A right-wing religious organization says that environmentalists are "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today." Not surprisingly, this right-wing group, the Cornwall Alliance, is a disinformation front group funded by Big Oil. Cornwall Alliance calls environmentalists the "Green Dragon" on claims that activists are "using the message of climate change to take over the world" to place it "under its destructive control."
The scary part is not just that a GOP lawmaker who might become chair of an environmental committee may be an adherent of this group's extreme views, but the GOP selected the founder of Cornwall Alliance as a witness for Congressional hearing on climate policies.
Cornwall Alliance created a Green Dragon video to alert the world about our evil intentions. Some religious leaders think the environmental movement is a new religion that is "taking attention away from God" in schools and in politics. According to a report on The Alyona Show, (I am not very familiar with her work) the Cornwall Alliance view environmentalists as the anti-Christ because environmentalists offer spiritual doctrines of God, creation, humanity, redemption, and sin in a fear-mongering strategy to obtain power because whoever controls environmental regulations controls the economy and population. The report by Alyona shows a segment of the Green Dragon video:
The Cornwall Alliance says don't worry about climate change impacts because the "Bible powerfully confronts environmental fears and how – in God’s wise design – people and nature can thrive together."
A similar message was stated by Illinois Rep. John Shimkus, who apparently agrees that man will not destroy this earth even though he believes that climate change is linked to fossil fuel consumption. Shimkus stated at a House hearing in 2009 on adaptation policies for climate change that "environmental catastrophes cannot possibly happen, because God will not allow it":
Shimkus read a portion of the book of Genesis that follows the great flood of Noah: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man," God says in the excerpt, "even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood, and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
Shimkus also referred to a biblical promise that "the earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."
Regarding climate change, Shimkus believes the "question is more about the costs and benefits and trying to spend taxpayer dollars on something that you cannot stop versus the changes that have been occurring forever. That's the real debate."
Why should we care about the Cornwall Alliance? Shimkus might become the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Last month, Shimkus stated that he made these religious remarks because there were men of faith chosen by the GOP as part of this panel at the 2009 hearing on climate change policies. The GOP witnesses selected for this hearing included E. Calvin Beisner, founder of the Cornwall Alliance and he warned that:
"fear of catastrophic, man-made global warming is a mistake," and argued that because the "biblical worldview sees the world and ecosystems as the work of a wise God," humankind couldn't possibly be affecting the climate. Going further, he warned that restricting the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere would harm the poor, and that Americans are "morally obligated to provide access for the poor to affordable, abundant fossil fuels."
Yeah, the Climate Change News from this past week shows we can just continue to ignore the devastating impacts happening now, pretend climate change impacts will not increase in frequency and intensity over the future years, and DC can just keep avoiding a comprehensive climate change law while the world is held hostage by a minority of climate denier lawmakers whose policy views on climate change are based on religion, not science.
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
- Emissions Reduction Pledges in Copenhagen Accord Fall Far Short of 2°C Goal, UN Says: "Even if the pledges were met, ... the amount of greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere would "imply a temperature increase of between 2.5 to 5°C [4.5 to 9°F] before the end of the century."
- More Evidence Accumulates of Record Greenhouse Gases and Warming Temperatures: World Meteorological Organization says "atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached a record high when compared to data from prior to the industrial revolution in 1750." A "NASA-led study demonstrates that it's not just air, land, and sea temperatures that are warming — but also the temperatures of large inland lakes." And, "UK Met Office's Hadley Center - found 'overwhelming evidence of warming in a wide range of climate indicators, not just surface temperature.'"
- Sarah Palin must be in shock! Alaska acknowledges effects of climate change.
Alaska wildlife officials have released a report acknowledging that scientific and traditional evidence increasingly shows climate change at unprecedented rates throughout the Arctic.
The report released this week marks a departure for the state, which is suing to overturn the federal listing of polar bears as a threatened species because of declining sea ice habitat.
- Carbon Auction Yields $16.9 Million for New York.
New York made $16.9 million in the latest auction of carbon dioxide credits, held this week under the cap-and-trade system known as Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But it remains to be seen whether the money will go to the energy efficiency programs it is intended for.
Gov. David A. Paterson set a precedent last year when he took $90 million from the money generated by the initiative to deal with a projected state budget deficit of nearly $50 billion through March 2013. New York has so far collected $282 million from RGGI (pronounced "reggie"), the most of any of the 10 participating Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states.
State officials said that dipping into the environmental pool of money was a necessity in a moment of crisis and was not expected to happen again.
- 2010 sets new temperature records: The "two leading US analyses of global temperature show that up until the end of October, 2010 was the warmest year in the instrumental record going back to 1850."
- States Want Cap-and-Trade Added to U.S. Carbon Rules.
U.S. states with cap-and-trade laws want the Obama administration to add their carbon markets into new federal greenhouse-gas regulations, a California environmental official said.
State-run carbon-trading programs should be "treated as equivalents or substitutes" for Environmental Protection Agency regulations for emissions tied to global warming from power plants, oil refineries and factories, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
"It would be a way to make sure that industries in our state are not being penalized by being regulated by EPA on top of what the state is doing," Nichols said.
Officials from the states and provinces are considering whether to link the programs into a single North American carbon market following the defeat of cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S. Congress this year.
- 'A million climate change deaths each year'.
BY 2030, climate change will indirectly cause nearly one million deaths a year and inflict $US157 billion ($161.21 billion) in damage in terms of today's economy, according to estimates presented at UN talks.
The biggest misery will be heaped on more than 50 of the world's poorest countries, but the United States will pay the highest economic bill, it said.
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
- Dwindling biodiversity raises disease risk in humans, study finds: "Dwindling biodiversity could cause more humans to contract infectious diseases such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus, according to scientists who have reviewed the results of 24 separate studies. According to the review of research published since 2005, loss of species from a range of ecosystems, including forests, savannahs and coral reefs, leads to a boost in the transmission of infectious diseases.
- Subarctic wildfires a 'runaway climate change' risk.
Global warming is driving forest fires in northern latitudes to burn more frequently and fiercely, contributing to the threat of runaway climate change, according to a study released Sunday.
Increased intensity of fires in Alaska's vast interior over the last decade has changed the region from a sink to a source of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for heating up the planet, the study found.
- Climate change threat to tropical forests 'greater than suspected'.
But the risk of tropical forests succumbing to drought brought on by climate change as well as the acceleration of methane emissions from melting permafrost, is greater, according to the Met Office Hadley Centre, in its latest climate change review.
- Study: NASA Shows World’s Water is Warming, Buoy Data Confirms in Great Lakes: "Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have studied 167 large lakes around the globe using thermal infrared satellite imagery and have found that global lake temperatures increased more than one degree Celsius on average over the last 25 years due to a warming climate."
WILDLIFE & ENDANGERED SPECIES
FOOD & HEALTH