inconvenient truths
Nevermind Al Gore - what global warming science needs is a Buckaroo Banzai, to give it that New Wave kinda cool.
AP, via ENN:
Southern Baptists approved a resolution on global warming that questions the prevailing scientific belief that humans are largely to blame for the phenomenon and also warns that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.
The global warming debate has split evangelical Christians, with some not only pressing the issue but arguing humans bear most of the responsibility for the problem because of greenhouse gas emissions. Other evangelicals say talking about the issue at all diminishes their influence over more traditional culture war issues such as abortion, gay marriage and judicial appointments.
The SBC resolution, approved Wednesday near the end of the denomination's annual meeting, acknowledges a rise in global temperatures. But it rejects government-mandated limits on carbon-dioxide and other emissions as "very dangerous" because they might not make much difference and could lead to "major economic hardships" worldwide.
Originally, the measure also backed more government-funded research into global warming's causes and alternative energies to oil. But the resolution was amended to drop that language, in part over concerns that it would endorse strong government engagement in the issue.
The two-day annual meeting of the United States' largest Protestant denomination, which boasts 16.3 million members, ended Wednesday night. The gathering was highlighted by new steps to prevent child sexual abuse, calls for unity to reverse stagnant membership and a struggle over defining Baptist identity. About 8,500 "messengers," or delegates, registered to attend.
The global warming resolution acknowledges humans bear some responsibility for rising temperatures while urging caution, said Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research with the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
"It does not deny there has been a recent warming trend in average global temperatures," said Duke, who helped write the measure. "What it does do is call for more objective analysis in the data that would explain causes of the warming we're experiencing."
The resolution stands in contrast to a statement last year signed by 86 evangelical leaders that said human-induced climate change is real, and that the consequences of warming temperatures will cause millions of people to die, most of them "our poorest global neighbors."
The SBC statement frames the global warming debate as a moral issue with profound implications for the poor -- but does so through a different lens.
"Our concern is for the vulnerable communities as well," Duke said. "But we think if the data is being misinterpreted, and policies are being implemented to reduce the human contributions, those policies are bound to drive up the costs of goods and services for poor and underdeveloped parts of the world."
For Strict Father conservatives, systematic phenomena's a bit like oil and water - global warming, with its feedback loops, bottlenecks, and myriad if-thens being example numero uno. This isn't to say they're stupid, but when it's married, as an issue, to politics and to morality, their frame - that cause and effect is organized into strict hierarchies - defeats the facts. It's important to understand this, especially when, as in this case, they consider the effects on "vulnerable communities." I think that statement can be taken at face value: many conservative Christians see global warming policy migrating from the top-down, regressive from the word get-go. While that's just the sort of voice we need when pols and scientists sit down to start crafting global warming policy, they're not helping any with woodenheaded resolutions like the one described above.
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