I. Anyone But Huck John McCain had a base problem. He needed a running mate to help him bring the Christian Conservatives back to the Republican fold. There was an obvious candidate. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate was very popular with the base, and he had been very complimentary of McCain during the campaign. Selecting Huckabee to be his running mate would have pleased the enormous numbers of Republicans who voted for him during the primary.
There was just one problem. Mike Huckabee is a “green” conservative Christian. He believes that God wants us to fight global warming and care for the planet and its creatures. He thinks we ought to diversify the energy we use and cut our dependence upon oil and fossil fuels.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/19/huckabee/index1.htmlThat made Huckabee unacceptable to the Big Oil Companies and their political allies, the NeoCons who now run John McCain’s campaign. They could not risk having a man like that become president. He might stop the wars for oil. He might curb our country’s use of oil. He might do something about the environment. They needed a different kind of evangelical.
Where do you find Christian Conservatives who believe that God wants us to destroy the planet by overusing fossil fuels? In Texas…and Alaska. States whose economic livelihood depends upon oil and petrochemical refining.
II. Jesus is a Commando and God’s Plan Includes Global Warming Gov. Palin goes to a very peculiar church in Wasilla. Her preacher is a lot more disturbing than the liberation theologist, Rev. Wright. Since she was a girl, Palin has been listening to this guy tell his congregation that Jesus loves war, the end of days is near (that means God is going to wipe us all out), and he (the preacher) has psychic powers. Oh, and while he does not tell his flock which way to vote, he gives them hints, which they better follow, or they are going to hell.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.htmlIt gets worse. He thinks that oil wars---the NeoCon agenda of attacking countries that have nationalized their oil so that we can claim it---are all part of God’s plan.
http://peakoil.com/article42545.html Pastor Ed Kalnins cites conflict in the Middle East, America’s dependence on foreign oil and the depletion of energy reserves as evidence that “storm clouds are gathering”. He told The Times: “Scripture specifically mentions oil instability as a sign of the Rapture. We’re seeing more and more oil wars. The contractions of the fulfilment of prophecies are getting tighter and tighter.”
See? The Iraq War was not a mistake. God told W. to invade. Wolfowitz is some kind of holy messenger. And I’m St. Augustine.
The scariest quote from Kalnins?
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17785/index.php Jesus "operated from that position
of war mode."
Kalnins is not alone. The oil industry has done a number on the christian conservatives, which has lead to a schism within the evangelical movement. Here is a good resource on the debate.
http://sbcoutpost.com/2007/09/28/wsj-covers-sbc/ Splits among Baptists in the South are particularly pronounced. Former Vice President Al Gore, a churchgoing Baptist from Tennessee, has become the nation’s best-known campaigner against global warming. But the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims more than 16 million members, stands with skeptics. “We don’t believe in global warming,” said a veteran preacher at the convention’s annual meeting this June in San Antonio, Texas. The meeting passed a resolution that dismissed as “very dangerous” proposals to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions and asserted that scientists disagree on the cause of rising temperatures.
David Gushee, a Southern Baptist professor of Christian ethics, denounced the San Antonio resolution as akin to the organization’s previous refusal to combat racism. Mr. Gushee, who helped draft a Southern Baptist Convention apology for past racism in 1995, says, “I don’t want to be writing another resolution of regret in 50 years time” about the environment.
The wording of the Baptist resolution is odd. How are such regulations “dangerous”----except to the pocketbooks of those whose economic livelihoods are tied to the oil, gas and coal industries? What prompted Falwell to call these laws “tools of Satan”?
Or, how about this from Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/gop_rep_to_environmentalists_j.php "Pelosi is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet," Bachmann told the right-wing news site OneNewsNow. "We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."
Nancy Pelosi as False God? Or is this just plain old fashioned Norse fatalism?
Actually, it is neither. There is a type of evangelical in this country that should remind us of the episode in which Jesus cleared the moneylenders from the Temple. These are the members of the religious right who believe that success in business is the highest virtue of all.
III. When Jesus Cleared the Moneylenders From the Temple, He Must Have Missed Phil Gramm and UBS If you still have not read the book
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber, please do so. You will see that the American Christians who would rather make a quick buck raping the environment than protect the earth which God labored to create and then pronounced “good” are not kidding. They have an actual kind of Protestantism (Calvinism) which tells them that they were put on this earth to prove that they were either blessed or damned before their birth (predetermination), and the only way we will know the state of their soul is by their material success in this life. If all that they touch turns to gold, then they were born saved (forget Midas, that is a pagan story). If their investments fail /ratings decline/books languish on the shelves unbought then God is not taking them to heaven. The rich love this kind of Christianity. Business loves this kind of Christianity. This is the kind of ethic which allowed a Congressman to excuse Halliburton’s criminal activity (in the wake of Enron) by exclaiming “But Halliburton is
solvent !”
This is why it was so damned important to W. that he make a million at something, even if he had to have his friends in the City of Arlington government condemn private citizens’ land, so that he could build a ballpark on it that he would then turn around and sell to the city of Arlington for a profit, because his dead was president.
