Cornwall Alliance

• For some reason, Mitt Romney will speak at CPAC.
• The American Family Association has joined the fun by filing a lawsuit over the contraception mandate.
• CWA's Janice Shaw Crouse wishes Beyoncé would stop being such a tart.
• The Cornwall Alliance will help you to "arm yourself and your friends against the fatal cult of anti-humanism!"
• Gary Cass is once again outraged.
• Finally, Bryan Fischer is quite enamored with Sen. Ted Cruz.

Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance is the Religious Right's favorite anti-climate change "expert" despite the fact that his academic credentials are limited to a doctorate in Scottish History.  While appearing on AFA's "Today's Issues" radio program today, Beisner provided the most concise explanation of why Christians cannot believe in climate change when he declared that the entire theory rests on the assumption that the earth is an extremely fragile place, which conflicts with the Biblical view that the earth was built by God for man's use.

Therefore, to believe in climate change "really is an insult to God" ... and it will eventually lead to tyranny:

American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer today was joined by pro-corporate, anti-environmental activist Cal Beisner on Focal Point to discuss Rep. Paul Ryan’s egregious record on environmental protection. The two celebrated his votes against the EPA and climate change legislation as signs that he has a “sane, objective and biblical or evangelical understanding of man’s relationship with the environment. “Paul Ryan seems to get it,” Fischer said, and Beisner applauded Ryan’s voting record “fits well with the biblical understanding” of the environment, which for them means that there should be few if any restrictions on environmental exploitation. Later, Beisner repeated his bogus charge that increased carbon dioxide levels and climate change will help the environment and the poor.

Watch:

Fischer: It seems like we’ve got another clear differential when it comes to a sane, objective and biblical or evangelical understanding of man’s relationship with the environment. Paul Ryan seems to get ii and the other team doesn’t. So that would be potentially very good news for those of us that care about seeing a biblical view of the environment in public policy.

Beisner: Yes it would. Ryan’s understanding I think fits well with the biblical understanding that God made man in His image to be creative and productive as He is, to fill and to rule the earth. Not to abuse the earth, not to rape the land so to speak as many environmentalists talk, but rather to increase its fruitfulness, its beauty and its safety to the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbors. I think that really underlies the comments that Ryan has made on these issues through the years and it comes I think from his solidly Christian worldview background.

…

Beisner: Most Americans do not see any real purpose in tight restrictions on CO2 admissions. Many Americans actually remembered what they learned way back in seventh and eighth grade biology class, mainly that carbon dioxide is plant food. So the more of that there is in the air the more the crops grow and the cheaper the food is around the world, this actually helps especially the poor.

Yesterday, Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance was a guest on Bryan Fischer's radio program where he revealed that God had given him an insight that Satan was engaged in a systematic attack against God's mandate for humanity as set out in Genesis 1: 27-28.

As Beisner explained, God's created us in His image and made us male and female and commanded us to "be fruitful and multiply" and take dominion over the earth.  Since Satan cannot attack God directly, he instead attacks God's representatives (mankind) by undermining our beliefs in these very principles, which is why we tolerate things like abortion and homosexuality and environmentalism, all of which are aimed at slowing population growth ... oh, and movies like Pixar's "Brave":

Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Santorum raised a lot of eyebrows this weekend when he attacked environmentalism as anti-Biblical and said that President Obama has a “phony theology” that sides with “radical environmentalists” over the Bible. While it was remarkable to hear these theories coming from a major presidential candidate, the theories themselves are nothing new. Instead, Santorum was drawing from a dual line of attack on environmentalists and progressive people of faith that has recently come into wide use among the Religious Right.

