 January 14, 2009
Dear Friend, Happy New Year! This week we bring you a thoughtful look back at a 2008 children's film with a provocative take on people and the environment; a current example of how global warming policies can actually hurt both the environment and the poor; and a realistic look ahead to likely action on climate change this year. 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! Wall•E: Environmental propaganda or Christian contemplation?
Liberal environmentalists have called Wall•E (the Pixar film about a trash-sorting robot on an abandoned Earth) the "best eco-movie of the year," believing its point was to show what the planet will become if mankind doesn't abandon its consumerism. But the film's director, Andrew Stanton, says Wall•E's point is not to show what consumerism will make of the Earth, but what pursuit of unlimited wealth could make of people. "With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us," Stanton told World Magazine. "We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living—relationship with God and relationship with other people." Was Wall•E meant to be an environmentalist movie? "[T]hat's not what I was trying to do," Stanton said. What was he trying to do? "Well, what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love." Climate emphasis hurts the environment and the poor As the late economic journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote, "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." Few insights are more desperately needed in considering environmental policy today. For example, in an effort to reduce emissions and fight global warming, many environmentalists urge tourists to take short vacations. But those who give the advice forget its impacts on the poor. For example, many African countries can afford to protect natural ecosystems primarily because of tourism revenues, and millions of African people depend on income from tourists for their livelihoods. Shortening tourist trips could have the unintended negative impacts of leaving more African ecosystems unprotected or removing protection from some, and worsening the poverty of millions of African people. What poverty-ridden Africa needs is not speculative global climate policy pushed by Westerners, but the God of Christianity--as an atheist has eloquently argued. Whither cap-and-trade? The hopelessly clumsy and ineffective cap-and-trade method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, from which European countries are fleeing en masse, has been the prescription of choice for American climate alarmists. Until lately. Suddenly, with climate advocates about to control both the White House and Congress, the shine is coming off the apple. After years of scolding Americans for dragging their feet on global warming, alarmists like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) say cap-and-trade legislation isn't likely to pass, or even to come to the floor, this year. Even NASA scientist James Hansen, who has warned for twenty years that we are less than a decade from a "tipping point" beyond which recovery would be impossible, has abandoned cap-and-trade. Now he urges a simple carbon tax instead. Why the change? For the first time, because at last there is some semblance of a chance they could pass it, supporters have had to count the political cost that would come from the extremely costly and ineffective legislation. Besides, Earth has been cooling for several years, and even manmade global warming believers predict the cooling will continue for a decade or more. And, of course, the economic downturn makes any legislation that would raise the costs for businesses and consumers less palatable 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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