The Religion of Climate Change

I’m taking a break at summer end from some writing before zeroing in after Labor Day on the need to restore the American conscience–starting with each one of us. We can’t even vote right in November without an awakened conscience.

This week I ran across a good article on a pagan religion to which we just threw $369 billion dollars–foolishly named the “Inflation Reduction Act.” Let’s call it a “tithe” to what many of our leaders profess to worship.

Climate Change.

The Religion of Climate Change

The recent 369 billion dollar giveaway to climate change zealots reminds me of a cardinal rule of economics by the late Milton Friedman, a financial advisor to both President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Here’s a quick pedigree on Friedman.

He was one of the leading economic voices of the latter half of the 20th century, popularizing many economic ideas important today—especially free-market capitalism. Friedman’s economic theories became known as monetarism, which refuted important parts of Keynesian economics (government spending), a school of thought that was dominant in the first half of the 20th century and now back in vogue in the Obama/Biden administrations. 

Over the course of his academic career, Friedman wrote many influential articles on the modern economy and published pioneering books that changed the way economics was taught. 

The Reagan forty-year-economic-boom followed the principles of Friedman. The economic stagflation under our current president is a revival of Keynesian economics–the destructive nature of government spending.

Friedman died in 2006, but his 160 second video, “Four Ways to Spend Money,” will teach you more about economics and freedom than a masters degree from most universities  

Please take time to watch “Four Ways to Spend Money.” If you study Friedman’s graphic in the video, live it in your personal life, and vote according to its wisdom, you will be prosperous and be a blessing to your nation. 

One of Friedman’s protege’s and one of my favorite current economists is Stephen Moore–a prominent writer and television commentator on economic issues. He co-founded and served as president of the Club for Growth from 1999 to 2004. He’s also a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and worked at the Heritage Foundation from 1983 to 1987 and 2014 to the present.

I always enjoy Stephen Moore’s columns because he understands biblical principles of money and finance–and also sees the forces, philosophies, and “religions” we are fighting in the 21st century.

Here’s his take on both the bad economics and the “worship” of climate change by the Democratic Party and its allies.

Is Modern Environmentalism a Pagan Religion?

By Stephen Moore

The great Rush Limbaugh used to say that “the modern environmentalists worship the created, not the creator.” I was reminded of that after listening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once President Joe Biden signed the fiscally unconscionable $750 billion tax-and-spend Inflation Reduction Act, which gives another $369 billion to the climate change-industrial complex.

Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the wind, solar and electric subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act would placate an “angry” planet. “Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that,” the speaker said.

This is a highly revealing statement. Do Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues really believe that spending $369 billion on Tesla subsidies (with batteries made in China), windmills (made in China) and solar panels (made in China) is going to save the planet, stop the rise of the oceans and lower the global temperature?

This is the same gang in Congress that can’t stop the daily drive-by shootings in our cities, can’t secure the U.S.-Mexico border, can’t come anywhere near balancing the budget and can’t provide the resources our military needs for our national security.

Even if this additional $369 billion were to work as planned, the Wall Street Journal reports that the impact on global temperatures in the coming decades would be to lower them by 0.001%. So, instead of the global temperature being an average of 59 F, it will be 58.999 F. Thank God! We are saved from Armageddon.

But as Pelosi’s quote makes clear, this is about symbolism. It is about ruining the economy as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. Marc Morano, the journalist who runs ClimateDepot.com, asks: “Will human sacrifices be next to appease the ‘angry’ Earth gods? Actually, this bill will create human sacrifice by imposing even more suffering from energy deprivation, supply chain issues, good shortages, inflation, debt, and bad science.”

He’s right. The suffering that will occur from this assault on American energy security and reliability could be profound — and it will be the lowest-income people who will be hurt the most. Inflation will rise as energy prices soar. The shortages of energy will cause hardship for many consumers, including food shortages. Europe, which got hooked on the green energy fad, is now rationing energy. In Spain, there are new restrictions on using air conditioning to set the temperature of your store or home at less than 80 F — during a heat spell. It’s one of those sacrifices to Mother Earth.

One of the great injustices and ironies of the new law is that it purports to give billions of dollars for “environmental justice” grants to low-income communities and inner cities when it is this group of people who will feel the brunt of the anti-fossil fuel policies. The poor spend much more of their incomes on energy than the rich.

The warmest years in North America are not recent years — instead, they occurred during the 1930s amid the Dust Bowl era. This was before 80% of the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Back then, thousands of U.S. residents died from extreme weather. But now we have, through modern electric power and technological innovation, major ways to reduce death rates from weather events. The way to save the Earth is through more growth, more innovation and a richer planet.

That is what Mother Earth wants. That is what America wants. Only one out of 20 people rate climate change as the No. 1 problem facing our country. The public wants lower inflation and more prosperity. This law delivers neither.

The God that many of us worship wants us to create peace, prosperity and light. The god of radical environmentalists will deliver darkness, despair and decline.

I believe Stephen Moore is correct on these points.

It’s important to understand there is a “worldview” behind the pagan religion of climate change: atheism. Denying God’s reality and sovereignty, atheists make Big Government their god (all socialist/communist/totalitarian regimes) and other “created things” as Rush Limbaugh once intoned.

Romans 1:18-23 strongly makes the same point. 

Stephen Moore quoting Marc Morano says that this worship of the state/climate change must come with “sacrifice”–and he rightly points out that it will come upon the poor most viciously. 

But the atheist/earth worshippers have already created the largest human sacrificial system in the history of mankind: abortion. They’re killing “unwanted” human beings who might take up too much space and scarce resources on the planet they idolize.

We must reject the climate change hysteria and Big Government policies that promote it. We must go back to Milton Friedman’s “Grid One” for spending money–personal responsibility.

And start with it before God–with an awakened and enlightened conscience.

Next Week: Your Conscience Before God.