Environment

We warned the Ecumenical Patriarch that endorsing the global warming agenda was reckless. Anyone with eyes to see clearly saw that global warming (since renamed “climate change” — a harbinger that the effort might freeze over) was a political, not scientific, enterprise designed to wrestle control of economies away from nation-states and hand it over to non-elected bureaucracies.

Now more evidence about the massive corruption surrounding global warming has emerged. The American Thinker ran a piece (see: Climategate: CRU Was But the Tip of the Iceberg) that alleges fraud from more research institutions that told us that global warming was a real threat including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). It will take time for the reports to filter into the mainstream, but once they do, you can bet this house will come crashing down like ice breaking from a glacier.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese press office remain uncharacteristically silent about the support the “Green Patriarch” gave global warming activists just a few short months ago. Yet “support” is too mild a term. Pat. Bartholomew in fact threw the full moral weight of his office behind specific policies like the Copenhagen Protocols that were built on the fraudulent science.

It was a huge blunder. It fosters the dry rot that destroys credibility. The eagerness to align the Ecumenical Patriarch with the Progressive wing of American politics reveals that his handlers have a poor understanding of the American political and moral culture. They blew it big time.

Don’t say he wasn’t warned.

One more than one occasion I have been critical of the involvement of Orthodox Christians in the environmental movement.  Most recently wrote an essay critically of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s own opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in which His All Holiness not only offered his support of international environmental regulations but also sought to justify theological his own involvement in the environmental movement.

Publicly and privately, many Orthodox Christians criticized me for my disagreement and assume (wrongly) that I oppose our involvement with the environmental movement.  While I see why they draw this conclusion, I would argue not that we withdraw but that that the Church involve herself more fully in the environmental movement.  I would publicly encourage and support the involvement of those Orthodox Christians who they believe God is calling them to do.

At the same time, however, I would also challenge my brothers and sisters in Christ to a more critical engagement of the environmental movement as a whole.  This would include not simply a careful examination of the science of climate change but also of the political, cultural economic and yes, environmental, consequences of the various national and international public policy initiatives being advance. Continue reading →

Interviewed on Al Jazeera:

And a statement (Source: ANA-MPA):

ISTANBUL — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew called for a legally binding international agreement to avert the overheating of the planet, in a letter addressed to the leaders of the international community in view of the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen.

Reaching a beneficial agreement within the framework of the international negotiations in Copenhagen is not only morally imperative for the protection of the universe but a path to social and economic survival as well, he underlined.

“The action against the climate change should not be regarded as an economic burden but as a major opportunity for a healthier planet for the benefit of humanity as a whole, the underdeveloped countries in particular,” the Ecumenical Patriarch stressed.

“Profit, especially, short-term profit, should not motivate our actions more so when it downgrades our shared and God-given natural heritage,” he said.

Bartholomew underlined that “the climate change, as a threat to humanity and the planet, and the progress observed in science and technology clearly show that the only way to a low carbon economy (LCE) is the development of the renewable energy sources (RES), energy saving and no more deforestation.”

The letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch was addressed to the leaders of the United States, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, the European states and the UN Secretary General.

In a letter addressed to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, the Ecumenical Patriarch called for bold commitments in the Copenhagen negotiations that will lead Greece as soon as possible to a low-carbon energy policy.

The patriarch’s Sept. 29 statement on Copenhagen available here.

How will Papandreou, the Socialist PM, react to this patriarchal prodding? Well, he has his own environmental and fiscal problems. Big government, anyone? From Kathimerini: Continue reading →

A scandal in global warming research is unfolding that isn’t going away. Internal correspondence from the Climate Reseach Unit (CRU), the research center and ground zero for global warming advocacy, was released that reveals that the top global warming scientists hid data that proves the earth has been cooling for the last ten years, conspired against colleagues that were global warming skeptics, and cooked the numbers to keep the lucrative grants coming. It is taking time to digest all the facts but you can read some preliminary conclusions here: London Telegraph, Pajamas TV, Fox News, Washington Times, (Google “climategate” for more).

Global warming was of course the centerpiece of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s pastoral message to America during his trip to the United States a few weeks back. The Green Patriarch embraced the Progressive environmentalist agenda, so much so that he lent the full weight of his office to urge the passage of political legislation such as the Copenhagen Protocols that global warming advocates argued was needed to stop imminent environmental catastrophe.

We warned the EP’s handlers that the Mississippi River Symposium and the Washington, DC public relations offensive last month was a dangerous road to take. We objected that a leader of the EP’s stature was lending his moral authority to legislation built on questionable (now shoddy and corrupt) science. We rejected the political correctness that shaped many of his public statements, especially the elevation of secular moralism and apocalyptic alarmism, while ignoring the critical issues like the continuing devaluation of human life seeping into western civilization. We pointed out that two other prominent religious leaders of the West, Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kirill, have no trouble making these important moral distinctions.

Progressive environmentalism will suffer a grave blow when the corruption revealed by the release of CRU documents is fully comprehended. The Ecumenical Patriarch hitched his wagon to the environmentalist agenda and garnered heaps of praise by secular elites for his, well, “progressive” leadership.

It will prove to be a debilitating blunder. Sanctifying cultural fads and political ideologies carries a penalty. The moral stature of the Ecumenical Patriarch will diminish as the corruption of the CRU is further revealed. The basking in accolades from civic authorities and cultural gatekeepers will be seen as the abrogation of moral authority that it is. Opportunities for substantive leadership have been squandered, and the Church and the culture are the poorer for it.