Religion Determines Which Side of Climate Change Debate You’re On

Those who know me are well aware that I don’t have a strong stand, either way, about climate change as a result of human activities. I never miss an opportunity to speak with people on both sides of the issue, which has yielded an interesting pattern for me.

Without too much generalization, we can all agree that most conservatives do not believe in global warming as a result of human activities, while most liberals do.  We can further agree that religion is a strong pillar of conservatism. That doesn’t imply, and I didn’t say, that liberals are not as strong in their religious faith. Do not leave me irrelevant comments.

That said, the entire equation of global warming is a simple one for most religious individuals. God created everything, and gave full dominion of it to his most awesome creation (humans):

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

On the right side of the spectrum are most religious people who believe that because God created everything and because humans are the designated beneficiaries of everything on earth, using earth’s natural resources could not possibly harm it, much less cause its destruction.

In the middle are religious folks who believe that dominion does not imply domination. Hence, it is not only possible to harm the earth, it is the responsibility of humans to protect and preserve God’s creations. On the left side of the spectrum are non-religious people who, of course, believe earth can easily be harmed by humans because there’s no Divine power to stop it.

If you don’t believe in a higher power, then you are well versed in the concept of randomness and evolution. As such, have you ever considered that perhaps it is our natural evolutionary programming and destiny to destroy ourselves and our home? Therefore, there may be nothing we can do to prevent this inevitable conclusion. That doesn’t mean you should remain silent about your core beliefs. It merely implies that all efforts to conserve and preserve the environment may be fruitless at the end in light of humans’ built-in mechanism of destruction. The end may be a foregone conclusion.

If you do believe in a higher power, then you are likely to not worry about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or drilling for oil. Earth is only a temporary home for humans, and we simply do not have the power or the influence to destroy God’s earthly creations. Species go extinct by God’s will, not by humans’ carelessness. Ice caps melt as God desires, not because humans spew CO2 into the atmosphere. Therefore, there’s nothing to worry about.

Here’s the interesting dichotomy. Religion and conservatism are all about doing the right thing and personal responsibility. The one glaring exception seems to be in the area of environmental movement. In this case, religion appears to give us a free pass.

Am I wrong?

Michelle Bachmann’s Logic: CO2 Is Natural, Therefore Harmless!

I found this interesting. On April 22, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) talked about carbon dioxide in the context of global warming, climate change, or whatever it is called these days.

“Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that — that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.”

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful, but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows  that Carbon Dioxide is a harmful gas. It is a harmless gas. ” 

I personally have not decided whether human activity is harmful to the environment. Tag me as indecisive. I don’t care. We simply do not have sufficient evidence, or time line, to irrefutably prove it one way or another, and we never will.

But I’m sufficiently intelligent to know one thing: natural does not necessarily equate to harmless. To think otherwise is just un-naturally stupid.

Do you know what else is natural Congresswoman? Poo. Is poo harmless in your world?

Internet Searches Are Bad For The Environment? SHUT Up!

Stop the insanity!

I’m all for better awareness of environmental impact of our lives. But sometimes we just go off the deep end. New research indicates that “each query submitted to Google has a quantifiable impact. Specifically, two queries performed through a desktop computer generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a cup of tea.” → source

In other words, the more than 200 million Internet searches every day create enough CO2 to boil . . . a hell of a lot of water! Here’s another stat. It is estimated that up to 2% of global CO2 emissions are due to Internet searches.

OK, fine. That’s good to know. But so what? What exactly is the expectation? To do fewer searches? Come on! Should I instead get in my car and actually drive to the library? Perhaps I should take the bus instead of driving. Oh, I just remembered. There are no buses between where I live and the library.

To put everyone’s mind at ease, Google has detailed information outlining how green they (and their data centers) are compared with everyone else’s data centers. I could give you the URL in this post, but I’m going to let you boil some water instead.

Ironic, isn’t it? Al Gore invented the Internet, and now his very invention is destroying the environment which has made him so famous and wealthy. 

Well, I’ve got to go now. I’m about to boil a whole bathtub full of water.