Little did most know when GOP Candidate Rick Santorum declared war on "radical environmentalism" -- he was only carrying forward that banner that others before him, had carefully crafted.
The religious Cornwall Alliance has identified their new moral/mortal enemy. And they mean business ... as in squash the Green-meanies business.
Santorum not Source of 'Phony Theology' Idea, Origins in 'Biblical Economics' Partnership
by Rachel Tabachnick, Talk to Action -- Feb 21, 2012
What did Rick Santorum mean when he described President Obama's environmental policy as being phony theology? Santorum is not the original source of this idea. The narrative is widespread in the Religious Right and has been accelerated through a partnership with big business and wealthy family foundations. This is the world of "Biblical economics," a world in which unregulated free markets are holy and the opposition is literally demonic.
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This view of global warming as a liberal political ploy, and environmentalism as a competing theology with Christianity, has been enshrined in a 2010 video by the Cornwall Alliance titled: Resisting the Green Dragon. A short edited trailer is embedded below.
Religious Right on Dangers of Environmentalism
link to video
The Cornwall Alliance movie demonstrates that an unholy alliance of big business, wealthy family foundations, and the Religious Right is willing to go to any lengths to convince Americans to oppose environmental regulation, regardless of the long term consequences.
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Oh no, not another devious plot from the ranting Religious Right. Enough already! Don't these guys got anything better to do, like feed the poor, heal the sick, or comfort the weary?
I guess not ... Environmentalism is now "the source of all that's wrong with the world," thanks for clearing that up, Dominion dudes.
Frankly my outrage meter is already on "tilt" -- about the vaulted heights these would-be Religious Leaders Czars would place themselves in. Their quest for unchallenged "dominion" knows no bounds, it seems.
It's their destiny to "rule the world" and no petty heathens are going to stop them. Nor even their humane fellow-believers, who realize the urgent need for environmental conservation and action. That's just crazy talk, according to this well-connected anti-Environmental alliance.
The ‘Green Dragon’ Slayers: How the Religious Right and the Corporate Right are Joining Forces to Fight Environmental Protection
pfaw.org -- People for the American Way
Introduction
As Republican officials accelerate their efforts to weaken environmental regulations and attack climate scientists, energy corporations are reaping the benefits of a decades-long effort to put a more benevolent, humanitarian, and even religious spin to their anti-environmental activism. Among their most valuable allies are the Religious Right organizations and leaders who have emerged as ready apologists for polluters and critics of efforts to protect the environment. The Religious Right’s attacks are intended to lend credence to the efforts of corporations and the GOP to quash the Environmental Protection Agency and chip away at state and federal environmental safeguards. And increasingly, Republican leaders themselves are echoing the same misleading arguments and themes of the Religious Right’s corporate apologists.
[...]
Corporate America’s Religious Right Power Play
In the last decade, as evangelical Christian leaders increasingly became involved in conservation, “creation care” and taking action against global climate change, the alarms went up in corporate America that many traditional members of the conservative coalition were becoming advocates for environmental protection. To counter the rise of the faith-based environmentalist Evangelical Climate Initiative, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance emerged. The ISA, propped up by business interests including Exxon Mobil, has peddled misleading and false claims to make the case that climate change is a myth. In 2007, the ISA was renamed the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and became more belligerent and zealous in its anti-environmental activities.
The Cornwall Alliance is led by E. Calvin Beisner, who believes that since God granted humans “dominion” over the earth, humans have a right to exploit all natural resources. As Randall Balmer writes in Thy Kingdom Come, Beisner “asserts that God has placed all of nature at the disposal of humanity.” Balmer quotes Beisner’s own summary of his dominion theology: “All of our acquisitive activities should be undertaken with the purpose of extending godly rule, or dominion.” As Balmer notes, “the combination of dominion theology from the Religious Right and the wise use ideology of corporate and business interests has created a powerful coalition to oppose environmental protection.”
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Did I just see Exxon Mobil listed there as a "prime mover" in the formation of Cornwall Alliance, from the void and the formless deep? That explains a lot. You can't have an intricate plot, without the plot-maker, afterall.
Exclusive: The Oily Operators Behind The Religious Climate Change Denial Front Group, Cornwall Alliance
by Lee Fang, thinkprogress -- Jun 15, 2010
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In late 2005, evangelical leaders like Rick Warren joined a drive to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying “millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.” To counter this historic shift in the evangelical community, a group called the “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance” (ISA) was launched to oppose action on carbon emissions and to deny the existence of climate chance. One of the men guiding this group was Paul Driessen, a consultant for ExxonMobil, the mining industry, and for CFACT [Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow].
