Global Warming for Evangelicals

On one of my final posts on my blog, TH in SoC, I promised to write a post on global warming. This subject is one which I am somewhat reluctant and ashamed to tackle. You see, when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior many years ago, He never forced me to have a prefrontal lobotomy or give up the use of my critical thinking skills as part of the bargain. This meant that I was free as a Christian to notice the events, trends and phenomena in the world around me, and to draw reasonable conclusions from them.

However, I noticed many years later the hijacking of the Faith to serve the ends of earthly economic and political power elites. One major way they accomplished this hijacking was by distorting Biblical Christianity so that it was turned into a justification for the actions of the elites. Thus there were such things as “Christian patriotism” as manifested in both England and the United States; the idea that certain nations were “Christian nations” because of their laws or constitutions; the notion that it was the right or duty of these so-called “Christian nations” to conquer and exploit all other nations and peoples on earth; the idea that God's only chosen economic system is laissez-faire capitalism and that all other economic arrangements are from the Devil; and the idea that it was the duty of Christians everywhere to support the elites (governments and corporations) in their actions and their wars, since it was by this that the world was becoming “safe for democracy and prosperity,” and the elites were ridding the world of people who “hate our freedoms and our faith!”

Those who teach such things say that it is the duty of Christians to unquestioningly believe all of these things, and to unquestioningly reject all other points of view, regardless of the evidence. Any notion or idea or teaching or observation which indicts the practices of Western elites is also to be dutifully rejected as well. Thus there are many parts of the Bible which are de-emphasized or glossed over or explained away by teachers of this point of view, people who are well-known as leaders in the American Religious Right. But the Bible has many things to say about the actions of the members of the Western elite class, and much of what it says is not good news for them. (In fact, they may want to take out fire insurance against the day of judgment.)

There is also strong evidence of the harm caused by the practices of these elites – evidence which proves the rightness of the Biblical condemnation of these elites. And just as the spokesmen for these elites have sought to gloss over the Biblical condemnation of their practices, they have sought to gloss over the evidence of the harm caused by their practices. Some of them, such as James Dobson and Tony Perkins, have gone to the extreme of saying that it is our Christian duty not to believe that harm is being done by these elites. The events of my personal life over the last several years have caused my eyes to be opened to the games being played in our society by economic, political and religious elites, and therefore I can see quite clearly the fallacies of those who have hijacked my faith. But I have noticed over the last several months that there are people who call themselves evangelicals and Christians who are still unquestioningly accepting the teaching which I have described above.

One example is a high school kid on my street who asked me if I believe in global warming (it was during an unusually hot day in the Pacific Northwest). When I asked him what he thought about it, he said, “Well, I'm religious – and that's why I don't believe in global warming. My pastor told us that man can't destroy the earth – only God can...” While I was outwardly polite and patient in listening to this kid, inwardly I was very angry. Why? Because it is the unquestioning promotion and acceptance of teachings such as this in the face of overwhelmingly contradictory evidence that makes Christianity look like the faith of village idiots. This is not the Christianity of the Bible, nor is it the Faith of such intelligent men as Dr. Paul Brand, C.S. Lewis, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Therefore I write now to set the record straight on at least one subject – global warming, also known as climate change – even though it is a shame to have to do so. (By the way, I like the kid I was talking to. I think he's a good kid, and bright. He's just a bit misinformed.)

Theological Arguments against Global Warming (and a Biblical rebuttal)

First, let's tackle the theological arguments against global warming. This section will be relatively short, because the job will be easy. (For those of you readers who are not Christians, I say welcome to my blog. I appreciate your readership. You may find this part to be informative, but if not, feel free to skip ahead to the scientific case for global warming.)

Spokespersons for the Religious Right use theological arguments to try to debunk global warming. Their arguments usually run thus: “People who believe in global warming say that it will cause polar ice caps to melt and flood the earth. But that can't happen, because God promised in Genesis 8:22 that He will never destroy the world by a flood again.” Or, as my teen-aged acquaintance said and as agencies like the Institute for Creation Research say, “Man can't destroy the earth; only God can.” Or if one wants to go to extremes, there is the late Jerry Falwell's statement that global warming is “Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus from evangelism to environmentalism,” and that “the Bible teaches that God will maintain the earth until Christ's second coming.” (Source: “Falwell to Arms: Christians Being Duped By Global Warming,” Treehugger, 27 February 2007, http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/falwell_to_arms.php)

But the issue with anthropogenic global warming is that it is not about what God is doing to the earth. It's about what man is doing to the earth. Thus the first argument against global warming is a logical fallacy. It makes as much sense as saying that “God has promised in Psalm 121 to keep me from all evil. Therefore I can't be hurt if I play on the freeway!” The fact is that there is nowhere in the Bible that says that humankind cannot make a mess – even a mess of Biblical proportions. The Bible repeatedly states how the moral defilement of a people can pollute a land, and it also prohibits physical practices that can ruin a land. For instance, see what the Bible had to say about letting land lie fallow during sabbath years, and how Israelites were not to destroy all the trees of a land in which was a city being besieged by Israel. (It's in Deuteronomy.) Actually, the Old Testament has a fair amount to say about environmental stewardship.

