The Pope Joins the EU in a Sad World of Make-Believe

There are two great acts of political make-believe in our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on our lives 

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives for a general audience at St Peter's square at the Vatican Photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

What has a Papal Encyclical calling on the world to end its use of fossil fuels and to pray to God for the success of the global “climate summit” in December got in common with the Greek euro crisis, the ominous rift between the West and Russia, and the shambles Europe is making over the desperation of African and Syrian refugees to find safety this side of the Mediterranean? They are all different aspects of the two greatest acts of political make-believe of our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on all our lives.

When future historians come to look back on our age, few things will puzzle them more than the extent to which our politics became so dominated and bedevilled by two belief-systems, each based on an obsessive attempt to force into being an immensely complicated political construct which defied economic, psychological and scientific reality.

One of these was the peculiar way in which Europe’s politicians, with full support from the US, had set out to unite their continent under a form of supra-national government unlike anything the world had seen before. The other was the way those same politicians fell for the idea not just that human activities were disastrously changing Earth’s climate, but that by taking the most drastic measures they could somehow change it back again.  

Read more at TheTelegraph >>

Francis and Political Illusion

In the cap and bells of Flip Wilson’s Church of What’s Happening Now, Pope Francis is readying an encyclical on climate change. He will address the world’s latest mutation of the grail quest: human ecology. Abandoning nuance for apocalyptic alarmism (“If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.”), Francis has signaled the tenor of his utterance.

Read more at First Things >>

EarthFirst Gives Me Hope!

. . . Yes, the realization that these people are all Obama supporters should encourage every conservative!

Al Gore Sued for Fraud by Over 30,000 Scientists

John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel and weatherman for KUSI-TV, leads 30,000 scientists in a lawsuit charging Al Gore with fraud in the global warming scam. Also supporting the scientists are 9000 Ph.D. researchers.

Has America Lost Her Will to be Free?

From Canada Free Press
By Rod Ewart

We wonder why Americans have lost their will to fight a battle, or right a wrong, or defend their freedom and liberty? We allow hordes of illegal aliens to invade our country every day and say we can’t do anything about it because we must be compassionate, without acknowledging the dire consequences that misplaced compassion will inflict upon us.

We allow our government to slap chains on our wrists and ankles with a million regulations, without so much as a whimper. We allow socialism and radical environmentalism to tear down the very foundation of our freedom while we look the other way. We allow our children to be indoctrinated and brainwashed with the new social order and environmental extremism and say we don’t have the time to get involved. We have allowed special-interest groups to replace the consent of the governed, even though our in-action leads to our enslavement. We have allowed a fourth branch of government to grow and prosper that answers to no one, in the rising stench of out-of-control bureaucracies.

We allow waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, negligence and incompetence to thrive in our government institutions and don’t demand that the perpetrators be summarily fired, fined, or jailed. We stand back and do nothing while they get promoted and ask for money to do their job “right”. We allow government contracts for mega projects and military hardware to escalate into cost overruns that exceed original estimates by several factors. Millions grow to billions and then trillions and not even a ho-hum is uttered. We have allowed entitlements to grow and grow to the point where one day, the piper will have to be paid and government will take our very souls to retire the debt, or some foreign country that holds the debt will confiscate our major assets because we can’t pay. Some say our unfunded liability now stands in excess of $50 Trillion dollars and yet our candidates for president are offering more of the same that will only make matters worse and increase our debt beyond any capability of paying it. We will, for all intent and purposes, go broke, if we stay on the same path.

We shrink in fear and horror when we must send our brave men and women into harm’s way to protect our interests. We place a greater value on capitulation and appeasement rather than on strength and victory, in spite of the lessons that history has taught us. We allow our government to cut deals with other countries that violate our very sovereignty and we do nothing. As we write this, our government is planning a union with Canada and Mexico that seeks to dismantle what’s left of our Constitutional Republic. Soon the North American Union will spring to life and the shining beacon of American freedom will grow dimmer.

We allow the government to force us to tag every one of our animals with a micro chip and notify the government of any movements of those animals, as well as letting them know where we live by GPS coordinates, under the U. S. Agriculture Department’s National Animal Index System (NAIS). How soon will it be before every American citizen is required to have a micro chip inserted under their skin? A requirement that will be sanctioned by both parties in the name of our security. How is this any different than the numbers that were tattooed on the arms of Jews in World War II, in the Nazi death camps?

We allow presidents to codify UN social and environmental policies into law by executive order, without ratification by the U. S. Congress, in violation of our constitution. We allow our courts to subvert the meaning of the words in our constitution and fabricate out of thin air, government rights and powers that don’t exist. We have become so soft that we have allowed the government to convince us that our security is more necessary than our liberty.

