultimately responsible for the spill and its cleanup, I also think we need to put the spill in perspective (see my previous tongue-in-cheek post about how long it would take to fill the Gulf with oil).

For me, a couple of questions stand out in relation to the spill. First, how bad was it for the environment? To be sure, some beaches were impacted, but I can’t find any lasting evidence that any were ruined – if they were, don’t you think the media would report the “loss of a national treasure” ad infinitum? I haven’t seen it on the news, so I must conclude that there is no story there.

What about losses to animals in the Gulf? According to Jonah Goldberg’s latest column, the losses in the bird population stand at less than one percent of losses during the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska back in 1989. That is remarkable, considering that this spill is larger and in a region which likely has more birds due to the warmer climate. And according to Goldberg, the total number of oiled mammal carcasses discovered to this date numbers only…three. Three? How many dolphins and porpoises died of old age during this period? And if this is not enough to make you think that a minimum amount of damage has been done, consider this article (from ABC News, no less), which claims that some clean-up crews are having a hard time finding any oil to clean up. “Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem”.

I concede that the oil is likely out there somewhere, breaking down over time as nature intended, but I refer you again to my calculations on the relative size of the oil spill (one or two grains of sand represent the relative size of the oil which has spilled, while the volume of the Gulf of Mexico can be represented by over 4,000 5-gallon buckets of sand). It’s going to be hard to find – and it’s going away more and more each day.

My second question is this – how bad was the spill for the economy? There is no doubt that the shrimping industry and the tourism industry have been hurt temporarily. And some families may not be able to weather the loss of half of their working season. That is sad.

But far, far more damage has been inflicted by the federal government’s intrusion into the economic policies of the Gulf region.

- An attempted moratorium by the Obama administration on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf (overturned by a federal appeals panel on July 9)

- The potential trickle-down effect of the above moratorium on things like boat shuttle service, and all of the industry that supports deepwater drilling.

- The potential passage of crippling federal economic laws that might come about due to this event – make no mistake, they are sorely tempted to limit America’s ability to drill for oil in the Gulf – though there is no corresponding decline in demand. This will simply open the door for others to replace that oil with oil obtained elsewhere on the planet, likely by non-U.S. companies. This would increase our dependence on foreign oil.

- The future “justified” shift to “greener” energy because of the oil spill – most of these so-called greener technologies are far more expensive, and many are not proven to be any better for the environment. But the federal government is pushing hard on these because of appearances, not because it is ultimately the right thing to do.

Finally, consider this. The Deepwater Horizon rig was incredibly difficult to shut down because it was in…deep water. The challenge of capping a wellhead that is a mile below the surface (where pressures are in the 2200 psi range) is far greater than if the well had been drilled in shallow water, and the drill bit allowed to tunnel sideways toward the oil reserve. But it is the very government which decries this disaster which then forces companies like BP out into the deep water areas to drill. Could it be that the government’s policy of forcing oil companies into deep water drilling is at least partially responsible for this “disaster”?

The oil spill is a nasty event. But it would appear that nature (designed by God) is already reclaiming the Gulf. When man (a.k.a. the federal government) thinks he knows more that he really does, bad policy is made. And the result of bad policy is ultimately higher energy costs, increased foreign dependence on oil, and a people with temporarily-soothed consciences who may later discover that much of the economic suffering was due to improper reactions to the spill, rather than to the spill itself.

Go, Gulf - I have a soft spot for the area since I grew up in Louisiana.

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...and this was released a week after my article - "The Gulf Recover Obama Does Not Want To See"

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Radical Environmentalism –The Dubious Results of Copenhagen (Part 12)

Last month, a host of environmentalists and politicians met in Copenhagen to save the world. Were they successful?

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) met in wintry Copenhagen, with the proclaimed goal to reverse so-called “climate change”. The premises that the conference assumes are that 1) climate change is occurring, 2) the change is bad, and 3) the change is due, in some large measure, to human activity. I have commented on all three of these topics in previous posts (here, here, and here) and it’s fairly obvious to me that anthropogenic global warming is no more than a dubious theory.

The Climategate scandal was no more than a month old – it was being revealed that much of the science behind global warming had been fabricated by people who have placed a social objective above factual study. In addition, it was revealed during the conference that the Climatic Research Unit (the same group that falsified data in the Climategate incident) was shown to be cherry-picking only the warmest temperature data coming out of Russian surface monitoring stations. In essence, the people who have been hired to provide governments with purely scientific data, with which they must make trillion-dollar decisions, are “putting their foot on the scale” in an effort to prove something that they know is not true. They are doing this, because, as their top official has pointed out, it would be a tragedy if we can’t prove that global warming is occurring. Yes, he really said that.

To me, the real tragedy here is the economic damage caused by such arrogance. Because they want global warming to be a result of man-made causes, they seek to limit the achievements that man can make with the resources that God has given us. Like many social causes, the facts have been lost in the stew of feel-good statements. I have pointed out that environmentalism has become a primary religion for many – and history shows that religious fervor often trumps practical actions. Hey, I’m not for burning down all of the rainforests (we should be good stewards of God’s gift of nature), but I also don’t approve of lying about scientific data to push a social agenda.

So, what was the result of this multi-million dollar conference attended by “concerned” heads of state (each of whom created a huge, hypocritical carbon footprint by jetting in and out for a few days)? A limited group of countries agreed to:

· Limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius since “pre-industrial times”
· The United States agreed to give $30 billion to developing nations over the next three years ( to help “cope” with climate change)
· Undeveloped nations would agree to limit deforestation in exchange for cash from richer nations

That’s it. And get this – this agreement was not actually voted on and approved, but the delegates from the represented nations “approved a motion to take note of the Copenhagen accord”. And while the White House was announcing this accord, it was noted that many of the delegate nations had not yet had the chance to read it. Let’s face it – the whole thing is a sham, a desperate and weak political ploy by certain governments to show that they care and they are taking charge of the situation. But, in effect, nothing has happened.

And that is precisely the outcome I had hoped for. Because I believe that man cannot change the temperature of the planet even if he set out to do so on purpose. Our efforts are completely swamped out by the effects of sunspots, ocean currents, and the El Niño phenomena - effects of which God is in control. I am happy that, once again, politicians cannot meet to establish the damaging policies that they seek.

