by Lori Baxter
Many children have been and are being taught that our world is being devastated by global warming and it is our fault. We have exploited the good resources of earth along with over-populating it; therefore, carbon emissions are increasing and we are killing our planet. We see Greta Thunberg speaking at the UN with tears in her eyes demanding we do something to save the planet. Schools throughout America teach about our exploitation of the environment and stress that natural disasters are caused by global warming and they are increasing. According to them, it’s the end of humanity!
I’ve spoken with climatologists who do not believe we have a global warming crisis. Many say the earth’s temperature has stayed the same for years. The University of East Anglia has compiled data since 1996 to confirm this. Ben Stein’s 2008 movie, Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed, documented that many scientists at major universities and colleges in our country were being fired if they did not go along with the global warming narrative. The cancel culture was working even in 2008!
I grew up in the 70s and I remember being scared that our world would end. I was told about Paul Ehrlich’s book, Population Bomb, which described how overpopulation would destroy us and our planet. There was also a book for evangelicals titled, The Late Great Planet Earth, that described the end of the world as well. Looking back on the 70s, there were many problems: Watergate, inflation, gas shortages, and the environmentalists screaming the world was going to end and yet we are still here.
It seems history repeats itself as we question our government leaders, experience inflation, and become more dependent on foreign oil. We also have environmentalists screaming the world is going to end but today it is with a greater emphasis because Pope Francis has added his moral voice to global warming. With his Laudato Si encyclical and his working with the UN, the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), NGOs, and many other affiliates, we can be assured the earth will take on religious importance in not just the Catholic church but in global governments, industry, and schools. The environment and care for “Mother Earth” will be part of everything we do and, if we are not careful, become an unhealthy obsession for society as we ignore the further decay of morality.
In 1992, the UN created a program for sustainable development called AGENDA 2021. It is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans impact the environment. It was recently revised as AGENDA 2030. Both AGENDA 2021 and 2030 were signed by the Vatican. The difference with AGENDA 2030 is that the Vatican is not just an observer as in 1992, but an actual participant as the Pope has committed the Vatican to follow and promote AGENDA 2030.
This year, the Vatican had an environmental delegation that met with other nations at the United Nations climate change summit called COP27. Cardinal Parolin spoke at this meeting which marked the first time the Holy See participated as a formal party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which helps nations reduce their carbon emissions.
As a formal UNFCCC member, the Vatican can enter the negotiations on various topics such as mitigation, technology, finance, implementation, loss, and damage—where countries debate and forge new agreements. It can also put forward its own submissions and hold interventions. Having a seat at negotiating tables is critical for the Vatican as it wants to change the culture of climate negotiations. They also play a leading role in bridge-building between nations and civil society, including countries at odds with one another. Its geographic decentralization also means the Vatican is not subject to the same kinds of political pressures back home that many world leaders experience. This allows them the freedom to voice less popular positions more boldly, using its moral authority to raise questions regarding justice for poorer nations when they experience economic losses from extreme weather as they pressure richer nations to feel accountable and help out. Just by becoming a member state, the Vatican has strengthened the position of African countries to hold the highest polluting countries accountable for their emissions commitments.
The Pope also initiated a group, the Laudato Si Movement, which meets annually and has 800 affiliated Catholic advocacy groups around the world. Much of the group’s sustainability initiatives mirror the World Economic Forum (WEF) Centre for Nature and Climate. These groups encourage Catholics to lobby for specific UN agendas on biodiversity and climate change.
This group’s platform also parallels the Davos’ endorsement of “circular economies”, a veil for globalists to replace shareholders with stakeholders which essentially enables income redistribution. In other words, this group works alongside the WEF and the UN to achieve social and political transformation outside of democratic procedures.
What I find the most frightening is how the Vatican is giving ecological issues a moral and spiritual dimension which is just what environmentalists want. The Laudato Si Movement has a platform titled Ecological Spirituality that seeks “creation-based liturgical celebrations” and the development of “ecological catechesis.” Yet the annual meeting of the Laudato Si movement had in attendance abortion advocate Jeffrey Sachs, who urged divestment from fossil fuels “as very important for our souls and our institutions.” Abortion is an intrinsic evil where fossil fuels are an issue that has proportional avenues to mitigate its impact. Did the Church educate Sachs about that?
