Global Warming Wednesday: Polar Opposites

Last week, before his Sunday sermon, Jerry Falwell sent an email, publishing it simultaneously at World Net Daily. I reproduce its contents below (I encourage you to read it here instead of going to the site, since it appears to be a radical right site—and why would we give them more hits?):

This Sunday, Feb. 25, I will preach a very unusual sermon. My topic: global warming.

This may seem a strange, possibly even unnecessary, subject to some. But I believe the church must quickly get serious about denouncing the accelerating effort to promote the alleged catastrophic human-caused global warming.

This is especially true since some members of the evangelical community have recently aligned themselves with radical voices within the global warming movement. I see this as unnecessary and, worse, dangerous.

Now, I'm certainly not a scientist. But if one looks past the superficial reporting of the mainstream media and examines the many alternative scientific views on global warming, it is apparent that the earth frequently experiences warming and cooling trends. It appears to me – and I have been intently studying this subject – that we are now in a warming trend.

But many world scientists are preaching sermons that adamantly insist man is the cause of recent warming trends. They urge that America sign on to the Kyoto Treaty, which would compel America to self-impose exorbitant policies for cutting back on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The treaty, which many are urging America to sign, would immediately cost America an estimated $325 billion, according to Yale University's William Nordhaus and Joseph Boyer. That's a lot of money to spend on halting an unproven theory.

Meanwhile, Russia, India, China and Third World nations will not be required to sign on the dotted line.

Jack Langer, journalist and book editor for Regnery Publishing, recently wrote, "The real motives behind the entire global warming hysteria are equally opaque. It surely isn't science – Timothy Ball, the first Canadian Ph.D. in climatology, recently called global warming 'the greatest deception in the history of science.' Plenty of scientific research bears this out, from Bjorn Lomborg's 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' to the newly released 'Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years' by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery."

The problem is global warming has become a trendy issue of limousine liberals and Hollywood elitists, and the media are promoting it as virtual, if not substantive, fact.

Never mind that in November, for the second consecutive month, temperatures across the continental U.S. were cooler than average, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. We wouldn't want facts like that to get in the way of a global warming political movement, would we!

The media frequently note that the Union of Concerned Scientists is leading the charge to confront the out-of-control global warming advance. These scientists were recently described by writer Dennis Byrne as the "inexhaustibly liberal and self-appointed guardians of scientific purity [who] try to corrupt science for its own ends."

But in today's media, the Union is depicted as heroes of a just cause, tellers of truth in a war against evil American companies who want to destroy the world.

National Review Editor Rich Lowry recently reported: "Shock tactics inevitably mean simplifying in an area of unimaginable complexity. No one knows how to create a reliable model of the planet's climate, and inconvenient anomalies muddy the story line of the warming zealots. From 1940 to 1975, the global temperature fell even as CO2 emissions rose. Since 2001, global temperatures have only gone up a statistically insignificant 0.03 degrees Celsius. And in recent years, the oceans have actually gotten cooler."

In other words, there's no need to panic.

Further, there's no need for the church of Jesus Christ to be wasting its time gullibly falling for all of this global warming hocus-pocus. We need to give our total focus to the business of reaching this world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and stop running down meaningless rabbit trails that get our focus off of our heavenly purpose.

If you can stomach reading through all of it, you’ll notice that one of his main reasons for urging his followers not to succumb to the “hysteria” is that most of the proponents of environmental action are liberals, particularly “limousine liberals and Hollywood elitists.” And he tries to pass off the current warming as just part of the usual “warming and cooling trends”—never mind that the most recent studies show that recent increases have been much larger than can be accounted for by natural variations.

I would like to think that most people know better than to listen to this man. He is, after all, the one who blamed 9/11 on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America.” He also suggested that Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies was a tool of the homosexual agenda—though he left accusations of an affair between SpongeBob and Patrick to James Dobson. I really want to believe that, but I know that he must have a fairly strong following since he’s obviously getting his money from somewhere.

Sigh.

On the other hand, there’s Al Gore.

I really wish I had a permanent record of my political opinions from 1992. Yes, I ended up as a Clinton supporter, but my greatest enthusiasm for that ticket was for Al Gore. Already a proponent of environmental conservation, a wonderful ally to the gay community (he and Tipper both), he was the strength in the ticket for me.

I missed the former Vice President’s visit to campus last week since it was scheduled for when I was out of town. Not that I could have gotten tickets anyway since they sold out rock-concert fast. But I did catch one of his appearances at the Oscars: when he and Leo explained the organizers’ efforts towards greening the ceremony. They also mentioned that on the site was a list of actions anyone can try in an effort to reduce one’s ecological footprint.

(Of course, a “think tank” from Tennessee then reported that Gore’s Nashville home is an energy hog. It does appear likely that his house uses much more energy than the average Nashville home, but the group’s assertions that they got this information from the utility company are highly suspect, so the exact numbers can’t be trusted. Gore’s response does not deny his energy usage, but he points out that he invests in alternative energy to offset his carbon emissions. But the two sides of that will have to wait for another post.)

There is, of course, lots of talk about and encouragement for Gore to run for president again. And should he run, I would vote for him in a heartbeat, no hesitation. But there’s another part of me that wonders if he might not find what he’s doing now more fulfilling and if he might not be able to make a bigger difference on the environmental front without the restraints of political office.

Here’s hoping that an Al Gore beats a Jerry Falwell—and that we can get a few more of the former.