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Do you think my opinion is one-sided and uncaring? Read here what the Washington Times had to say about President Obama, the conference, and the outcome. Wow.

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Radical Environmentalism – “Climategate” – The Fall of Global Warming? (Part 11)

…continued from a previous post, commenting on the recent discovery of purposefully manipulated climate data – dubbed “Climategate” - designed to falsely promote the concept that the earth is warming…Hey, I’m all for good stewardship. But science shouldn’t lie about statistics in order to promote a dubious agenda.
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The exposure of falsehoods, data deletion, and attempted cover-ups recently related to The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is having some repercussions in the environmental community. I am reading blogs and posts by people who were formerly convinced of Anthropogenic Global Warming as fact, but who now have their suspicions that the world has been led down “an inconvenient path”.

What changes in attitude or action are being seen as a result of Climategate?

On his way to the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) summit in Copenhagen next week, Saudi Arabia’s lead climate negotiator has said, "It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change… So, whatever the international community does to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate's natural variability." I think some of us have been hinting at that very point for a while.

In the wake of the Climategate memos, Australia’s Parliament got rid of a pro-Kyoto leader, and then voted down their proposed cap-and-trade energy policy (designed to regulate carbon emissions to be more environment-friendly). It was expected to pass before the Climategate scandal came to light. I continue to “warm” to the idea of moving to Australia if things continue down their current path here in the United States. I certainly hope that our lawmakers have the fortitude to abandon cap-and-trade before they further wreck our economy.

Here’s a good one - Al Gore has suddenly canceled his December trip to Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, though he had already sold 3,000 tickets to his scheduled speaking event, at over $1,200 each (that’s $3.6 million that he’s turning down – why would he do that?). And there are at least two people in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts who are calling for Gore’s Oscar to be investigated or rescinded for his 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. Here’s a little-known fact - did you know that Gore and his producers have admitted that much of the footage showing majestic icebergs in the movie was not real – but was made using CGI (computer-generated images)? You know – like Toy Story – which, by the way, also isn’t real.

Remember that graph at the beginning of An Inconvenient Truth that showed the sudden temperature rise in recent years? In an article entitled “The Deceit Behind Global Warming”, written by Christopher Booker and Richard North, they note:

One of the greatest problems Gore and his allies faced at this time was the mass of evidence showing that in the past, global temperatures had been higher than in the late 20th century.

In 1998 came the answer they were looking for: a new temperature chart, devised by a young American physicist, Michael Mann. This became known as the "hockey stick" because it showed historic temperatures running in an almost flat line over the past 1,000 years, then suddenly flicking up at the end to record levels.

Mann's hockey stick was just what the IPCC wanted. When its 2001 report came out it was given pride of place at the top of page 1. The Mediaeval Warming, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century Little Cooling, when CO2 had already been rising, all had been wiped away.

But then a growing number of academics began to raise doubts about Mann and his graph. This culminated in 2003 with a devastating study by two Canadians showing how Mann had not only ignored most of the evidence before him but had used an algorithm that would produce a hockey stick graph whatever evidence was fed into the computer. When this was removed, the graph re-emerged just as it had looked before, showing the Middle Ages as hotter than today.

Items like this have been known for several years, but they are finally getting some real exposure in the wake of Climategate. Look for more of Michael Mann’s involvement to be revealed as the scandal progresses. Things are beginning to unravel, but will it come apart altogether?

One U.S. climatologist is quoted in the Climategate documents as saying, "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't... Our observing system is inadequate." Do you see his leap to a conclusion, even when the facts don’t support it? Rather than postulate the possibility that global warming is not occurring, the automatic conclusion is that the measurement system must be incorrect. This is a perfect example of the “bad science” I have been pointing out in this series.

And this is precisely what I mean about environmentalism becoming a religion. Because some scientists reach out to global warming on faith – whether the facts support it or not. For them, it is truly "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). This is the very definition of faith in the Bible. And because many of these scientists do not have God in their life, they have replaced the worship of God with a worship of the earth. Now, their environmental faith is in jeopardy. Will they finally replace it with a faith in God?
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Radical Environmentalism – “Climategate” – The Fall of Global Warming? (Part 10)

When I started this environmental blog series earlier this year, I had it in mind that the concept of global warming might see its demise during my lifetime (possibly within the next forty years). Now, it appears that that it might happen within the next twelve months. But I am not celebrating yet – people don’t toss out their religion so easily, even the religion of environmentalism.

Enter “Climategate”. On November 19, 2009, memos and e-mails from researchers at The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were hacked and put on Internet display. These documents reveal a series of lies, fabrications, and fact-twisting efforts put out by the CRU over a number of years. Their intent was to show global warming to be occurring, when in fact the researchers were internally admitting that it was not. The CRU is one of the main contributors of climate data and studies used by political bodies to make decisions about environmental policy.

What exactly did the researchers at CRU do that was so wrong?

First, data was manipulated. In an attempt to prove that Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming (AGW) is a truth, scientists went beyond the facts to keep the story alive. The memos detail specific instances where the researchers padded data, added where they shouldn’t have, or simply misled the public with the result. Don’t believe me? The graph above is an example of the earth’s temperature data used by climatologists – a 100-year measurement. The blue lines are the raw data (showing a clear cooling trend over the century). The red lines are “compensated data”, which shows a warming trend. Neat trick, huh?

Manipulation of data isn’t all that happens. Manipulation of perception has also occurred. There is now a report that an important paper previously claiming that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 at the current rate of global warming - contained a typo. The data should have said that the date would be 2350. I’ll bet you haven’t read that retraction in the paper, though.

Second, data was deleted. Raw data sets, which were used to construct the models leading to global economic policy decisions, were simply thrown out. This means that it is impossible to go back and verify or reconstruct a model that uses this data. It calls into question everything about the scientific conclusion, because the original data set is gone. Do you think your high school chemistry professor would have let you get away with that? And it begs the question – why did they delete the data? To save space? Or because the raw data was problematic to the conclusion that they wanted to draw? Hmmmmm…

Third, they tried to cover it up. Memos make it clear that the scientists in question were purposefully trying to evade the U.K.’s Freedom of Information Act. E-mail exchanges show that colleagues were being asked to delete e-mails that might prove troublesome later. That alone calls into question the true objectivity of these scientists. Their purpose clearly wasn’t about getting to the truth. It was about holding up a false premise designed to glorify themselves and others as the saviors of our poor planet. The top director of the CRU is on record as saying, “I would like to see the climate change happen so the science could be proved right.” His goal was not to reverse global warming – it was to be shown that he was right all along. That’s like hoping someone in your family gets a life-threatening disease so you can take full advantage of your health insurance.

