In his Earth Day proclamation President Obama stated: “Today our planet faces new challenges, but none poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.” Such a convenient word the environmental left has us all using. Of course the climate is changing. It’s the height of human arrogance to think we can stop it. Climate change is a fact, not a threat. But, for the Left it’s become an organizing principle for manipulating human action. Hence the warning: ‘the planet is warming and, if we don’t take their desired steps — which mostly involves drastically cutting the use of fossil fuels — we’ll reap dire consequences.’ The proposed fixes move us toward the Left’s overarching utopian goal, the redistribution of resources and wealth from rich to poor. The fact is, over the past fifteen years, global temperature increases have been negligible. But this science does not matter because the religion of climate-change demands faith and action. One of the White House’s favorite science voices is Bill Nye, Public Television’s “The Science Guy.” He says of climate change, “I’m not a full-time scientist, but I know enough about it to know it’s not something you should be debating or denying. It’s something you should be getting-on-with-it-ing.” A better goal to set would be that of reducing pollution. We’re actually doing that. Earth Day was established in the 70’s. Governments and their citizens were encouraged to fall into line under an environmental regime and policies aimed at stopping one disaster after another. This Earth Day economist Steve Moore listed in the Heritage Foundation’s “Daily Signal” 6 factual realities we should celebrate. Despite predictions to the contrary, he writes, “Natural resources are more abundant and affordable today than ever before in history.” This is the case even though the world’s population has nearly tripled. Steve Moore notes that, “Technology has far outpaced depletion of the Earth’s resources.” He also points out that pollutants have plunged and that the “Malthusian nightmare of overpopulation” never materialized. In fact, today, developed nations are dealing with the opposite problem: falling birthrates. And the world hasn’t run out of food. In fact the problem for most nations is obesity, not hunger. The famine that, tragically, does occur is mostly “caused by political corruption, not nature.” Yes, there are natural disasters and severe weather events, as there always have been. But death and physical destruction, even discomfort from these has plummeted. We’ve developed advance warning systems, better infrastructure, heating and air conditioning. Free economies keep innovating. Again, the science doesn’t matter. Environmentalism is a religion in which the creation is elevated above the creator. Believing saint, this is backwards. Genesis 2:15 says “the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” Yes, there’s an obligation of stewardship. We should energetically pursue that task. The climate gospel that is being preached is a dangerous distraction. http://ncfr.net/ncfr.net/subdomains/commentary/Downloads/Penna_Dexter/Penna-05-01-2015.mp3