Since the days of the enlightenment, secularists have attempted to argue that religion is incompatible with progress. Today’s American Left argues that bigoted religious Americans are discriminating against other Americans, and that the power of government must be utilized to end that discrimination. Furthermore, the Left argues that religious believers oppose science in all of its forms, and thus stand for the forces of ignorance. In order to reach this conclusion — which runs counter to history, to reality, and to the Constitution — the Left has to construct a mythical Right, resurrect in modern form the specter of the Spanish Inquisition, and castigate religious Americans as Dark Ages nut jobs who want to harm gay Americans and stop cancer research. The truth is precisely the opposite. True intolerance is now the nearly-exclusive preserve of the political Left when it comes to religious Americans, and it is the Left that wishes to ignore science and castigate those who use it in order to protect their cherished political causes.
Myth 1: The Founders wanted to limit religious adherence to church.
Fact: The Founders knew that religion was a vital part of public life.
Religious Americans do not limit their religious observance to churches. That’s been true since the advent of religion globally — every major religion devotes serious care to the performance of religion in the business sphere. And the founding fathers knew about the importance of religion in the public square. In his Farewell Address, George Washington stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” James Madison, father of the Constitution, wrote that conscience was the “most sacred of all property,” and his original draft of the First Amendment read, “the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship … nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.”[1]
When public policy and religious business owners come into conflict — except for extreme cases involving actual harm to others — religious business owners win. The essence of freedom is the freedom to worship, speak, and associate.
Religion in business isn’t merely a right — it’s also a boon for the economy. In fact, basic religious morality has provided one of the most important elements of social connection in the business world: if you know that a supplier or client is a co-religionist, or at least a religious person, you’re less likely to need a lawyer to write hundred-page contracts. Handshake deals work based on trust; religious morality provides that trust. Close-knit, smaller religious communities — communities that are often forced together by outside discrimination — are likely to compete at a significant advantage in the marketplace. As Thomas Sowell writes,
One of the many practical benefits of close ties within a middleman minority has been an ability to conduct business with one another at lower costs because of less need to resort to precautions before making transactions or to the formal legal system afterward, both of which can be costly and time-consuming … such a mode of operation becomes practical only on the basis of strong social ties.[2]
Myth 2: Religious businesses want to harm gays and lesbians.
Fact: Leftists want to use government to harm religious businesses.
The most infamous case is that of the Klein family in Gresham, Oregon. Aaron and Melissa Klein owned a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa. They are religious Christians. One day, a lesbian couple whom they had served many times before demanded that the Kleins provide a cake for their same-sex wedding. The Kleins refused, stating that their faith made it sinful for them to participate in such a wedding. There were many other available bakeries, but that wasn’t good enough for the vindictive lesbian couple: they filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, citing the Oregon Equality Act. The labor commissioner, Brad Avakian, issued an order demanding that the Kleins pay $135,000 — yes, you read that figure correctly — for not providing a cake that would have cost perhaps $100. Why? Because Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer had suffered “emotional and mental suffering.”
Aaron Klein said that he and his wife lost “a huge amount of revenue” over the case.[3] Klein now works as a garbageman, and the couple apparently has watched their income decrease by 50 percent.[4] The couple has five children.
But no matter: they have no religious rights so long as lesbians want cakes. And the Kleins aren’t alone:
- A New Mexico photographer was fined for failing to record a same-sex commitment ceremony, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.[5]
- A Catholic couple was fined $13,000, including $3,000 to a lesbian couple, for failing to rent their farm for a same-sex wedding in New York.[6]
- Christian Idaho businesspeople were fined for not performing a same-sex wedding at their chapel.[7]
And that doesn’t even begin to cover the thousands of Americans, including high-profile CEOs like Mozilla Firefox’s Brendan Eich, who have felt a tsunami of hatred and intimidation for expressing opposition to same-sex marriage.
Religion only goes as far as the government wants it to go.
And that’s not very far.