For “stream lining” reasons, ISA relaunched as the Cornwall Alliance in 2006. With the new name came a redesigned website, highly produced web videos, and an organized network of churches to distribute climate change denying propaganda to hundreds of pastors around the country. The branding for the Cornwall Alliance is derived from the “Cornwall Declaration,” a 1999 document pushing back against the creation-care movement in the evangelical community. The Declaration “stressed a free-market environmental stewardship and emphasized that individuals and private organizations should be trusted to care for their own property without government intervention.” CFACT President Rothbard has been hailed as the “driving force” behind the Cornwall Declaration public relations effort.
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But who is the “driving force” behind CFACT? According to disclosures, CFACT is funded by at least $542,000 from ExxonMobil, $60,500 from Chevron, and $1,280,000 from Scaife family foundations, which are rooted in wealth from Gulf Oil and steel interests.
CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance, according to disclosures filed with the Washington State Secretary of State’s office, share a common fundraising firm, ClearWord Communications Group. ClearWord has helped raise millions of dollars not only for CFACT and Cornwall, but also for infamous polluter front groups like FreedomWorks, the Institute for Energy Research, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. [...]
Thanks Lee Fang, as always your research is stellar.
I wonder what that traditional-energy Think Tank dreamt-up for the Cornwall Alliance? As their latest pagan idol to worship? Could it be the totem otherwise known as "present energy technologies"?
by the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
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WHAT WE BELIEVE
1. We believe Earth and its ecosystems -- created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence -- are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
2. We believe abundant, affordable energy is indispensable to human flourishing, particularly to societies which are rising out of abject poverty and the high rates of disease and premature death that accompany it. With present technologies, fossil and nuclear fuels are indispensable if energy is to be abundant and affordable.
3. We believe mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, achievable mainly by greatly reduced use of fossil fuels, will greatly increase the price of energy and harm economies.
4. We believe such policies will harm the poor more than others because the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on energy and desperately need economic growth to rise out of poverty and overcome its miseries.
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It hardly has the same ring as the Declaration of Independence does it?
How better to deny the science of Climate Change, than to banish it by a sort of Divine Fiat? By putting the Earth on auto-pilot, never to pursue New Clean Energy break-throughs again ...
Yet there still are voices of sanity out there, regarding Religion's obligation to protect the Environment, although they are becoming fewer and farther between:
Conservative Evangelicals embrace God and green
by Gregory M. Lamb, csmonitor.com, Staff writer March 25, 2010
(Pg 2 of 3)
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Their goal is to "present the scientific facts to Christians with the data and let them sit down and make up their own minds," [Dr Andrew] Farley says. He doesn't preach about climate change from his pulpit, though – or about politics or social issues, for that matter. [...]
The often-cited passage in Genesis about humans having "dominion" over the earth doesn't mean "let's destroy it," he says. "That's silly. That's absurd."
Love for humanity should be underlie concern for the environment, says Farley, [...]
(Pg 3 of 3)
The reason Evangelicals should care about climate change is "not because we worship the earth," [Katharine] Hayhoe says. It's recognizing that the impact is likely to be most severe in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.
"Doing something about climate change is loving our global neighbor," she says. "It's about caring about people who are already hurting around the world. And it's about caring for our children and future generations, who are going to inherit this earth that God has given us."
Well that makes sense.
Meanwhile strange new, alliance voices are rising up, trying to fill those economic niches; the voids of opportunity from which might one day profit, by helping to slay the "Green Dragon":
Resisting the Green Dragon; Dominion, Not Death
by James Wanliss
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Without doubt, one of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement. Although its reach is often subtle, there isn't an aspect of life that it doesn't seek to force into its own mold.
Environmentalism has become a new religion.
Environmentalism's policies are devastating to the world's poor.
Environmentalism threatens the sanctity of life.
Environmentalism is targeting our youth.
Environmentalism's vision is global.
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link to video
Watch out for
the Green Dragon (aka "
Radical Environmentalism" as Wanliss puts it in that video clip)
It's out there trying to save the planet, so that future generations might have a place to call home. And the Cornwall Alliance has Declared that humans can't have a say in that. In a planet that provides for our needs. That's God's job, not a job for mere humans, according to them.
It would seem that most of them still haven't gotten the point about Creation -- that it (the Cosmos and the good Earth) are NOT really "a dime a dozen." That we really should take care of the one planet we got -- NOW.
"To whom much is given, much is expected," or so a wise old religious teaching goes, passed down from the generations who went before us. And I serious doubt, there was "a Dragon" in the bunch.