Many of us have realized that there are environmentalists with religious zeal but language has been added to make environmentalism more religious sounding. The Earth Charter is a good example.
Gorbachev started the Earth Charter, with the help of Maurice Strong and Steven Rockefeller. Strong was the director of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit which supported abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and anything else that would decrease the world population. Steven Rockefeller, former head of the Rockefeller Foundation, was also a professor emeritus of ‘religion’ at Middlebury College. The Earth Charter was written in 1996 and it was approved by UNESCO in 2003 as an important ethical framework and education instrument to be put into public school curriculums. Here are some examples of the religious-sounding language used to teach our children. The protection of the “earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.” It teaches that “The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life and humility regarding the human place in nature.”
Earth Charter has a chapter in Indiana and is influencing school programs and local towns like Carmel as Mayor Brainard signed an Earth Charter Resolution back in 2017. Its website says it “exists to inspire and advance sustainable, just and peaceful living in Indiana by promoting the values and principles of the Earth Charter.” The main goals of the Earth Charter are:
“To raise awareness worldwide of the Earth Charter and to promote understanding of its inclusive ethical vision.
To seek recognition and endorsement of the Earth Charter by individuals, organizations, and the United Nations.
To promote the use of the Earth Charter as an ethical guide and the implementation of its principles by civil society, business, and government.
To encourage and support the educational use of the Earth Charter in schools, universities, religious communities, local communities, and many other settings.
To promote recognition and use of the Earth Charter as a soft law document.”
Reading through these goals one can see how their principles form the ethical/spiritual standards of a society not based on God or Constitutional law but on their bureaucratic principles and “soft laws”.
Consider these words from Mikhail Gorbachev:
“Do not do unto the environment of others what you do not want done to your own environment….My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a “Sermon on the Mount,” that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century.”
What is being offered through the UN, Earth Charter and the Pope’s Laudato Si is not a better way to live, but just another means for global religious and political control?
Pope Francis in Laudato Si wrote, “As Christians, we are also called to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbors on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet.” Catholics have always believed that sacraments are outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace. Is the earth giving us graces now?
Our pope has dedicated this year to “The Gospel of Creation”. The pope is promoting the importance of the environment through a 90-minute movie, “The Letter: A Message for Our Earth”, which is a documentary on his encyclical Laudato Si. So if you haven’t read it, he wants to make sure you know about it. It airs on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 8-9:30 pm EST on PBS. Instead of a Christmas message just before we celebrate the birth of our Savior, we will get to hear Pope Francis speak on the environment and Mother Earth.
Our country has already created agencies like the EPA and OSHA to address pollution. We have seen great improvement in our air and water quality since the 1970s. Yet, China and India, the two major polluters on the planet, were not even at the UN’s climate meeting this year. I’m all for the best ways to save energy and practical solutions to save our resources and money but when our younger generation is being indoctrinated to revere “Mother Earth” as a “sacrament” or thinking about 10 commandments for the environment we have lost our focus on what is truly important: our soul’s salvation.
AGENDA 2030 also commits to population reduction through birth control and abortion as a right. Yet the Vatican signed on ignoring the biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply”. Our pope and his minions will be a global megaphone for the environmentalists enabling our leaders to virtue signal and find ways to grab our money and control us.
Meanwhile, our representatives in Congress just passed, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the unconstitutional absurdly named Respect for Marriage Act which allows for legal recognition of same-sex marriage. As I write this, President Joe Biden, who claims to be Catholic, just signed the bill. What is the Pope saying about this? The Pope called Biden when he became president and congratulated him. Why can’t he call him and educate him on Catholic doctrine?
Under Pope Francis, and his prioritizing of the environment, it seems Christ and eternal life is ignored for the new world order’s hope of an earthly utopia.