Across the religious spectrum, from atheists to evangelicals, the economy ranks as the top issue on voters' minds - a scenario that usually works in Democrats' favor. Now, with U.S. financial systems in turmoil and the government rushing to fix it, Democrats sense an opportunity to highlight the economy as a values issue and attract middle-of-the-road religious believers who were central to George W. Bush's winning coalition in 2004. For years, more liberal faith leaders have tried to elevate fighting poverty at home and abroad onto the values agenda. What's changed is that an increasing number of voters are seeing suffering not just in the streets but in the mirror.
Christians are called to stop being wasteful and remember that the planet is everyone's home, says an official with the Italian bishops' conference. The bishops appealed for an "ecological conversion" in a statement for the 3rd Day to Protect Creation, held Monday in Rome. The planet "is what has been given to us to live on responsibly, safeguarding its viability also for the next generations," they recalled. There is a need to "use energy efficiently, as well as to appreciate the sources of renewable and clean energy," in addition to "an intelligent sobriety," which will allow for "lessening the problem of waste," the bishops stressed.
Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the Bible is the greatest weapon in the fight against injustice during a church conference on social justice. "There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible," the South African archbishop said Saturday at London megachurch Jesus House For All Nations, according to co-sponsor Tearfund. To the crowd of more than 800 U.K. church leaders, Tutu declared that the Bible has revolutionary power to free the poor as he drew from his experiences in apartheid-dominated South Africa. "If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible," he said.
Some of the political ads on TV this summer have managed to sink to the level of the swift-boat attacks that torpedoed John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. One, authorized by the McCain campaign, depicted a grinning Barack Obama next to a gas pump as the price-per-gallon meter shot toward $5. The ad implied that the lone culprit for high gas prices (which averaged $1.20 a gallon in spring 2002 but hung around $4.10 for much of this summer) is the junior senator from Illinois. That’s because he did not initially jump to lift the ban restricting off-shore oil drilling, or support the Arizona senator’s feckless call for a federal gas-tax moratorium. That proposal was a gimmick and eventually disappeared even from McCain’s play book.
A dramatic investment in clean energy would be the most effective check on aggressive petroregimes from Moscow to Tehran. It would be the best long-term solution to global warming. And energy independence is the most effective step we can take for American families staggering under the burden of high gas prices. That's because the forces that have produced this summer's record prices are not going away. We are facing skyrocketing world demand for an ever-shrinking quantity of oil, and unless Congress figures out a way to amend the laws of supply and demand, that fundamental fact is not going to change. This is a large-scale problem, and it's going to take large-scale solutions.
Some of the political ads on TV this summer have managed to sink to the level of the swift-boat attacks that torpedoed John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004. One, authorized by the McCain campaign, depicted a grinning Barack Obama next to a gas pump as the price-per-gallon meter shot toward $5. The ad implied that the lone culprit for high gas prices (which averaged $1.20 a gallon in spring 2002 but hung around $4.10 for much of this summer) is the junior senator from Illinois. That's because he did not initially jump to lift the ban restricting off-shore oil drilling, or support the Arizona senator's feckless call for a federal gas-tax moratorium. That proposal was a gimmick and eventually disappeared even from McCain's play book.
The price of oil has cut into household budgets and curtailed summer vacation plans. With families forced to choose between a shopping trip or the commute that brings in a salary, consumer spending has declined. There's more than enough pain to go around, and yet there is no denying it: High energy prices also have an unforeseen bright side, forcing the nation to reduce its carbon emissions and delivering the encouraging message that, although we might not regain the freewheeling way of life that came with cheap gasoline, we have more ability to shape our fates than the caricature of the soft, spoiled American implied.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, an important hub for work on the causes and consequences of climate change, has shut down a program focused on strengthening poor countries' ability to forecast and withstand droughts, floods and other climate-related hazards. The move, which center officials say resulted from the shrinking of federal science budgets, is being denounced by many experts on environmental risk, who say such research is more crucial than ever in a world with rising populations exposed to climate threats. In e-mail exchanges, these experts said the eliminated program, the Center for Capacity Building, was unique in its blend of research and training in struggling countries.
On his recent swing Down Under, Pope Benedict XVI garnered headlines for drawing a half-million pumped-up young Catholics to World Youth Day as well as for his latest bout of candor on the church’s sexual abuse crisis. Less noted was an important bit of subtext: the pope’s repeated calls for environmental protection. In fact, environmentalism has emerged as perhaps the most distinctive new feature of Benedict XVI's social teaching. Benedict touched upon the environment seven times during his July 12-21 trip to Australia, more often than he mentioned sexual abuse, the right to life, relativism, or any other social or cultural concern.