In 2016, the Supreme Court refused to look at a case brought by a family-owned pharmacy. The pharmacy owners were religious Christians; they did not want to hand out Plan B drugs, thanks to their view that such drugs amount to killing of human life. They were willing, however, to direct potential customers to other pharmacies — and there were thirty of them within five miles that would provide Plan B. But Washington state went out of its way to discriminate against religious pharmacy-owners, preventing them from referring customers out.
Justice Alito wrote that the “facilitated referrals do not pose a threat to timely access to lawfully prescribed medications,” and that “none of [the Stormans’] customers has ever been denied timely access to emergency contraceptives.” Why didn’t the court take up the case, leaving the Stormans at the mercy of the state? Because, as Travis Weber of Heritage Foundation pointed out, the Court apparently only favors the rights of minority religions — so, for example, the Court will force police departments to remove rules barring Muslim beards, but they won’t protect the Stormans, who are Christian.[8]
California, which is ground zero for such cases, has utilized Obamacare’s mandate for abortion coverage to crack down on all businesses across the state — all of them must be forced to provide so-called “comprehensive” coverage. All plans that do not cover abortion have been banned. That violates federal law, but California simply counts on the federal government not caring. So far, they’ve been right.[9]
Right now, doctors are protected from having to perform abortions if they have religious objections. But that won’t last for long. The Obama administration reinterpreted Obamacare Section 1557 to rule that “women be treated equally with men in the health care they receive and also prohibits the denial of health care or health coverage based on an individual’s sex, including discrimination based on pregnancy, gender identity and sex stereotyping.” This provision, broadly interpreted, would force provision of abortion by doctors, threatening to withhold federal funding via Medicare and Medicaid if such services were not provided.[10]
Myth 3: The Left wants to leave you alone in your church.
Fact: The Left wants to target religious institutions.
In 2006, Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley and the Catholic Charities of Boston announced that they would no longer work to find homes for children, thanks to the state’s decision to crack down on the institution for not giving children to same-sex couples. Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of the CCB, said that it was “immoral” to place children in same-sex homes, but the state would not give way: “This is a difficult and sad day for Catholic Charities. We have been doing adoptions for more than 100 years.” Then-Governor Mitt Romney attempted to pass a law allowing for exemptions for religious institutions, but Democrats wouldn’t work with him.[11]
On abortion, too, the government has decided to treat churches as businesses for purposes of pushing an anti-traditional social agenda. After the passage of Obamacare, the Obama administration decided it would be mandatory for churches to issue forms to the government notifying the government that the churches would not be covering contraceptive care. That form would then trigger the government to provide such coverage to church employees. When the nuns of the Little Sisters of the Poor — founded 1839 and providing charity to elderly poor people in dozens of countries — protested, the Obama administration tried to cram down its policy nonetheless. The consequences if the nuns refused to fill out the forms: $70 million in fines.[12] The Supreme Court sided with the nuns. For now.[13]
The Obama administration even attempted to argue that the government should be able to dictate hiring decisions about priests, pastors, and rabbis. As Professor David Bernstein wrote, incredulously, “The Obama Justice Department argued … that the ministerial exception should be rejected entirely. So, for example, a very liberal jurisdiction such as San Francisco could require the Catholic Church to hire male nuns or female priests, and the church would have no constitutionally valid freedom of religion defense.”
The Supreme Court rejected the argument, but that didn’t stop the Obama administration from at least tabling it.[14]
On the local level, politicians with a visceral hatred for churches are on the move, too. In Houston, Mayor Annise Parker, an open lesbian, signed an ordinance called HERO that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and “gender identity.” That prompted religious citizens to protest; they didn’t want to become the Oregon bakers or be forced to allow men into women’s bathrooms.
Some of those who spoke out were pastors. And that prompted Parker into action. She unleashed city attorney David Feldman to find out whether the opponents of the ordinance had gathered enough signatures to put the ordinance back on the ballot for referendum. In the process, the city attorneys subpoenaed “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.” The supposed basis: cracking down on political activity by churches.
