Delivered to the Christian Witness in a Pagan Planet CWIPPThink Conference, January 21-24, 2008 From the paper: . . . In April of last year I was among about eighty participants from around the world–scientists, politicians, economists, religious leaders–in a conference on climate change sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican. During the shuttle trip from our meeting place in Vatican City to our hotel the first evening, I sat beside a middle-aged woman, tall, … [Read more...]
The IPCC’s Cardinal Error in CO2 Warming Calculation
Read the full report here (PDF). Lord Christopher Monckton, Viscount Brenchley, former advisor to the Thatcher and Major governments in the UK and a well-known critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has written a paper especially for the Cornwall Alliance revealing a major mathematical error in the work of the IPCC. Because of the error, the IPCC exaggerates the warming effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide by 2 to 7 times. The IPCC's cardinal error is in its … [Read more...]
Global Warming: Why Evangelicals Should Not Be Alarmed
An annotated, PDF version of this article is available for Download. In a documentary aired August 23, 2007, by CNN and titled “God’s Warriors,” Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said about evangelicals who disagree with his urgent appeals for action to fight global warming: Historically, evangelicals have reasoned like this: Scientists believe in evolution. Scientists are telling us climate change is real. Therefore, I won’t … [Read more...]
Scientific Orthodoxies, Politicized Science, and Catastrophic Global Warming: Challenges to Evangelicals Navigating Rough Waters in Science and Policy
Click here to download the full paper. The year 2006 has seen a major division among evangelicals over a strange, multifaceted issue: whether human action is causing potentially catastrophic global warming and what, if anything, should be done about it. That division quite possibly had enormous political consequences in the mid-term elections just completed, contributing to both diminished voter turnout among evangelicals and a decline in their support for Republican candidates from 75 percent … [Read more...]
Testimony delivered before the U.S. Senate
Download the Annotated Testimony or the Short Version (pdf) Oral Testimony of Dr. E. Calvin Beisner to the Environment and Public Works Committee of the United States SenateWednesday, October 20, 2006 Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, and distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. Having never before this year been significantly involved in politics other than to vote in elections, it is strange to find myself here. But my moral convictions as a … [Read more...]
A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming
A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor (PDF) An Open Letter to the Signers of Climate Change an Evangelical Call to Action and Others Concerned About Global Warming (PDF) As evangelicals, we commend those who signed the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action” for speaking out on a public issue of ethical concern. We share the same Biblical world view, theology, and ethics. We are motivated by the same deep and genuine concern they express … [Read more...]
ISA announces launch of Cornwall Network at Senate luncheon – Beisner
Good afternoon. I’m Calvin Beisner, associate professor of social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary and a founder and spokesman of the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. I want to thank the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Democracy and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, whose new president, Jim Tonkowich, will be one of our speakers today, for co-sponsoring this briefing. To all of you, welcome, and thank you for coming. We are excited today to launch what we are calling the … [Read more...]
An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Climate Change
An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Climate Change Policy (PDF) Executive Summary Few issues have permeated or fueled public debate like the topic of global warming. Since first registering on the public radar screen in 1988 with NASA’s James Hansen’s famous pronouncement of its alleged existence, the controversial subject has generated countless articles, television broadcasts and international conferences. Indeed, the Kyoto Protocol – designed to … [Read more...]
No Sure Bet: Two Replies to Andy Crouch’s “Environmental Wager”
The August 2005 issue of Christianity Today (vol. 49, no. 8, p. 66) carried an alarmist piece about global warming by Andy Crouch titled “Environmental Wager” that condemned critics of global warming alarmism and prescribed endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate global warming as a new variation on Pascal’s Wager that is so obviously the right thing to do that anybody who objects must be a cretin. The article generated critical responses from two founders of the … [Read more...]
Early and Notable Signers of the Cornwall Declaration
Sixty-six people from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant communities, as well as other layman, pastors, scholars, and religious leaders, endorsed the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship when it was first released in March of 2000. By June 22, 2000, more than 921 others had joined them. Those first 987 signers are listed below. (Organizational affiliations are for identification only and do not imply organizational endorsement.) Since then thousands of others have joined … [Read more...]
