A New York Times headline on March 10 read, “Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming.” The article reports that a core group of influential evangelical leaders “has put its considerable political power behind a cause that has barely registered on the evangelical agenda—fighting global warming.”

These church leaders have bought into the thinking of some scientists, writers and heads of international aid agencies who assert that global warming is an urgent threat and a cause of poverty. They argue that, since the Bible mandates stewardship of God's creation, it follows that Christians should throw their support, carteblanche, behind an unprecedented, broad-based environmental advocacy platform adopted last fall by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Their platform statement, an “Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” states, “Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation.”

Although that statement, signed by nearly 100 evangelical leaders, is generic enough to garner support from almost any concerned citizen, it is far from certain that a more focused statement on controlling climate change would elicit a similar response.

Nevertheless, Ted Haggard, president of NAE (an umbrella group of 51 church denominations) and pastor of New Life Church of Colorado Springs, Colorado, makes a brash claim: “We do represent 30 million people, and we can mobilize them if we have to.”

This overtly political move to enlist the support of evangelicals in the “Kyoto Cause” stems from the fact that the current Bush Administration has refused to join the international Kyoto treaty, and opposes mandatory emission controls. (Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, but it was never ratified in the Senate.) Nor has the issue gained much traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. A large majority of evangelicals are Republicans, and roughly 80% of evangelicals voted for President Bush in 2004, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals and a significant voice in the debate, said, “I don’t think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created.”

Most evangelical Christians would not argue with his statement; but hopefully, most of them will understand that his statement does not correctly or adequately address the real issues behind the Kyoto brouhaha.

Political Horse Trading

The Kyoto Protocols do not, by any means, provide a level playing field. They would require the U.S. to reduce our emissions to 7 percent below our 1990 levels; yet China, the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is wholly exempted from Kyoto’s restrictions.

Signed in 1997, the agreement to limit CO 2 emissions from industry and transportation reached its formal activation point in November 2004, when Russia finally signed on. Countries responsible for at least 55 percent of the globe's emissions had to ratify the accord for it to take effect. Reaching that number proved impossible without Russia. When the U.S. declined to ratify, the Australians withdrew, and the Brazilians, Indians, Indonesians, and Chinese balked at accepting emissions caps until at least 2012, only Russia with its 17 percent emissions share had enough to put Kyoto over the top.

Originally, Russia had refused to ratify. Andrei Illarionov, the chief economic advisor to President Putin, described Kyoto as an “economic Auschwitz” for Russia. In late 2003, Putin sent him on a world lecture tour to explain why Russia wouldn't be joining.

The Russian government initially believed it could make money by signing on. In 1997, the country's industrial output had dropped from what it was in the old Soviet days. Given that Kyoto's limits are calculated by reference to 1990 emission levels, this put Russia in the position of being able to sell its emissions “credits” to wealthier countries, who would never be able to reach their Kyoto goals otherwise. (Note: 1990 was the year Britain switched from coal to gas, and the dirty old factories of East Germany and Central Europe shut down. Europe calculated that meeting 1990-level targets would cost them little or nothing.)

When Russian economic prospects unexpectedly began to improve, President Putin concluded there would be few emission credits to sell. He refused to ratify because Kyoto no longer made economic sense. Besides that, the Russian academy of sciences—which has probably done more research on Arctic climate change than any other body in the world—believes there is little significant warming, and that what warming there is, isn't man-made.

When the Russians withdrew, the Europeans began working feverishly to make the deal palatable once again to Mr. Putin. They enticed him with membership in the World Trade Organization and a trade pact with the European Union, in return for Kyoto ratification.

In November 2004, Mr. Putin took the bait. Professor Illarionov still maintains that Kyoto, alone, makes no economic sense for Russia. It was potential WTO membership and greater access to world markets that tipped the balance.

The Europeans always wanted the deal, but not because they wanted to save the planet; they happen to be more than 15 percent above their Kyoto emission targets. But, if they could shame the Americans into ratifying, it would hobble the Americans and give the Europeans an economic advantage in international trade.

Developing nations signed on in 1997 only because they were promised the caps wouldn't apply to them until 2012 at the earliest. Their industries are six to 10 times dirtier on a per-GDP basis than those of the developed world, but the United Nations gave them a pass because their economies were “emerging.” There are 160 signatories to Kyoto, although the emission caps apply to only 38 of them. Not one of them is in compliance with their targets. (Source: Lorne Gunter, “So long, Kyoto. We hardly knew ye,” eco-logic magazine, Jan. 1, 2005)

Does any of this deal-making and strategizing have anything to do with saving the environment? Not a thing.

