Reality Check 101

Sometimes folk wisdom is amazingly accurate.  The Paris Climate Protocol (hereafter “Paris”), man-made global warming and President Obama’s final State of the Union (SOTU) address can be evaluated with a few common-folk proverbs.  The first one that comes to mind sums up both well: “Nonsense charms the multitude; plain sense is despised.”  Another one is especially applicable to the whole man-made global warming illusion:  “It is a waste of gunpowder to fire at the Man in the Moon.”

When, during his last SOTU, President Obama made the claim that so-called climate change deniers would be “pretty lonely”, he was not only using very effective propaganda, but was also making an agenda statement for his administration and for the power elites of the recently concluded Paris climate summit. But, as with all things propaganda, little of what he and his Paris cohorts claim has any basis in reality.  Even more dangerous is what they will not reveal about their own “denier” expertise and underlying agendas.

The consensus claim is a good place to begin spotlighting the shadows.  As early as 1992, alarm began to spread among levelheaded members of the scientific community about the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consensus claims.  What followed over the years were repeated efforts by good-faith scientists to make their “deniers” voices heard.  First came the Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming with 47 signatures followed soon after by the Heidelberg Appeal which eventually garnered 4,000 signatories including 72 Nobel Prize winners.  The Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change was supported by 150 scientists but was ignored.  In 2000, more than 1,500 men and women across multiple disciplines could not be heard after they signed the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship.  Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences made another effort toward truth in 2001 with the Oregon Petition.  In spite of numerous efforts to sabotage the petition and discredit it with false accusations that still persist, he was able to get 17,800 signatures.  He revived the effort a second time and in 2008 had 31,000 signatories, 9,000 of them with PhD’s.  As of 2014, over 1,300 peer-reviewed papers have been published questioning man-caused (anthropogenic) global warming.  A total of well over 54,000 scientist signatures since 1992 is hardly consensus.

But no matter how big the support is for any claim, consensus is not science.  The Annex of the Paris document contains the actual agreement.  The fourth paragraph of the prologue, as well as Article 7, claim the need to frame a “…response to the urgent threat of climate change on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge.”  That is an incredible statement in the light of all the science which the IPCC and like-minded individuals absolutely refuse to acknowledge and all the data IPCC-affiliated scientists manipulate.  The “science” claim is also shameless given the backdoor agendas documented in the document.

Good climate science has been countering climate scams for a while now.  The amount of information is massive and beyond a deep study here.  But some highlights need a review.  Including the current one, there have been no less than four major temperature swings in the last 3,000 years.  Two warm cycles, 1100 BC and 1300 AD, well before the Industrial Revolution, are still unmatched by current conditions, let alone by any human activity.  Taken as a two-decade average, the last 20 years of global temperatures have actually been in a “pause”, even if individual years may spike and make headlines.

It has now been shown that computer climate models which are the IPCC’s most used tool, are consistently 170% to 185% higher than satellite and weather balloon observations.  They are also incredibly biased.  We also know that if warning were to continue, most of it will occur in the winter at night in polar latitudes.  For a water-covered planet, that would mean more evaporation and increased rainfall.  This could shrink desserts, increase polar ice caps, moderate ocean levels and decrease energy consumption.

By the way, increased CO2 is actually a good thing.  Plants use water more efficiently and become more pest, drought and disease resistant.  Feeding the world’s population becomes easier.

As outrageous as the scientific malpractice by alarmists is, it is only the tip of the iceberg.  The most dangerous elements lie beneath the surface.  The players at Paris, including our president, were sold out to a socialist political agenda that flies in the face of everything that has made America exceptional.  Their worldview is antithetical to our Judeo-Christian heritage and to Biblical Christianity in particular. A U.N. climate official called Paris a “… good example of how we are moving to a completely new social contract.”  A State Department official described it as “… a model for effective global governance in the 21st century.”

They both had plenty of evidence.  Prologue paragraphs 10 &11 use the threat of climate to push leftist human rights sacred cows such as “transition of the workforce” for “decent” work, empowering indigenous peoples, migrants and children, a right to development, gender equality and women’s empowerment. The eradication of poverty is connected to sustainable development in Articles 4 and 6.

Paris is also a commitment to what Americans thought was a defeated – the cap and trade scheme.  The agreement calls for a transfer of wealth from developed countries to emerging economies.  And “voluntary” or not, it establishes tracking and recording mechanisms to make sure member states fulfill their obligations.  Because, technically, all of this is not a treaty, King Obama has bypassed Congress again.

There is another very old folk proverb that says, “By candlelight every country wench is handsome.”  The Paris accord is a country wench by candlelight for Christians.  The Bible is specific about creational priorities and stewardship responsibilities:  God and His glory is always above man and his self-interests, man separate from and above the rest of creation, creation in the service of man to the glory of God.  Man’s stewardship necessarily involves both authority over and respect for creation which precludes abuse of it.  Human beings have been given the power of domination but God has not crowned them as creation’s messiahs.  That position is already occupied and the final phase is already scheduled to follow judgment.

Therein lies the insidious nature of alarmist environmentalism and the Paris agreement.  They assume a fragile natural system with mankind as its savior. By confusing the boundary between stewardship of creation and saving it, they exchange the truth of God’s lordship for a lie and end up serving the creation rather than using it to serve the Creator.  They imagine God as removed from His work or voluntarily impotent or as a delusion of the unenlightened.

In the final analysis, the Paris agreement is dangerous in every way.  It presumes a shadow socialism over its member states.  It uses an agenda-driven distortion of science in the service of new human right’s idols.  And finally, for Christians, it is that country wench by candlelight that serves the creation rather than the Creator.

Bible-believing Christians have never been the problem.  They do not need any awakening from pagan elites operating under a lie.  They certainly do not need advice from a candle-lit wench.