Recently in Globalism Category

CNN's Jenny Wilburn emailed

Hi there! I’m wondering if anyone from The Evangelical Ecologist would be interested in joining CNN.com/Live today for a segment about Pres. Obama’s speech to the UN today on climate change. The segment will take place around d12:15p ET today. Feel free to call my cell to talk more about it! 404-xxx-xxxx 

Thanks, Jenny

CNN's live link is up via their homepage. China's president is speaking now. Nothing new from him. Prime Minister of Japan next. 

Will update this post with any interesting bits. Would also expect Mr Obama's speach to be up here by tomorrow.

UPDATE: Got pulled away and missed his comments, which happened about an hour early. Gore, on the other hand, sitting on a panel, is "optimistic" that global warming legislation will be passed before Hopenhagen. Says that even if it doesn't, the Supreme Court has already ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, and thus EPA can already regulate it. 2nd Court of Appeals also ruled last night that large CO2 emitters in the US can be sued under common law. "So even in the absence of legislation, existing law through the courts will require reduction of CO2."

Translation: Use courts to end-around the electorate. LOL! Of all people, I'd think Gore would decry that...

UPDATE: Q to Gore: "Disappointed in lack of specifics" in Obama's statement? A: "He was recognizing the reality of the situation that legislation was still pending...."

UPDATE: CBS is on the trail of some rather large carbon footprints in NYC today.

UPDATE: World leaders kick climate policy into the long grass. Preparing for still more disappointment at the Hopenhagen site. The more they talk, the further away they get from a concensus. And Denmark is a mighty chilly place in December. 

Bumped: I heard an outstanding lecture Monday night here at the College by Mr. Amory Lovins, cofounder, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute. The topic was “Military-  and Business-led Solutions to Oil, Climate and Proliferation." Hard to absorb everything, but what stuck with me the most was his info on the amount of energy we could save through re-engineering induced conservation.

For instance, only a tiny fraction of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is used to actually move the people in it. Most is lost through heat/friction or the energy it takes to move a couple thousand pounds of steel. He figures composites not only simplify and reduce the cost of constructing cars but an 800 pound car would get 75+mpg easy (smaller engine too). As far as safety, his video of a driver walking away from the crash of her composite racecar hitting the rails at 200mph convinced me we are over-whining about this.

Second example was whale oil use dropped off long before we ran out of whales because people discovered petroleum and found it a better product.

His bottom line was it's much easier - and profitable - to approach energy and climate change from a conservation perspective. Problem is the government wants to impose conservation (the way the UN is trying to do) rather than back off and afford the free market and engineering entrepreneurs with the chance to innovate.

Great stuff.

Tracey Bianchi:

You see, at our church, all our coffee equipment is owned by our current coffee vendor. We don't own it. The only reason we are allowed to have it is because we buy coffee from said vendor. Stop brewing their non-Fair Trade brew and say adios to the coffee equipment. Which means 2000+ people with caffeine withdrawal on a Sunday morning.

So to do something as simple as swap out the coffee for a morning cup with integrity will run our church about $35K in equipment (remember, big church, lots of people, multiple coffee stations etc). Which means, guess what, more meetings.

Which is frustrating for more than just the added levels of bureaucracy. It is frustrating because we've put ourselves at the mercy of an outside organization who could give a rip about our do-gooder intentions. They are less interested in God's economics and more interested in their bottom line. I cannot fault them for this, it's business. But when God's business is thwarted not only by business meetings but also this sort of business arrangement, I start to lose hope.

Read the whole thing. And consider answering her bleg for help.

Obama senior science advisor John Holdren: "We need a Planetary Regime."

Perhaps those agencies, combined with [the United Nations Environmental Program] and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime — sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans.

The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.

The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.

[Photo info here.]

The Vietnamese central government wants the Church to endorse industrial projects in the name of progress. The Cardinal of Ho Chi Minh City says no.

In his letter, card. Pham Minh Man echoes the concern of scientists and intellectuals that: “Since natural environment is for everyone, no one has permission to damage or control it even in the name of economic development”.

The prelate argues that industrialists only think “to gain profits for a small group of privileged people” without any thought for the “collateral effects caused” by their factories.

“These strategies of economic development can only lead to chaos– concludes the archbishop of former Saigon – They are neither for the common good of society, nor the future of the nation”.

The criticism of bauxite projects has come from various directions of Vietnamese civil society, but the communist party has singled out the Catholic community for punishment: Last month, Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Khai, the spokesman of Hanoi Redemptorist Monastery, and another Redemptorist, Fr. Joseph Le Quang Uy were victimized by the government for their opposition against bauxite projects.

Communists have historically traded off the environment for industry, something Western democracies quit doing a generation ago. Think about that as you watch America slide toward socialism. And think about the risk these Christian leaders are taking for creation.

Pray for them too, while you're at it...

ecorazzi:

Today is World Environment Day — which is kind of like Earth Day’s “Christmas in July”. In other words, it’s not as celebrated a holiday as its April brethren — but it does serve a purpose.

Huh?

Created by the UN in 1972, World Environment Day is hosted every year by a different city and commemorated with an international exposition through the week of June 5. This year’s host city is none other than Mexico City — which has some of the poorest air quality in the world.

Heh.

If the UN were actually capable of enforcing this, I'd be worried.

UPDATE: But the US House of Representatives is capable of enforcing at least some of this (via Drudge): Green Queen - 'Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to inventory'.

Every. That's a lot.

UPDATE: And this, from San Diego:

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'" The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles. Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars. "For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

Environmental impacts from Bible studies?

Sustain Lane on Planetary Skin:

While conspiracy theorists worldwide are having a field day over the February 24 failure of a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) climate-monitoring satellite that failed to reach its orbit during launch - and European theorists point the finger at another climate change satellite that went belly-up on March 16 - NASA and Cisco, Inc., a leading supplier of networking equipment, are trumpeting an online global environmental monitoring platform, called Planetary Skin, which will collect and analyze data from all over the planet to measure the ongoing impact of climate change.

According to the project's website, climate change has become a major priority not only for global leaders but for the heads of large corporations. This statement of purpose is supported by the fact that, out of $2.8 trillion (U.S.) dollars set aside for economic stimulus, $450 billion is targeted toward climate-change mitigation and adaptation. [snip]

The Urban skin will focus on intelligent transportation, smart water and electrical systems, recycling, energy efficiency and citizen collaboration in urban centers, since cities are the primary consumers of resources. According to Planetary Skin, the world's 20 largest cities are responsible for 75 percent of the planet's energy use.

The organization describes its program as a ‘Call for Action' to address climate change, and it is clearly that. However, further hints that it will be used globally to set appropriate governance, regulatory, business and funding models suggest much more, and the suggestion is disturbing. At the very least, all the talk of high finance should ring alarm bells.

The globalists are clearly in a war to shape the planet to their aims, desires, and needs, and global warming is shaping up to be the ideal platform for such an undertaking. Where this will leave the rest of us is questionable.

Indeed. Sorta hard not to get all black helicopterish about this sort of thing.

UPDATE: Hey - we can microchip everybody to track CO2 emissions from vehicle use. Wait - didn't I read about that somewhere? Maybe not.

All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime.

-- President Barak Obama, in Prague