But even worse, we have allowed the entertainment industry to redefine our standards of decency. It has become acceptable to call women, bitches and ho’s. We spit on the rule of law in rap and hip hop, as well as film. Swear words, once banned, are now common on TV and radio.

It is now Ok to demean personal achievement as being, trying to be better than anyone else. We have allowed common courtesy to go out the window. Our children are exposed daily to the worst within us, instead of the best. While, with science, we have eradicated many diseases that were fatal to us, we have allowed honesty, integrity and honor to be almost erased from our culture. We have allowed depravity and bad behavior to define our values, instead of demanding good behavior from ourselves and those around us. In other words, almost anything goes today and we find it acceptable! In the end, lowering the bar of decency could very well be our undoing as a free society. It has happened before.

We cannot say the words to help you understand a clear and present danger, if you will not listen. We cannot reach into your heart and instill courage if you are determined to cloak yourself in cowardice. We cannot convince you that your enemy draws near, if you choose to ignore reality. We cannot tap you on the shoulder and say join with us to confront that enemy, if material comfort and instant gratification are your only reasons for living. We cannot ask you to take up arms in the defense of freedom, if you continue to consort with that very same enemy, when it has been proven beyond any doubt that that enemy’s goal is to rob you of that freedom by any means. We cannot incite your anger, if you see no reason for alarm and believe that all is well. But we can assure you that all is not well.

This was America, the land of the free, before we decided to become too civil, too compassionate, too cowardly, too politically correct and too depraved. The result of our folly is to have lost our will to confront the twin enemies of freedom, socialism and radical environmentalism, while we seek earthly pleasures.

Everyone cries out for solutions but that solution will never come until we act as one in the defense of the document that secures our individual rights and freedom, our Constitution, no matter what the price or the consequences. We will not be free so long as we allow the worst in us to define who we are. Our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to give birth to this great Nation and our freedom. How on Earth can we dishonor their sacrifice by standing by and letting what they built, descend into the sewer of abject socialism?

If you do not believe in your heart that all creatures cry out for freedom, you do not understand nature. If you are not aware that your government is doing everything within its power to strip you of your freedom, your eyes are not open, or you choose not to see. If you do see and do nothing, some may call you a coward. If you do not know that freedom has a price that you must pay, you are naïve and lack wisdom. If you stand by and watch while others take up the “sword” of freedom, your soul shall find no peace and your children and grand children shall bear the scars of your inaction. The government’s only hold on you is that they assume you will be law abiding citizens. But what if the laws are wrong and unconstitutional? What then is your duty to obey the law?

In spite of the negatives we outline here, we are still a great people and there remains a core of courage and wisdom in us to act. Join with us in this fight for freedom, it being the noblest of all causes. We are individual Americans and we cannot be defeated, unless we decide that security and mindless compassion, at any price, trumps liberty. Let the goodness within us replace the evil that has overtaken us and let that goodness direct us to the great heights that American can still attain, but only under freedom.

Be there not man among you who will rise up against government tyranny that is coming at us from all directions? Let us show the rest of the world that we are still free people and are willing to do whatever it takes to defend that freedom. Let us show the politicians and the bureaucrats that we have a spine and that we are mad as Hell and we aren’t going to take it any more? We need to march on City Halls, all across the country and demand that government stays within the limits of our constitutions. If we do nothing, government will not hear us and do exactly as it pleases. And it is.

Has America lost her will to be free? Some of us haven’t, but It would appear that way too many of us have. The question is, will it take a revolution to restore the greatest experiment with freedom that ever existed on planet Earth? Or will we restore freedom by peaceful means, before revolution becomes the only solution?

”Your individual, natural, God-given rights, are only as good as the depth of your willingness and courage to defend them.” Ron Ewart

Ron Ewart is President of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS, an organization dedicated to re-establishing, preserving, protecting and defending property rights.

GLOBAL WARMING AND PAGAN EMPTINESS

Cardinal George Pell on the latest hysterical substitute for religion.

Interview by Michael Gilchrist in Catholic World Report, January 2008

In the debate over the theory of global warming, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney is a decided skeptic. His forthright reservations about the claim of catastrophic man-made climate change have made him a target for criticism in Australia. CWR talked to him about the controversy.

Your recent remarks questioning the claims about man-made climate change have drawn fierce criticism here in Australia. How do you account for that?

Cardinal Pell: Despite the fact that Australians like to see themselves as a ruggedly independent, rational, and democratic people, in some respects a herd-like mentality still prevails. Right now, the mass media, politicians, many church figures, and the public generally seem to have embraced even the wilder claims about man-made climate change as if they constituted a new religion.

These days, for any public figure to question the basis of what amounts to a green fundamentalist faith is tantamount to heresy. The angry editorials and letters to newspapers certainly suggest this.

