Global Warming? The End of Oil? Who can Argue with God?

Terrific op-ed piece in the NYT this week by Timothy Egan: Oil's End.

The Age of Oil is at an end. Maybe not this year. Maybe not for five years. But signs of the coming collapse are evident.

Start at the White House. There, a week ago, President Bush touted tax breaks for oil companies that have just posted the largest profits in the history of American business. Yet he was dumbstruck when asked about the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a price that will force many families to choose between food and basic travel.

“Wait — what did you just say?”, the president asked after a reporter solicited his advice for Americans facing that price, which was predicted by many analysts.

“Oh, yeah?” Bush said. “That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.”

It's definitely worth reading, and I hope you will check it out.

HOWEVER-

That is not what prompted ME to start typing today. What inspired me to the keyboard was not the piece (good as it was), but one of the responses.

What got me was reader comment number 12:

I personally feel that ecollogy minded people are sacrificeing the living conditions of people today for the conditions of the future, which may never happen. We need to back off the csare tactics of global warming and start useing some of the energy resources that are available to us in abundance.
Even if we tried to destroy this earth we couldn’t if God is not ready for it to happen[emphasis added]

As John Stewart might say--- wait, wait a minute, can we hear that again?

Even if we tried to destroy this earth we couldn’t if God is not ready for it to happen

Uhm...wow. I mean...wow.



I'm tempted (and obviously, I'm giving in, even though I'm covering myself with a bit of deniability by pretending that what I'm about to write is hypothetical...what I MIGHT say IF I gave in to temptation...kind of like Huckabee telling us which spot he MIGHT have run if he'd wanted to, by getting that spot front and center on the evening news.)

As I say, I'm tempted to ask this commenter:

If God is not letting anything happen against HIS will, why then won't he save your quality of life for you whether or not the bad ole greenies are lookin' over your shoulder?

I'm tempted to ask:

So, what? It's okay to jump up and down on a box of dynamite because you'll only blow up if God WANTS you to?

I'm REALLY TEMPTED to ask:

What kind of freakin' MORON are you, anyway?

But instead, I wonder if it's not more apt to dwell on a few verses from the Bible.

There is 1 Corinthians 15:32-34 for example.

Paul makes the point that there are some who might argue that there will be no resurection, it would make sense to say:

If the dead are not raised, LET US EAT AND DRINK, FOR TOMORROW WE DIE.

33 Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals."

34 Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning

And then, there is the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25

14"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

19"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'

21"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

22"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'

23"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

24"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

26"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

Surely, this little lesson from Jesus reminds us that we must be both CAREFUL and WISE with what He places in our trust.

It can be said that the devil can quote scripture for his own purposes, and I'm sure that is true...but many times, the devil can do everything he wants through shear ignorance and shortsightedness.

The Huckabee Split?

I opened my in-box this morning to find an interesting article from "The New Republic" entitled: "Smells Like Civil War" by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

"The Huckabee surge," argues Dionne, "represents a break with what has been standard operating procedure within the GOP for more than a generation. Huckabee's evangelical Christian army in Iowa ignored the importuning of entrenched leaders of the religious right and decided to go with one of their own.

"Huckabee himself preaches a gospel of populism that rejects conservative orthodoxy on trade, the value of government and the beneficence of Wall Street."

The alliance between these disparate wings of the of the Republican story has been told many times, and is recounted quite well in Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" It is an alliance that has brought great benefits to the upper class in America. As Frank writes:

If you earn over $300,000 a year...raise a glass sometime to those indigent High Plains Republicans as you contemplate your good fortune: It is thanks to their self-denying votes that you are no longer burdened by the estate tax, or troublesome labor unions, or meddling banking regulators. Thanks to the allegiance of these sons and daughters of toil, you have escaped what your affluent forefathers used to call "confiscatory" income tax levels. It is thanks to them that you were able to buy two Rolexes this year instead of one and get that Segway with the special gold trim.

But according to the article in the New Republican, Huckabee is leading a group of rebellious primary voters who are ignoring their nominal religious leaders (who support the likes of Mitt Romney- a wealthy Mormon who seems to offer the more traditional Republican nod toward values while groveling before capital.)

Dionne writes:

The former Arkansas governor has exposed a fault line within the Republican coalition. The old religious right is dying because it subordinated the actual views of its followers to short-term political calculations. The white evangelical electorate is tired of taking orders from politicians who care more about protecting the wealthy than ending abortion, more about deregulation than family values.

Dionne's article goes on to point out that the cauldrons of Republican thought have already been bubbling with fears that Huckabee and Giuliani could split the G.O.P. from both ends. A new group, it has been argued by some, is emerging- some call them Sam's Club Republicans, others call them "pro-government conservatives". Dionne quotes a Pew Research Center report that describes these voters as "broadly religious and socially conservative, but they deviate from the party line in their backing for government involvement in a wide range of policy areas, such as government regulation and more generous assistance to the poor."

Huckabee, then is donning the mantle of heartland populism, a mantle which has been worn by Williams Jennings Bryan, George Wallace, and Pat Buchanan - that tragic American garment which can combine an enlightened economic view of the world with a social vision of smallness, repression, and primitive religious fervor.

We can only hope that Huckabee does his job well enough to deprive the Republican plutocracy of support they do not deserve, but does not do it so well that he plunges us into a new dark age of religious intolerance and backwardness.

I wonder if this country will ever learn the secret of separating populism for provincialism.