To be sure, environmentalism takes the place of religion for many. It is a form of “doing good” and appearing to be concerned, with worship of the earth acting as a substitute for worship of God. Next up – what changes are occurring as a result of Climategate (including “What do Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Pixar’s Toy Story have in common?”)
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Radical Environmentalism – Global Temperature and Sunspots (Part 9)

The current thinking among environmentalist groups and the teaching in our own classrooms is that global warming is caused primarily by human activity upon the earth. In An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore said, “Making mistakes in our dealings with nature can have bigger consequences now because our technologies are often bigger than the human scale. When you put them all together they made us a force of nature.” A book that I highly recommend, State of Fear by Michael Crichton, discusses and puts to rest the assumption made by nearly everyone five years ago - that global warming is a foregone conclusion, and that the reason is well-known and documented by science. It simply is not a fact. Not yet.

But that book was written in 2004, and in a very short period since then, the theory of global warming has come under a great deal of skepticism – both from science and the general public. There is a growing consensus now that the earth may in fact be cooling, or that warming is not really an issue. This has resulted in a change to the wording we frequently see in the news – from “global warming” to “climate change” (outlined in Part 4 of this series).

Since the assumption that global warming is occurring can be cast into doubt in such a short amount of time, is it not also possible that the idea of human activity as the cause of it all is not also open to debunking? There is a definite trend toward more open thinking on this matter. Perhaps something else is at work in the ups and downs related to climate – something completely unrelated to human activity?

One link that is being made to global temperature is the incidence of sunspots. As sunspot activity increases, so too does the likelihood that global temperature will rise. Conversely, periods of low sunspot activity seem to coincide with prolonged decreases in global temperature. An interesting connection has been made between something called The Maunder Minimum and global temperature.

The Maunder Minimum occurred during a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715. During the lowest point of this cycle - for a 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum - astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to what is typically seen today in that amount of time –40,000 to 50,000 occurrences. What is curious about this is that this seventy year period corresponds exactly with the middle and coldest part of The Little Ice Age. This was an exceptionally cold period in Europe and North America spanning from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Glaciers advanced and rivers froze. Some have speculated that Antonio Stradivari was able to get the unique sound from his violins because the wood he used to make them came from trees which went through a very slow growth period during this time frame (he was born a year before the start of the Maunder Minimum and lived to the age of 93). There is a great deal of evidence that the earth was a colder place during this age.

And there is evidence that sunspots were at a low during this point. So…is it correct to immediately assume that sunspots are really the main cause of global warming and cooling? If I made such an assumption, I would be guilty of the same scientific error that people make when they conclude that warming temperatures, corresponding with industrialization and energy use, prove that man is the reason for any climate change that we see. It’s not good science.

There is a real possibility that sunspot activity is the main contributor to global temperature change. Maybe. Take a look at the picture on the right. How could anyone look at that jet of hot plasma erupting from the sun’s surface (called a plasma ejection or solar prominence) – many, many times the size of our entire planet – and not wonder if other forces completely overshadow any effect that man may have on the earth’s surface. The energy release of that one event is likely greater than the cumulative release of energy on Earth by mankind over the entire course of history. Shouldn’t occurrences like this be taken into account when we speculate about global temperature models?

My suspicion is that humans couldn’t change the temperature of our planet if we wanted to. To think we can change it, without hard proof, is nothing but human arrogance. But again, we should invoke good science before drawing conclusions.

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Radical Environmentalism – Is Global Warming A Bad Thing? (Part 8)

I’ve written before that the claim that the earth is warming is dubious at best. Much scientific evidence is suddenly emerging that shows that the reverse may actually be true.

In an unusual step for me, though, I’m going to assume for the moment that the earth is really warming, and that man may be the biggest contributor (more than sunspot changes, El Niño, and other phenomena). Here I go – flipping on the big global warming switch. The next question I would ask is this – if the average temperature of the globe went up a degree or two, would it be a good thing or a bad thing?

Arguments have been made that the shift will cause enough melting of the polar ice caps to bring about a global sea level rise that would affect us negatively. Al Gore, in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, did a masterful job of scaring everyone with this very scenario.

But some evidence given by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows something different. See http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/1997/970109.htm?pf=1 The DOA conducted a study in which they grew grain sorghum and soybeans in an artificial environment with twice the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere today (the study claims that at current CO2 rate increases, we will double the current amount in the next century). Their expectation was that yield would drop by as much as ten percent.

Instead, the increased CO2 levels caused the plant leaves to grow larger. Without using any additional fertilizer to help the plants, the soybean production was increased by thirty five percent! Sorghum yields from plants placed in the high CO2 environment were up eighteen percent.

My point : the global warming scare is just that, a scare put on by people who know that they can fool some of the people all of the time. Many people operate under the incorrect thinking that any change from the current standard must carry bad consequences along with it. Their deep-seated thinking is that the world is operating under ideal circumstances right now – that any deviation, whether it be hotter or colder temperatures, or more or less CO2 in the atmosphere - must bring negative results to mankind.

The study cited above shows that food shortages could be made much better by increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Put more succinctly, world hunger could be solved by increasing our carbon footprint. At what cost, you ask? Would we melt polar ice caps and cause the oceans to rise by two feet? Maybe – though this is still speculative. Would curing world hunger be worth it? The tradeoff between rising oceans and more crop production would need to be weighed – if human-caused global warming is even a fact (it’s still highly speculative). The purpose of this whole analogy is to demonstrate that we do not necessarily live in a perfect world right now, where everything is working at optimum efficiency. When changes happen, some things will get better and some will get worse. Where is the ideal point that we should live?

Okay – having made the point, can I flip off my global warming switch now? And go back to believing that mankind has very little to do with the temperature of the globe?
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Euthanasia for Clunkers

You won’t believe what an auto dealer has to do to get a government rebate for a “clunker” these days.