The fact that humans can certainly make big messes is stated in Revelation 11:16-18, speaking of the Lord's final judgments at the end of this age. The passage reads, “The twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God's throne, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: 'We give You thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the One who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give Your bondservants the prophets their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great; and to destroy those who destroy the earth.'” (Emphasis added.) Here we see the clear Biblical acknowledgment of the harm mankind can do to the earth, as well as the promise of God's judgment on those who deliberately do that harm.

When faced with such a rebuttal, the only thing the Religious Right can do is to somehow argue that modern industrial society – especially modern Western industrial society – is not destroying the earth. Their spokesmen claim that the anthropogenic nature of global warming is just a theory, and that no one can prove that industrially-produced CO2 emissions have anything to do with recent weather and climate shifts. I shall therefore talk about the scientific case for global warming. (By the way, regarding Jerry Falwell's statement, I can only say that he has made many such statements over the years. It's a funny coincidence how any position of conscience which threatens the richest members of our society must be “from Satan.” I wonder what Falwell thought of James 5:1-6, or what he thinks of it now.)

Global Warming – The Scientific Evidence (A very simple explanation)

The warming of objects – whether food, houses or planetary atmospheres – involves the transfer of energy. Heat energy is transmitted from one object to another by one of three processes: radiation, convection or conduction. When those objects are separated from one another by a large distance and both objects are in a vacuum, the only means of heat transfer is by radiation. Consider two such objects: the Sun and the earth.

The Sun is a yellow dwarf star (spectral class G2 V). The earth's surface receives most of its energy from the Sun in the form of visible light. Most of that energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere, since it is transparent to visible light, although clouds do reflect light back into space. (Other spectral components such as ultraviolet light are absorbed by ozone high in the stratosphere.) Once visible light strikes the earth's surface, it is absorbed to varying degrees by the earth's surface, causing the surface to heat and emit infrared radiation.

The major components of the earth's atmosphere are transparent to infrared radiation. But certain gases absorb infrared light. These are gases such as methane, water vapor and carbon dioxide. As these gases absorb infrared light, they become hot (increased molecular energy) and re-radiate that infrared light in all directions, in addition to transferring heat to the rest of the atmosphere by conduction and convection. This raises the temperature of the earth's surface and of the surrounding atmosphere. If there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the average surface temperature of the earth would be -0.4 degrees F (or -18 degrees C).

The earth's temperature is maintained by a balance between the energy absorbed by the earth-atmosphere system and the infrared energy re-radiated by the atmosphere into outer space. As the atmosphere is heated by greenhouse gases, its upper layers are heated by convection, and it is these layers which radiate infrared light back into space. As the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases, the zone of re-radiation moves higher in the atmosphere, because more heat is trapped and absorbed by the lower layers of the atmosphere. In addition, the earth's surface temperature increases, until an equilibrium state is once again reached where the heat gain from incoming solar radiation is balanced by the heat loss through re-radiation.

For the last 800,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have varied from 180 parts per million (ppm) to 270 ppm just prior to the Industrial Revolution. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, activities such as the burning of wood, coal and oil, the deforestation of land and the making of cement resulted in the liberation of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Much of this CO2 was absorbed by the oceans, and much of it was turned into plant matter by photosynthesis, liberating oxygen in the process. However, as the Industrial Revolution quickened its pace and the burning of fossil fuels increased exponentially, the increase in atmospheric CO2 began to outpace the rate at which natural ecosystems could dispose of it. Thus atmospheric CO2 levels increased from about 313 ppm in 1960 to over 385 ppm today.

The effect of varying the amount of greenhouse gases in a planetary atmosphere can be modeled crudely by multivariable calculations involving multiple integrations and spherical coordinates. The math is relatively simple for those who know calculus, though it is somewhat involved. The effect of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions was first postulated by Svante August Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, in 1896. Though his calculations were shown later to require refinement in order to match observed phenomena, his original conclusions were remarkably close to what is now being observed by climate scientists. The observed average temperature of the earth rose by 0.75 degrees C between 1860 and 1900, and temperatures in the lower atmosphere have increased by between 0.12 and 0.22 degrees C per decade since 1979, according to satellite temperature measurements. 1998 and 2005 were two of the warmest years on record, worldwide, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. According to the NASA GISS, the 14 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990.

Effects of Global Warming

This is a complex subject; however, the effects of global warming are real and are already being felt, from the increasing size and severity of wildfires in the forested regions of the United States and other countries, to the increasing length and severity of heat waves experienced in populated areas. Other effects include increases in severity and number of storms, shifts in migratory patterns of birds and other animals, loss of plant and animal habitats, shifts in crop growing seasons and growing conditions leading to loss of harvests (such as in Australia), and melting of glaciers.

One particularly dangerous effect is the beginning of the thawing of Arctic permafrost. This permafrost contains billions of tons of trapped methane, and methane is a greenhouse gas several times more powerful than carbon dioxide. If thawing were to release large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect would be greatly amplified, leading to very destructive and chaotic changes in global climate. Evidence exists that in 2008, large releases of methane from the Siberian tundra had begun to occur.

