Examining the Presidential candidates in light of biblical teachings
By Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN, retired emeritus
© Szwarc 2024
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…every thing
that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” − Genesis 1“While the earth remains (until Jesus returns), seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” − Genesis 8:22“I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters
of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” – Genesis 9:11“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants,
I give you everything.” − Genesis 9:3
Scripture teaches us that God is sovereign over all of creation and declared His creation “good.” His design was and is perfect and complete. God’s miraculous creation precisely balanced the elements, gases, carbon dioxide cycle, and all things vital for all life on earth. The element carbon is present in everything on, in, under and over the planet… including in us. God also created a gas that’s vital to all life. Carbon dioxide is essential for all living, growing plants on the planet.
False teachers preach that this life-giving gas is actually deadly, and that God’s design was inferior and depends upon human rulers to intervene to save a fragile planet.
“Climate Change” is a doctrine that worships a false idol, the earth. It is everything the Bible warned against. It attempts to lead Christians from the foundational truths of our faith.
A group of multi-billionaire globalists and atheist followers of eugenics came together at the Masonic lodge on David Rockefeller’s estate in Bellagio, Italy, to found the Club of Rome in 1968. The Club of Rome was the vision of an Italian industrialist, Aurelio Peccei. They commissioned a report – The Limits to Growth – created by young scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who designed a computer model to support their claim that the planet’s limit of growth had been reached 50 years earlier, due to human activity that had disrupted “global equilibrium.” They claimed that all human activity (industry and agricultural development) would have to be controlled through global enforcement of “sustainable development” and “zero-growth” to save the planet.
The Club’s findings were presented at earth summits in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro in 1971. While the study’s findings were scientifically bogus, they would double down on them, exaggerating their claims with each subsequent 17 publications. Their 1991 report, The First Global Revolution, declared “the common enemy of humanity is man.”
They had latched onto the population growth ideas from philosopher Reverend Thomas Malthus, who had predicted in 1798 that the population would exceed natural resources, and result in widespread famine. His theory denied Biblical teachings that God provides for his people. Instead, he feared humanity was to struggle for existence. His theories would help develop other non-Biblical theories of natural selection and social Darwinism.
Malthus turned out to be very wrong. God did provide and His plans for His people showed a future that Malthus hadn’t even considered or imagined possible. As human ingenuity, scientific progress, and industrialization brought progress, even with population growth, living standards increased, productivity soared, more food was produced efficiently, people had opportunities to raise out of poverty, health and life expectancy increased, and infant mortality dropped.
But God’s truth, and scientific facts, would not do. The globalists were intent on using radical environmentalism to serve their purposes. They used fear to falsely claim human activity, especially by industrialized nations and the use of fossil fuels, would double the earth’s carbon dioxide concentrations and create “global warming,” bringing calamity, rising sea levels and widespread drought.
The solution they fabricated was heightened depopulation efforts, especially in underdeveloped countries and of minorities, by even more severe mandatory enforcements to squelch agriculture and food production, drastically reduce use of fossil fuels, and reduce industrialization. Their plan was intended to create so much human suffering and unrest, destabilize societies and economies, it would leave nations vulnerable and more ready to accept global leadership.
The concept of “climate change” came out of that early Rio Earth Summit and was created by the long-time foundation director of the globalist World Economic Forum, Maurice Strong, who also founded the Earth Charter. The Earth Charter was the globalists’ blueprint for a new society and became the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. This new eco-socialism, combines aspects of Marxism, socialism, and radical environmentalism. They preached pantheism, the environmental green movement that worships nature as a supreme idol and divinity. Their climate agenda envisions a complete transformation of the world economy, dismantling free market business (“capitalism”) and replacing it with socialist ideologies. But Mr. Strong revealed the real goal was anti-human, writing in his autobiography of the desire to collapse industrial society and cause death by starvation of two-thirds of the human population.
Both legitimate scientific experts and biblical scholars agree: Anthropogenic climate change (related to “human activity) is a false ideology that is not supportable by credible scientific evidence. There remains no observable, repeatable science of a climate crisis and dire predictions have proven false for nearly half a century. It’s a manufactured crisis and even radical environmentalists have apologized for their error and retracted their environmental ideas.
The idea that God failed to design a planet to provide for man and his creations denies the Bible and Jesus’ teachings. God said in Genesis 9:7: “And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”
God filled the earth with inexpensive, energy-dense, stable and reliable fuel vital for human existence, progress and to alleviate poverty and suffering. The amazing hydrocarbon fuels in the earth’s crust are evidence of His grace on people. God provided the most abundant energy source on the planet, with more than 250 years of coal still available to humans. The next most abundant fuel on the planet, natural gas, is even more efficient. Oil and natural gas, as scientists are increasing studying, may not all be “fossil” fuels formed “hundreds of millions of years ago, either. According to the abiotic theory, increasingly being considered and researched by scientists, these fuels may even be renewable.
