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ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Global Warming brouhaha heating up among conservative evangelicalsSigners of Interfaith Stewardship Alliance report received $2.3 million from ExxonMobilWhile last month's record-setting heat wave may have convinced televangelist Pat Robertson that Global Warming is a clear and present danger, a healthy number of conservative evangelicals, academics, theologians, and political leaders still have their doubts. In a sweltering summertime concurrence, both Robertson's conversion and a report from a group calling itself the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA) came while many Americans were escaping the heat wave by shuffling off to movie theaters to see Al Gore's critically acclaimed film "An Inconvenient Truth." Reaction to Gore's film -- which was scorched by the conservative media -- Robertson's second thoughts, and the ISA report are all indicative of how conservatives are responding to global warming. A clearly distressed Robertson told his 700 Club audience that he now believed that global warming is real. Commenting on the heat wave that had been gripping the nation, Robertson said: I tell you stay in doors ladies and gentleman. Stay cool. Get fans or whatever. And the poor, they need emergency fans and ice to cool down -- the number of people dead. I have not been one who believed in the global warming. But I tell you, they are making a convert out of me as these blistering summers. They have broken heat records in a number of cities already this year and broken all-time records and it is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. If we are contributing to the destruction of the planet we need to do manage about it. While it might not be quite accurate to claim that Robertson has come kicking and screaming to his new stance, it should be recognized that he has given his 700 Club audience more than its fair share of anti-environmental screeds. "In October 2005, Robertson's 700 Club featured Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe characterizing Global Warming believers as ‘far left' and Robertson -- throwing in a sharp jab, presumably directed at evangelicals -- depicting those with environmental concerns as at risk of idolatry by worshipping ‘God's creation' rather than God," Bruce Wilson recently pointed out at the invaluable Talk To Action (website). The Interfaith Stewardship AllianceThe Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (website) is also distressed; probably not so much by the hot weather as it is by the positive reception that the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI website) received earlier this year when it unveiled its global warming action agenda. In late-July, just prior to Robertson's heat wave-induced announcement, the ISA issued a statement affirming its belief that the jury was basically still out on the issue. The organization also issued a report titled "A Call to Truth, Prudence, and the Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming" (pdf), which was clearly aimed at countering the ECI. ECI, organized by the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) and made up of megachurch pastors, Christian college presidents and theologians, issued its report in February. Titled "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action," the report urged the U.S. government to pass federal legislation requiring significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming. One of the claims made by the ECI is that "the consequences of climate change will be significant, and will hit the poor the hardest." The ISA report directly challenges this contention. According to the Baptist Press, the ISA report "contended such mandatory reductions to counteract global warming would ‘not only fail to achieve that end but would also have the unintended consequence of serious harm to the world's poor, delaying for decades or generations their rise from poverty and its attendant high rates of disease and premature death, and robbing them of the very tools they need to protect themselves from catastrophes.'" While the report from the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance -- signed on to by more than 100 evangelical theologians, pastors, climatologists and economists -- commends the signers of the ECI "for speaking out on a public issue of ethical concern," it clearly views global warning from a different lens: We share the same Biblical world view, theology, and ethics. We are motivated by the same deep and genuine concern they express for the poor not only of our own nation but of the world. That very concern compels us to express our disagreement with their "Call to Action" and to offer an alternative that would improve the lot of the poor more surely and effectively. The report grapples with the ECI's conclusions, arguing against the extent and significance -- and possibly even the existence -- of the purported "scientific consensus" on Global Warming. The ISA report espoused five conclusions:
In a recently published report at EthicsDaily.com titled "Signers of Environmental Statement Funded by ExxonMobil," Brian Kaylor -- a communications specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Missouri who also runs a blog called For God's Sake Shut Up! -- revealed that among the signers of the ISA report are eight "whose six organizations have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years." In 2005 ExxonMobil gave $715,000 "to organizations with signers of the ISA document":
The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance is no "Johnny come lately" to environmental issues. Back in 1999, Father Robert Sirico, of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty initiated the founding of ISA's predecessor organization, the now-defunct Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship. In mid-April of this year, in a room at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., the ISA, in conjunction with Sirico's Acton Institute, and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, held a "special" luncheon briefing titled "Pulpits, Pews and Environmental Policy: How the Cornwall Declaration is helping define the mandate of Biblical stewardship." According to the ISA's website, "The briefing featured top theologians and policy experts who articulated a vision of Biblical stewardship, based upon the Cornwall Declaration, which has been signed by over 1,500 clergy, theologians, scientists, economists and other people of faith. The ISA also announced the launch of the Cornwall Network, a nationwide network of churches which are partnering with the ISA on biblical stewardship and environmental issues." Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, national spokesman for the ISA and associate professor of social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, told the crowd that the aim of "the Cornwall Network is to provide solidly Biblical information to religious leaders, coupled with sound scientific and economic information, to help point laypeople toward creation care that recognizes God's extraordinary gifts to mankind, enlists those gifts to enhance the environment, and puts top priority on promoting human well being, especially among the world's poor." In a recent story titled "Nothing New Under the Sun," published in the American Spectator magazine, Mark Tooley, the director of the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C., was less charitable towards the ECI. He claimed that in the past, "some evangelicals invited ridicule by foretelling imminent doom if listeners did not repent," and the ECI "seems to fall into that same dubious tradition." Some longtime Robertson critics, and mainstream environmentalists, choose to ridicule his comments, but the Rev. Jim Ball, spokesman for the Evangelical Climate Initiative, saw them in a different light: Bell said that he thought Robertson's conversion demonstrates "the kind of leadership we need to move beyond the vague concern of some religious figures." And while Robertson might not sign on to the Environmental Climate Initiative or play a major role in the debate over solutions to global warming, the warning he issued to millions of viewers of the 700 Club is another nail in the coffin of global warning skeptics. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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