THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 29, February 8, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
RELIGION, SCIENCE, & BLARNEY
By Paul K. Driessen
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS, GLOBAL WARMING IDEOLOGY, & THE "EVANGELICAL CLIMATE INITIATIVE" -- ECI NOT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE THINKING OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS -- THE NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS & THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN LEADERS WHO DO NOT ENDORSE THE ECI POSITION
FULL STORY:
Environmental activists recently had breakfast in hoary Senate chambers and a briefing at the National Press Club, in an attempt
to convince America and the world that the evangelical Christian community is united in concern about global warming and the
need for immediate action by the U.S. national government. Don’t be deceived.
Just last month, the Executive Council of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) passed a motion
saying there is “ongoing debate about the causes and origins of global warming,” and a “lack of consensus among the
evangelical community on this issue.” Reverend Ted Haggard, President of the NAE, subsequently sent a letter to leading
evangelicals, assuring them that his group was not taking a position on climate change policy.
Haggard urged evangelicals to become involved in the debate, however. “For too long we’ve allowed a Liberal faction with a
humanism mindset to determine the national tenor of the discussion,” he said. “It is time for Bible-believing evangelicals, who
believe that God created the Earth and we are to be its steward, to be a voice at the table.”
The February 8, 2006, breakfast meeting, hosted by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, was intended to counter this,
by introducing a new organization that calls itself the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI). This small, but vocal, group is lending
its support to environmental activists who want to point to the involvement of religious Conservatives as further evidence that
momentum is growing across the political spectrum for immediate federal governmental action to reduce what they say is
potentially catastrophic climate change.
The federal actions they have in mind would likely include mandatory emission controls, restrictions on energy use, and/or
higher energy taxes to “encourage” conservation by driving up the costs of nearly everything.
Their assertions are contested by the vast majority of evangelicals. Even as the ECI released its policy statement, top evangelical
leaders took issue with the new group and declared that “there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about
the cause and severity of global warming, and solutions to this issue.” Those leaders include Charles Colson (Prison Fellowship
Ministries), Dr. James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Dr. D. James Kennedy (Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church), Dr. Richard Land
(Southern Baptist Convention), Dr. Richard Roberts (Oral Roberts University), Rev. Louis P. Sheldon (Traditional Values
Coalition), and Donald Wildmon (American Family Association).
They and the NAE have made it clear that mankind has “a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth and not a license to abuse
the creation of which we are a part.” But they also underscore the need to recognize the adverse impacts that energy and
environmental policies can have on the poor.
The desire to make religious and ethical concerns, sound science, and economic progress cornerstones of public policy
prompted the recent formation of the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA). This new organization also reinforces the fact that
the majority of evangelicals in the United States do not share the ECI's viewpoint and do not embrace its policy.
“While there is a lot of debate about the causes and hazards of climate change and how best to respond to it, there is no debate
about the Bible’s priority on helping the world’s poor to improve their lot,” ISA national spokesperson Dr. E. Calvin Beisner
noted. “By declining to embrace anti-warming policies that would delay economic development and access to clean air, clean
water, and reliable food and energy supplies in poor countries, we and the NAE are putting the needs of the poor at the
forefront.”
The science is not settled on global warming, he and the ISA emphasize. More than 17,000 scientists have signed the Oregon
Petition, which states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other
greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and
disruption of the Earth’s climate.” And the ISA has issued a report, An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical and
Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy, addressing the moral, theological and scientific aspects of climate policy.
(See: www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/ISA_Climate_Change.pdf)
In that report, Dr. Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and former senior climate
scientist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, observed: “We cannot say for certain how much the planet may be
warming, how much is due to human activities versus natural cycles, or whether these changes in global temperature would be
mostly good or mostly bad for the majority of people.” (Beisner and this author also wrote sections of the ISA report.)
Our atmosphere and climate are so complex that meteorologists have only a rudimentary grasp of what actually causes storms,
droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and climate conditions that have changed many times over the centuries, often dramatically.
In addition, as pointed out in the ISA paper, feedback mechanisms are poorly understood and “only a couple percent increase
in low clouds would offset the warming effects of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use.” All this makes
climate models inherently suspect.
“We believe the embrace of mandatory greenhouse-gas emission reductions would pose very high risks to the world’s poor
and low-income people, without offsetting those risks with sufficient benefits from such a policy,” Beisner said. “We don't
think that’s a ‘Rightwing’ concern, but a basic human and indeed Christian concern.”
By making energy less affordable and accessible, mandatory controls would drive up the costs of consumer products, stifle
economic growth, cost jobs, and impose especially harmful effects on the Earth’s poorest people. The Kyoto climate treaty, for
example, could cost the world community $1 trillion a year – five times the estimated price of providing sanitation and clean
drinking water to poor developing countries, the ISA report observes, citing various studies.
According to the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, even “full and perfect compliance” with the Kyoto Protocol
would mean the average global temperature in 2050 would be only 0.2œ F lower than it would be in the absence of emissions
controls. Its impact on minority communities in the U.S.A., on the other hand, could cost Black and Hispanic families 1.3 million
jobs in 2012.
A panel composed of eight of the world’s most distinguished economists examined various proposals for dealing with climate
change by reducing carbon emissions. The panel’s “Copenhagen Consensus” concludes that these proposals are “bad
projects” whose “costs were likely to exceed the benefits.”
Neither constant drumbeats about climate catastrophe nor the blarney of venerable statesmen like Senator McCain can change
these facts or the need to address these concerns. Moreover, it would be morally wrong to focus on distant theoretical
concerns about global warming, while ignoring the real, immediate, and often life-or-death dangers faced by our poorest citizens.
© 2006 Paul K. Driessen
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Science, Ethics, & Human Health
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VIII, 2006
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues