An Inconvenient Blindness
Carlene Ness, community columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the science surrounding climate change. In fact, she doesn't take on the scientists or the findings of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Instead, she ridicules pop culture icons like Christine Aguilera, Sheryl Crow and Madonna.
Implying we have plenty of time, Ness asserts that "climate change isn't measured in a century or two but over millennia." Yes, natural change in the past was measured that slowly. But the problem humans face today is human-caused change, not natural change. That will be measurable in decades. It already is.
Ness confuses weather forecasts with climate change. Any Texan knows all too well that the weather can change in a hurry. Flip a coin once and you can only guess whether you'll get heads or tails. That's weather. But flip it a thousand times and scientists can tell you with great confidence what range of heads and tails to expect. That's climate. Now, scientists are observing that one side of our metaphorical coin is getting heavier. That doesn't help them much in guessing the outcome of the next coin flip, but it helps a lot in changing their prediction for the outcome of the next thousand coin flips. They are still working out how much heavier our coin is getting and how fast, so there's still plenty of room for study, but the overall trend is clear.
Ness uses the history of horses in New York City to reassure us that something will come along, like the automobile did, and save us all from being buried in horse manure. We already know what that something is. It's conservation, alternative fuels, a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, global population control, etc. Carlene Ness can continue to bury her head in the sand, pretending that there is no problem or, if there is, that someone else will solve it for us, or she can begin to offer constructive alternatives for reducing humanity's ever-growing impact on the globe's climate.
Celebrity Worship in Evangelicalism
Uh oh... William McKenzie, editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News, might have stepped in it today. He quotes, approvingly, Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God:
"Big-time American Christianity is incompatible with the Gospel. It is part of the entertainment business. No matter what you think you are doing, you are really just another celebrity in a celebrity-obsessed culture."I've always found it ironic how Protestantism, founded on a rejection of priests, bishops and popes as intermediaries to God, has come to embrace celebrity worship of preachers like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, James Robison, Jerry Falwell, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen. For a religion that preaches that the Bible contains all you need to know, there sure is a lot of personality cult involved.
What's surprising about all this is not that someone is pointing it out, but that someone is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. The News versus Evangelicalism. That's a fight that I never thought I'd see. And, despite William McKenzie's opening jab, it's a fight that I don't expect to see the News pursue.
2 comments:
McKenzie knows whereof he speaks regarding personality cults, as he himself belongs to the cult of George W. Bush. McKenzie once wrote the immortal sentence:
"There's a Zen-like quality to this brush-clearing president."
I never would have believed one human being could drink that much Kool-aid.
McKenzie is a fascinating reporter. He isn't always right. He's sometimes spectacularly wrong (as your example shows). But he isn't easy to characterize, either. If he's drinking Kool-Aid, it's his own recipe.
P.S. Thanks for commenting.
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