The government-sponsored “Cash for Clunkers” has received a lot of attention recently – most notably in its sudden lack of funding and the worry of auto dealers, who fear that they may not be properly reimbursed for the huge discounts that they are offering. So, how does the program work?

First, you must check if your car is on the clunker “list”. The government provides a website where the user inputs their car data and a determination is made based primarily on the fuel rating (miles-per-gallon) of the car. I entered in the information for my shiny, almost-new 2005 mini-van and found that it missed the mark by only 1 MPG! It’s five years old and it’s only 1 MPG from being a clunker! And can you believe that a 2004 Mazda RX-8 is on the list for the trade-in! If you find that your car is eligible for the program, you will be able to receive a $3500-$4500 rebate on the purchase of a new car (used cars are not eligible). And what is the purpose of the overall program? The government is trying to 1) stimulate the economy by encouraging the purchase of a new car, and 2) “help the environment” by getting a high-emission car off the road. By my thinking, the benefit of this program is dubious on both counts.

First, the rebate will encourage many people to purchase a new car – and some of these people will not be able to afford it in the near-term. Just as the government-sponsored, low-interest housing loans tantalized people with bigger houses beyond their means, many will be attracted to the idea of having a new car in their garage, regardless of the payment book that follows. So for the lure of a few-thousand dollar discount, they will get themselves into a $500-$600 monthly payment that they can’t afford. And a year from now, they may default on the loan. Let’s face it – the discount only amounts to about ten percent of a new car purchase, so it will turn a $600 monthly payment into a $540 monthly payment. And the government is still encouraging banks to loan money to higher-risk clients. Like the housing cycle, the race to have more than we can afford begins again - only we call it the CARS program this time around.

Second, the amount of emissions that will be reduced by the program is miniscule. The program was seeded with $1 billion of funding. At an average rebate of $4,000, that amounts to the trade-in of about 250,000 cars. At last estimate, there were 250 million registered automobiles in the United States (according to the 2006 Department of Transportation studies). So this program will effectively trade out 0.1% of the “higher-emission” vehicles on the road for “lower-emission” vehicles. The billion dollars means that every taxpayer in the U.S. contributed an average of $10 to the program. Was it worth it? (Note: After this was written, Congress was on its way to approving another $2 billion for the program - so say good-bye to another $20 per taxpayer in your household.) It angers me that my hard-earned salary becomes tax dollars, which then get “re-distributed” to someone else so that they can buy a new car.

But the most insane thing about the program is the exercise that must be performed to “kill” one of these clunkers. In order to get their money from the government, and in an effort to assure that a high-emissions vehicle never sees the road again, a dealer must ruin the engine of the trade-in vehicle. The dealer must pour sodium silicate into the engine oil, start the car, and wait a few minutes until the oil turns to glass, seizing the engine, and ruining it for all time (video here). The technical description goes like this:

“Sodium silicate. Pour 2 quarts in a car's engine. Hold it at 2000 rpm. And in about 5 minutes, it's lethal injection to a motor vehicle.”

Put simply, the car gets euthanized. In exchange for taking a so-called “environmentally dangerous car” off of the road, this has the side-effect of harming the engine salvage and auto repair businesses. And it may also keep a nice, cheap, used vehicle out of the hands of someone who cannot afford to purchase a new car. Will the day come when the government makes it impossible to purchase a used vehicle for my sixteen-year-old? Will I be forced to pay an exorbitant price for a new vehicle only? In ten more years, will these same new cars suddenly be considered to be environment-threatening clunkers, and the process start over again?

Lastly, I can’t help but note the possible analogy between the “Cash for Clunkers” program and healthcare for our elderly under any new government program. President Obama has hinted that he favors the cessation of funding of extraordinary measures to save an elderly person. The proposed healthcare bill itself contains such a clause, right now (read pp. 425-429 here – thanks to Jim Perkins for finding this). This smacks of euthanasia for our senior citizens. Will we see a “Cash for Clunkers” program for our gray-haired folk in the near future? Or am I being “un-American” by mentioning that?
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From the government website, citing reasons why Americans should participate in the program – “Reduce greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning gasoline and diesel contributes to global climate change. You can do your part to reduce climate change by reducing your carbon footprint.” It’s clear that the government has bought into the lie that gasoline-powered vehicles contribute significantly to climate change. And did you notice that they called it “climate change” instead of “global warming”?

Radical Environmentalism – Is The Globe Warming, Or Isn’t It? (Part 7)

I’ve asked the question many times in this series of articles – does our society want to find the real truth about global warming, or are they more interested in pursuing the global warming agenda for some other reason?

We may be getting closer to that answer. Recently, Dr. Alan Carlin, a 35-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote a 98-page report calling into question whether or not the science being used to prop up the Climate Change Act is valid. Specifically, his report points out that, 1) global temperature trends have been on the downward side over the last eleven years, 2) scientists are not convinced that storms will actually worsen if global warming were true, and 3) that the theory behind Greenland’s melting ice pack has now been called into question.

All of these are good points, and they should be studied and better understood before we spend billions of dollars on carbon dioxide mitigation programs and potentially throw thousands or even millions of industrial jobs to the wind.

Wouldn’t it be sad and ironic if fifty years from now, after crippling our economy and giving up our global leadership in manufacturing to China, that we were to gain hard proof that manmade CO2 emissions have absolutely no effect on global temperature – that, in fact, something we can’t control, such as sunspots, causes the global temperature to rise and fall over a 400-year period? Now, wouldn’t that just make a few people upset?

What I have been pointing out is that we need to be concerned over what the truth is in regards to global warming. However, this is not what the current executive administration in our country cares about. Because, shortly after the release of his report, Dr. Carlin was asked by his EPA bosses to cease all activities related to climate change. Instead, he was reassigned to a project to update a grants database. There are also some very revealing memos to him from his boss that indicate pressure from on high to suppress his report.

So why would anyone want to stifle this report if it had some chance of avoiding future embarrassment – that is, avoiding job losses, economic disaster, and the discovery that manmade global warming is a falsehood? I can think of two very powerful reasons – 1) money, and 2) the loss of God in our culture (yes, really).

