Going to bat for God’s green earth

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

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By REV. DON EMMEL

Wow! When I wrote my letter “Who to believe on climate change?” (March 28), I didn’t realize I would be honored with a vigorous reply from the “media specialist” of the Heartland Institute’s head office in Chicago (“Straight from the Heartland,” April 1).

I must have struck a very sensitive nerve. It seems their reply was meant to take me to the woodshed.

But I deeply appreciated Benjamin Franz’s “Bad Info from the Heartland” (March 29), indicating that “The Heartland Institute’s data and charts are all 10 years old or older, and still include data that has since been shown wrong.” I also appreciate his letting us know that “the Heartland Institute is part of the pro-tobacco propaganda machine.” I took a look on Heartland’s Web site and found a link to an item about a December 2006 press release from the president of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets announcing “a multi-year partnership project with Heartland Institute to influence public opinion on tobacco issues.” Hmmm. I wonder what that is about?

I also deeply appreciated Dr. Kelly Decker’s article “Time to take climate change seriously” (March 31). She wrote about the stringent peer review process published scientific articles go through. “No one pulls any punches. The evidence for global climate change comes from many peer-reviewed sources from many labs covering different geological and atmospheric angles who have been working for over five decades on the subject.” That from a senior research scientist herself who has gone through the peer review process.

But then I read a speech on the Heartland Institute’s Web site by Heartland President Joseph Bast, given to the Nebraska Farm Bureau on Feb. 7 and published in Environment News April 1. The preface to the published article said, “Bast demonstrated the current global warming scare is like prior environmental scares that were soundly debunked once sufficient scientific data were gathered on the issue. Although global warming is a scientifically controversial topic, Bast notes, scientists agree the warming to date has been modest and that natural variability may well explain some or all of it. Premature attempts to ‘do something now’ will cause more harm than good, particularly to American farmers, he notes.” This preface summarized well his total speech debunking the climate issues as being full of myths.

Now I await the second major report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be released in Belgium on April 6. According to the article in the April 2 San Francisco Chronicle, this report by a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists representing 120 governments will be pretty stark.

But I join the comment in that article by Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was the top author of the 2001 version of this report, when he said, “The worst still is not going to happen because we can’t be that stupid. Not that I think the projections aren’t that good, but because we can’t be that stupid.” I pray, too, that we will not be that stupid. I am not a scientist, but I want to go to bat for God’s wonderful earth for the generations yet to live upon it.

(Emmel is a retired Presbyterian pastor. He lives in Napa.)

4 comment(s)

LeftyLimblog wrote on May 3, 2007 6:02 AM:

" Pay no attention to that money behind the curtain!!! There is NO GLOBAL WARMING as long as oil and coal companies can continue to make record profits!!! --Lefty!!! "

Kevin wrote on May 3, 2007 7:37 AM:

" What would be stupid, would be to let the socialist/environmental coalition use this issue to further promote their idiotic political agenda. Allowing them to increase taxes, restrict our economy and limit our freedoms in a futile attempt to modify something beyond our control would be like swinging for "the fence" but in reality, hitting into a triple play... "

Know your enemy wrote on May 3, 2007 11:50 AM:

" If the United Nations is behind the new global warming report coming out, then the richest people in the world are behind it. The Rockefellers, the Rothchilds, etc. These people control the FED, the International Monetary Fund, and created the United Nations Charter. These people are financing the foundations that support the Sierra Club, and numerous other environmental groups. These people also own Chevron, many of the big oil companies, and other companies that are supposedly causing the global warming. These same people are jetting around in their private jets laughing their heads off at the stupid Americans that don't understand that it isn't about saving the earth; it's about scaring the heck out of ignorant people, and controlling a population of future green head Americans, their future underpaid workforce. These people behind the scenes will still be doing whatever they want, wherever they want, using as much carbon as they want, while you and me will be barely able to survive in our third world “sustainable development”, internationally regulated and taxed lives. Trusting the United Nations is like trusting Hitler with your Jewish grandmother. Then again, our future green heads probably don't know much about history either. "

Runbikehike wrote on May 3, 2007 8:44 PM:

" There is an Everest of scientific evidence to indicate that (1) global warming is taking place, (2) human activity is contributing to global warming, and (3) the effects of global warming are quite negative for plants, animals and humans. "

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