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The New Moral Issue

by TChris

The Republican Senate has exhausted itself with fierce debates about gay marriage, the protection of stem cells, and flag burning amendments, while showing little interest in legislation that might benefit the public. As Republican leaders waste their time ranting about "moral issues," Al Gore unveiled a plan yesterday to combat global warming. Gore recognizes that avoiding the destruction of life on the planet is a greater moral issue than those that motivate the religious right.

"This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue -- it affects the survival of human civilization," Gore said in an hour-long speech at the New York University School of Law. "Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

Gore isn't alone. Religious groups are increasingly focusing on stewardship of the environment as a moral issue.

"This movement in the last six to nine months has mushroomed," said Chuck Gillam, a one-time Republican who is a representative to the Sustainable Sanctuary Coalition, an interfaith group that meets monthly in Prairie Village. "Global warming could be the one thing where you can get a united front between the secular and religious." ...

Backers of this so-called Evangelical Climate Initiative include Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life, and leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals -- a group comprising 60 denominations representing 45,000 churches.

The changing focus of the debate mirrors the growing realization that global warming is real, and is more likely to have an impact on everyday life than what the gay couple down the street does for fun in the privacy of their home. Public sentiment is so strong that the president is rumored to be plotting a policy flip-flop by recognizing the problem of global warming (although his willingness to do anything about it remains suspect).

Update: War is obviously a moral issue (particularly when the war is immoral), and this article reminds us that people of faith can play a critical role in opposing needless killing:

"It is the silent, the indifferent, the 'good' churchgoing people and those who delight in reading the Torah; all of us who sit back in our pews and sing gospel melodies and Gregorian chants while villages are bombed and cluster bombs explode and parents anguish over the loss of their children and children scream at the terror that their innocent eyes have endured. We have helped lay the 'bricks.' "

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  • Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Sep 19, 2006 at 05:10:01 PM EST
    Yes, we'll call it Gore's "Day Late And A Dollar Short" Tour. I thought this joker's 15 minutes were up years ago! Still, Nixon was afforded a second act, so why not Gore, eh?

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Tue Sep 19, 2006 at 05:34:42 PM EST
    Oh come on, Gore's just lining his pockets off this lie. There's no crisis, no problem, hell, when I was breathing all that chunky L.A. air in the late 60's and 70's as a kid, little did I know but I was actually making myself healthier, building up a tolerance. And that higher tolerance makes me more valuable to the economy. Ahem. Money is not a living thing, the earth is. Killing the planet to save an inanimate object is lunacy. As is the notion we cannot take care of the planet AND people. We are one and the same. If we can't clean up our act seriously AND continue to prosper as a species, with all our gifts of rationality and modernity, well, then we're not much of a species after all. Fiddling while Rome burns is nothin', shoot, we'll just fiddle while the FIDDLE burns.

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Sep 19, 2006 at 05:34:42 PM EST
    I have increasingly compared the dissemination of facts regarding WMD's in Iraq vs. the same regarding Global Warming. How can anyone deny cherrypicking facts via the White House when looking at their erroneous assumptions/conclusions re: global warming i.e. there isn't any vs. their erroneous conclusions re WMD's i.e. there are some. Manipulation or incompetence... which are YOU more afraid of??

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#3)
    by Sumner on Tue Sep 19, 2006 at 05:34:42 PM EST
    Consider two interesting words (paronyms): Mortal - pertaining to Mors, the Roman personification of Death. From Mor(s) + al, the suffix meaning pertaining to, and, "ity" - the suffix of abstract nouns. Destined for death, autolysis. That period of decay without renewal following nascency and flourish. Also, those separate from the gods. And also the word: Moral(s)(ity) - pertaining to Mors, the Roman personification of Death. A conclusion drawn, as from life, or from a story. From Mor(s) + al, the suffix meaning pertaining to, and, "ity" - the suffix of abstract nouns. A belief-set about that conduct likely to result in death. "Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose." - Friedrich Nietzsche And then compare: "Moraia" (L.) - Fates. Daughters by Zeus & Themis. "Clotho", spinner of the Thread of Life. "Lachesis", determiner of the length of the Thread of Life. "Atropos", severer of the Thread of Life.

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 09:58:12 AM EST
    Peaches posted a link to this Billmon article in the open thread yesterday, and it's well worth reposting here:
    British scientist James Lovelock [warns] that catastrophic global climate change is both imminent and unstoppable:
    Within the next decade or two, Lovelock forecasts, Gaia will hike her thermostat by at least 10 degrees. Earth, he predicts, will be hotter than at any time since the Eocene Age 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic Ocean. "There's no realization of how quickly and irreversibly the planet is changing," Lovelock says. "Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover."
    It would be easy to view this as just another kooky end-of-the-world theory, if it weren't for the history of some of Lovelock's other kooky theories -- like the time in the late '70s when he hypothesized that chlorofluorocarbons wafted high into the stratosphere would eat great big holes in the ozone layer, exposing first the polar regions and then the rest of the earth's surface to increasingly harmful ultraviolet radiation. What a nut. Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist, has suggested that unless major cuts in Co2 emissions are made within the next decade, the process will become every bit as irreversible as Lovelock claims it already is.
    Thanks, Peaches. I think... ---edger

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 06:05:38 PM EST
    * global warming * torture * Iraq * [add your own here] All the great issues of our time are moral issues but are almost never discussed as such. I believe strongly that this approach is a winner.

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#6)
    by cpinva on Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 06:47:45 PM EST
    lavocat, gore's been doing this, consistently, for going on 30 years now. what cave have you been living in? as the man (not gore) said, you are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. while you may disagree with mr. gore's positions, with respect to the environment (and you'd be a fool to do so, but that's your inalienable right.), don't make up your own facts.

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#5)
    by Jen M on Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 07:06:24 PM EST
    We can always call it Humanity's "Day late and a dollar short tour"

    Re: The New Moral Issue (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 09:31:35 AM EST
    I must admit to being rather surprised that no one commented on Lovelocks warnings. Is the issue and the probelem just too overwhelming for anyone but Al Gore to think or talk about? edger