Monday, July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the law by imposing regulations on mercury emissions from power plants without first doing thorough benefit/cost estimates. Nearly four years ago the Cornwall Alliance published a study by environmental regulatory economics Dr. Timothy Terrell, The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ethics and Economics of the War on Conventional Energy, that made that very point. Dr. Terrell comments on the … [Read more...]
World Magazine Exposes Evangelical Environmentalists’ Growing Dependence on Green-Left Funding
Many environmentalists are fond of accusing all critics of their alarms of being in the pocket of industry. World magazine has just turned the tables. In a three-page article, World environment reporter Daniel James Devine reports that evangelical "creation care" organizations like the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), its daughter organization Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA), and the once-conservative now moderate-to-Left-leaning Christian Coalition receive a major share of … [Read more...]
Why One Conservative, Evangelical Republican’s Case for Climate Alarm Fails—Part 2
Yesterday I began a multi-part critique of a recent blog post by Evangelical Environmental Network board chairman Scott Rodin titled "As a Conservative, Evangelical Republican, Why Climate Change Can't Be True (Even Though It Is)." In that piece I pointed out that scientific data point the opposite direction from where Rodin thinks they do. I also mentioned that Rodin was using logical fallacies and rhetorical tricks to precondition readers to accept his conclusions despite his lack of sound … [Read more...]
Why One Conservative, Evangelical Republican’s Case for Climate Alarm Fails—Part 1
Dr. Scott Rodin, chairman of the board of the Evangelical Environmental Network and a blogger at The Steward’s Journey, posted a piece May 19, 2015, titled, “As a Conservative, Evangelical Republican, Why Climate Change Can’t be True (Even Though It Is).” It has some very interesting reasoning and deserves careful consideration. In this and several future blog posts, I’m going to interact with it. He began, “Imagine a mathematician basing his or her entire life’s work on the premise that 1+1 = … [Read more...]
Oppressing the Poor In the Name of Fighting Global Warming
"No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change." So said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union message last week. That he spent under 5% of the speech on the subject—about one-ninth as much as on the economy, one-fifth as much as on our need to overcome cynicism, and a little less even than on affordable college education—and tucked it away in a section about two-thirds of the way through suggests that the President doesn't really believe it … [Read more...]
Evangelical Environmentalists Undermine Pro-Life Movement, Again
About two years ago over 30 of the nation's pro-life leaders issued an official statement against an environmental campaign spearheaded by the Evangelical Environmental Network calling mercury regulations "pro-life." Instead of correcting its claims, EEN doubled down and expanded them, further obscuring the meaning of "pro-life" and diluting its usefulness to identify people working to end abortion on demand. First they aligned global warming to the " pro-life" cause, and then they expanded the … [Read more...]
Is Fighting Global Warming a “Pro-Life” Issue and Necessary to Shield Florida from “Extreme Weather”? No, Says Former National Hurricane Center Director Neil Frank
Alerted that the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) had launched a campaign to pressure Florida Governor Rick Scott to take steps to combat global warming in order to protect Florida from extreme weather, calling it a “pro-life” issue, former National Hurricane Center Director Dr. Neil Frank, a pro-life evangelical himself, sent off a highly critical letter of his own on August 3, a copy of which he sent to the Cornwall Alliance. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Frank said of … [Read more...]
Familiar Environmental Deceit Threatens Pro-Life Movement Again
The United States pro-life movement (also known as the United States anti-abortion movement or the United States right-to-life movement) is a social and political movement in the United States opposing on moral or sectarian grounds elective abortion and usually supporting its legal prohibition or restriction.” So begins the Wikipedia article on “United States pro-life movement.” Nonetheless, as it did on mercury emissions from power plants, the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) now wants … [Read more...]
EEN President Hescox Attacks Cornwall’s Beisner Using Straw Man and Misunderstood Evidence
Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) President and CEO Rev. Mitch Hescox introduced a blog piece November 27, 2012, titled “My Meeting with Brother Cal,” by saying, “Christian leaders making misstatements to serve their own ends, attacking other believers for not agreeing with their worldview, and misusing science turn people away from the good news in Jesus.” In logic and debate, that’s called “poisoning the well.” After having done so, Rev. Hescox said that during a radio program … [Read more...]
Are Mercury Emissions as Evil as Abortion? Somebody Wants Voters to Think So
Green group’s notion of pro-life comes straight from Alice in Wonderland “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”—Humpty Dumpty How do you turn politicians with 100% pro-abortion voting records into pro-lifers? The old-fashioned way would have been to persuade them that killing babies in their mothers’ wombs violates the God-given, unalienable right to life that governments are instituted among men to protect. But persuasion can be difficult. Not to … [Read more...]