The “Coalition”

Proponents of the Kyoto treaty want to convince voters and politically powerful groups that unless we sign onto the Kyoto treaty and submit our industries and our standard of living to the outrageous, illogical and highly political conglomeration of emissions controls and emissions swaps under the treaty, global warming will decimate the global economy and produce poverty and misery on an unprecedented scale.

Who are these people, and why do they so desperately want the U.S. to be controlled by the Kyoto Protocols?

They are anti-growth socialists, especially the European countries that have moved left in recent years, who oppose economic growth and welcome scarcity of resources so that (necessarily) big governments can apportion the scarce resources.

They are foreign dictators in the United Nations who see the UN as a forum where they can demand the U.S. redistribute her wealth to them. This produces a gravy train for ruling tyrants who make certain U.S. foreign aid goes into their pockets, rather than to the poor who need it.

They are radical environmentalists who work to subordinate our American standard of living to the supremacy of global ecology. They operate on money available through a huge array of non-governmental organizations and tax-exempt foundations. Fred Gielow, writing for eco-logic magazine (“The Environmental Scare Industry,” January 1, 2004), stated that advocacy groups such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, and a dozen others combined bring in nearly $2 billion a year in revenues—and another 200 lesser groups bring the annual take to nearly $4 billion. (Another gravy train.)

They are leftist radicals who formerly marched in the streets for the Communists. Now, they use their street skills for the radical environmental movement. They are the “hate America, destroy America” bunch.

They are Democrats, eager for any issue with which to attack George W. Bush. They see the Kyoto treaty as a perfect fit with their goals of more federal regulation and higher taxes. They bolster their arguments with left-wing scientists who are willing to distort science for political purposes.

Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol deliberately distorted the June 2001 report of the National Academy of Sciences to sell their propaganda. Phyllis Schlafly wrote, “The full report makes clear that there is no scientific consensus about long-term climate trends or what causes them. . . . climate is constantly changing and the earth is warmer than it used to be . . . but scientists do not agree that past climate change was caused by CO 2 and they cannot forecast what the climate will be in the future. They don’t agree on how much change can be attributed to greenhouse gases and how much to water vapor, clouds and storms.” (“Kyoto = Kick the United States,” published at Eagle Forum, July 4, 2001)

“Nothing to do with real science . . .”

As of July 2001, 17,000 American scientists had signed a Petition that urges the U.S. government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and all other similar proposals. The petition states that Kyoto’s proposed limits on greenhouse gases would “harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”

Further, the petition states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouses gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”

Dr. Larry Bates, owner and publisher of Unravelling The New World Order and Monetary & Economic Review, reports a telling comment by Dr. Bill Gray, a climatologist with Colorado State University. At a meeting of the Ft. Collins, Colorado, Rotary Club, Dr. Bates asked the speaker, Dr. Gray, to “Tell us about global warming. Is it based on credible science—or junk science?”

Dr. Gray responded, “You’ll have to ask a political scientist about that, because it has nothing at all to do with real science.”

Apostasy

It goes without saying that Christians believe they have an obligation to care for the environment. Scripture teaches that God has given dominion over the earth and its creatures to Mankind; but at the same time, He requires that we be good stewards of all that He has entrusted to us.

This latest shenanigan by proponents of Kyoto is a shameless red herring and a scam. There is not a clear-cut mandate for Christian support for Kyoto, because environmental stewardship is not the real issue here. The enemies of America (both within and without) see the Kyoto treaty as the ideal vehicle for bringing down this nation, and they were furious when President Bush (and Congress) refused to buy into it. Now, they see support from evangelicals as their next best hope in foisting this horrendous scam (or something like it) on the American people in order to level us out and bring us down to the level of the poorest nations on earth.

Unfortunately, there is an apostate theology right out of the “New Age” handbook that is creeping into evangelicals’ thinking—and it plays right into the subversive plans of the “Bring Down America” bunch. Christians are falling into the politically correct worship of “Mother Earth,” and it makes them easy prey for a counterfeit “protect the environment” scam.

There is a solemn warning in Scripture about such folly: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity . . . because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24, 25).

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