Is global warming then a sign of the coming end of the world? I don't know. Nobody knows. After all, the Good Book says of that question, “But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” – Matthew 24:36. It may be the end, or it may simply be the beginning of a really big mess that we will all have to live with for a very long time. (How many of you have ever read A Canticle for Leibowitz?) One thing I do know, however. Global warming is a sign that mankind is making a mess of this world. The perpetrators and perpetuators of this mess are the rich elites of the First World. Living responsibly and lightly upon the earth is required of those who would be good stewards of God's creation, yet this sort of life is an affront to the rich masters of our present system, because it endangers their bottom line.

These rich masters have done all they can to persuade most of us to continue our present lifestyle of dependence on the breaking system known as the “official” economy, and have even attempted to use religion to legitimize that dependence, by telling us that it is our God-given right and duty to live this way, and that “Christians must not believe in global warming!” Such propaganda may well serve to help people justify lifestyles of excessive and increasing consumption by persuading them that there are no earthly consequences to such a lifestyle. Yet believers in such propaganda may well find themselves one day being held accountable for helping to destroy the earth.

Sources:

• World English Bible, http://ebible.org/web/, a public domain translation, from which all Scriptures quoted herein have been taken, for which no royalties are owed, and which may be freely quoted in all settings, public and private.

• PhysicalGeography.net, a Fundamentals eBook, http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7h.html

• “Scientists warn thawing Siberia may trigger global meltdown,” Wikinews, http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Scientists_warn_thawing_Siberia_may_trigger_global_meltdown

• “Effects of Global Warming,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming

• “2007 Was Tied As Earth's Second Warmest Year,” Science Daily, 17 January 2008, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm

• “NOAA: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Methane Rise Sharply in 2007,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 23 April 2008, http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080423_methane.html

For further information, read the publications of Dr. James E. Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Dr. Pushker A. Kharecha, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Their contact information is on the NASA GISS website. Also, feel free to visit the website of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And for more simple, understandable explanations, there is always Dr. Jason Bradford of Global Public Media at http://postcarbon.org/about/fellows.

The Libertarian Lifeboat

I'd like to take a break from considering alternatives to our present breaking corporatist economic and societal systems, in order to tell a couple of stories that need to be told. Also, I have taken a number of pictures of people over the last several weeks, promising those whom I photographed that I would post their pictures on future installments of The Well Run Dry. So, God willing, the next two posts will tell needful stories, and the following post will have pictures relating to bicycle transportation.

The story I am about to tell you is one I heard a few years ago. It is a very strange illustration of the potential for bizarre human behavior. It took place several years back, aboard a double-bottomed, Handy-sized sea-going bulk cargo ship whose name escapes me at the moment. The ship was old, and had seen many voyages, some through very severe weather, both in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Its crew was a volatile mix of quirky, memorable types and experienced, wise, level-headed men. One of the strangest and most quirky characters was the boatswain (or bos'un for the nautical initiates), a big-boned, burly, sandy-haired, square-jawed man of indeterminate age.

The bo'sun was a fearsome sight to the deck crew whom he supervised as he directed sharp glances all around, swiveling his large head on his bull neck while barking commands, muscular biceps flexed as he rested his large hands on his hips. Those who crossed him usually did it only once, as the punishment he dealt was swift and severe. Aside from giving orders, he almost never talked to any other shipmates. This was unusual, since the three licensed officers on board were quite friendly with all the crew, figuring that pleasant voyages contributed to crew effectiveness.

The bo'sun tended to keep to himself when not on duty or at meals, preferring to remain in his quarters rather than mix with the crew. Almost no one ever saw the inside of his quarters, but the one or two crewmen who were able to get a glimpse said that on one wall was a Confederate Rebel flag, and that there was a bookcase underneath containing books such as The Politician by Robert W. Welch; The Way Things Ought To Be and See, I Told You So, by Rush Limbaugh; and Robert Lewis Dabney: The Prophet Speaks by Doug Phillips, along with several copies of The New American, a magazine published by the John Birch Society. He also had a life-sized poster of Rush next to an old VCR with which he frequently played a battered copy of Birth of a Nation. (At times while on watch, other crew members could hear him muttering scenes of the movie from memory.) Somehow amid all the clutter, he had also managed to stash 250 pounds of cast iron free weights, a couple of dumbbell bars and a barbell bar, all of which he used religiously.

His physical training served him well on the particular voyage we are now considering – a voyage that took the ship from the tropics up into the North Pacific during the height of typhoon season. The ship was carrying a load of some grain – rice, I think – and its course carried it right into the path of a tropical depression that was also moving north. The loading of the rice had been supervised by a junior officer without much experience, and as a result, the cargo settled, then began to shift as the ship ran into increasingly rough weather. The depression strengthened into a storm that grew into a typhoon, and began to produce dangerous rogue waves. Most of the crew had experienced typhoons before, and they were therefore not terribly worried, until two rogue waves hit the ship within five minutes of each other and caused her to heel hard to port. This caused the cargo to shift dangerously, making the vessel list. Then a third rogue wave hit and downflooded the engine room, causing the ship to go dead in the water.

