“The role of the IPCC in climate studies is similar to that of … Darwinism”

In February, 86 evangelical Christian leaders backed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, calling for federal legislation to reduce CO2 emissions.
Opposing them is a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance who are collecting signatures in support of a document
arguing against the existence of anthropogenic global warming. It’s the usual discredited stuff: Oregon petition, Peiser’s discredited claims, Bray’s bogus survey etc etc. The most interesting argument is on page 12:

It is ironic that many supporters of the ECI rely heavily on the claim
of scientific consensus to buttress their view of global warming. The
role of the IPCC in climate studies is similar to that of the Jesus
Seminar in New Testament scholarship in the 1990s and Darwinism for
the past century. It is a self-selecting group with a narrow point of
view favored by the political left and mainstream media, and it tends
to respond to critics with derision or dismissal rather than collegial
engagement. Evangelicals have been quick to criticize the process
behind the Jesus Seminar and Darwinism. They have resisted the idea
that complex scholarly issues could be decided by a majority vote
among club members. Those same critical instincts need to be kept in
place when evaluating claims of consensus on global warming.

If I were to liken Global Warming Skeptics to Creationists, I’d probably get complaints about how unfair I was being, but here they did it themselves.

So who are the authors of this document? Four evangelicals:

E. Calvin Beisner, who is a Creationist
Paul K. Driessen, who helps spread the DDT ban myth
Ross McKitrick, who has his own category on this blog
Roy W. Spencer, who is a Creationist

I wonder if McKitrick is a Creationist as well?

Comments

#1 Thomas Palm
June 30, 2006

Note that Lindzen and Singer has signed the petition as well, and thus presumably doesn’t mind this characterization.
#2 Lee
June 30, 2006

So they are saying that the strength of the claim for AGW is comparable to the strength of the claim for “Darwinism.”

I’ll buy that.
#3 DuWayne
June 30, 2006

I have never understood the prediliction of those who call themselves Christians for anti-environmental attitudes. The bible is quite clear that we are supposed to be stewards of the earth and take care of it, much in the way we are to take care of our bodies. It amazes me that there aren’t more enviro Christians. I have noticed, though, that the environment is an issue that provides more syncronisity between conservatives and liberals, than nearly any other.

So they are saying that the strength of the claim for AGW is comparable to the strength of the claim for “Darwinism.”

A gentlemen in my church would tenaciously argue that as the truth and argue both points. And he is entirely unaware of the irony in that.
#4 Scott Church
June 30, 2006

Actually, during the 90′s I had a personal, and rather contentious email exchange with Beisner over the subject of the MSU troposphere temperature record. It was right after Wentz and Schabel had released their work on orbital decay rates and spurious cooling in the record. Beisner had written a rediculous screed on it in a fundamentalist rag called World, which is essentially a Far-Right fundamentalist answer to Time or Newsweek (my fundy brother-in-law gave me a subscription to it for my birthday one year after I made an offhand comment in his presence that my own Christian faith was being tried by what I was seeing in the news and the way the church was responding to much of it–bless his innocent heart, this was his idea of “helping”).

After making some insolent comments to him in a moment of frustration, I apologized for them (but not for my stance on the issue). Beisner’s response was to nobly “forgive” me in the spirit of Christian brotherhood… but of course, not to apologize for any of the insolence he had freely hurled my way in the name of Jesus (it says in Proverbs that a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. He must’ve missed that day in Sunday School).

As it turns out, Christy and Spencer published UAH Version D shortly thereafter, and the one piece of evidence Beisner had tried to hit me over the head with at the time was the NOAA-11 diurnal drift correction in that release that largely “compensated” for the spurious orbital drift cooling… and which turned out later to have been applied in the wrong direction!

I wonder what excuses he has for it now…

Beisner actually has a long history with this sort of crap. He’s also an adjunct fellow at the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship and an adjunct scholar at the Acton Institute–both of which present themselves as “ecumenical” institutes for “faith and reason” but which are in fact, Far-Right fundamentalist fronts. Global warming denialism is just one bay in the sea of disinformation they are helping to spread in the name of Jesus and free markets.