Or, in this case, religious activity. The Alliance Defending Freedom quickly pointed out that “Political and social commentary is not a crime; it is protected by the First Amendment.” They suspected — probably rightly — that there would be an attempt by political opponents to remove non-profit status if they refused to bend the knee to Parker. In the end, Parker apologized and withdrew the subpoenas.[15]
In June 2016, California Democrats proposed SB 1146, which would have prevented private colleges from “discriminating” based on gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Rep. Ricardo Lara (D) said, “These universities have a license to discriminate and students have absolutely no recourse. Addressing this issue is long overdue.” The law would destroy an exception for religious institutions. That exception currently applies to educational institutions “controlled by a religious organization if the application would not be consistent with the religious tenets of that organization.” Lara’s bill would have limited the exception only to facilities training priests, rabbis, pastors, and imams.[16]
Meanwhile, around the country, courts are already considering lawsuits from LGBT people seeking to destroy religious schools.
- In Massachusetts, a judge ruled that a private Catholic school had to be punished for the crime of hiring a man who did not reveal that he was gay, then rescinding the offer after he listed his husband as his emergency contact.[17]
- A gay teacher sued a private Catholic school in Georgia for firing him after he announced his same-sex marriage on Facebook.[18]
- Another administrator did the same in Washington state, even though he had agreed to abide by Catholic principle and then allegedly hid his homosexual lifestyle from the school by listing his boyfriend as a roommate.[19]
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a right under the Constitution, it is surely a matter of time before the Supreme Court decides that any institution that “discriminates” against same-sex couples must be stripped of its federal non-profit status. In California, Democrats have already attempted to remove non-profit status from youth groups, including the Boy Scouts, that supposedly discriminate against gays and lesbians — one reason for the Boy Scouts suddenly accepted gay scoutmasters, for example.[20]
Myth 4: Religion makes people depressed.
Fact: Lack of religion makes people depressed.
We’ve heard from the press, from Hollywood, and from the education system for decades that the cause of depression and anxiety in America is religion. Religious people are oppressive, cruel, and annoying. Their children end up with severe mental health issues.
Well, no.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one in five Americans over the age of 18 suffers from an anxiety and depression — 40 million adults. Major depressive disorder is the top cause of disability for Americans aged 15 to 44.[21] From 1999 to 2012, the percentage of Americans on antidepressants nearly doubled, jumping from 6.8 percent to 13 percent. Overall, the use of prescription drugs rose from 51 percent in 1999 to 59 percent by 2002.[22]
So has suicide.
From 1999 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rate overall climbed 24 percent. That increase is escalating: from 1999 to 2006, the suicide rate increased 1 percent per year; from 2006 to 2014, it increased 2 percent. The groups hit hardest: women aged 45-64 (63 percent increase), females aged 10-14 (200 percent increase), men aged 45-64 (43 percent increase), and males aged 10-14 (37 percent increase).[23]
More young white Americans are also using drugs — and they’re overdosing at a disturbing rate. In January, The New York Times reported, “The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it.” The overdose death rate for young white adults multiplied 500 percent from 1999 to 2014, and it tripled for 34 to 44-year-old whites, too.[24]
Meanwhile, disability claims have been edging upwards for decades. NPR reports:
In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.
There are areas in the United States where 25 percent of the working age population picks up a disability check. In 2011, 33.8 percent of those considered “newly disabled” complained of undiagnosable “back pain and other musculoskeletal problems,” and 19.2 percent had mental illness or developmental disability. Back in 1961, those numbers were just 8.3 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.[25]
This is what happens when societies lose their moral grounding.
Now, some of the increase in depression, drug use, and suicide comes from economic malaise.[26] But that wouldn’t explain the timing of that increase — the economy didn’t collapse until 2008, and these rates were climbing for years before that. And economic malaise also wouldn’t explain why younger Americans — those aged 10-14 — are committing suicide at a higher rate, or why white men, who have suffered less than minorities in the weak economy, are doing so either, or why disability rates have been climbing since the 1960s.