The vessel's situation was now serious. Yet even at this point she might have been saved if the engineer had been able to restore power quickly. But by this time the ship, which was old as has been mentioned before, began to suffer the effects of corrosion and metal fatigue as the pounding of the storm proved to be too much for her. Within thirty minutes of losing power the front hold began to flood, and the flooding quickly spread to hold number two. By the time the crew realized their peril it was too late for many to escape. Only one lifeboat could be launched in the minutes before the ship sank, and those who were lucky enough to be nearby piled into it in whatever condition they found themselves, with whatever possessions they happened to be carrying. It was night when she sank.

The dawn revealed that seven men had survived out of a crew of twenty-four. Amid somewhat calmer weather, they looked at each other with mostly frightened eyes. There were two able seamen, the second officer, an oiler, the steward's assistant, an ordinary seaman, and the bo'sun. The steward's assistant shivered in the wind and rain, as he hadn't had time even to put his clothes on before the sinking. One of the able seamen had been able to don a survival suit, as had the bo'sun. The second officer had a fractured leg. The ordinary seaman had suffered a concussion. All were badly shaken – except for the bo'sun.

He had managed to grab several items before getting into the lifeboat. His stash consisted of a number of blankets, some tins of meat, water and hardtack, several Army-style can openers, a solar still, an emergency fishing rod, a knife and a first aid kit. In all he must have carried over a hundred pounds of supplies with him into that boat. Of course, this was in addition to the supplies with which the lifeboat was normally stocked. The other survivors cheered up greatly when they saw the bo'sun's stash in addition to the lifeboat's regular supplies. But their cheer was short-lived.

The steward's assistant spoke first. “Hey there, bo'sun,” he said, “could you pass me one of those blankets? I was in bed when the ship started to sink.” One of the able seamen said, “Say, bo'sun, the second officer's in bad shape. Is there any Advil we could give him?” The oiler chimed in and said, “Oh, no! The launch of the lifeboat caused us to lose all of the can openers in the boat's survival kit. Hey, bo'sun, could you spare an extra?”

Their requests died away into silence as the bo'sun merely stared at them for several seconds. Then he spoke. “You're not expecting a handout, are you? That's socialism!” He spat derisively over the side of the boat. “I earned what I have by my own effort,” he continued. “I won't give handouts, but I will let you earn the privelege to use what I have. That's what our Founding Fathers believed in.”

Now the rest of the survivors were silent in their turn, staring with shocked faces at the bo'sun. Finally, the able seaman who had asked about the Advil spoke again. “But that's totally wacked out, bo'sun!” he shouted. “Look at the second officer! He's in no shape to earn anything! Why are you being a jerk?” An instant later, the bo'sun's fist crashed into his jaw and he crumpled to the bottom of the lifeboat.

“Now hear this,” said the bo'sun in a low, dangerous voice. “I don't give free rides to anybody. If you don't pull your own weight, you get nothing from me. Why, next you'll want me to socialize medical care! Ain't gonna happen. If the second officer is motivated enough, he'll do what it takes to get medicine. You who want the extra blanket!” he shouted, pointing at the steward's assistant. “If you want a blanket, get over here and grab this fishing rod. You gotta catch thirty pounds of fish. That's my price.”

Thus began the miserable journey of the survivors as ocean currents pushed them slowly northward. Needless to say, the second officer died within three days, and the others dumped his body overboard on the bo'sun's orders. The only epitaph the bo'sun spoke was to mutter about “freeloaders on society getting what they deserved.” He also muttered frequently that it was his manifest destiny to be the boss of that lifeboat.

Afterward, all the survivors were kept busy from sunup to sundown catching fish, cleaning fish, sun-drying fish and operating the solar still. In return for their labors they were allowed to eat just enough to stay alive. But the bo'sun ate his fill every day, and his stocky build began to grow chubby. By this time almost everyone in the boat was shirtless, since the weather had entirely cleared and had grown quite warm as the boat drifted out of the tropic zone into Northern Hemisphere summer conditions. The other survivors took notice of two large tattoos across the bo'sun's chest, one of which was an artist's rendition of Ayn Rand's face, and another which was a picture of a gnarled hand with the name “ADAM SMITH” written below.

The bo'sun himself noticed his increasing chubbiness, and began a two-hour regimen of calisthenics and body-weight strength-building exercises every day (although he never used his strength to do any actual work). Meanwhile the other survivors grew weaker and weaker, and one more man died. By now it was late July or early August, and though the boat had drifted north of the 35^th parallel of latitude, it was still quite hot. The bo'sun was bothered by the heat, especially because it made him sweat a lot and grow thirsty during his workouts. But the solar still was slow in producing fresh water and the canned water was by now used up.

One day the bo'sun had a brilliant idea. “We're gonna do things a little different,” he said to the others. “We're all each gonna get his own space on this boat. However much space you get depends on how much you can fight for, and since I'm the strongest guy on this boat, I get the biggest space. Stay outta my space,” he said. Later that morning, he took most of the remaining blankets and made a shade covering over his newly created “space.” But still, he felt hot. Frustrated, he racked his brain for a solution. Then he smiled broadly as a new idea occurred to him. He found a hand drill and some large wood drill bits from the stash he had brought on board, and began to drill a hole in the bottom of the boat under his “space.”

