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June 27, 2006 Ever since Reagan let go a staff member who advocated to Congress an environmental policy based on the alleged Biblical notion that man can do no wrong in terms of the Earth, “domination theology” has grown. The Christian Right has advanced considerably since hurricane preventer and super-leg press meister Pat Robertson founded the lobby in the 80s. In the years between then and now, some branches of Christianity have obtained considerable political power, and this power is exclusively used to help Republicans. Indeed, the Christian Coalition has earned its place as one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. The days of sensible Republican thought over environmental issues seemed truly over. Gone were Teddy Roosevelt's ideals of conservation, forgotten seemed one of Nixon's best achievements, the formation of the EPA. As corporations became the primary donors of the Republican party, and as the Religious Right was flexing its muscle, conservatives unleashed their attack bitches: "The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view." "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'" --Ann Coulter And then it happened. Right under the nose of an administration famous for throwing bones to the Religious Right which helped get it elected, a global consensus formed. Research accumulated from a wide variety of disciplines and studied for 30 years was coming to the same conclusion. A plethora of peer-reviewed scientific journal entries concluded that not only is it getting hotter, but that mankind is directly responsible. To those following the debate long before it became fashionable, this conclusion seemed inevitable years ago. The opposing political forces were well aware. It's all too easy to cast doubt into such complex scientific studies. It's all too easy to label the science as tree-hugging, liberal, nonsense. Add in two parts sandal-wearing hippie rhetoric and one part funding fake science reports to cloud the issue in the media (as Exxon-Mobile did), and you have seeming perpetual “jury-out” syndrome. Political Christians seemed on-board. After all, they had no problem stretching Jesus to support all manner of non-theological Republican economic issues. It's easy to see how that hack of a conservative brown-noser Ann could have predicted the trend wrong. Now it seems that the tide is finally turning. The rest of the non-science following public seems increasingly convinced that global warming is real and that it's a problem. Perhaps rising oil prices and the link between terrorism and oil production have something to do with it, I don't know, but, wouldn't that be ironic? ;) In any case, many prominent evangelical Christian groups are not in fact going the domination theology route. Increasingly, they are turning instead to the admirable ideal of saving God's Earth. To give one strange-bedfellow-example, Gary Bower, a respectable Christian evangelical who seems to practice what he preaches, has teamed up with former CIA director James Woolsey and liberal environmentalists to form an energy policy lobby which, rather than merely keeping what we have now (which amounts to giving aid to the oil companies and protect their donor money), are adopting a policy which takes these issues into consideration for national security and environmental reasons alike. If I know anything about Republicans it is that they adapt. One possible outcome in 10 years might be that Republicans will blame Democrats for global warming and the Democrats will be too stupid to mount an effective response. People forget - that's an historical lesson of politics! I've already seen the foundation of this tactic when I heard a conservative talking head blame Google and other successful blue-state tech companies for polluting by running enormous server farms which use a hellacious amount of electricity. Democrats need to smell the wind and hear folks who are already on their side and take a bold stand against global warming now. It should become one of their main issues – a rallying cry that all Democrats can agree upon – a key plank in their platform. There are many sensible legislative issues which could be adopted by the party, both general and specific. From more money for research and development, to removing barriers to wind-farm deployment, to lowering the tariff on Brazilian imported ethanol (currently at 100%). Some of the facts for this piece came from this excellent documentary which aired the other night on the Discovery Channel, “Addicted To Oil”, hosted by Thomas Friedman; click this link to watch it on-line. This effectively ends my original intend for this piece, what follows is just more rambling and is not directly related. A note about Gary Bauer - although I disagree with him virtually on every other issues as a secularist, I have to say that he seems to be the real-deal. During the 2000 primaries, he was clearly the stronger Christian candidate. It was clear to me personally that when Pat Robertson supported Bush because he was able to raise money faster, that his entire Christian political movement was riddled with the worst kind of historical evil: motivating people to choose otherwise non-religious political positions for religious reasons. Ralph Reed lost my respect as well when he switched his position on gambling 180 degrees. As State coffers were running dry, a method needed to be pushed which could raise money without raising taxes. Reed chose politics over morality and Jesus seemed to agree that turning every corner of Americana into Las Vegas was a more sensible route. My respect for Reed dropped much lower recently, of course, as I've seen him in photos with Abermoff taking Jesus-sanctioned golfing trips abroad... My respect of Bauer is like my respect for Pat Buchanan. We disagree on most every specific policy, but I believe that these guys say what they mean and mean what they say. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. 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