Since Palin is a Calvinist, being successful at worldly endeavors---beauty contests, elections, stuff like that---is the most important thing that she can do to show that she is saved. She hands out cash checks to voters to keep her approval ratings high. And she makes sure that Alaska's business community is successful, too. Therefore, the polar bear must not be allowed to stand in the way of the acquisition of wealth (and that is why she has sued to keep the polar bear off the endangered species list). Salmon fishing at Pebble Bay can not be allowed to stand in the way of a mine which may make more money (at least in the short run). All oil and gas must be drilled, no matter what this will do to the environment. Pipelines must be built---and half billion dollar taxpayer handouts must be given to TransCanada which is having financial difficulties with its oilsands pipeline project in the lower 48, so that TransCanada does not appear to have fallen from grace. Global warming must be denied, since it would cut into oil company profits, which would cut into Alaska's profits, which would reflect upon the everlasting souls of the people in Wasilla in a way that their actions never would---at least, not in the weird, warped view of an evangelical Calvinist. For, in Palin's eyes---and in W's eyes and in Dick Cheney's eyes---God can tolerate any sin, except for the sin of bankruptcy or poverty.
Palin has said that she wants schools to teach creationism and abstinence only sex ed. She also wants them to teach that global warming theory is not based upon science. Maybe she agrees with this guy.
IV. Global Warming is Like a McCain Rape Joke. If You Can Not Avoid It, Just Relax and Enjoy It. I did not make this up. I am not this twisted.
http://www.godsplanforall.org/_news.cfm?newsID=11 GLOBAL WARMING
“Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee:
The remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.”
(Psalm 76:10)
These words of the Psalmist are so very valuable and so very comforting in so many applications. Global warming is no exception. By this prophetic promise we can be assured that whatever we do right, or whatever we do wrong, our great God, Creator and Maintainer of the Universe, has promised to overrule it ultimately so that it will not harm us.
With that much said, a dispassionate and Scriptural look at the issue of global warming is in order.
There probably is no reason to doubt the vast number of climatologists who conclude that things are warming and that our industrial way of life is a significant contributor to the situation. These climatologists, however, see no silver lining to these clouds. They see only disaster. Seeing such catastrophic prospects should naturally bring a desire to take corrective measures. We must admire the zeal of those who wish to take immediate corrective actions. Even if the conclusions of these scientists be erroneous, it is imperative that we all and each be true to our consciences.
Consider, however, that God may be using our mis-use of our resources as a tool to accomplish His ends. The Scripture at the head of this article certainly suggests such a possibility. Perhaps the incoming Kingdom for which we have prayed for two thousand years needs a re-adjustment of earth’s climate patterns. Please consider some interesting information as well as some pleasing prophecies.
During a recent radio interview, one scientist pointed to the incontrobertable evidence that there was a time when our earth was considerably warmer than it now is. This was before what we call the Ice Age (when the earth was considerably colder!. Aren’t we glad that it warmed up again?) During the ancient warm period, fruit trees and large warm-weather animals inhabited the arctic regions. Their frozen remains are to this day occasionally dug out of the ice. This must lead us to wonder, What is so wrong with warming if, indeed, we were so much warmer in the past?
One 19th century cosmologist, Isaac Newton Vail, convincingly theorized that at that remote period in the past, the earth was enveloped in a shroud—a covering by a super-saturated atmosphere which made the entire planet a virtual greenhouse with only the slightest temperature variations from the equator to the poles. Thus storms were unknown, and desert regions did not exist. Dr. Vail called this the “Canopy Theory.” And it carries a remarkable similarity to the description of the earth in the days from Adam to Noah.
In Genesis 2:5 and 6, we find this description:
“…the LORD GOD had not caused it to rain upon the earth,…but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.”
This also accounts for the post-flood appearance of a rainbow for the first time. (Genesis 9:11-16) There had never in man’s history been an atmosphere clear enough to allow a rainbow. All of the incredibly-saturated canopy over the earth had finally released its burden of moisture in the great flood, and clear skies with clouds appeared. It was now possible for a rainbow to form. God used this adjustment of things to promise that the earth would never again be flooded.
These Biblical hints show clearly that Dr. Vail’s Canopy Theory may well be correct. It might also suggest to us that God just might (we are speculating!)—He just might want to build a gaseous canopy to replicate in part the greenhouse effect which once allowed the whole face of the earth to be fruitful, without deserts, and without severe storms caused by the collision of hot, moist air with a wall of cold. We can see, even in theory, that global warming could be a good thing! Tornados, hurricanes, super-floods and droughts—these all would disappear.
One of the concerns forwarded by scientists is that melting ice would greatly raise the ocean levels. Statistics, of course, often are subject to questioning. Consider the following.
Most arctic ice is not on land; it is in the sea. When this ice melts, it doesn’t raise anything. Try it for yourself. Fill a glass with ice and with water. When the ice has melted, is the glass any fuller? It is not. Similarly, most melted arctic ice will have no effect on sea level.