The other survivors looked at him aghast. “Hey man, what are you doing??!” they all shouted at once. “I'm making a little fountain for my space, to cool my feet,” the bo'sun replied. “What's wrong, are you jealous?” “Dude,” they all shouted back, “you'll sink this boat and kill us all!” “What I do isn't gonna kill us or ruin this boat,” he growled, “and besides, what I do in my space is my business, so lay off!”

At this, the man telling the story broke off, overcome by emotion. “That dirty, selfish...” he finally said, then began coughing uncontrollably. The cough turned into a gag as our chief steward turned the man's body to the side and held a bucket up to his mouth. He retched up a last bit of swallowed seawater, then lay back on the steward's bunk, sighing deeply. The steward noticed that the man was still shivering, ten hours after being pulled from the sea. Had we not spotted him at just the right moment, things would have turned out much worse. The ship's doctor gave the man an injection, told the cook to bring more hot water bottles, and told the rest of us to let the man have some rest.

P.S.: The story I have just told is entirely false. Anyone who has actually worked on a ship can probably tell that I haven't. But I told this story in order to prevent it from coming true, if you get my drift. As a very influential Man once said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

P.P.S.: The Bo'sun in this story is a caricature of a particular ideology. Yet there are many ideologies of selfishness in the world today, and they must all be guarded against if our society is to successfully navigate the downside of Hubbert's Peak.

Pavlov's Politics

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, psychologist and physician who lived from 1849 to 1936. He is famous for his investigations of conditioned reflexes in animals, which arose from his observation that dogs who were habitually given food coated with chili powder tended to salivate when they saw the food coming, before it actually entered their mouths. Through a series of experiments he learned to induce salivation in dogs by presenting various signals that accompanied the feeding of the dogs. Thus he was able to “train” dogs to salivate by doing such things as ringing a bell or blowing a whistle. Other scientists applied his research to human psychology, deducing that humans could be trained to produce conditional reflexes or responses to events or triggers that often had nothing to do with the response produced. One such scientist, William Sargant, was part of a CIA research program in brainwashing and mind control that was carried out in the 1950's and 1960's. And the dogs originally used by Pavlov in his experiments became famous in a wry sort of way. To call someone a “Pavlov's dog” is to accuse that person of merely reacting to a situation rather than using critical thinking.

The American political process has largely become Pavlovian. Average Americans are being treated like Pavlov's dogs by the powers that be, from the corporate interests who really run things to the leaders of both major parties and the media outlets who provide us with “news.” There was a time, not very long ago, when the two parties actually stood on two sides of many important issues, and the media sympathetic to one side presented a message that was clearly different from the media voice of the other side. On the Right were Nixon, Jesse Helms, big business, defenders of the status quo, and those who were intolerant of people of other cultures and races. On the other hand were the Kennedy and post-Kennedy Democrats, the environmentalists, the radicals, the challengers of big business injustice and those rock musicians who were politically outspoken.

But the dangerous voices of the 1960's that threatened the status quo of corporate America were gradually co-opted and corporatized. And the very definitions of “Left” and “Right” were subtly changed to remove any threat to the major corporate interests. This re-definition was carried out in earnest during the 1980's and 1990's, and it involved two things: first, changing the meaning of “Left” and “Right” to meanings that posed no threat to the entrenched corporate interests controlling the largest sectors of the global economy; and secondly, the use of the media to heavily and constantly push this new “Left” and new “Right” on the American public until they accepted these as the actual and legitimate “Left” and “Right.”

This is clearly seen in the case of the Right. Those who preach Biblical morality, otherworldliness, simple living and the Sermon on the Mount have always posed a threat to established interests, from the days of the Civil War to the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960's. Therefore spokesmen such as James Dobson, the Moral Majority and the Family Research Council have worked to define Christianity and the Religious Right solely in terms of opposing sexual immorality, voting Republican and being patriotic – a much safer definition which does not threaten big business. Dobson and his associates have also attacked any Christians who suggest that perhaps we should widen our focus beyond sexual morality to include opposition to big business practices which harm the environment or poor people. This has led many on the Left to say, rather accurately, that the only issue about which the Right cares is sex.

But this accusation can also be leveled at the Left. Leftism used to mean advocacy of equal rights for all peoples of all ethnic groups; protection of the environment even if the price of such protection is that we must live more simply; restricting the power of corporations to prevent them from turning into monopolies or oligarchies; restricting the power and reach of the government; guaranteeing every citizen access to a free, participatory democracy, including the right to have one's voice heard by a free and independent press; and protecting the poor of the world from becoming victims of the rich.

But the corporate masters of American society noticed that many on the Left had become turned off to the religion and mores of the Right. So they began pushing a definition of Leftism solely as opposition to the religion and sexual morality preached by the Right. Thus, while actual progress in civil rights for minorities has stalled from the time of Reagan onward, the Left still insists that great progress in civil rights is being made, because of the fact that movies like Brokeback Mountain are now being made. Unfortunately, Brokeback Mountain isn't doing a lot of good for a number of black men now on death row or serving harsh sentences in various American prisons for crimes they didn't commit. Brokeback Mountain won't bring back any of the unarmed young black men gunned down by the NYPD over the last several years. Leftism has been redefined as the rejection of all sexual mores, the granting of permission to indulge in any sort of sexual desire, the bad-mouthing of biblical Christianity, and the abandonment of all standards of public decency, especially in the media. As with the re-definition of the Right, this re-definition of the Left does not threaten big business.