Electricity has been indispensable in improving human life and people’s welfare. Climate change policies most hurt the poor, as Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation reported in its Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor.
“A Christian worldview acknowledges the presence of a creating and sustaining God,” said Cornwell Alliance in a comprehensive paper for pastors and churches, “Cost of Good Intentions.” It reported that just complying with the Paris climate accord will push over 3 million people into poverty, on top of the billion around the world who still don’t have access to electricity for basic human needs like clean running water, refrigeration, modern medical care and heat.
The climate change ideology goes against God’s greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:31
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God made man with an intellect, an ability to think and reason, and warns us throughout the Bible to practice discernment and test all things, and not to rely on our own understanding. He gave all of us the capacity to learn discernment – that is simply calm reasoning and critical thinking, also called the scientific method (as opposed to “science”). Knowledge and common sense are not exclusively reserved for academics.
Biblical discernment refers not only to Scripture, but to all things in our lives today.
It was precisely through practicing discernment − studying Scripture and researching independent, objective, verifiable information in order to separate sound scientific evidence from false information found in popular media − that many people have been able to see the lies, untruths, fake and junk science, and false claims.
Fear Not
One of the simplest ways to recognize untruths is when we are led to feel afraid. Fear is a tactic of wrongdoers and those trying to sell us on something that is not good, right or truthful. Scaremongering is not used by legitimate and objective scientists, doctors, or anyone following the scientific method of testing all things, exploring different ideas, and helping to bring people out of poverty and suffering.
God warned us to “fear not” about 365 times in the Bible. God clearly thought it was an important guidance for us!
So, all of that scaremongering − surrounding such things as global warming, climate change and fossil fuel energy, radical environmentalism, and over-population − has been used, just as God warned, by false teachers who have ulterior purposes and want to lure us down a dark agenda. [Part 10 examines the wrongdoers and what they have planned for us.]
Few Christians or Americans would feel it is following Jesus’s teachings to use heartbreaking human tragedies and the suffering of natural disaster victims, such as of Hurricane Helene, to scare people that a “climate crisis is more urgent than ever.” Not only it is an example of fear being used for political gain, but it’s a false ideology. National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center data clearly does not show increasing hurricanes striking the U.S. since records began in 1851. Nor does global tropical cyclone activity support increases in extreme weather and climate events.
Even school kids know there’s been no increase in the number of hurricanes around the world. God’s teachings help children learn the truth and not to fear or be hurt by scares.
Ms. Harris has been devoted to the UN’s climate change agenda throughout her career.
In examining the Presidential candidates, Ms. Harris is known for her vehement opposition to fracking and critical view of oil companies.
- Fracking is a process of extracting oil and natural gas from shale rock that goes back to 1862. It’s not new or without safety testing; but horizontal drilling techniques increased production 40% since 2006, reduced the environmental impact on the land, and cut natural gas prices in half. Currently, two-thirds of the natural gas produced in the U.S. is through hydraulic fracturing.
Her opposition to fracking was so strong that as California Attorney General, before leaving her position, she’d even sued the Obama administration for permitting fracking off the Pacific coast. In an announcement of her lawsuit she stated: “We must take every possible step to protect our precious coastline and ocean.”
At a Presidential Town Hall televised by CNN last year, she strongly reiterated her support for banning offshore drilling. She told the national audience that “there is no question I am in favor of banning fracking” and would take executive action on “day one” to ban fracking on all public land and move to have Congressional action to prohibit it on all private lands.
Last month, CNN reported on her track record as “a tremendous champion on climate and environmental justice,” including suing oil companies and investigating Exxon for its role in “climate change disinformation.” [At the 2019 Climate Forum, Ms. Harris said she’d sued Exxon Mobile but Poynter Institute’s Politifact rated her claim as False, finding no evidence she’d actually sued the company.]
While Senator in 2019, she co-sponsored her Green New Deal, saying: “Climate change is an existential threat to our country, our planet and our future…we have a shrinking window to take drastic action to cut carbon emissions and make meaningful change to save our planet.” She issued her own $10 trillion plan to achieve “net zero carbon emissions by 2045.” It was more radical than the plans from progressive Democrats. She proposed the U.S. have 100% carbon-neutral electricity by 2030 and all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035.
As Vice President, Ms. Harris issued a statement at the Secretary of War Suite in October 2021 in support of the UN’s climate agenda, and repeated frightening claims of drastically lower sea levels and the critical need to reduce energy emissions. She introduced her new agenda along with Biden’s Build Back Better, to reduce emissions 50% by 2030, and prioritize electric vehicles and green energy.
Even school children know that melting Arctic ice does not raise sea levels and that most of Antarctica has actually cooled over the last 40 years. Jesus teaches his children not to fear.
