New York City, March 27, 2005

This Easter Sunday turned out to be a very rich day of US television.
Let me first give a run down of the programs I watched this day.

9 a.m. “CBS News Sunday Morning” - a walk through the “Nomadic
Museum”.


10 a.m. “ABC This Week With George Stephanoupoulos” - introduced Rick
Warren, the author of “The Purpose Driven Life”.

10:30 a.m. “NBC Meet the Press, a stellar panel on “Faith in Politics
and
Foreign Affairs”, hosted by Tim Russert.

noon “CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer” interviewing M. Javad
Zarif,
Iranian ambassador to the UN.

7 p.m. “on 60 Minutes” - Saudi Arabian citizens speak about the
country’s steps toward reform”

8 p.m. “CNN Presents” - “The impact of global warming”.

To this list I would like to add the excellent OP-ED column by Thomas
L.
Friedman in the New York Times of that day: “GEO-GREENING BY EXAMPLE”.

The Nomadic Museum is an open air Cathedral style structure made of
crates
with spaces in between open to the weather conditions. This movable
huge
space is inhabited, at this time, by an art photography show, “Ashes
and
Snow”, the product of thirteen years work by Canadian artist Gregory
Colbert, that gets us involved by conveying feelings of natural
involvement
of humans and wild animals in a habitat natural to all. This walk
through,
and watching also a short movie on the topic, gave me the right feeling
to
continue on what turned out a day of celebration - the celebration of
intellect and understanding of the interaction between rational humans
and
the environment they are entitled to live in.

The Nomadic Museum, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, is
located
until June 6, 2005, at Hudson River Park’s pier 54 in New York City, at
West
13th Street, and will then be dismantled and moved to Los Angeles,
followed
by the Vatican - first legs of a planned tour of the US, Europe and
Asia.

“The Purpose Driven Life” is the book that was brought to our
attention,
recently, when the young woman from Atlanta, Georgia, induced a life
change
turn in the mind of a murderer, by informing him that there may yet be
a
purpose to his life. The book is a best seller (sold already 21
million
copies) and my hope that people may realize that the purpose of doing
no
harm to mother earth is as an important purpose as any they may be
considering. Just living a seemingly “good life” in disregard of nature
can
not serve as an answer to the need for a purpose.

After above two earlier shows, I was just ripe to commit myself to the
excellent, but demanding, Tim Russert panel.

Members of the panel: Prof. Reza Aslan, author of “No god but God: The
Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam”, an Iranian American; Rev.
Robert
Drinan, S.J., Professor of Law, Georgetown School of Law, Former
Congressman
from Massachusetts (1970-1980), catholic, author of “Real Homeland
Security:
The America God Will Bless”; Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics
&
Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, Democratic senator from Connecticut, first Jewish
American
nominated for vice-president of the US, prolific proponent of
environmental
legislation in US Senate; Jon Meacham, Managing Editor of Newsweek
magazine, author of this week (March 28, 2005) Newsweek article - “How
Jesus
Became Christ”; and Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian, author
of
“God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get
it”.

The purpose of the panel was to examine the role of faith in America
and Tim
Russert said that it was propelled by the Terri Schiavo case that has
brought to the forefront, once again, the politics and religion
conundrum in
American life. My interest in the panel was not in the Schiavo case
but
rather in the many other topics that popped up on the fringes of the
discussion. Such as when Mr. Russert brought into the discussion Prof
Aslan:

Mr. Russert: - “There is no politician in Iran’s parliament who can be
considered more of a religious fundamentalist than, for instance,
Senator
Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, or former attorney-general John
Ashcroft… I
would even bet there are more churches per capita in the US than
mosques in
Iran. And few if any countries could beat the US when it comes to
using
religious rhetoric in political arguments”.