Money is the most obvious answer – most human decisions can be tracked to its pursuit. By creating the Climate Change Act, the government intends to generate revenue by literally selling us the air that we breathe. Instituting a cap-and-trade policy on CO2 emissions created by power plants and other major producers will result in the regulation of a large component of our breathing air. This regulation will result in an indirect tax on everything which requires energy to be produced – cars, gasoline, food, clothing, manufactured goods, etc. Corporations will have to raise prices to pay for the tax on their emissions. The government will collect that tax and proceed to use it far less efficiently than if they had let us keep the money. Economic disaster will result (while China will continue to ignore the environmentalist agenda, keep up its manufacturing investment, continue polluting, and eventually take over the global economy).

But even more importantly, I believe that the environmental movement and its worship of the earth and things created is simply a substitute…..for God. In a culture that largely ignores or denies God, the human spirit searches for something to put its efforts into – something that seems greater and more lasting than everyday material possessions. Hence, we see groups like PETA and Greenpeace appealing to the masses with a message of animal rights and earth worship. Almost invariably, these groups are led by individuals who deny the existence of God, having replaced Him with things that he created. Paul predicted this in Romans 1:25 – “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.”

Aren’t we really, fundamentally, and ultimately interested in the truth?

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More information on Dr. Carlin and his report at The Heritage Foundation, FoxNews, and here is a link to his 98-page report, if you are interested. Please let me know if you find anything I’ve missed.
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Radical Environmentalism – Congress Gets Radical (Part 6)

I decided to buy a new house yesterday. Normally, I would research houses and neighborhoods and make sure that I purchased one in an area that had the potential for a good living environment and increasing value. And I would typically go look at the house first – you know, walk around inside it and make sure that it was in good shape and was the style that my family wanted. But instead, I just picked up the housing section of the paper, picked one out, and made a call to my realtor with the instructions to buy it. No big deal.

Okay, okay – so that’s not true. But before you make a judgment about how stupid and unlikely such a decision would be, consider this - two-hundred and nineteen Congressman did something even more radical than that, with consequences far more reaching.

The Waxman-Markey energy bill made its way through the House of Representatives this week, by a vote of 219-212. Investors Business Daily called it an “anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy”. I won’t go into many details about it here, except to say that it will 1) likely cost each taxpayer hundreds or thousands of additional dollars each year through a new energy tax, 2) create new “green” jobs, but will likely kill twice as many “non-green” jobs at the same time, as has happened in Spain through similar legislation, and 3) will cause America to become more uncompetitive in the global marketplace by hamstringing our industries who use energy to create things. You would think the federal government might learn a lesson or two from the budget crisis going on in California – a state which leads the nation in economy-stunting environmental legislation (and home of the bill’s sponsor Henry Waxman). And at a time when the government has essentially taken over the US auto industry, they should be aware how such a bill will further cripple our chances of competing with other countries who haven’t adopted such severe energy restrictions. Hmmm, maybe the government isn’t very good at running a successful corporation after all.

But the real travesty is that Congress didn’t even read the whole bill before they voted on it. When the original bill came out of the House committee, it was right at 1,000 pages. Earlier this week, the House added another 201 pages – post-committee approval – to the whole thing. And then, the night before the vote, the Rules Committee added another 300 pages to the overall bill. Henry Waxman slapped the 300 pages down on the podium and called for a vote the very next day.

Does that sound like responsible government? Should we just roll over and assume that our Congressman have our best interest in mind when they wrote the 300-page amendment? The consequences of this bill are far-reaching, both to individual pocketbooks and to our overall national economic health. Shouldn’t we expect there to be time for both study and individual opinions to be heard?

You see, except for the voting process, we individuals have been effectively removed from our government. There was a time when federalism (state’s rights) overshadowed the national government. Individuals could influence their local government, who would then instruct their national representatives exactly how to vote. It’s true! See this previous article for examples of US representatives who quit their job in Congress because they were in conflict with how they were being told to vote by their constituents.

Did we get a chance to read the energy bill and advise our representatives on how we want them to vote? There was no time for that. Most of our federal representatives now get themselves elected to office, and then abandon us. We are no longer involved in the process. Their motivation is to 1) please their party leaders, and 2) get re-elected. How could we not be given the time to read the 300-page amendment before going to a vote? How could our representatives vote on it without reading it? Is it any different than my example of buying a house without researching it? It is different in the aspect that the consequences of what Congress did are much greater. I can always put an unwanted house up for sale and get something out of it. Can Congress do the same with our economy once they wreck it and send our wealth and prosperity to China and India?

I am exceptionally angry at the folly of our government. I want to completely disconnect from these dishonest, selfish, deceptive men and women who are driving our nation into decadence and poverty. Part of me is ready to board the next Mayflower and sail away to a distant island where we can start over with the sane, Christian principles that our founding fathers adopted. Does anyone want to go with me?

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P.S. - If you’d like to do something about the climate change bill, please write your US Senators and ask them to read the bill…and then vote against it. The bill is not yet made law, and it will have a much tougher time making it through the Senate. But we need to make sure that it doesn’t see the light of day to cripple our economy. Tell them to vote “No” on the bill, or else you’ll vote that way when their name comes up for re-election. Here are some tips on how to write a short, meaningful note to a Congressman or Senator. The bill number you should reference is “H.R. 2998”.

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Radical Environmentalism – Abandoning the Scientific Process (Part 5)

Let’s talk about the scientific process. Wait, don’t click the back button! I’ll mention Al Gore to ensure that this stays interesting!

When I was in junior high and high school, we were taught the scientific process – repeatedly. You start with a hypothetical statement, such as “Do potato skins contain more vitamin C than potato flesh?” Under no circumstances are you able to draw any early conclusions without first proving your assumption. I would have been graded down severely if I had just assumed that potato skin contained more vitamin C and moved onto a follow-up question (I would have been wrong, too, as potato flesh actually has a higher concentration of the vitamin than the skin – I got to perform this experiment in Chemistry).

But science class back then never taught us that there will be times when science will mix with politics. This dangerous combination often throws aside the deductive process in favor of principles more akin to marketing (which some people will say is the same as lying). Making bold statements without the backing of facts becomes necessary in order to divert funds to pet political projects. It’s all about the money.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the world of environmental “science”. Environmental “experts” and prominent politicians make claims which go largely untested – all for the sake of scaring people into spending money on potentially useless programs. Here are a couple of examples.

