The Associated Press's report today on the continuing volcano eruption on Kilauea, the main island of Hawaii, which has destroyed hundreds of homes, included the sentence, “Those who live or vacation in the area were mourning the loss of popular tide-pools where kids enjoyed swimming," which got me thinking: If, as they do, natural processes routinely replace one habitat with another, why is it, as so many environmentalists think, wrong for humans to do so? Is it because humans aren’t … [Read more...]
Is Capitalism Bad for the Environment? The Eighth Commandment Offers a Clue
A common charge by environmentalists is that capitalism is bad for the environment. Indeed, Christiana Figueres, former secretary-general of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, opined that climate negotiations in Paris in late 2014 offered the world its best opportunity to replace the reigning global economic order (capitalism, or free markets) with another (socialism, or government-planned economies). But is capitalism really bad for the environment? One of the Ten … [Read more...]
CO2 Increase Hysteria: Scare Tactic or Science?
Despite major political developments in Washington and Barcelona, something else managed to grab global headlines this week—a declaration of emergency because of the increase in carbon dioxide gas in the earth’s atmosphere. Mainstream media had it on their first pages. “CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit a record high in 2016,” one news website said, sourcing data from a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that came out last week. The news articles’ primary focus was around … [Read more...]
What Unintended Consequences Accompany Mandatory Evacuations for Hurricanes?
While Hurricane Irma was making its way through the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm, the National Hurricane Center predicted that it would veer north before reaching Florida; then that it would veer north a little later, skirting Florida's Atlantic coast and bringing devastation; then that it would veer north still later, plowing right into Miami and then working its devastating way north; then that it would veer north later yet, skirting the Gulf coast and spreading devastation all along … [Read more...]
How Much Do We Really Need Big Brother for Disaster Relief?
USA Today reports that 80% of disaster relief aid following Hurricanes Harvey and Irma comes from faith-based organizations---denominations, individual churches, non-denominational charitable organizations. For anyone familiar with Marvin Olasky's The Tragedy of American Compassion, that's no surprise. In what Bill Bennett called "the most important book on welfare and social policy in a decade. Period," Olasky first gives the amazing history of how well charitable organizations---the vast … [Read more...]
What Happens to Water Quality When Communities Get Poorer?
Nearly universal access to safe drinking water is one of the great miracles of modern society. Americans have taken it for granted for over half a century, though mostly unjustified fears of municipal water supplies have led to increased resort to much more expensive and usually no safer bottled water. The growth of environmentalism has stimulated fears that various pollutants---mostly from industrial and agricultural sources---threaten to subject millions of Americans to unsafe drinking … [Read more...]
Christianity and the End of Ritualized Murder and Sexual Exploitation in India
Today we hear a lot about sex trafficking and the horrors that victims experience. The Christian church is today fighting this evil practice, but fighting sexual abuse is not a new thing for the body of Christ. Here with us today is Vijay Jayaraj, Research Associate for Developing Countries for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, to tell us about the impact Christians have had historically in India. … [Read more...]
Your Tax Dollars at Work: Abortion and Forced Sterilization in India
Over 35 million children have been aborted worldwide so far this year. Abortion numbers for India are hard to gauge because many don’t get reported, but it’s more than half-a-million babies, and could be as many as seven million. The preference for male children is strong in India, leading to sex selective abortions and significantly fewer female children. This has exacerbated sex-trafficking of women. … [Read more...]
Caring for Creation: A Book of Good Intentions but Poor Science
As an evangelical Christian, I believe we should be good stewards of God’s planet. We should strive to reduce pollution to protect human health and the natural environment. We should explore new alternative energy sources, always seeking to maximize benefits and minimize harms. We should prioritize providing electricity for the 1.2 billion people who don’t have it—and consequently suffer high rates of disease and premature death. For these and many other reasons I applaud Mitch Hescox and … [Read more...]
Can the Religious Right—and Left—Be Saved?
The 2016 Presidential election left lots of people on lots of sides (not just two!) bruised and, sad to say, many friendships torn, some perhaps beyond repair but by the grace of God. For both religious political conservatives and religious political liberals---whether evangelicals or mainline Protestants or Roman Catholics or Mormons or Jews---the two leading candidates left more than a little to be desired. This was one of those times when policy and character didn't line up very well for … [Read more...]