Prof. Aslan: - “Well, look, no religion that aspires to anything more
than
metaphysical contemplation can remain indifferent to the realities of
the
secular world. It’s perfectly natural for religion to have an
influence in
politics. I mean, I think that the difference between a democracy and
a
theocracy is not secularism but pluralism. The problem with Iran is a
lack
of pluralism, a lack of religious freedoms…Iran is a clerical
oligarchy”.

Rev. Wallis: - “…religion must be disciplined by democracy”.

Mr. Meacham: - “…has to be humility about having a monopoly on truth.
None of us do”. “Americans did not come here to escape religion.
American’s came here to escape established religion”.

Mr. Russert, quoting President Kennedy: - “Here on Earth, God’s work
must
truly be our own”. That’s politics and religion together in a very
clearly
stated way.

Prof. Aslan: - “…only 100 years ago some 90% of the world’s Muslim
population was living under colonial oppression”. “…what is taking
place
in the Muslim world is an internal battle between Muslims who, for the
past
century, have been struggling to reconcile their faith with the
realities of
the modern world and those Muslims who have been reacting to those
realities
by reverting to a ‘fundamentalist’ version of their faith. And by the
way,
we see this across the board in all religions…it’s a natural reaction
to
secularization and modernization”. “We are now living in the twilight
of
the Islamic reformation…”

It was amazing how smoothly the discussion went, and how much agreement
there was, and members of the panel, coming from so very different
backgrounds, did in effect support each other by continuing to
elaborate
each other’s views. Lincoln was quoted as having warned - not to claim
that
God is on our side but to claim that we are on God’s side. Also, let
us not
forget that the Constitution talks about “Freedom of Religion” and not
about
freedom from religion. To me the highlight came when Mr. Russert opened
one
section of the discussion by addressing Senator Lieberman -

Mr. Russert: - “Senator, I was very much intrigued by a comment you
made
this week in the debate about drilling for oil in the arctic national
wildlife region. You invoked two names that I remember very well from
the
Bible. Let me read it for you. “For me, this all began at the
beginning
with the Bible and the instruction that God gave to Adam and Eve that
they
should both work and guard the Garden of Eden, which is to say that
they
should not only develop and cultivate it, but also protect it”. “Adam
and
Eve in terms of oil in the arctic wildlife”.

Senator Lieberman: - “Later in the speech, I spoke from Corinthians and
said
God calls on us to be guardians - we are called on to be guardians of
mysteries of God. And one of the great mysteries, obviously, is God’s
creation”. ” I believe …that America itself is a faith-based
initiative.
But I also believe that protecting creation should be a faith-inspired
action. And I’m really pleased - I made those comments at a discussion
with
the National Association of Evangelicals…and now we’re getting
involved in
environmentalism. including fighting global warming”.

Rev. Wallis spoke of a new civil rights movement based on actions on
poverty
and the environment. Easter time is Resurrection time. Faith based
initiatives are needed, and Job is a good starting point - you have to
endure, you will not understand, and you will prevail.

The noon Wolf Blitzer show with the Iranian Ambassador revolved around
problems stemming from the Iranian obsession with building a nuclear
devise
and its activities in support of the Hezbullah in Lebanon and Syria.
Also of importance were questions regarding elections in Iran, the
dominance
of religious decrees and plain human rights issues. Iran does not have
credibility when it says that its clandestine nuclear program is
intended to
replace the use of oil when its reserves have been used up.

Iran, as communicated by the Iranian Mission to the UN, has called for
Teheran a May 9-10, 2005 “International Conference on Environment,
Peace,
and Dialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures”. But this subject was
not
brought up in the interview. Iran, as shown by activities of its
delegates
at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, allows for rhetoric of
replacing use of oil by renewable sources of energy, such as wind and
solar.
Iran could effectively get involved in these subjects and avoid being
castigated as a nuclear out-law. But it does not follow this route.
What a pity!

The last two shows had an overlap in time, so I had to resort to using
two
TV screens and taping one of them.