Something else is going on. As Professor Samuel Preston of the University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times, “This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.” The two scientists who discovered the rising death rates, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, freely admit that economics and drug prescriptions don’t explain the increase.[27]
Americans no longer know their mission. They’ve lost their religion. They’ve lost their communities. They’ve lost their families. As David Squires and David Blumenthal of the Commonwealth Fund state, America is watching the reversal of decades of progress in life expectancy and quality of life thanks to “declining levels of social connectedness; weakened communal institutions; and the splintering of society along class, geographic, and cultural lines.”[28]
One of those factors: decline of religion. Religion doesn’t merely provide people a purpose in life — it also provides hard moral standards to which they are expected to hew. Just as importantly, religion provides community, and community provides the support mechanism for people who are suffering.
Unsurprisingly, there is a significant correlation between decline of religion and increase in suicide, drug use, depression, and alcoholism. One study of 371 depressed inpatients in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that “Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. Unaffiliated subjects were younger, less often married, less often had children, and had less contact with family members. Furthermore, subjects with no religious affiliation perceived fewer reasons for living, particularly fewer moral objections to suicide.”[29]
According to a Gallup study, “Very religious Americans in the United States are less likely to report having been diagnosed with depression over the course of their lifetime than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious.”[30]
Religious faith also helps prevent
- smoking (people who consider religious faith important are 1.5 times less likely to smoke),
- binge-drinking (three times less likely),
- hard drug use (four times less likely),
- and pot use (six times less likely).[31]
A 2011 study from the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry sponsored by the National Institutes of Health utilized data from a two-year drug prevention study of 7,304 Latino students from middle schools in a large southwestern city. It concluded that “Religiosity was found to be associated with lower lifetime alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use and less frequent recent alcohol and cigarette use.”[32]
Yet religious practice in America has declined dramatically over the past few decades, and that decline has escalated precipitously in the last few years:
- In 2007, 83 percent of adults said they were religiously affiliated.
- By 2014, that number was 77 percent.
- Among those who were religiously unaffiliated, the percent of God-believers dropped from 70 percent to 61 percent over that period.[33]
- In 1944, 96 percent of Americans said they believed in God.
- In 2001, 90 percent of Americans said they believed in God.
- By 2016, the number was just 79 percent.
- In 1992, 12 percent of Americans said religion was unimportant in their lives.
- By 2015, the number had nearly doubled to 22 percent.
- In 1992, 70 percent of people were members of churches or synagogues.
- By 2015, that number had dropped to 54 percent.[34]
Without religious affiliation, Americans have tended to fall into solitary pursuits. As psychologist Martin Seligman writes, “Individualism need not lead to depression as long as we can fall back on large institutions — religion, country, family. When you fail to reach some of your personal goals, as we all must, you can turn to these larger institutions for hope. . . . But in a self, standing alone without the buffer of larger beliefs, helplessness and failure can all too easily become hopelessness and despair.”
Robert Putnam — a leftist — adds, “Social isolation is a well-established risk factor for serious depression.”[35]
Myth 5: Sexual promiscuity makes more people happy.
Fact: Sexual promiscuity makes more people more miserable.
The Left counters laments about the decline of religion by celebrating sexual license. They state that people were less happy and more repressed under the reign of a community-based traditionally American and religious society. Sexual liberty, they say, more than makes up for the loss of community and traditional morality.
Nope.
Sexual license is likely to increase depression, drug use, and suicide, not to alleviate it:
- A 2003 Heritage Foundation analysis of the 1996 National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health found that while just 7.7 percent of teenage girls who were not sexually active had been depressed in the last week, 25.3 percent of sexually active girls had been depressed; those numbers were 3.4 percent and 8.3 percent for boys.
- While 5.1 percent of teenage girls who weren’t sexually active had attempted suicide in the last year, 14.3 percent of those who were had; those numbers were 0.7 percent and 6.0 percent for boys.
