Many Christian environmentalists fail to fully appreciate how the Bible connects environmental degradation not to how many trees we cut down or to over population but to how we treat our neighbors (Jer 12:4; 23:10; Hos 4:3). In other words, while contemporary Christian environmentalists focus on the MPG of the car you are driving or whether you are avoiding beef, a Biblical environmentalist would ask, “How are you treating your neighbor?”. So is the Biblical perspective just the result of people … [Read more...]
For Three Billion People, Coal Looks Pretty Good
Ask a typical college student about “environmentally friendly” energy sources, and the student will usually respond with comments on wind energy, solar energy, or at least “renewable fuels.” Coal would never make the list. But as an economist, I’m always teaching students about trade-offs. There is no energy source that is costless, either financially or in terms of environmental degradation. Wind energy, for example, requires metals that have to be mined, access roads and transmission lines … [Read more...]
My Sister and I
When we were kids my sister and I were best friends, inseparable even. Something changed during adulthood and we ventured down separate paths. I’m a rock ribbed conservative, she’s just as firmly entrenched in political liberalism. I’m a fundamentalist evangelical (in the classic meaning of those terms) and sis leans a little new age. Perhaps one of our most stark contrasts comes at the point of our outlook towards environmentalism and the green movement. I wrote a novel about an extremist … [Read more...]
Why Biblical Worldview and Sound Science Generate Skepticism about Manmade Global Warming
In 1 Thessalonians 5:21, the Apostle Paul tells us to “test all things, hold fast what is good.” That, among other things (such as belief that a rational God designed the ordered world to be understood and ruled by rational human beings made in His image), is the Biblical basis for modern science, which arose only once in history and in only one place: Medieval Europe, which was shaped by the Christian worldview. Such thinking gave rise to scientific method, the key to which is skepticism, as … [Read more...]
Does INTERSTELLAR Have an Environmentalist Agenda? Director Christopher Nolan Clears the Air
Just released on DVD, Writer/Director Christopher Nolan’s most recent science fiction adventure, INTERSTELLAR, caused many people to wonder if the movie is going to be merely another hysterical left-wing, politically correct warning of man-made global warning, another fear-induced reason for Americans to buy more hybrid cars. INTERSTELLAR is set on an ecologically devastated earth about a widower who pilots a spaceship into another galaxy looking for a habitable planet that can save his family … [Read more...]
The Great Pause Lengthens to 18 Years 4 Months
There’s been essentially zero trend, calculated by the least squares regression method (the most relevant), in global average temperature as measured by the satellites, in 18 years 4 months. None of the computer climate models came even remotely close to simulating this. Consequently they’re wrong. Since they’re wrong, they leave no rational basis to fear dangerous manmade global warming, and therefore no rational basis for any climate-change policy whatsoever. Here’s the graph, by Christopher … [Read more...]
Pardon Me, I Cannot Hear You
I was pleased when I read the Indiana Religious Freedom Reformation Act (RFRA). The law allows individuals and companies to use religions convictions to protect them from from being sued for discrimination. Finally, some protection for a photographer who refused to take pictures at a homosexual wedding ceremony or the baker who will not bake a cake for the reception. Obviously, the intent of the law is not to allow a retail store to refuse service to a customer because the color of his skin or … [Read more...]
Environmentalists Claim “Just Solution” to Climate Change is Wealth Redistribution
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that redistribution of wealth isn’t a major part of the agenda for the global warming alarmist crowd. Here’s a graphic prepared by ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, which Wikipedia describes as “an intergovernmental organization based on the idea of the social, political and economic integration of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. … Founded initially by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004, it is associated … [Read more...]
The Tula Context
For two summers, I was on staff at Boy Scout Camp Tula on Lake Greeson in western Arkansas. It was wonderfully rustic. We slept in tents and padded about in our hand-sewn moccasins, up and down the hilly trails on the fragrant pine needles. Dark was really dark, so we could pick out the constellations on most nights. Paw prints were all over the muddy stream banks. We’d stage Indian dances around bonfires and go skinny dipping to wash off the greasepaint after the guests had left. There was a … [Read more...]
Of Gardens, Fields, and Good Friday
Carolyn Adams Roth reflects here on what likely was the plant from which the Roman soldiers plaited the crown of thorns for Jesus. Reading that got me thinking. On this Good Friday—marking the most horrific sin in all history, the murder of God—it is good to reflect on thorns and what they teach us. The Bible’s first mention of them comes in God’s proclamation of judgment on Adam in Genesis 3:17–18: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I … [Read more...]