Al Gore intimates in his film An Inconvenient Truth that we only have about ten years to act on global warming before it will be too late to make a reversal. This statement was so presumptuous that Rush Limbaugh started a ten-year clock on his website – counting down from ten years so that we will be prompted to evaluate just where things are at the end of that time period. Look at Gore’s statement in light of the same facts that he presented in the very same movie – that the average recorded temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius over the last 140 years (see his graph at the left)! It seems ludicrous to draw the conclusion that at this rate, we will be headed for an irreversible torching of the planet in just ten years time. But the statement was made by Mr. Gore, and he was lauded as a great environmentalist (and, incredibly, they gave him the Nobel prize).

Where was the scientific mistake made? There are two that I can see. First, Gore assumes that a 140-year trendline showing a rise of less than one degree Celsius will continue to trend in the same direction at the same rate, unless something is “done”. Now, 140 years may seem like a lot, but it is not nearly enough to build a case of irreversible global warming. For example, a trend chart of General Motors stock price value would show a healthy and fairly steady increase over time, from 1933 to 2006. A well-meaning investor might look at that chart and conclude that the trend must continue. They would be wrong. GM stock has dropped from a value of $40 per share in 2006 to just over a dollar today in 2009 (that was true when I originally wrote this entry, now it’s worth nothing). Did anyone see this coming before the shares started to dive? Few people had the foresight to avoid this loss. It was a wholly unexpected event, and there were factors involved which were much more complex than a simple algebraic linear rise.

Gore’s second mistake is assuming that we know the cause of global warming. He pins the warming trend as being relative to the carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and he assumes that carbon dioxide is primarily caused by human activity. Both assumptions are specious, and are not proven fact – not by a long shot. Do we claim to understand all of the factors that affect global temperatures? Here are a few – sunspot activity, ocean currents, El Niño, La Niña, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation, and the Maunder Minimum. Now, please show me the study that proves that human activity swamps out these factors, and is the prime contributor to global warming. I would listen, truly I would, if the claim could be supported. The science simply isn’t there.

But lack of scientific evidence doesn’t stop people like Ted Danson from saying, in 1988, that “we have ten years to save the world's oceans”. Do the math – that was twenty-one years ago. So are we too late to do anything now? Or was Ted Danson wrong?

If you want to win me over to an idea or a cause, here is what you must do. To begin with, give me unimpeachable facts upon which to build a case – in the global warming debate, I need to see global temperatures from around the globe, not just in a few select locations, and preferably hard evidence over several hundred years. Next, from this data you must build models which duplicate the behavior seen in the data. For example, a good global warming model needs to be able to match the data obtained in the first step. To model the hype distributed by the environmental crowd, a good model would be able to relate the Industrial Revolution over the last hundred years to carbon dioxide levels during that period, and could correlate global temperature rises to the carbon dioxide level. If mankind is the greatest influence on warming, then I would expect to see a relatively flat global temp profile for the last several hundred years, followed by a sharp rise over the last hundred years. There should also be direct correlation to unusual events in history, such as volcanic eruptions which may cause temporary spikes in the data.

Finally, it is important to put the model to the test in the future. Does it accurately predict events over the next few years and on into decades? If not, then the model may be incorrect, and require revision. Some, like Ted Danson, will say that we have no time for this rigor, but it is equally irresponsible to radically alter public policy and business plans based on nothing more than rash statements and “feel-good” ethics.

For me, I personally believe that other factors, such as sunspot activity, overpower any changes that man makes to the climate. But I also am willing to concede that this is not yet proven. Will the other side make the same concession and work to follow the scientific process? Somehow, I think that is just a dream.
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Radical Environmentalism – The Words Change, the Game Remains the Same (Part 4)

Only a couple of years ago, nearly any “science” magazine which you might read, along with most news magazines, made reference to the (mythical) crisis of global warming. Elections of public officials have pivoted on the subject, and millions of dollars of our tax money have been spent to understand the topic.

But read almost any article or watch the news today and you will notice that the words have changed. Where the phrase “global warming” was used a short time ago, you can now replace it with the new phrase “climate change”. It actually escaped my notice for a while, until I wrote an article about National Geographic and its slant toward radical environmentalism. While I was looking for the “global warming” phrase, I actually had a hard time finding it. “Climate change” was the common reference, and since making note of the new phrase, I now tend to see it everywhere.

The substitution is almost laughable. When I was in high school, the accepted fear was that the earth may be entering another Ice Age period, and global cooling was being put forth as a very real and dangerous threat. Twenty years ago, the concept of greenhouse gases trapping heat in the atmosphere became popular (and made a convenient scapegoat out of heavy industry and manufacturing by those who wished to see its end) and global warming was suddenly seen as the problem. Check the science articles today, though, and the idea of potential global cooling (again) is becoming more popular. Since scientists can’t make up their mind what is happening, it’s easier just to change the problem statement to include “climate change”, and to also assume that any change from the current climate must be bad.

To help prove the point that modern science does not possess a reliable climate model, only one month after I posted my article about National Geographic, they posted their own article with the title, “Sun Oddly Quiet -- Hints at Next "Little Ice Age"? (thanks to Darren Duvall for pointing me to this). The text of the article makes the observation that sunspot activity is at a low point, with some scientists pointing to very chilly temperatures as a possibility. Lower temperatures such as this were seen back in the years 1300 – 1850, when Iceland spent some time completely locked in by ice. Scientists are clearly swinging wildly back and forth in their predictions of the future – precisely because they do not understand all of the climatic elements that make up long-term weather patterns.

In one place, the article attempts to negate the conclusion that sunspot activity is relevant to global temperature. It quotes a solar terrestrial physicist by the name of Mike Lockwood, who tries to downplay the sun’s effects in comparison to man’s footprint on climate change. He says, “I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down. I think that helps keep it in perspective.” This is an exceptionally misleading statement. Lockwood initially attempts to compare the effect of man’s carbon dioxide output as if it were comparable – percent to percent – to that of solar output. He is attempting to imply that the greenhouse global warming effect of carbon dioxide far exceeds the negative effect of reduced sunspot activity. But the author of the article later added a correction by Lockwood, pointing out that while a 50% increase in carbon dioxide output has had a small effect on global temperature, a 50% change in solar output would kill all life on earth. Clearly, the two cannot be compared, though the only scientist in the article attempted to do just that in his initial statements.