In 2010, People For the American Way looked at the concerted right-wing effort to frame environmentalism as anti-Biblical in a Right Wing Watch: In Focus report, The ‘Green Dragon’ Slayers: How the Religious Right and the Corporate Right are Joining Forces to Fight Environmental Protection . The report took its title from a right-wing “documentary” called “Resisting the Green Dragon,” which featured major Religious Right figures including the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer and faux historian David Barton. Kyle put together a highlight reel:

The Religious Right’s relatively new antipathy to environmentalism is largely the result of the hard work of E. Calvin Beisner, a purveyor of dominion theology and the leader of The Cornwall Alliance, a group with financial ties to the oil industry. The Cornwall Alliance’s sole purpose is to convince the Religious Right to buy into the Corporate Right’s climate change denialism and help them demonize environmentalists. The RWW report details the growing partnership:

In the last decade, as evangelical Christian leaders increasingly became involved in conservation , “creation care” and taking action against global climate change , the alarms went up in corporate America that many traditional members of the conservative coalition were becoming advocates for environmental protection. To counter the rise of the faith-based environmentalist Evangelical Climate Initiative, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance emerged. The ISA, propped up by business interests including Exxon Mobil , has peddled misleading and false claims to make the case that climate change is a myth. In 2007, the ISA was renamed the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and became more belligerent and zealous in its anti-environmental activities.

The Cornwall Alliance is led by E. Calvin Beisner, who believes that since God granted humans “dominion” over the earth, humans have a right to exploit all natural resources. As Randall Balmer writes in Thy Kingdom Come, Beisner “asserts that God has placed all of nature at the disposal of humanity.” Balmer quotes Beisner’s own summary of his dominion theology: “All of our acquisitive activities should be undertaken with the purpose of extending godly rule, or dominion.” As Balmer notes, “the combination of dominion theology from the Religious Right and the wise use ideology of corporate and business interests has created a powerful coalition to oppose environmental protection.”

According to a report by Think Progress , the Cornwall Alliance is a front group for the shadowy James Partnership. Both the James Partnership and the Cornwall Alliance are closely linked to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), an anti-environmental group that is “funded by at least $542,000 from ExxonMobil, $60,500 from Chevron, and $1,280,000 from Scaife family foundations, which are rooted in wealth from Gulf Oil and steel interests.” CFACT is also part of a climate change denialist network funded by the ExxonMobil-financed Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Beisner is a CFACT board member and an “adjunct fellow” of the Acton Institute , which is primarily funded by groups like ExxonMobil, the Scaife foundations and the Koch brothers. Beisner is also an adviser to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which is financed by the oil-backed Earthart Foundation , the Koch brothers, and ExxonMobil.

In fact, Beisner is not a scientist and has no scientific credentials. Despite claiming to be an authority on energy and environmental issues, he received his Ph.D. in Scottish History.

Beisner has been extraordinarily successful in convincing the Religious Right that environmentalism presents a threat to Christianity. Earlier this month, he told Fischer that the EPA is violating the separation of church and state by helping to promote the upcoming film version of “The Lorax.” Why? Because he claims that environmentalism is itself a religion. This is rhetoric that Santorum, in saying that Obama’s theology is influenced by “radical environmentalists,” has swallowed whole.

Also active in the effort to recruit the Religious Right to the Corporate Right’s view of environmentalism has been David Barton, self-proclaimed historian and all-purpose fake expert. In 2010, he appeared on the Glenn Beck show along with Beisner explain that environmentalists want us to “live in fear”:

Barton -- who is no more a historian than Beisner is a scientist – is a widely influential figure in the Right, cited by prominent figures including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, and who has even been invited to testify before the Senate about climate change.

Santorum’s remarks were so shocking because this is the first time they have been heard on the national political stage – but his talking points on environmentalism and progressive faith have already been polished and accepted as gospel by the movement the Religious Right.

Like David Barton, who has no academic training as a historian but is the Religious Right’s point person on American history, Calvin Beinser of the Cornwall Alliance has no scientific credentials but has become the go-to person for right-wing activists on questions of science, particularly climate change. While he lacks any credentials what Beisner does have is close ties to organizations financed by the energy industry and a history of attacking scientists, spreading misinformation, and fueling fears that the environmental movement is a pagan plot to destroy Christianity and kill “about 95% of the human race.”