You are one of very few public figures in this country to express open skepticism about man-made climate change and its alleged long-term effects. What is your reading of the scientific evidence for climate change? What is the basis of your skepticism?

Cardinal Pell: I am certainly skeptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. Scientific debate is not decided by any changing consensus, even if it is endorsed by political parties and public opinion. Climate change both up and down has been occurring, probably since earth first had a climate.

Science is a process of experimentation, debate, and respect for evidence. Often it is dealing with uncertainties rather than certainties, and so its forecasts and predictions can be spectacularly wrong. We must not ignore evidence that doesn't suit our cause. Long-term weather forecasting is a notoriously imprecise exercise.

In the 1970s some scientists were predicting a new ice age because of global cooling. Today other scientists are predicting an apocalypse because of global warming. It is no disrespect to science or scientists to take these latest claims with a grain of salt. Commitment to the scientific method actually requires it.

Uncertainties on climate change abound. Temperatures in Greenland were higher in the 1940s than they are today, and the Kangerlussuaq glacier there is not shrinking but growing in size. While the ice may be melting in the Arctic, apparently it is increasing in extent in the Antarctic. Overall world temperatures have not increased since 1998 according to the statistics—whatever the case might be in particular locations.

Do you accept that human activities may have contributed to at least some of the global warming?

Cardinal Pell: Significant evidence suggests that average temperatures rose by 0.6 degrees centigrade during the last century, and there is no doubt that large-scale industrial activities can have an adverse impact in particular locations, as in the larger Chinese cities. But when averaged out across the globe, it is difficult to see this being the main culprit for any overall global warming, let alone bringing us to the verge of catastrophe. Again, we are dealing with a very imprecise science here, whatever the computer models might suggest. There are so many other variables.

The journal American Scientist recently published a study on the melting glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro. The study confirms that air temperature around the glacier continues to be below freezing, so it is not melting because of global warming. Instead, the melt pattern of the glacier is consistent with the effect of direct radiant heat from the sun. Human activity can't be blamed for that.

I gather that increasing temperatures have been detected on Mars where human activity can hardly be blamed. Man-made carbon emissions—however large or undesirable—need to be set in context next to the immense power of the sun, the influence of the oceans, clouds and other forces of nature that have been impacting the earth for millions of years.

Of course, if the locally adverse effects of human excesses, such as various forms of pollution, lead to greater care for the environment, that's all to the good. Humans act out of self-interest in these situations, although in addition Christians have particular responsibilities as custodians of God's creation for today and tomorrow.

What do you make of the popularity of Al Gore and his message of doom?

Cardinal Pell: There's no doubt many people are ready to believe the worst-case scenarios. Perhaps all those Hollywood disaster movies have blurred the distinction between fact and fiction. Few of us have the scientific knowledge to question the wild claims Gore has made—other than some grains of common sense.

However, the day before he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the English high court ruled that DVDs of Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth could not be shown in schools without teachers providing additional materials to correct nine "significant errors" in the film.

Among them were claims that Pacific atolls are being evacuated because of rising sea levels and that polar bears are drowning because they have to swim up to 60 miles to find ice. The court found there is "no evidence" to support either claim. Polar bears have drowned in recent times, but because of storms, not melting ice.

Would you see the whole global warming mania as having overtones of a new religious movement filling the vacuum in a post-Christian culture?

Cardinal Pell: It is true that some of the more hysterical and extreme claims about global warming appear symptomatic of a pagan emptiness, of a Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature.

Years ago I was struck by the fears that middle-class kids without religion had about nuclear war. It was almost an obsession with a few of them. It's almost as though people without religion, who don't belong to any of the great religious traditions, have got to be frightened of something.

Perhaps they're looking for a cause that is almost a substitute for religion. I often point out that some of those who are now warning us against global warming were warning us back in the 1970s about an imminent new ice age, because according to some criteria an ice age is a bit overdue. Remember the fuss about the millennium bug and our computer systems in the lead-up to the year 2000.

Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign. In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

What role do you see for yourself as a religious leader on this issue?

Cardinal Pell: There are many measures that are good for the environment that we should pursue. We need to be able talk freely about this and about the uncertainties around climate change. Invoking the authority of some scientific experts to shut down debate is not good for science, for the environment, for people here and in the developing world or for the people of tomorrow.

My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes. I strive to argue rationally towards God the Creator, and reject substitutes, be they pantheist or atheist.

Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralizing their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness. Church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense.

The Christian God is not an insurance broker, nor did his Son Jesus Christ say anything on global warming, although he said much on the struggle between good and evil, meaning and fear, love and hate.

Jesus calls us to address the challenges in our own hearts, families, and communities before we moralize about distant worlds, where we are usually powerless.

Michael Gilchrist is editor of the Australian religious monthly AD2000 and author of the recently published study of Australian Catholicism, Lost! Australia's Catholics Today.