To make a good prediction about something such as weather or global temperatures, you need a good model – typically an extrapolation of past temperatures combined with some assumptions and calculations. Then, you test the usefulness of the model by using it to predict future events – then stand back and see if you are right about what is going to happen. And even then, it’s only a prediction based on the limited data that you have and the assumption that your model has not missed any critical long-term variables – see the previous Black Swan article. Again – predict, model, test. Any science teacher will tell you this.

There are so many elements that contribute to the weather and temperature of our planet – solar activity, heat load on the Southern Hemisphere versus the Northern Hemisphere, the Maunder Minimum, El Niño, and the latent heat content of the ocean. It’s a model of such complexity that it is very likely that we will never grasp it completely, even given hundreds of years of research grants and tax dollars. Modern science (and modern news media) abhor the possibility that they might not understand something, and so they cast aside good scientific method in favor of spouting things that bring them self-glorification…and research dollars.

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Radical Environmentalism – Does National Geographic Magazine Teach Good Science? (Part 3)

Part of growing up was my fascination with the wonder that was National Geographic magazine. The subject matter was always exotic and I dreamed of going to the places that were shown in the photos. The pictures were beautiful and I tried to look at every single one each month. Finally, the science within the pages was attractive to me, since knowledge and scientific method was always my passion.

My wife and I have never really subscribed to magazines, so it has been years since I have been regularly exposed to National Geographic. Recently on a trip back to my parent’s home, the April 2009 issue was on the table and I picked it up to enjoy some time in the pages.

The places are still exotic; the pictures are beautiful. But the science is gone. National Geographic has become a huckster for bad science and the environmentalist movement.

When I was in junior high and high school, I thoroughly enjoyed the science classes which had a lab. We were taught to employ the art of hypothesis testing. We would dutifully read about the upcoming experiment and we were often asked to choose our hypothesis – what would happen as a result of the experiment? To get a good grade, it was not necessary to be right about this guess. But it was absolutely necessary that we used facts to prove or disprove our hypothesis. Is there more vitamin C in the skin of a potato than in the flesh? Does a wooden sphere have more rolling friction than a steel ball bearing? Take a guess – but draw no conclusions until you have performed the experiment.

It must be pointed out that global warming is still just a theory. A mere twenty years ago, most scientists believed that we were heading into another Ice Age. Many scientists today are suddenly being forced to conclude that parts of the earth are getting colder, much to the consternation of those who preach global warming as a fact. But open up the latest National Geographic and then count the number of times that global warming is mentioned not as theory, but as a foregone conclusion. Here are some examples from the April 2009 issue:

- “Australia’s Dry Run” – the continent is currently undergoing a seven-year drought. The reason given? “To many, the erratic precipitation patterns bear the ominous imprint of a human-induced climate shift. Global warming is widely believed to have increased the frequency and severity of natural disasters like this drought.” My high school science teacher would have circled this in red and asked me how I could tell the difference between a human-imprinted climate shift and a natural one.

- “Changing Rains – Outlook:Extreme” – The article opens by telling of an ancient culture called Akkad, which went through a sudden decline – “Akkad’s collapse was caused by a devastating drought”. So, how does this touch our situation today? “By contrast, climate change brought about by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations is our own doing. It, too, will influence precipitation patterns, in ways that, though not always easy to predict, could prove equally damaging.” That’s quite a dramatic step, with no intervening logic given to jump from one conclusion to the other. It should not come as a surprise that this article was written by Elizabeth Kolbert, who also authored a book titled Field Notes From A Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change.

- “Polar Bear Paradise” – “The days of outright slaughter are gone, but humans continue to pressure wildlife here in indirect ways. Toxins like PCBs and perfluorinated compounds…polar bears carry much higher levels of the pollutants…climate change, meanwhile, forces a retreat of the summer ice pack, imperiling the region’s polar bears…the wildlife that thrives up here has adapted to one of the toughest habitats on Earth. As temperatures rise, those birds, fish and mammals will be forced to adapt even further.” The author spends half the article talking about how polar bears live life on the edge because of the cold and lack of food, then jumps into the assumption that man is causing global warming. But I say, might global warming actually might make the region more habitable due to an increase in plant growth for food? The polar bears might actually be appreciative of the relief from the harsh cold, if it’s really happening. If they didn’t like it, why don’t they move fifty miles north? I’m not trying to be cheeky here – I’m just pointing out that there is a lot of science that needs to be explored before drawing the conclusions that the author makes.

- “The Vanishing – Race To Save The Frogs” – “We are witnessing a mass extinction. An exotic fungus is delivering the fatal blow to many amphibians already hit by habitat loss, pollution, and climate change.” The impact of these events is implied to be an environmental and ecosystem change brought on by man. The article concludes: “The story is much bigger than frogs. It’s about emerging disease and about predicting, coping with, and fighting things we don’t fully understand. It’s about all of us. Everyone should care.” Had I written a conclusion in my science lab book that says “we don’t know what causes the phenomenon but I’m going to draw a conclusion anyway”, I would have received a less-than-stellar grade. How does this same poor technique find its way into a national science magazine?

Let’s face it – there is big money in preaching a gospel of global warming. It provides a launching point for those who are anti-industry and anti-human-achievement. A reverse-course that sends us back to the Dark Ages would be welcome to many who value the earth above human life. Unfortunately, National Geographic magazine has fallen into this trap. My high-school science teacher would be forced to make them take the course over again. For creative use of photos, they get an “A” – but for scientific method, they get an “F”.

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Radical Environmentalism – Paganism, Earth Worship, and Al Gore (Part 2)

The idea that “the earth is our mother” is not new. In Greek mythology, the goddess Gaia was the deity which personified the earth itself. “Gaia” literally means “grandmother earth”. The idea of the fertile female representation of earth is not unique to ancient Greek culture – many other cultures adopted just such a goddess to worship.

Gaia worship has been revived recently, notably through James Lovelock’s 1979 book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Through this book, Lovelock promoted the idea that all things on the earth, both living and non-living, are part of a cooperative dynamic system which forms the ecology of the planet. He put forth the idea that the whole system could be thought of as a single self-regulating organism. Later, he supported the theory by postulating a fantasy system called Daisyworld, in which white daisies and black daisies cooperate to regulate the temperature of their fictional planet.