Nevertheless, there is much ice on land. The whole Antarctic continent is covered with varying depths of ice. What happens when it melts? Part of it—perhaps a much greater part than we think—will evaporate. After all, an increased temperature of the whole earth’s atmosphere will be able to absorb much more water than currently is possible. A large part of meling Antarctic ice will form large lakes on the continent of Antarctica. After all, the continent is not cone-shaped; all the water will not run off. Antarctica will gain great lakes just as we find in North America. The remainder of melted ice will enter the oceans.
Please do yourself a favor. Go to a globe. Turn it so that the mass of the Pacific Ocean is central in front of you. You are now looking at a water surface of roughly twelve thousand miles from north to south, and roughly twelve thousand miles from east to west. (Keep in mind that there are other great oceans you cannot see while looking at this part of the globe. Ask yourself now the simplest of questions: How much melted ice will it take to raise this vast water surface even one inch? Where will all of this melted ice come from?
Some scientific projections seem to defy logic. But, reasoning on scientific data aside, there is a need for the faith-based Christian and Jew to reason on the Divine promises. While we have seen and heard the climatologists, while we have seen some positive suggestions to offset the enormity of their concerns, the testimony of Scripture assures that all will work out for the blessing of all of the families of the earth—not only those now alive, but those who have lived and died in the past. The resurrection of the dead will require a fruitful earth. Their welfare will require the absence of the violent acts of nature. The Bible promises these things:
ISAIAH 35 promises that the desert will blossom as the rose, abundantly. It promises waters breaking out in the wilderness and streams in the desert. It says that parched ground will become a pool and thirsty land will have springs of water.
PSALMS 67 and 85 show the earth yielding her increase.
ISAIAH 30:23 tells of rain blessing the sowing of seed, of the earth increasing in bread, with the supplies being fat and plenteous. It speaks of vast pastures of contented cattle.
ZECHARIAH 8:12 shows the current desert-covered Middle East becoming prosperous in seed-sowing, in grape cultivation, in fertile soils, in moisture-laden air.
ISAIAH (11:9; 65:25; 43:19, 20; 51:3) waxes poetic and exuberant in detailing that nothing will hurt nor destroy in the Holy Kingdom; the wilderness will open to new paths of usefulness; the deserts will flow with rivers— water, water, water: to drink, to grow, to revel in as mankind becomes His people.
The slight beginnings are evident today in Israel’s transformation of wasteland into one of the world’s agricultural success stories. But this is merely a hint of what is to come. When all deserts need no longer battle the problems of today’s climate, what an incredible joy awaits us.
Our point is: Scripture points to a dramatic climate change. Perhaps we are (even in our foolish mis-use of earth’s resources) helping to start things in the right direction. As Psalm 76:10 shows, God will allow us only what will not hurt His ultimate purpose. Global warming may or may not be one of His tools. We will know before long. Meanwhile we must do what our best judgments and consciences dictate. He will do the rest.
Shortly, the words of Isaiah 14:7 will be understood by us all:
“The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;
They BREAK FORTH into SINGING!”
V. NOW You See Why the Republican Party and the Oil Industry Loves the Evangelical Movement and Its New Darling Gov. Palin And with Gov. Palin ready to trash any corner of the planet to prove how holy she is (i.e. how much money she can acquire for her town, her state, her corporate sponsor) there is not a chance that she will stand in the way of more wars for oil. Remember, her pastor has spent years telling her that Jesus is a commando who personally authorized the invasion of Iraq. And she will personally see to it that America’s energy policy continues exactly as it is---because who needs stinky wind, solar or even nuclear when they can get dirty oilsands oil from Alberta, Canada via the oil pipeline that is being build by her own buddies at TransCanada.
And, since the refining of oilsands oil is guaranteed to cause global warming at three times the rate of regular oil, it will bring about the End of Days three times as quickly.
Hallelujah! Because we are not going to get any health care from this woman.
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/09/04/palin-editorial/ Indeed, a review of Palin’s health care record suggests that Palin has done little to increase access to affordable coverage. During the national debate about expanding the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), for instance, Palin offered little leadership in comparison to her colleagues and failed to advocate for expanded child’s coverage. Her participation was limited to signing a National Governors Association letter calling for the Federal government to make up an expected one-year funding shortfall in SCHIP.
Palin also signed legislation updating Alaska’s SCHIP program, Denali KidCare. SB-27 maintained the eligibility level–which had dropped to an effective rate of almost 150 percent of the poverty line due to inflation. However, by limiting eligibility to families living below 175 percent of the poverty line, Alaska’s eligibility criteria are still among the lowest in the nation. Unfortunately, Palin did not support legislation to expand eligibility to higher levels.
As many reservations as I have against nuclear energy, I would rather see GE build a dozen nuclear plants than watch our country be swamped by a bunch of Canadian oilsands oil. Because the dirty oil will mean 1) continued high oil prices (it is only economically feasible to pump if the price stays above $4/gallon which is where McCain will have to keep it) 2) no use of alternative fuels (because it will only be economically feasible if we use a whole lot of it) and 3) it is so filthy that it will accelerate the rate of global warming.
At least with a nuclear power plant you can choose not to live next to one.
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