The twenty minutes program of Saudi Arabia was plainly depressive and,
in all honesty, it did throw light on a society that is still living in
the
past, and mistreats its citizens. The picture was rather of a Saudi
Barbaria supported by its oil exports. Our misdirected dependence on
oil
makes this possible. More simply said, our buying the oil keeps going
this
family business masquerading as a UN member state. We, ourselves, are
to be accused for allowing their spokespeople to try to bamboozle us.
This
program was a good depiction of the reality of living in this Saudi
jail.

The hour long CNN program on the impact of global warming gave us the
immediate picture of what happens when we use and burn those fossil
fuels
- including oil for the unrestrained use of gasoline for fueling cars.
Scientist are following the impacts on the environment and are now sure
that
they understand how humans brought about the deterioration of the
environment by emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The kind
of
destruction the faith based discussion of the Tim Russert panel
expressed
that we are called to avoid.

The host of “CNN 25″ was Miles O’Brien. The program started with -
“Our
global heat is higher in the last two decades then in the past 2,000
years”
and mentions impacts stretching from beyond the arctic circle to the
tropics
of Tuvalu - an island nation that will vanish completely in the next 50
-
100 years. Senator McCain is there to vouch before us that the problem
is
real. Right there in front we are told - “We are running an experiment
on
the place we live”. This is morally and ethically unacceptable. Our
sins
against planet earth are paid for by people that did not sin at all -
the
Innuits and the people of Tuvalu.

To bring the issue closer to home we are shown the impact of the rising
water table on the Louisiana bayou country and its 2 million people -
the
area will have to be vacated and major cities will be lost right here
in
contiguous mainland USA.

We visit the tiny island Kivalina, Alaska, then we go to Barrow (1100
miles
to the pole and 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle). The ice was
here 14
feet thick 20 years ago - now it is 2 feet. To bring the melting of
the ice
closer to home, we are told that by 2015 the Snows of Kilimanjaro will
live
only in fiction. Adult polar bears are 15% less heavy now because the
freezing season is shorter, and they do not eat enough seal. Hunger
drives
them to town and in Churchill, Hudson Bay, there is now a special
police
force to capture wayward polar bears and to keep them safe in a “bear
jail”
until time is right to release them again - last year they held 130
bears.

We listen to Robert Corell, Chair, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment,
and to
Ellen and Lonnie Thompson from the Ohio State University. They show us
how
they get cores of ice from glaciers and other sources in order to check
chemistry and inclusions that teach us about the earth’s past. Gus
Speth,
now Dean Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, tells us
that a
1.5 feet rise in sea level will displace 100 million people in 100
years -
“Where will they go?”. We are shown how Tuvalu is flooded not just
from the
outside but flooding occurs even inside-out as the rising water table
causes
salt water to ooze out from the soil already now. We see how this salt
water table has already destroyed tiny Tuvalu’s agriculture. We are
reminded
again and again that we all live on a thin sheet of ice - its melting
does
not impact only those living in the Arctic region. Much is also
dependent
on the parallel melting of the Antarctic sheet of ice that, when it
comes
down into the sea, has a tremendous impact on the rising of the sea
level -
and it is all because of our addiction to oil! The ice in the
Antarctica is
2 miles thick and covers a huge area - if melted will give a lot of
water
and floating icebergs too. 13 of the 17 largest cities in the world
sit on
the edge of oceans - how many people will have to move inland to higher
grounds?. Speth says that we will be handing over to our grandchildren
-
“a ruined world”.

We visit with Bill Collins, Chair, Climate System Model, at the
Boulder,
Colorado, National Center for Atmospheric Research, and see parts of
the
over 300 scientists, from all parts of the world, work that created a
temperature model covering the last 10,000 years in ten minutes
increments.
We see the temperature maps for the years 1870 - 2100. We are told that
it
is agreed unequivocally among the scientists that, because of the
chemistry
change in the air, there will be global warming - with the prediction
for
this century - a temperature rise of 3-8 degrees Fahrenheit - the only
question in the models is by how much.