The final strategy used by these corporate masters has been to turn both the Democrats and the Republicans into mere empty symbols. The symbols may look different, but that means almost nothing, since both parties promote mostly the same policies. The Republican symbol is constructed on a foundation of memories of the Cold War and the struggle against “godless communism,” and it consists of a decorated war hero wrapped in an American flag, chewing tobacco and spitting while flexing a bicep tattooed with a cross or fish sign and declaring that he will “keep America strong!” This symbol is designed to produce a Pavlovian response at the voting booth among NASCAR-watching, Ford or Chevy truck-driving, beer-drinking high school dropout good ole' boys.

The Democrat symbol is constructed on memories of the 1960's and early 1970's, on memories of the Kennedy influence and the times when the Democrats were actually advocates of the little guy. It consists of a black man or a white woman, defined as “progressive” because they believe in “alternative spirituality,” they are “empathetic,” they are not perceived as evangelical conservatives, they support a “woman's right to choose,” they are vegetarian (maybe!) and they are the first of their kind to achieve high office. This symbol is also designed to produce a Pavlovian response at the voting booth. It worked quite well in 2006, when the Republicans showed themselves for what they really were – nothing more than the greedy, corrupt servants of a corporatocracy. We Americans knew we had been hoodwinked into an unjust war, and that we had been made into victims of a big business feeding frenzy, and many of us actually believed in the symbol of the Democrats as agents of change. This is what enabled the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress. The only trouble is that events since then have proven that the Democrats are much bigger on talk than action.

The 2008 presidential election has degenerated into a battle between symbols, and “news” analysis and coverage of the campaigns has focused only on the effectiveness of these symbols. In the Democratic primary, one symbol (the one with the blond hair) tried to tear the other symbol apart (the one with the dark skin). It was fairly obvious to many that Hillary Clinton was really only a symbol, and that her entire campaign was a gamble that she would be an effective Pavlovian symbol (“Vote for me because I am a woman! A vote for me is a vote for progress, for that very reason!). John McCain is also nothing more than a symbol (Vote for me because I am a decorated Vietnam vet! The world is a dangerous place, and you need a tough guy in office!). I had begun to hope that Obama would be something more than a symbol, but recent news coverage of his shift to the “middle” on key policy issues has begun to erode my hopes.

The problem is, as I have stated before, that the global “official” economy which dominates the world is an unjust system which is now in the process of breaking due to the worldwide end of cheap oil. Yet while that system still exists and is in any way viable, its masters actively fight against anyone who seeks to create a safety net of alternative systems. Examples of this include automobile-based transportation, which for decades was pushed by rich corporations such as the Big Three automakers and the American oil companies. Now this system is breaking down, and the evidence is that more and more people cannot afford the money to use it. But there are few alternatives and they are difficult or dangerous to use, thanks to long-standing opposition to these alternatives from the auto and oil industries and by such people as former Republican congressman Tom DeLay, who fought against a light rail system for the city of Houston, Texas.

Other alternatives which are being opposed by vested corporate interests include small farms, which provide a viable option to factory-farm food which is becoming more expensive due to increasing energy costs, and is increasingly being recalled due to dangerous disease outbreaks. Urban self-sufficiency is under attack, as large agribusinesses persuade Federal and state departments of agriculture to oppose allowing people to keep backyard animals such as chickens, forcing them to rely on the factory food/supermarket distribution chain instead. NAFTA is yet another attack on our ability to take care of ourselves, yet another means of enabling large corporations to virtually enslave people in low-wage jobs without an adequate safety net of small businesses to which these people could turn.

I could go on and on with examples. The point is that what we need now in a President is someone who will protect us from the corporatocracy and who will not get in the way when local citizens try to disentangle themselves from this breaking system. I knew that Hillary Clinton and John McCain support the evil status quo, no matter how they try as symbols to portray themselves. The viciousness of their attacks on Obama made me think that perhaps he was someone who would actually upset the status quo and protect small Americans from big business.

But now he is reconsidering his earlier opposition to NAFTA; now he is willing to grant prosecution immunity to telecom companies who spied on Americans as part of the “War on Terror”; he has supported a Congressional bill that would give expanded wiretapping powers to the government; and he seems to be backing away from an immediate, swift withdrawal of troops from Iraq. In short, he is starting to look like the sort of candidate who would pose no danger to corporate interests.

If he's trying to get my vote, this is a dangerous strategy. I am black and I am an evangelical Christian; yet when I need an airline pilot, an optometrist or a surgeon, I care far less about his religion or skin color than I care about his qualifications. I'm not really thrilled about voting for Obama just because he's black. After all, Robert Mugabe is also black, as was Idi Amin. I'm not saying that Obama is as bad as these two; I'm just making a point. I can't understand the women who rabidly supported Hillary just because she was a woman (maybe the fact that I'm a guy has something to do with my lack of understanding.) Don't these women remember Jezebel? (1 Kings 21:23; 2 Kings 9:35-37)

At this dangerous and dicey juncture in American history, I care far less about a candidate's value as a symbol than I care about whether the candidate understands what needs to be done, and what that candidate will or will not do. I have been fooled too many times by people who sold themselves to me as symbols; I'm tired of people trying to fool me yet again. In 2004, this was also the view of 83 million people who were eligible to vote, yet who chose not to because they were tired of being treated like Pavlov's dogs.

