Note: The author of this commentary piece from the August 27 New York Post, David Gelernter, is a professor of computer sciences at Yale University. On June 24, 1993, he became the 23rd victim of Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber. A heavily underlined copy of "Earth in the Balance" was reportedly among the personal items found by the FBI in Kaczynski's cabin. Syndicated columnist Tony Snow pointed out the strong similarities between Kaczynski's writings, published in the Washington Post, and the Vice President's book. Gelernter survived the bombing with a mangled right hand.

Copyright 1998 THE NEW YORK POST

August 27, 1998
RELIGIOUS LEADERS' NEW FALSE IDOL
By DAVID GELERNTER

YOU will be relieved to learn that the nation's religious leaders, having got sin pretty much under control, are moving on to science.

Major church groups in the United States, the New York Times reported not long ago, are mounting an unusually broad and active campaign to get the Senate to approve an international deal called the Kyoto Protocol that was negotiated last year.

The protocol commits rich nations such as the United States to fight global warming by sharply reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we vent to the atmosphere. Roman Catholic bishops and many southern conservatives are not on board; Orthodox Jewish groups (as far as I know) are likewise uncooperative. But the rest of our religious mainstream seems to have endorsed Kyoto - thereby executing a startling one-two combination punch that slams science and religion simultaneously, by subordinating both to cheesy politics.

I have no reason to doubt that the churchmen themselves are fine upstanding persons, but their advice on this issue is foolish enough to qualify as immoral. Laymen need to throw a calming, steadying arm "round the church's shoulder, and maybe buy it a drink.

As a rule, religious groups turn to political issues that have no direct connection to theology (every issue has an indirect connection) when they no longer believe in religion - or have grown tired of it. I know this from bitter experience in the American Jewish community.

Jewish leaders helped direct the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. This seemed like a legitimate religious activity at the time, and in retrospect still does. But it led many rabbis to a discovery: They loved politics. Politics was a much more up-and-coming field than God.

The nation could do without men of the cloth; over the '60s and '70s, it gave them steadily less attention and respect. But there was a crying need for leftist agitators - and at a moment when religion seemed increasingly puzzling, politics was crystal clear. God? Who knows about God? But the war in Vietnam was immoral; there was a teaching you could take to the bank. Feminism, environmentalism, nuclear freeze - they all turned out to be miraculously clear-cut. You could set your watch by the radio and your politics by The New York Times every morning.

A few principled rabbis, including some leftists, fought the trend. But they lost, and today's mainstream American Judaism has turned into an asteroid belt: numberless pointy fragments tumbling through outer space, muttering continuously about inclusivity and humankind (you can pick them up on radio telescopes), utterly remote from the lives of the laity.

Which brings me to the Kyoto Protocol. The problem is, first, that there is no scientific consensus on global warming. (See, for example, Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw's fine book Facts, Not Fear.) The earth has been getting warmer, check: Over the last century, average temperatures have risen about one Fahrenheit degree. Break out the emergency rum coolers.

It's possible that our carbon-dioxide exhaust is trapping heat like the glass of a greenhouse, and thereby heating things up. But if you endorse this theory, why did average temperatures rise faster in the 1910s and '20s (before the modern surge in carbon dioxide) than over the last few decades? Why did they fall between 1938 and 1970, as carbon dioxide increased? Does your theory account for the long-term temperature cycles that happen by themselves? There has been a lot of global warming since the last Ice Age.

Scientists (and therefore churchmen) don't know. In a decade or two, the picture will be clearer. In the meantime it is clear that, as Jonathan Adler writes in a recent National Review, we could think it over for 20 years and do nothing - and the long-term effect of our 20-year delay will be virtually nil. Climate moves slowly.

But the churchmen don't want to wait. They want action now, before prayerbooks start bursting into flame. Supporting Kyoto is a litmus test for the faith community, according to the general secretary of the National Council of Churches. So they are proposing that the nation spend (according to the Clinton administration's low-ball estimate) $7 billion to $12 billion a year to comply. (Independent studies predict a 50-cent rise in gasoline prices, 70 percent jump in home-heating costs and so on.)

Well, why not? We've got the money. The problem is, what if Americans want to spend that annual $7 billion on some other cause than environmental hypochondria? What if they want to give it to charity? What if they want to keep it? How about if we established a national grant program for mothers who want to stay home and rear their children but can't afford to, or have husbands who won't let them? I'm not proposing such a program. But it would make far better sense on moral terms than what church leaders are promoting.

They are saying, in effect, we feel fine today, but we're anticipating cardiac problems in 10 years - so if you don't mind, we'd like that heart operation right now. It would make us feel so much better. The obvious response is, indulge your hypochondria (if you must) with your own money - but you're foolish to do it, and you risk creating problems instead of solving them.

Granted, global warming might turn into an actual, confirmed problem some day. In the meantime, we face an actual, confirmed problem right now. Our natural environment is in good shape, but our spiritual environment is in steep decline. And with every passing year, our religious leadership seems to care less about religion.

Action for concerned Catholics

Religious Groups Mount a Campaign To Support Pact on Global Warming