Al Gore's Environmental Brass

A fill-in preacher at the little country church I grew up in once used a phrase during a sermon that has become part of Woods family lore. Referring to someone's brazen, shameless, and arrogant behavior, Brother Wayne exclaimed, "It takes a lot of brass on your face...," to do such and such activity--the details as to the particular behavior in question escape my memory, but the point was that this behavior was worthy of shame, yet the perpetrator felt no such shame. As I sit here on a blustery spring day, having posted last week about the wonder of springtime, the pastor's words come back to me when I consider the silliness of the current debate over global warming.

Indeed, it does take a lot of brass on Al Gore's face to promote his Chicken Little global warming hysteria, all the while consuming more fossil fuels for his own extravagant lifestyle in a month than most of us consume in a year. His behavior is typical of liberal elitists quick to impose limits on others that they themselves feel free to flaunt. Prince Albert wants to force me to drive an electric golf cart to work, while he travels with a fleet of SUVs. Rosie O'Donnell wants to take away my right to own a firearm, while employing an armed bodyguard for herself. Supreme Court Justice David Souter thinks it's fine for local government to condemn private property for the benefit of politically-connected developers, unless it is his own home in question. Hillary Clinton opposes all school choice legislation, while choosing Sidwell Friends for her own daughter's education. These liberals are so compassionate they're willing to give the shirt off SOMEONE ELSE'S back.

When I reflect, either from empirical observation or from a Biblical perspective, on the ability of man to alter and mold the world, then the breathtaking arrogance of global warming fanatics becomes painfully obvious. I remember well a 1970s National Geographic cover article on "The Coming Ice Age," and it wasn't so long ago that the cataclysm du jour was fear of "nuclear winter." These poor souls lack a sense of context and perspective of our place in the cosmos, and they can't even be intellectually honest over the course of a generation. The truth is that the sum total of all the energy produced and used by mankind since the time of Christ is less than the energy production of the sun in one year's time. To think that the nuances of man's interaction with his environment can compare in the least with the magnitude of the titanic forces at work in the universe is absolutely ludicrous.

Consider the energy required to produce the rotation of the earth and other planets in the solar system. I've never read any research expressing such energy in quantifiable terms, but I do know, for example, that all the nuclear test explosions ever done, both atmospheric and underground, have never managed to measurably affect the earth's rotation one iota. Likewise, the routine pattern of the ocean's currents and tides causes barrier islands on the East Coast to constantly erode and shift, notwithstanding the best efforts of the Corps of Engineers to alter Nature's course. Lots of folks in Jackson can attest to Nature's ability to beat down the handiwork of man.

Meanwhile, the anarchists and nihilists and mindless pop culture followers praise the culture of pre-Industrial Age civilization, willingly paying extra for "organic" foods and avoiding vaccinations for their children. What a wasteful and foolish and intellectually inconsistent practice! If not for the advances of Western society, infant mortality would be 40%, folks would die from appendicitis and strep throat, and untold human sorrow, suffering, poverty, and squalor would be the order of the day. These people have discarded a foundational human absolute truth--the supremacy of the value of human life. It is the abandonment of that principle which allows for the foolishness of the liberal elite. Notice, for instance, the emphasis of their propaganda, not on lives, but on "Mother Earth," and the use of such words as "protect" and "delicate" and "balance" to indicate how precarious is our plight. Such folks would be laughable if they did not pose such a danger to our culture. In fact, it is not our earth which is in need of our protection, but rather it is the Western society that has nurtured the incredible progress of the last three hundred years. This society has been the cradle of boundless advances in public health, as well as individual freedom and liberty, and it is under attack.

I've used a couple of empirical observations to make my points above, but there is also a Scriptural basis for my position. It is from Scripture that we derive our emphasis on the absolute value of human life. Life is so precious that our Deity sacrificed Himself for ours. Moreover, from Genesis mankind was given dominion over and stewardship of the earth. The Apostle Paul admonishes us in Colossians 3:2 to "Set your minds on things above, not earthly things."

None of this is to diminish the wonder, beauty, and value of the earth, and all of Creation is indeed "good." We are without doubt responsible to be good stewards of the world and its resources. However, today's cultural elites are leading us down a dangerous path that threatens, in its emphasis, to erode those institutions which have improved countless human lives. Let us stand up with loving and reasoned opposition to the misguided cultural elites who indeed have "a lot of brass" on their faces.