The program shows us also a speaker for the skeptics. A professor from
MIT
who says on camera that “forecasting weather is inaccurate beyond 2-3
days
- why should one believe that forecasting 40 years should be better is
not
clear to me”. I felt hurt by this personally, because of my memory,
some 25
years ago, in a Congressional hearing before then Westchester County,
New
York State, US Congressman Richard Ottinger, I felt compelled to
admonish a
Professor Emeritus of that same institution, who in a hearing was
talking of
the heat content of ethanol as a measure of its efficiency as an
automotive
fuel. I had to tell the distinguished professor of mechanical
engineering,
from that distinguished school of engineering, that if he wants to boil
an
egg on top of the engine, his remarks are correct, but if he wants to
use
the ethanol in an engine to move a vehicle, he rather measure the
efficiency
in terms of miles per gallon because other effects, like the octane
level,
also play a role here. His testimony was probably just one of the
wonders
of what oil money can achieve - and all this remained part of official
record of a US Congress Committee hearings.

Ross Gelbspan, A retired Boston Globe Editor turned author of studies
of
corporate transgressions, in his latest book “Boiling Point”, presents
the
argument that the fossil fuels lobby has deliberately funded the
campaign of
the skeptics to muddle the scientific evidence on global warming, to
the
tune of $45 million. One such skeptic Patrick Michael, Prof. of
Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, got $150,000 from
ExxonMobil, he was interviewed on camera, and his argument was that
according to the constitution research is not the monopoly of
government.

While ExxonMobil is still funding above sort of activities, other,
mainly
European oil companies, have seen the light and the program shows Sir
John
Brown, the CEO of BP, arguing that “the real risk is to do nothing and
find
out that reality has crept up on us, and that will indeed cause
economic
damage”.

Gus Speth makes the case that people in rich countries will somehow be
able
to adapt to the disasters from climate change, but what about those in
the
poorer countries? We are told that the pentagon is worried and makes
contingency plans for disorder caused by this climate change. The
picture
is very dim on a global scale. The people of Tuvalu will have to move
because the people in the US, Canada, Europe or somewhere else do not
give
a damn.

A way of life in Tuvalu will be lost - but so will a way of life in the
coastal Louisiana be lost - from what I watched earlier today - is it
ethical to accept this as ordained from heaven? This is all man made
and
unacceptable.

Yes, taking measures now will not change the trend, because it is
already
too late, but this may be the last moment to be able still to reduce
the
worst part of the effect caused by man made green-house gases. The
1997
meeting in Kyoto, Japan, of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change
resulted in a protocol that got into effect February 17, 2005. US and
Australia did not ratify this international agreement, and the program
shows
President Bush arguing that going along would cost the US economy $400
billion and 4.9 million jobs - figures as we shall see, rejected by
Senator
McCain.

The CNN 25 special program puts forward that there is no more a
scientific
debate, and that the economic and equity debate is really one of -
economics
today or the environment tomorrow with much higher economic losses.

Russ Schnell from the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostic Lab, the
National
Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, tells us of a 21-44 inch rise of
the
sea level that may be a foot and a half, mainly caused by the melting
of the
ice mass covering the Antarctica land. The UN estimates the huge
financial
losses - there will be somewhere between $20-150 billion property loss
to
the US alone.

What can we do about this? One homeowner has spent 15% more in
building a
“Green Home” that takes out a small bite from the destruction of the
planet
by decreasing the need of fossil fuels. “Cells to Cellar” - he has
installed
solar panels, put in better insulation, and devises that use less
electricity, uses a geothermal heat pump, and organized the house in 12
different heating zones. Such houses could even sell electricity back
to
the utility. Senator McCain comes on saying that we can not expect to
solve
the problem just by waiting for people to act voluntarily. Today the
US
generates less then 10% of the electricity from renewable sources such
as
solar, wind, and geothermal. We see Senators McCain and Lieberman, who
are
trying to get the Senate to pass a bill that would mandate the capping
of
CO2 emissions by forcing industry to do the right thing, and by giving
incentives to the public to buy the greener products. They believe
that a
high-tech technology will be both - better for the environment, and
profitable to business and create jobs.

