This is a guest article by Russell Cook.

Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash

Once again, the “Religious Moral Imperative to Stop Global Warming” popped up last week and achieved another 15 minutes of fame via multi-repeats of the news story of the National Association of Evangelicals putting out a major report detailing the “Biblical Basis for Christian Engagement” to stop man-caused global warming.

Sadly, their nearly 100 page report operates pretty much on what skeptic climate scientists and expert climate issue speakers would describe as a completely false premise, namely that the science is settled. The report declares it so, citing a NASA article:

The current warming trend is of particular significance because it is unequivocally the result of human activity.

Skeptic climate scientists and expert climate issue speakers dispute that at massive depth. What’s missing from the NAE report? Any semblance that such detailed science-based opposition exists. The report only mentions the basic “skeptic” word three times, all within three sentences, in between first setting up a logical fallacy of “appealing to consensus opinion” and then continuing on with its ‘settled science’ false premise where readers are subtly urged to acquire confidence via what is arguably “confirmation bias.”

To its credit, the NAE report never insinuates skeptic scientists are immoral operators paid by energy giants to lie about the issue. But one of the report’s citation sources sure did, the so-called “Christian climate scientist” Dr Katharine Hayhoe. As I implied in the longer criticism I sent to the NAE below, neither Dr Hayhoe or the people she cited could prove skeptic climate scientists are corrupted by fossil fuel industry money if their reputations depended on it.

And that’s where the moral dilemma brick wall pops up for Christians in particular, since within the Bible’s 10 Commandments, there is one that forbids making false accusations about others.

Which is the bigger sin? Failing to act in stopping global warming, or prompting others to ignore skeptic climate scientists by telling them that those skeptics are immoral industry-paid ‘liars for hire’?

I wanted to point out this massive problem to the NAE directly. The have a contact page for doing so, eagerly appearing to ask for input. But their comment box only permits 300-characters or less. So I had to take what I originally wanted to send to them and put it into a PDF file link which would fit within their tiny comment window, along with a brief summary of what was within it. The short bit that follows is exactly what I sent them, and after that is the verbatim text out of my PDF file link, with the url website addresses made clickable:

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Very disappointed that your contact page only permits 300-character comments. I must instead respond with my PDF file link to my 645 words 4,334 characters criticism of your revised 2022 “Loving the Least of These” climate issue report. I suggest that you’ve put yourselves in a moral dilemma by failing to examine what skeptic climate scientists have to say.

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NAE staff,

I was just alerted to this Aug 31 article, “National Association of Evangelicals joins call for attention to climate change”.

May I respectfully suggest, well-intended that this report of yours might be, when religious person or group asserts that the ‘science’ of man-caused global warming is settled and all of us are under a moral imperative to do all we can to stop global warming, the religious person or group inadvertently places themselves into a serious religious moral dilemma, when an elemental question is asked: “which is the bigger sin — failing to stop a so-called global warming crisis which has increasing credibility problems with its underlying science assessments, or breaking the Commandment on Bearing False Witness against skeptic climate scientists by calling them ‘industry-corrupted’ as a tactic to ensure that the public dismisses skeptic scientists’ massively detailed science-based criticisms aren’t taken seriously?”

The global warming issue war is waged on two fronts: “settled science” and “crooked skeptics.” I submit that it is an elemental sin of failing to undertake basic due diligence to see if there is a viable science-based ‘second opinion’ on this entire matter, and I submit that it is an even bigger sin to accuse well-meaning skeptic climate scientists of being ‘industry-paid liars-for-hire’ without checking the veracity of the accusation. Within your report, on page 49, you cite alleged “Christian climate scientist” Katharine Hayhoe, who herself has apparently committed that sin when she accused skeptic climate scientists of that treachery, as seen in this screen capture of her accusation elsewhere. Her citation sources are both massively suspect as I detail here and here. I submit that if the latter of Ms Hayhoe’s citation sources is placed under oath at either congressional hearings or in cross-examinations within the current global warming damages lawsuits, the collapse of that person’s credibility could implode the entire “crooked skeptic scientists” accusation by exposing it as something that may have strayed into epic libel /slander territory on the part of its core promulgators.

I’m not a climate scientist, I am no more than a common citizen who (after a decade+ of doing due diligence to determine if the “crooked skeptics” accusation is true) now has an email contact list that reads like a Who’s Who of skeptic climate scientists and expert climate issue speakers who hold the same skepticism. From my own personal work researching the validity of the “crooked skeptics” accusation, I can point out at considerable depth how it has NO merit, and that the accusation has been promulgated by a core clique of enviro-activists, where some of their efforts have even infiltrated one particular church organization. I wrote an article on this topic years back at AmericanThinker (“The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant”), and have a current blog post category at my GelbspanFiles blog where two of my posts explore the HUGE faults of the people behind the so-called “Moral Imperative to Stop Global Warming.”

I am certain the NAE staff meant well with this report, but the reason perhaps why you all were not aware of the other side of the issue is because news outlets such as the PBS NewsHour, for example, have EXCLUDED skeptic climate scientists’ detailed viewpoints from their program (I detail the NewsHour’s specific bias here.

Ask yourselves how big of a sin it is for such an influential body of people to deceive their viewing audiences to that extent.

Then ask yourselves whether you should retract your entire 95-page report until after you’ve thoroughly examined and given fair treatment to skeptic scientists, e.g. the now 1200 behind this declaration, along with all the skeptic scientists and other experts behind these reports.

Russell Cook is the publisher of the GelbspanFiles.com, refuting false claims that fossil fuel industry executives pay skeptic climate scientists to undercut the “settled science” of man-caused global warming.

This article originally appeared at wattsupwiththat.com and has been republished here with permission.