- Polls routinely show that most teenagers wish they had waited longer to begin sexual activity.[36]
- A study of 90,000 teenage students from 1994-1995 found heavy correlation between depression and casual sex.[37]
- One study of 3,900 heterosexual college students from California State University found that casual sex correlated with psychological distress and harmed well-being.[38]
Then there are the costs of non-marital sex, and those attendant harms. Millions of teenagers every year contract sexually transmitted diseases thanks to promiscuity. Thanks to leftist cheerleading for the end of the traditional family, 72 percent of all births in the black community are to single mothers — even though in 1950, under 20 percent were. Overall, 41 percent of all children born in the United States are now born out of wedlock.[39]
While the Left continues to lecture women on the wonderful benefits of single motherhood, the costs are egregious: skyrocketing rates of crime among the children of single mothers, incredible poverty, government dependency. And depression. According to a 2007 study, single mothers are twice as likely to suffer from mental health issues as married mothers. That depression is twice as likely to be passed down to the next generation.[40]
When pushed, advocates of sexual license acknowledge the link between promiscuity, single motherhood, and associated ills, but suggest that even those costs are worth society’s increased tolerance toward diverse sexual behavior. That’s a moral question, though, not a data-driven one.
Myth 6: Fracking damages the environment.
Fact: There is no evidence fracking seriously damages the environment.
Fracking has revitalized the American oil industry while simultaneously protecting the environment. Shale oil and gas production has multiplied tremendously, driving down the price of oil and ensuring that natural gas is easily available. And natural gas is significantly cleaner than normal oil. As Seamus McGraw writes in a piece for Popular Mechanics, “Burning natural gas is cleaner than oil or gasoline, and it emits half as much carbon dioxide, less than one-third the nitrogen oxides, and 1 percent as much sulfur oxides as coal combustion. Yet the Left says that fracking is a serious environmental danger.”[41]
While the Left continually argues that fracking somehow damages the environment, there’s little or no evidence for any of these contentions. In June 2015, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency found no evidence that fracking has “widespread” impact on drinking water. According to the report, “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [of potentially affecting water] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” Because it was the Obama EPA, they attempted to shade that finding by saying that they’d keep looking for stories.[42]Here’s Popular Mechanics again: “[T]he idea stressed by fracking critics that deep-injected fluids will migrate into groundwater is mostly false. Basic geology prevents such contamination from starting below ground.”[43]
Remember that scene in Gasland where the guy sets the water from his faucet on fire? That wasn’t due to fracking. It’s because the idiot drilled his own water well into a pocket of methane.
Myth 7: GMOs are bad.
Fact: GMOs are wonderful and save millions of lives.
The same people who tell you that they won’t eat gluten but don’t know what gluten is say that they’ll never eat genetically modified organisms. That’s asinine. GMOs are often healthier than their organic counterparts, grow more abundant crops, and ensure health in poverty-stricken areas of the world.
As Popular Science reports, GMOs have been on the market since 1994, and “more than 1,700 peer-reviewed safety studies have been published. . . . The scientific consensus is that existing GMOs are no more or less risky than conventional crops.” Literally thousands of studies have been done on GMO safety, or the possibility that GMOs will interact with genetics in weird new ways, threatening health. So far: no proof of harm.
GMOs also mean that we don’t need to use stronger herbicides.[44] When Norman Borlaug died, few people took notice. But Borlaugh was the man who launched the so-called Green Revolution — the agricultural revolution that utilized GMOs to create new types of wheat — that resulted in saving a billion lives worldwide.[45]
Myth 8: Vaccinations are bad.
Fact: Vaccinations save lives.
While leftists routinely claim that they’re the philosophers of science, many on the left and on the fringe right oppose vaccines, suggesting that they cause autism, kill children, and worse. That’s patent nonsense. Vaccines have saved millions of lives, more than nearly any other technological achievement in world history. Vaccines eliminated smallpox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, rubella, tetanus, and hib. Vaccinations have, on average, increased life expectancy by nearly 30 years.
There have been risks to vaccination in the past, but those errors are routinely corrected.
- From the 1950s to the 1980s, whole cell DTP vaccine was utilized that carried risks which were mitigated by the transition from DTP to DTaP.
- In 1976, influenza vaccination was linked with Guillain-Barre syndrome; that vaccine formula was eliminated.
- In the 1980s, OPV caused paralysis despite no cases of polio; OPV was transitioned to IPV.
In other words, the scientific community does not have an interest in churning out vaccines that hurt children, and the measurable risks that have occurred are rectified quickly.
