The man trying to be the next head of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee revealed the depth of his faith in God, and unfortunate simplistic thinking, when he spoke about global warming in 2009. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican, referred back to Noah in Chapter 8 of Genesis as he spoke before the House subcommittee on Energy and Environment:
"As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease." Shimkus believes this is the infallible word of God and that man will not destroy the planet. But wait--there's more. 'Today we have about 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. I think in the age of dinosaurs, when we had the most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet — not too much carbon. And the cost of a cap-and-trade on the poor is now being discovered." (Cap and Trade is the Obama administration's bill to limit emissions).
I'm reminded of Tina Fey's spoof of then VP candidate Sarah Palin, explaining global warming as "God just huggin' us a little closer!" Radical right-wing Republicans have been satisfied to deny global warming is happening despite scientific evidence to the contrary. And often their reading of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is missing the key element that we are supposed to be stewards of the planet, not the plunderers. True, the promise made to Noah is that God won't try to drown us out of our existence again. But we have been given responsibility for tending to this fragile earth, our island home, and we in the U.S. as well as the other industrialized nations, have a special responsibility to NOT continue poisoning our waters and raping our landscapes. To pretend like we don't have to keep our end of that relationship to the planet is just stupid and irresponsible.
Dear God: Help! Help! Help!
3 comments:
I watched a video about the plumes that are still in the gulf, under water so we are not aware of the damage this is probably doing to the ecology of the gulf.. especially the bottom dwellers. Our greed destroys.
I think we have so much work to do to keep our ecology alive and safe.
Peggins
Phoebe, we'll be feeling the effects of our greed for years to come. I guarantee in another five to ten years, there will be reports of a crisis in the Gulf Seafood industry because of (fill-in-blank die off of species). And it will be because of this spill.
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