Since publication of Lovelock’s book, there has been a substantial rise in the belief that the earth is sacred, often to the point of the earth possessing god-like qualities. This has become more evident each year as the rise of environmentalism attacks the purposes and rightful place of man as the steward of the earth. It has reached such proportions that man is frequently relegated to second-place status, even by those who deny God’s existence. The earth is often assumed to have anthropomorphic qualities, able to regulate and maintain itself as long as cruel man is finally stopped from pursuing his own selfish and evil purposes.

A new pagan promoter has come on the scene in recent years. While his grandmother was raised in the strict Campbellite Church of Christ tradition, and though he has maintained that he is a Baptist Christian, Al Gore may have done more to raise the awareness of Gaia worship than any other individual in our world today. He has certainly become well-known as an avid promoter of global warming theory and anti-industry efforts in his movie An Inconvenient Truth. I have watched the movie and read the book. It is full of fascinating pictures and stories designed to convince the public that 1) global warming is real, 2) man is the primary reason for global warming, and 3) we have very little time left to change our ways before we cause irreversible damage. For the uninformed, it is at the same time an interesting and terrifying presentation. That probably explains its popularity.

So if we are to follow Al Gore’s philosophy, putting aside for the moment any question into the veracity of his scientific presentation, we should know a little about his thinking. For the Christian, it is imperative to compare any teaching with the ultimate Source and Creator. The Bible warns that men will be led astray by false arguments which have the look of wisdom, but which are foolishness at their core. If foolishness were obvious, very few would fall for it. Radical environmentalism, while foolish in its premises, is not an obvious fallacy to the many who have come under its spell.

In his book Earth In The Balance, Gore maintains that man has abandoned his responsibility for the earth precisely because he is devoted to God. On pages 258-259, Gore says, “The richness and diversity of our religious tradition throughout history is a spiritual resource long ignored by people of faith, who are often afraid to open their minds to teachings first offered outside their own systems of belief. But the emergence of a civilization in which knowledge moves freely and almost instantaneously through the world has spurred a renewed investigation of the wisdom distilled by all faiths. This panreligious perspective may prove especially important where our global civilization's responsibility for the earth is concerned." In this statement, Gore essentially pins environmental blame on Christians for sticking to their faith, and not being open to other teachings which might open their minds to diversity.

In Romans 1:21-23, the Bible says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” This warning is precisely fulfilled in the modern environmental movement. Adherents like Gore would have us add man’s wisdom to God’s teaching, but this is the very temptation that we are warned about in the closing words of the New Testament - the last words left to us in God’s book (see Revelation 22:18-19).

Christians need to be aware that there is an insidious temptation to compromise God’s word, even to seemingly “good” causes such as taking care of the earth. While there is a need for godly stewardship of the things we have been given, the elevation of these efforts as being superior to God or man is wrong. Should we listen to new age prophets such as Al Gore? When asked about his feelings on the Christian faith of George W. Bush, Gore commented in an interview with The New Yorker magazine that, “It's a particular kind of religiosity. It's the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it's not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back.”

We must decide where our source of salvation comes from. “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). I’m willing to stick to that – and only that.

Next: Part 3 - How National Geographic has adopted an unscientific and pagan approach

Radical Environmentalism – “Earth Hour” and Bad Science (Part 1)

Last Saturday marked the third annual observance of “Earth Hour” – an environmental event where people around the world switched off their lights for one hour in order to call attention to the dubious problem of global warming.

The Internet is full of pictures, observations, praise, and comments about the significance of the Earth Hour event. One website posted pictures of several famous places around the world, showing them brightly lit up before the hour came, followed by a “fade-to” photo of these places as dark monuments during the observance hour. These photos included darkened images of Hong Kong's financial district, London's Parliament, the Acropolis in Athens, the Water Cube in Beijing, the Colosseum in Rome (maybe it became the “Colo-not-sseum”?), the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower and The Strip in Las Vegas. I cannot help but draw attention to the fact that darkening these places is nothing less than a step back in time, and represents a denial of human achievement. No doubt, there are many who long for that very thing.

Comments posted about the event included “wonderful to see the world participating....we need to be united in these efforts as we all are part (sic) responsible and guilty for this climatic change, let’s do our small bit for the EARTH” and “I am so glad that people are getting on the move and expressing their love for the earth. It is a grand place to be and so appreciated. As a person, I do all the green that I can and encourage my family to do so.”

Curiously, Al Gore came under fire when someone took photographs of the trees on his lawn being lit up at night during the event. It seems that the chief promulgator of global-warming hype either forgot about the event, or just assumed that no one would notice his non-participation. The irony almost makes the whole thing worthwhile.

I enjoyed one individual’s comment, who pointed out the senselessness of Earth Hour when he said it was "a great attempt at futility. Maybe if everyone held their breath for one hour, we could reduce the CO2 a lot more effectively."

The danger inherent in radical environmentalism is that it is based largely on myth and propaganda. Until someone can definitively prove that global warming is really occurring (and the seeds of doubt about this theory multiply every day), or until someone can demonstrably show that global warming is attributable in large part to human activity (instead of solar cycles, ocean currents, and cyclical weather patterns like El Niño), this is all still very much a theory. But the news media and millions of people are content to settle for bad science, even in an age where we pride ourselves in our advanced scientific process. Global warming and increased carbon emissions from human intervention are accepted as fact, and anyone who questions these scientific assumptions risks ridicule. Scientists who are promoting this dubious theory would fail basic high-school science class methods of hypothesis testing.

To many, Earth Hour was akin to a religious experience. They worship Planet Earth as if it is the goddess mother of all. Indeed, that is what many believe. But the earth is not our mother. What has been forgotten by many is that God is our Father. The Bible points out this very phenomenon in Romans 1:25, when Paul observes that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” When man forgets God the Creator, and turns instead to the things which God made for man, then God turns him over to “foolish thinking”, as verse 28 promises. Aren’t we witnessing this very thing all around us right now?

Next: Paganism and anti-Christianity are promoted in Al Gore’s book Earth In The Balance.