How about accusations that vaccinations cause autism? Nope. The Center for Disease Control says, “Research does not show any link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder.”
The paper usually relied upon to show linkage between autism and vaccination is the so-called Wakefield paper (Wakefield, A.J., et al., Lancet 351:637-641, 1998). That paper was retracted by Lancet; Wakefield himself had serious financial conflicts; his co-authors withdrew from the paper; Wakefield himself was sanctioned and his license revoked, and the British Medical Journal detailed the paper as an “elaborate fraud.” The findings of the paper have never been reproduced.
- A Danish study in 2002 found no link between MMR and autism;
- a UK study in 2001 found that while the rates of MMR administration remained flat, reported cases of autism rose steadily, denoting no correlation;
- a California study from 2001 replicated those findings.
So what causes autism? Autism has a significant genetic component (60-70 percent concordance in monozygotic twins), often appears before 1 year of age (before most vaccines are given), and autism is associated with pre-natal development.[46]
Myth 9: Dangerous climate change is entirely man-made.
Fact: Even if climate change is partially man-made, we don’t know the extent, and we can’t solve it.
It has become an article of faith on the left that the climate is changing radically and dangerously thanks almost entirely to human activity, and that dramatic change is necessary to curb that change.
Each part of this equation is doubtful.
First, it is unclear that the climate is changing radically and dangerously. It is indeed changing — the climate is getting warmer. But there is little reason to believe that we’re all going to fry to death or that all the polar bears are going to drown. Here is Matt Ridley of Scientific American summarizing:
The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, lowered its near-term forecast for the global mean surface temperature over the period 2016 to 2035 to just 0.3 to 0.7 degree C above the 1986–2005 level. That is a warming of 0.1 to 0.2 degree C per decade, in all scenarios, including the high-emissions ones. At the same time, new studies of climate sensitivity—the amount of warming expected for a doubling of carbon dioxide levels from 0.03 to 0.06 percent in the atmosphere—have suggested that most models are too sensitive. … If sensitivity is low and climate change continues at the same rate as it has over the past 50 years, then dangerous warming—usually defined as starting at 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels—is about a century away.[47]
It’s also worth noting that many places in the world will become more arable thanks to climate change.
Second, while most scientists agree that at least part of climate change is due to greenhouse gas emissions, it is not clear at all what extent of that climate change is due to human activity. There’s broad disagreement, actually, on the extent to which human activity influences the climate — that “climate sensitivity” Ridley mentions. As Judith Curry wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “The implications of the lower values of climate sensitivity in our paper, as well as similar other recent studies, is that human-caused warming near the end of the 21st century should be less than the 2-degrees-Celsius ‘danger’ level for all but the IPCC’s most extreme emission scenario.”[48]
Finally, it’s not clear at all what human beings are supposed to do about all of this. The most nutty solutions include going back to 19th century standards of living, which sounds like more fun than it would be, given the average life span then. The fact is that our entire way of life is built on fossil fuels.
Also, technology is constantly improving — our emissions are declining, not increasing, thanks to technology being developed by that awful, horrible United States. As Dr. Bjorn Lomborg has found in his research, the Paris Accords pushed by President Obama would have done nothing about global temperature:
[I]f we measure the impact of every nation fulfilling every promise by 2030, the total temperature reduction will be 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100. Even if we assume that these promises would be extended for another 70 years, there is still little impact: if every nation fulfills every promise by 2030, and continues to fulfill these promises faithfully until the end of the century, and there is no ‘CO₂ leakage’ to non-committed nations, the entirety of the Paris promises will reduce temperature rises by just 0.17°C (0.306°F) by 2100.[49]
Myth 10: Green energy will save us.
Fact: Better technology will save us.
We keep hearing from politicians that if we only invest in green energy, that will solve all of our problems. But the fact of the matter is that so-called green energy has been a massive boondoggle.