To finish off this day of ethics besting bad-economics, I intend also
to
look at the fitting Thomas Friedman OP-ED piece, of the same day:

“Geo-Greening by Example: Bush’s misplaced priorities”. “How will
future
historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President
G.W.Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis starring us in the face,
and
choose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to
undo
the New Deal”… look at the opportunities our country is missing …
by …
refusing to lift a finger to put together a ‘geo-green’ strategy that
would
marry geopolitics, energy policy, and environmentalism”.

“By doing nothing to lower US oil consumption, we are financing both
sides
in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the
world….we are financing the US military with our tax dollars and are
financing the jihadists - and the Saudi, Sudanese, and Iranian mosques
and
charities that support them - through our gasoline purchases. The oil
boom
is also entrenching the autocrats in Russia and Venezuela… By doing
nothing to reduce US oil consumption we are also setting up global
competition with China for energy resources, including right on our
doorstep
in Canada and Venezuela…. Finally, by doing nothing to reduce US oil
consumption we are only hastening the climate change crisis, and the
Bush
officials who scoff at the science around this should hang their heads
in
shame”.

Mr. Friedman then continues on the need to back the hybrid cars; the
need
for a gasoline tax that would keep the price of gasoline at $4/gallon;
the
need for a carbon tax that could move more industries from coal to
wind,
hydro and solar power or other cleaner fuels. These steps are really
smart
- they are smart geopolitics, smart fiscal policy, and smart politics.
Mr.
Friedman then points out that evangelicals are now speaking out about
our
need to protect “God’s green earth”. “There is now a near convergence
of
support on the environmental issue. Look at how popular
Schwartzeneger, a
green Republican, is becoming because of what he has done on the
environment
in California”. Friedman suggests to the President a GEO-GREEN
STRATEGY and
building an alliance of neocons, evangelicals, and greens, to sustain
it.
Friedman suggests that the President’s popularity at home and abroad
would
sore. This is a Resurrection policy of concepts befitting an Easter
Sunday
that was full with presentation of ethics. What did the President do
that
day? Did he watch or read any of above stuff or he just wasted the day
throwing red meat to the right-to-life fanatics?

POSTSCRIPT: Ross Gelbspan has a web site, by the Green House Network,
named
after his 1997 book  www.heatisonline.org which is updated, and
some of
the information there is more recent, and the picture is even worse,
then
the material shown on the CNN program.

David Stainforth, from Oxford University, as chief scientist for a
major
international climate modeling panel released January 2005 the figure
of 20
degrees Fahrenheit as the potential increase in global average
temperature.
At the same time Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, announced that we have already reached the
level of
danger when further increase could trigger runaway climate impacts. At
the
beginning of the 20th Century we had 280ppm of CO2 in the air, now we
reached 379ppm, and when we get to 400ppm we have reached that
dangerous
trigger point. The long list of extraordinary weather events in
2004-2005
may already be telling us this in real terms.

Ross Gelbspan points out that at the December 2004 Buenos Aires
meeting, the
US, as signer of the UNFCCC, though not part of the Kyoto Protocol, by
diplomatic means, has still managed to emasculate future rounds of
talks.
As a result, when the parties meet in May 2005 in Bonn, their
deliberations
will be limited to “informational seminars” and the delegates will be
prohibited from formulating any action plans whatsoever. The US also
vetoed
any reference to “climate change” over the objections of many
delegations at
the January 2005 meeting on global disaster prevention, which grew up
from
last December devastating tsunami.

Above has brought about that a group of activists has organized a
People’s
Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty movement, and sat up
April 1, 2005, for FOSSIL FOOLS DAY - and a petition drive to this
effect.
(see www.kyotoandbeyond.org)