Sources:

• “Obama Starts Moving To The Middle,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 July 2008, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/369495_meansonline06.html

• “Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers,” Real Clear Politics, 1 July 2008, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/memo_to_obama_moving_to_the_mi.html

• “Bird Flu: Officials Warn About Poultry Grown Outdoors,” KATU News, 14 March 2006, http://www.katu.com/news/3642286.html

• “Are Backyard Chickens Causing Bird Flu? Why a Ban of Backyard Fowl Would Be Ineffective in Preventing Bird Flu,” About.Com, http://infectiousdiseases.about.com/od/petslivestockandgame/a/backyard_chick.htm

• “Tom Delay,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_delay

• “Ivan Pavlov,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#Reflex_system_research

Balaam and the Jawbone of James Dobson

As I have mentioned earlier, the global economic system known as the “official” economy is ruled by leaders who strive to trick or force as many people as possible into dependency on the system while attacking anyone who would seek to create a safety net consisting of alternative systems. Of course, this is done in order to maximize the profits realized by the rulers of the existing official system. And this is being done with desperate zeal even in the face of overwhelming signs that the system is now breaking due to resource peaks and climate change. One of the methods employed by this official system is the takeover and consolidation of ownership of every platform for public speech, as seen in the corporate hijacking of both major political parties in the United States, as well as the massive buyouts of media companies, newspapers, publishing houses and radio/TV stations by a handful of rich interests.

This takeover of public proclamation is also taking place in the Church, especially in America. I described this process on my other blog, TH in SoC, in the posts dealing with evangelicals and Money, and evangelicals and political Power. For at least three decades, and probably much longer, Christianity in America has been undergoing a re-definition – a rephrasing designed to remove the otherworldly, charitable, anti-materialist elements from it, and to equate Christianity with the mere affirmation of Republican Party goals and ideals, the worship of the free market and unrestrained capitalism, and a rabid patriotism and worship of the triumphs of American history. Under the banner of “God, guts and guns,” the Religious Right has promoted such ideals as rugged individualism, opposition to government “charity” or regulation, racial and national pride, and an ever-rising American standard of living, without regard for how achieving that standard might affect others in the world. The leaders of the evangelical Right have thus attacked anyone who has said that America – or the world at large – is facing problems caused by increasing and excessive consumption, problems which require collective rather than individual solutions, and that one viable solution to such problems is for us in the industrial West – or particularly, in America – to choose to live more simply. Such a statement is met with howls of protest about “socialism” or “subsidizing laziness”, or how the American way of life is not negotiable, or how those making suggestions for less consumption and cooperation rather than competition are “weakening America!”

And so we come to the current debates over climate change. I have to confess that I don't like reading about the latest evidence for man-made global warming, because it tends to scare the living daylights out of me. (For instance, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/05/22/scioceans122.xml) But I am thoroughly convinced of the science behind anthropogenic global climate change, and thoroughly convinced that we need to do something yesterday to stop it. I also see the damage being done to the poor citizens of Third World countries by our Western “free market” policies, which actually guarantee freedom only for the biggest economic players, and which are making more and more Americans poor as well.

Destroying the earth and forcing people into starvation are moral issues, discussed at length in the Bible (for instance, read Exodus 22:21; Psalm 146:9; Jeremiah 22:3; Matthew 25:31-44; Luke 16:19-31, and James 5:1-6). Yet the Religious Right has chosen to define Christianity narrowly in terms of a few issues, and to condemn anyone who speaks of Biblical concerns with larger issues. The Right therefore teaches that in order to be a good Christian, one should oppose homosexuality and abortion, be patriotic, and vote Republican, regardless of Republican Party positions on any other issues. This has the convenient effect of making the Church the defender of large American/European capitalist interests, because such convictions do not threaten the business practices or bottom line of such interests.

Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and other influential figures in the American Religious Right, have set themselves up as gatekeepers of evangelical thought and policy, the arbiters of what is or is not a legitimate issue for evangelicals to be concerned about. In 2007, James Dobson, with several other prominent evangelical pastors, called on the National Evangelical Association Board to remove its president because of his attention to the issue of global warming. According to Dobson, the issue is not an appropriate focus for evangelicals, who should focus on “…the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children. In their place has come a preoccupation with climate concerns that extend beyond the NAE’s mandate and its own statement of purpose.” (Sources: “Dobson, Others Seek Ouster of NAE Vice President,” Christianity Today, March 2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/marchweb-only/109-53.0.html; Letter to National Association of Evangelicals, http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/NAELetterFinal.pdf). Also, Jerry Falwell claimed that the debate over global warming is a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the Gospel. When their statements were widely broadcast in the mainstream media there was a predictable and entirely justified backlash, and they seem to have toned down their statements since then.