Beisner is especially concerned about growing calls for environmental protection made by evangelical Christians, and has went out of his way to attack groups like the Evangelical Environmental Network for calling on public officials to clamp down on mercury poisoning. Beisner’s outburst against his fellow evangelicals should come as no surprise, as he has even gone after a Koch-financed study which actually confirmed the science behind climate change. He joined Focus on the Family’s political arm CitizenLink, whose head Tom Minnery appeared in Beisner’s Green Dragon video series, to disparage the EEN for thanking both Republican and Democratic politicians who supported efforts to reduce mercury emissions:

According to the EEN, one of every six American babies is born with harmful blood mercury levels, “which causes permanent brain damage in the unborn and infants.” Therefore, the 12 federal legislators EEN is thanking with radio, TV and billboard ads for supporting the EPA restrictions are “pro-life.”

In truth, only one in every 1,000 American babies is exposed to harmful doses of mercury, and the slight delays in cognitive development it may cause generally disappear by age 7, says Beisner. Moreover, all 12 of the federal legislators EEN is supporting are among the most pro-abortion Congress has to offer.

“Calling this ‘pro-life’ is quite a misnomer, but it will result in a lot of people being confused about who’s really pro-life and who’s not,” Beisner said. “Some of these people have 100 percent pro-abortion voting records in Congress, so people need to know they’re really getting the wool pulled over their eyes if they fall for this.”

But the Center for Disease control did in fact find that one in six newborns, or 630,000 of the 4 million babies born annually, are “at risk for developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb,” which PBS described as mercury levels “so high that they are potentially at risk for learning disabilities and motor skill impairment and short-term memory loss.”

This attack on evangelical environmentalists comes at a time when Focus on the Family head Jim Daly pledged to take the organization in a different direction than his predecessor James Dobson, and Christianity Today reported that CitizenLink recently launched “an effort to reach young adults on issues related to sex trafficking, poverty, and the environment.” It also puts the group at odds with the long list of evangelical leaders who signed the “Evangelical Call to Stop The Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn.”

But apparently for Focus on the Family, being “pro-life” does not entail protecting newborns from mercury poisoning.

Energy industry apologist Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance appeared on Janet Parshall’s radio show yesterday to once again do the bidding of polluters. As we’ve reported in The Green Dragon Slayers, Beisner has no scientific credentials but is closely tied to energy companies. During the interview, Beisner directed his animus as the Evangelical Environmental Network, which launched a pledge to combat mercury poisoning:

One in six babies, over 700,000 each year, are born with harmful levels of mercury in their blood, and coal-burning power plants are the largest source of domestic mercury pollution.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

We believe this is an urgent and escalating moral crisis which calls for immediate action!

According to the National Institutes of Health, “For fetuses, infants and children, the primary health effects of mercury are on neurological development. Even low levels of mercury exposure such as result from mother’s consumption methylmercury in dietary sources can adversely affect the brain and nervous system.”

But Beisner said that it was more important to leave polluters unregulated. He insisted that regulations against pollution were actually going to kill people and that his pro-corporate view is the real “pro-life” position. He went on to say that advocates of environmental protection want to deliberately weaken the economy because “the environmental movement hates human prosperity”:

These were people who frankly didn’t know the science behind it, all they saw was that babies were endangered and they wanted to protect these babies. Well of course we would want to protect the babies but the science isn’t good and so consequently the EEN has succeeded, at least temporarily anyway, in fostering the notion that this is a pro-life cause. It's not a pro-life cause if anything the opposite is a pro-life cause because whereas the current levels of mercury admissions are not causing any deaths to anyone, the reduced economic output for this country will indeed increase premature deaths among the American population.

…

The real aim is to try to get us to use less energy overall because energy fuels a prosperous economy and the environmental movement hates human prosperity because it sees it as a threat to the environment.

Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance spoke to Bryan Fischer yesterday on American Family Radio about the evil plans that environmentalists have in store for humanity. Beisner, who has his PhD in Scottish History and whose group is tied to energy companies, previously worked with Fischer and other Religious Right leaders on the “Resisting The Green Dragon” miniseries which attacked the supposedly anti-Christian, anti-human environmentalist movement.

Last time Beisner was on Fischer’s program, Beisner said that the deadly tornadoes in the American South were “little tastes” of God’s judgment. Yesterday, the two discussed how they believe environmentalists are earth-worshippers who are deliberately destroying the economy and that climate change is a myth, lauding Rick Santorum for calling global warming a “patently absurd,” liberal plot.

Fischer asked Beisner if the environmental movement wanted a return “into dark paganism” and Beisner agreed, saying that the end-game of environmentalism “would require the disappearance of about 95% of the human race.”

Watch:

Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance is at the center of the Religious Right’s growing push against “the Green Dragon,” otherwise known as the environmental movement. As noted in the latest Right Wing Watch In-Focus, Beisner has his PhD. in Scottish history and absolutely no scientific credentials, however, he does have close ties to corporate-financed, anti-environmental groups such as the Acton Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Now, right-wing activists like David Barton, Wendy Wright, and Bryan Fischer are heavily promoting Beisner’s film (which they are also featured in).

According to Beisner, environmental protection is “anti-biblical” while heightened carbon dioxide emissions are good for the earth. Even though actual scientists have concluded that the rapidly increasing human emissions of carbon dioxide cause warming temperatures, drought, and rising sea levels.

While climate change threatens to reduce precipitation and produce devastating food shortages, Beisner wrongly claims that climate change will increase the food supply and, in fact, goes so far as to accuse the EPA of intentionally seeking to "hurt the poor":

Beisner: A lot of agricultural economists think that the increased crop yields that we've seen over the last forty to fifty years, something in the neighborhood of twelve to fifteen percent of that is attributable directly to increased carbon dioxide, which means that food gets more plentiful and that helps the poor.

Well, the EPA wants to hurt the poor [in] two ways: one, by raising energy prices by forcing us to switch from carbon-based fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, to much more expensive and much less reliable fuels like wind, solar, and bio-fuels. And two, they want to hurt the poor by lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would reduce plant growth efficiency, reducing crop yields, reducing food availability, raising food prices. So it's a double whammy on the poor.

Then David Barton, of all people, accuses scientists of ignoring anything that does support their worldview and manipulating data to support it, while complaining that it is all plot to increase government control and play God:

Barton: This is not about science, this has nothing to do with science. Science is a vehicle to give them more control over the lives of individuals.

Green: So there's no intellectual honesty then there?

Barton: No. There's no intellectual honesty. You find something that lines up with your worldview and you say "here it is, this is what I've always believed, I knew it was out there." And you find a fake science like the IPCC at the UN which has its own agenda ...

Green: And they're willing to put out supposed data, that's false ...

Barton: And the great proof that it's a philosophical worldview is when you refuse to listen to opposing data. When you get all these scientists on the other side ... who roll out all these studies that say "no, no, no that's wrong." When you won't listen to opposing data, science has nothing to do with it. You're into a worldview conflict at that point and your saying that my worldview demands that I have more control over your life, over what you do, that's why government does exist, you're hear to serve government, not vice versa, and this is the vehicle to do it. This really has nothing to do with science.

But what happens is, not understanding that, a lot of Americans buy into that this is science.

Green: Oh, they've been indoctrinated with it in education for the last twenty years.

Barton: Are you kidding me, Earth Day in the schools? We've got to save the Earth? I mean, that's like a tick ... trying to save a whole heard of cattle. I mean, ticks go along for the ride, they don't manage the cattle, they don't tell them where to go. And that's our arrogance in thinking that we can do something to save the planet and control where the planet goes. You know, we're just along for the ride and we're insignificant peons on this thing

Green: Well, arrogance is the right word. I mean, it really does, we get to the point where we think - not that we shouldn't do the things we can do, of course you do the things that are responsible - but we think that we can control this whole thing. We think we're God.