PrintJuly 17, 2009
Pushing Faith out of Politics
The push to separate faith and politics should be one that is all-inclusive and is not limited to merely the Abrahamic faiths.
Faith is the belief of something when there is no proof, and doing so with a strong conviction. One has to admit that it would take a strong conviction to climb Mount Rushmore and hang a giant sign asking the President and the rest of the political elite to stop global warming, especially in a time where the doctrines behind that faith are failing due to the onslaught of new scientific findings. As John Adams said while defending the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre:
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
To put it simply, facts and belief are distinct and separate things and no matter how much one may want something to be true, it won't be if the facts say otherwise. In keeping with Adams' spirit, let us look at some of the new facts surrounding the faith of global warming and why there seems to be such a willful ignorance in certain areas of our culture in regards to the issue.
There is a petition circulating the internet that has been signed by 31,000 American scientists thus far. In order to qualify for ones name to be on it, they must possess a minimum of a Bachelor of Science in a related scientific field. The site lists all of the signers as well as their disciplines.
In the Senate is a little known report coming from the Committee for Environment and Public Works appropriately titled "U.S. Senate Minority Report: More than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims." Included in this report are links to numerous peer-reviewed studies debunking global warming claims. Incidentally, this report is an update of one that came out in 2007, which means for at least the past two years this report has been circulating and being added to.
It would take a giant leap of faith to put so much stock in a report compiled by 52 scientists at the IPCC while ignoring almost 32,000 other scientists, as well as their peer-reviewed work, that say the original claims of those 52 are wrong.
Senator Jim Inhofe (R, OK) recently published his own report titled "Hot & Cold Media Spin Cycle: A Challenge to Journalists who Cover Global Warming." Senator Inhofe's 68 page report is an excellent (and more thorough) addition to this subject adding to a previous study by the Business and Media Institute titled "Fire and Ice", which pointed out how the media has been flip-flopping on their reporting of climate change since the late 1800's.
Then there is the recent drama surrounding a suppressed 98 page EPA report, challenging the science behind global warming.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we heard about walls that needed to come down so agencies could talk to one another again. Given the passage of H.R. 2454, the Cap and Trade bill, one has to wonder if there are more walls that need to come down. Three of the reports mentioned above come from the federal government: one from the executive branch and two from the legislative branch. If the Senate and EPA have all of this information, why doesn't the House have it either? What about Rep. Waxman (D, CA), who was leading the charge on Cap and Trade in the name of "[sic] reducing global warming pollution?"
What about the President? He admittedly shares in this faith and is as much to blame as the members of Congress. At the G-8 summit, President Obama is trying to get the rest of the nations of the world to reduce their emissions to combat global warming, and in doing so specifically cited H.R. 2454, bragging that it would cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and "limit global warming."
The problem however, as indicated by the links, is that these reports are not classified at all. There are no walls cutting them off from access by anyone. They're in the public sphere. So what we now have to face is not whether the politicians spouting off about global warming are able to access the information, but why they refuse to do so and/or acknowledge it. Two possibilities jump right out.
First, they have a blind faith with regard to the issue. Imagine a horse with blinders on. They only see what they focus on and nothing else regardless of any contradictory information. This particular faith has propelled these politicians to give speeches, codify laws, and demand wages for the sins of pollution. Because the belief in man-made global warming is a matter of faith, these politicians should rightly be stripped of their posts for violating the separation of church and state by trying to institute a nationwide, state-run religion.
Secondly, they have no honor. Integrity is a prerequisite for honor. Ask anyone in the military or anyone from the South. The refusal of politicians to acknowledge that not only is there a lack of consensus, but an extremely large movement submitting peer-reviewed research attacking the very science of the issue, indicates that they have to know they are blatantly lying to the public. By doing so, they sully the offices in which they sit.
In his freshman term, a mid-term elected Representative from Illinois remarked on the House floor to a sitting President:
Let him answer, fully, fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with facts, and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington sat, and so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer.
Such a statement is as true today with the issue of "global warming" as it was when Lincoln uttered those words challenging President Polk about the Mexican War in 1848, but it isn't applicable to the office of the President alone. Representative Waxman, et.al, should remember that they sit where John Quincy Adams, James Madison, Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, and ol' Honest Abe once sat and stop promoting the religion that is man-made global warming.