But it must be asked why Dobson and his cohorts believe that Christians are doing wrong to concern themselves with more issues than just the ones set before them by the leaders of the Right. Why does Dobson believe that defending, maintaining and promoting a lifestyle of continually increasing consumption is a Christian duty? Why is it un-Christian to believe that our excessive consumption is ruining the earth, especially when there is massive evidence to prove this fact? After his letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, Mr. Dobson and his cohorts assumed a low profile, as they saw an awakening to social justice issues among more and more Biblically orthodox evangelicals. But Dobson never abandoned his agenda. Now he and his associates have come up with a new program to protect the overlords of the “official” economy from having to abandon business as usual for the sake of the common good.

In the Church Executive magazine article dated 16 May 2008 (http://www.churchexecutive.com/news.asp?N_ID=1278), there is an article titled, “Christians Launch Campaign Against Global Warming Hype.” It appears that James Dobson, along with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, radio host Janet Parshall, and U.S. Senator James Inhofe, have launched a national campaign to gather one million signatures for a statement that says “Christians must not believe in all the hype about global warming.” The statement is titled, “We Get It!”

According to the article, the backers of the statement seek to inform Christians about the “Biblical” perspective on the environment and the poor, while questioning the science used to prove anthropogenic global warming. One of the statement's backers, Dr. Barrett Duke, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty commission, asked, “How can you create policies on uncertain science? How can you say what it is that needs to be done when you don't really know and you don't really have real consensus on the state of the problem or what is causing the problem?”

But these people go beyond questioning the science behind climate change. They have seen that evangelicals – especially younger evangelicals – are increasingly becoming concerned about issues of social justice and the environment, and are abandoning the leaders of the Religious Right as irrelevant and clueless. Therefore these leaders are repackaging their message, talking about all the “harm” that will come to citizens of Third World countries if mandatory caps on carbon emissions are placed on the global economy. They issue dire warnings about premature deaths, starvation, diseases and harm to the human economy in America and abroad, if big businesses are forced to reduce CO2 emissions. Such a message strongly implies that big business and neoclassical free market capitalism controlled by Western multinationals is a good thing for all the world's people.

It's just too bad that the people spewing this nonsense haven't talked to such figures as Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist who is fighting to protect her people from multinational agribusiness corporations who are taking land away from poor Indian farmers. It's just too bad that James Dobson and Tony Perkins didn't check their facts by talking to some of the people at OXFAM before they opened their mouths. It's too bad that Senator Inhofe doesn't listen to Deconstructing Dinner, or that he didn't talk to Dr. James Hanson of NASA. Oh well, maybe these guys don't have links to these valuable sources of information, so here they are: http://www.oxfam.org/en/ for OXFAM; http://kootenaycoopradio.com/deconstructingdinner/ for Deconstructing Dinner; and http://www.navdanya.org/ for information on Vandana Shiva. Oh, and I have many more sources if these people need them. These sources will all tell how “wonderful” these Western multinationals have been for the people of the Third World, and for the rest of us as well.

The most amazing statement in the Church Executive article, though is this one: “Signers of the declaration said while they do acknowledge, in varying degrees, that global warming is real and humans are partly to blame for the earth’s warming, they believe that for the most part the heating of the earth is due to the natural warming and cooling cycle of the planet.” Even if it were true that global warming is due to natural climate cycles, they acknowledge that humans are partly to blame. Then they excuse themselves from any need to reduce human impacts based on their belief that the main driver of warming is natural cycles. This is as stupid as saying, “Forest fires are mostly caused by lightning. Therefore, I am not hurting anything if I play with matches in this dry meadow!”

The We Get It campaigners are taking their show on the road, having “begun a national outreach to pastors, people in the pews, African-American and Hispanic church leaders, youth, artists, homeschoolers, evangelical scientists, congressional and state policy-makers, and other Christian leaders in their effort to gather one million signatures for their declaration on the environment and poverty.” If they come to my town, I'm letting them know in advance that I won't be signing their declaration. In my opinion, Dobson, Perkins and the rest of them are like the prophet Balaam in the Book of Numbers – preachers whose message is based on who will give them the most money. Balaam was blessed with a donkey whom God used to talk some sense into him, but Dobson does not appear to be similarly blessed. It seems instead that just as the jawbone of an ass was used to kill many people in Biblical times (Judges 15:15-16, King James Version), a few jawbones are being used by the rich today to do harm.

Meanwhile, where I live, gas is solidly over $4 a gallon for all grades at several stations in the area. Even Arco is now selling unleaded premium for over $4. I was in the bike shop today getting my bike checked out and saw several people talking about commuting and high prices. The cost of commuting is on everyone's mind. “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs are starting to multiply from East Portland all the way to Lake Oswego. The City of Vallejo, California just declared bankruptcy. This week I did an informal “brown bag talk” at work during lunch on the subject of Peak Oil. Around nine or ten people showed up, and most of them stayed awake while I was talking :). I'm starting to see fewer new monster trucks on the road. Grocery prices are rising, but I now have six fava bean plants in my garden, along with 15 or 20 lentils, some garlic, a few onions, one potato plant and several sunflower sprouts. I'll be busy planting more this weekend...