In addition to the Evangelical Climate Initiative, other voices of Christ-centered sanity can be found in the Au Sable Institute, the Evangelical Environmental Network, Target Earth (whom Beisner has personally assaulted in other forums), and Earth Ministry which is based right here in my home town of Seattle.
#5 Scott Church
June 30, 2006

As for Fred Singer signing on to this particular anti-AGW declaration, I wonder how happy his new fundamentalist friends would be to find out that he was set up and funded by the Moonies! Yes, that’s right. In the early 90′s, Singer’s Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) received their original seed capital and pricy Washington D.C. office space from a now-defunct organization called the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy. That outfit was a front for the Unification Church. It’s director at the time, Niel Albert Salonen, is a past president of the United States Unification Church and had been personally appointed to that position by Rev. Moon himself. He is currently an ordained minister in the Unification Church.

And believe it or not…

His wife Rebecca is a good friend of my wife and I!

I discovered this quite by accident when she was visiting at our house, before I knew of her Moonie connections. She mentioned to me as I was serving her coffee that she knew “one of those global warming skeptics… Fred Singer” (I nearly spilled my own drink!…). I commented, “Did you know that clown is in bed with the damn Moonies?”

The room got really silent…

And that’s how I learned about her Moonie connections! (ooops…)

BTW, I asked her directly, and she confirmed for me that they did in fact set Singer up… Straight from the horse’s mouth!
#6 llewelly
June 30, 2006

Scott – weren’t the campaigns of both Bushes funded by both fundies and Moonies?
#7 Scott Church
July 1, 2006

llewelly,

Yes, they were, and in a big way. But I’m not sure how many conservative fundamentalists realize this. The Moonies are considered to be a cult among fundamentalist interests as much or more so as in the general public. Most of them would be quite uncomfortable with the connection. Still, common enemies make strange bedfellows.

In fact, I guess Rev. Moon and Jerry Falwell are real good buddies now ever since Moon bailed out Liberty University to the tune of $3.5 million. It reminds me of the time late in the 80′s when Oral Roberts saw his vision of “a 900 foot tall Jesus” telling him that if he didn’t raise a bunch of money within some time frame he would be “die and be taken up to heaven.” If memory serves me, the money finally came in… from a wealthy gambling mogul who made his fortune on greyhound racing. As you might imagine, Brother Oral had plenty of reasons why we should overlook this particular failing in the spirit of mercy.

I swear, even on a good day I couldn’t make up stuff this good…
#8 jr
July 1, 2006

the righties think anything to help the environment is a “UN/ commie plot”
#9 Graculus
July 1, 2006

wonder how happy his new fundamentalist friends would be to find out that he was set up and funded by the Moonies!

Jonathan Wells, rather infamous creationista (wrote “Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth”) and big shot at the Discovery Institute, has long been well known as a Moonie.

The Institute for Creation Research and other creationistas have close ties with the Islamic terrorist/gangsters at the BAV.

Once you drink the Kool-Aid, I guess it doesn’t matter what flavour.
#10 z
July 3, 2006

This is clear evidence that AGW theory is undoubtedly correct.
#11 z
July 3, 2006

“The Moonies are considered to be a cult among fundamentalist interests as much or more so as in the general public. Most of them would be quite uncomfortable with the connection.”

I was amazed how little play this got in the “liberal” media:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun22.html
#12 Michael Seward
July 3, 2006

Wait, I thought global warming was a religion, not science. So why are the preachers correcting the scientists? Why don’t the born-again skeptics just join the global warming religion?
#13 Barton Paul Levenson
January 22, 2008

DuWayne posts:

[[I have never understood the prediliction of those who call themselves Christians for anti-environmental attitudes. ]]

WHAT “prediliction [sic]“? Did you not read the article above? 86 leading evangelicals called for federal action to combat global warming? Go back and read it again.