She personally gave another briefing on August 1, 2022 on the threat of climate change, citing recent floods, forest fires and hot weather to support a climate crisis. She added that the National Hurricane Center had briefed her on “extreme weather fueled by climate change.” With that, she announced $1 billion in spending on “climate resilience” projects in 343 towns, cities and counties around the country, promising the grant projects will create good union jobs, and that the White House has already committed to doubling that to $2 billion next year. She added they’d already invested “tens of billions of dollars to put more electric vehicles on the road” and $65 billion for electric grid and transmission infrastructure to support wind and solar.
There continues to be no evidence that climate policies have had or even could have significant effects on the climate. Just last week, researchers from several European institutions analyzed 1,500 climate policies implemented in 41 countries since the turn of the century. They reported in the journal Science that 95.8% failed and the meager effect of the remaining policies result in bankruptcy, untold suffering for people, increase poverty rates and homelessness, are environmentally destructive, and destabilize the power grid.
FACTS. The results of Ms. Harris’ environmental policies have been felt by Americans. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July 2024 report stated electricity prices have increased for all urban consumers, 4.9% since just one year ago.
Statista reports that, under Ms. Harris, the retail price for electricity averages $12.72 cents/kwh, the highest in a quarter century.
Last December, Ms. Harris spoke at the United Nation’s COP28 in Dubai where she pledged $3 billion of U.S. tax dollars towards the globalists’ Green Climate Fund. According to UN Climate Change News, COP28 marked the end of fossil fuel and completed implementation of the Paris Agreement. The highly controversial COP28 is estimated to cost between $110 trillion to $275 trillion – 2.6 times the entire global GDP for 2023, according to Forbes.
The World Economic Forum explained that under the UN agenda, food production will be especially impacted by the regulations slashing emissions. In response, the UN globalist stakeholders created a coalition to create a new “sustainable” food system with a $10-$20 billion commitment.
In April 2024, Ms. Harris announced the communities chosen to get money for climate change projects from her $20 billion Inflation Reduction Act which she’d personally ensured passed.
Last month, she and Biden issued their Environmental Justice agenda, showcasing 24 federal agencies getting over $600 Billion between 2022-2027, along with massive new regulations, environmental laws, and environmental justice reforms. The effects for American consumers are yet to come.
VP Harris has taken personal ownership of the most detrimental, unsound, costly, and unbiblical global initiatives in the name of “climate change” ever imposed on Americans.
A coalition of climate change groups with the Environmental Defense Fund recently announced a new massive $55 million advertising campaign for Ms. Harris.
President Trump, in contrast, had introduced an energy independence policy, promising taxpayers relief from Obama’s Clean Power Plan − 2,658 pages of regulations that imposed higher energy costs on American families and businesses for meaningless climate benefits, according to an analysis by the Former Deputy Direct of the Thomas A. Roe Institute.
President Trump said Obama’s Clean Power Plan cost up to $39 billion a year and “increased electricity prices in 41 States by at least 10%;” and was opposed by 27 States, 24 trade associations, 37 rural electric co-ops and 3 labor unions.
Trump’s White House reported that air quality was even cleaner under his energy independence initiatives, which demonstrated that energy production and environmental stewardship is possible. EPA government data shows that to be true, reporting improved air quality on nearly every measure and all air pollutant emissions showing significant declines during his Administration.
FACTS. Retail electricity prices were stable throughout the Trump Administration, averaging $10.52 cents/kwh, according to Statista.
Trump era electricity prices were about 20% lower than they’ve been during the Biden-Harris Administration.
At a December 19, 2017 Trump White House press briefing, it was reported that 22 regulations had been rolled back for every new one, saving taxpayers over $8 billion. President Trump approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, instructed EPA to end the war on coal, and opened up ANWR to responsible energy exploration.
FACTS. Gasoline prices during Trump’s Presidency averaged $2.57, gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The average price of gas to date during the Biden-Harris Administration is $3.61/gallon − that’s 40% higher than during Trump’s Presidency.
President Trump was the first President in over 70 years to actually achieve “what every President since Nixon had promised: Energy Independence,” headlined Investor’s Business Daily on December 7, 2018.
- The simplest way to measure energy independence is if the U.S. exports more energy than it imports. By this metric, the U.S. actually did achieve energy independence for the first time in 2019 under President Trump, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- The Biden-Harris Administration has attempted to keep those import numbers looking good and lower skyrocketing gas prices, but did it with a sleight of hand by releasing more than 180 million barrels of crude oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, not by production. This sudden drop in the nation’s oil reserves bring it to the lowest level seen since 1983, according to the EIA.
Trump’s White House stated he led an energy revolution, eliminated unnecessary burdensome rules and regulatory mandates that encumbered energy production and raised costs for consumers. That proved true, too. Columbia Climate School counted 100 environmental rules that had been reversed, revoked or rolled back under Trump’s Administration, calling it an unprecedented legacy. American consumers and businesses were able to keep more of their money rather than it go to climate change special interests.
By trusting and following Jesus’ teachings, we know that God’s design is perfect. The Presidential candidates are widely different in their trust of God and Biblical teachings.
Finally, Part 10 examines the biggest issue of the election, the spiritual battle for our Country.
