 January 21 , 2009
Dear Friend, As you read this week's WeGetIt.org Wednesday Bulletin, please be thinking of friends who would benefit from it, and then forward it to them. Thanks for your support! Obama addresses poverty and climate change at inauguration
In his inaugural address yesterday, President Barack Obama had heart-warming words: "To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds." He also spoke about climate change and energy. How we use energy "threaten[s] the planet." Calling for a change, he said, "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." He called on America and other nations to "work tirelessly to . . . roll back the specter of a warming planet." It will be difficult to balance President Obama's pledge to the poor with his words about energy and climate. Rising energy prices driven by carbon taxes, carbon trading, and alternative fuels programs, and rising food prices driven by both rising energy prices and dwindling food supplies as agricultural land and crops are used for energy, are devastating to the poor. He rightly assailed those who "cling to power through...silencing dissent." The President needs to hear responsible dissenters--the thousands of earth and climate scientists, and the many developmental and environmental economists--who warn that the effort to fight climate change will fail to control temperature while causing tremendous harm to the world's poor. Flight 1549, geese, and unintended consequences The downing of US Airways Flight 1549 on January 16 when a flock of geese choked its engines after takeoff is a sobering reminder always to think through possible unintended consequences of any policy--including policy to protect nature. It turns out that the large Canada goose population near La Guardia Airport had grown up there in part as a result of efforts years earlier to protect the geese in and around New York City, particularly, to remove them from Central Park, where their abundant droppings were unsightly and environmentally damaging. Federal funds went to the "Geesepeace" program, which sought ways to remove the birds from parks without killing them. The importance of the Fall in creation stewardship While secular environmentalism typically looks at the world as good in-and-of-itself and asserts what Barry Commoner called a "law of ecology," that "Nature knows best," Biblical Christianity thinks differently. As Laura Ruth Yordy points out in Green Witness: Ecology, Ethics, and the Kingdom of God, pp. 163-164,
Now, please forward this message to your pastor, other Christian leaders, and friends and urge them to sign the WeGetIt.org Declaration, too! The more people sign, the stronger the message our leaders will hear that Biblical principles and factual evidence, not media hype about speculative fears like global warming, should guide our care for the environment and the poor.Gratefully,
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