The government — federal, state, and local — has spent $176 billion on wind energy since 2000. Wind energy subsidies amount to about three times the actual price of natural gas.[50] The result: pretty much nada. Today, wind power generates a whopping 4.7 percent of the electricity in the country.[51]
How about solar, that other green boondoggle? It constitutes approximately 0.6 percent of our energy consumption in the United States.[52] The United States subsidized or loaned the solar industry $39 billion per year.[53]
Here’s the reality: better technology is the solution to energy shortages. Just as oil drilling replaced whale oil, natural gas is replacing oil drilling, and other forms of energy will replace natural gas at some point. The human species is quite capable of finding better, more efficient versions of energy without the so-called “moonshot” from the federal government.
***
Notes
[1] Ben Shapiro, “Our Shredded Constitution, Part I: Free Exercise of Religion,” Breitbart.com, February 28, 2014 < http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/02/28/shredded-constitution/>
[2] Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks And White Liberals (Encounter Books: United States, 2005), 89.
[3] Pardes Seleh, “No, I Will Not Pay You $135,000 For Keeping My Faith,” DailyWire.com, October 2, 2015 <http://www.dailywire.com/news/257/no-i-will-not-pay-you-135000-keeping-my-faith-pardes-seleh>
[4] Amanda Prestigiacomo, “These Bakers Got Fined By The Government For Not Catering A Same-Sex Wedding. Here’s How Much It Cost Them,” DailyWire.com, December 29, 2015 <http://www.dailywire.com/news/2198/these-bakers-got-fined-government-not-catering-amanda-prestigiacomo>
[5] Robert Barnes, “Supreme Court declines case of photographer who denied service to gay couple,” WashingtonPost.com, April 7, 2014 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-wont-review-new-mexico-gay-commitment-ceremony-photo-case/2014/04/07/f9246cb2-bc3a-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html>
[6] Kirsten Andersen, “Catholic couple fined $13,000 for refusing to host same-sex ‘wedding’ at their farm,” LifeSiteNews.com, August 20, 2014 <https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-couple-fined-13000-for-refusing-to-host-same-sex-wedding-at-their>
[7] Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Idaho ministers sue to prevent gay weddings at for-profit wedding chapel,” WashingtonPost.com, October 20, 2014 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/idaho-ministers-sue-to-prevent-gay-weddings-at-for-profit-wedding-chapel/2014/10/20/0fa4ffd8-588a-11e4-9d6c-756a229d8b18_story.html>
[8] Travis Weber, “Supreme Court Stands by and Watches as Religious Freedom Is Curtailed,” DailySignal.com, July 6, 2016 <http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/06/supreme-court-stands-by-and-watches-as-religious-freedom-is-curtailed/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thf-tw>
[9] Casey Mattox, “California Banks on Obama Administration Not Enforcing Abortion Conscience Law,” RedState.com, May 4, 2015 <http://www.redstate.com/diary/caseymattox/2015/05/04/california-banks-obama-administration-enforcing-abortion-conscience-law/>
[10] Michaiah Bilger, “Obama Administration Forces Doctors and Hospitals Getting Federal Funds to Do Abortions,” LifeNews.com, May 16, 2016 <http://www.lifenews.com/2016/05/16/obama-administration-forces-doctors-and-hospitals-getting-federal-funds-to-do-abortions/>
[11] Patricia Wen, “Catholic Charities Stuns State, Ends Adoptions,” Boston Globe, March 11, 2006 <http://www.glad.org/uploads/docs/news/globe-catholic-charities-stuns-state.pdf>
[12] Aaron Bandler, “5 Things You Need To Know About The Little Sisters Of The Poor,” DailyWire.com, March 23, 2016 <http://www.dailywire.com/news/4327/5-things-you-need-know-about-little-sisters-poor-aaron-bandler>
[13] Roger Severino, “Little Sisters of the Poor Win Big in Obamacare Case,” DailySignal.com, May 16, 2016 <http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/16/little-sisters-of-the-poor-win-big-in-obamacare-case/>
[14] David Bernstein, “Attacks on Religious Freedom: Coming Soon to a Church Near You,” DailySignal.com, November 24, 2015 <http://dailysignal.com/2015/11/24/attacks-on-religious-freedom-coming-soon-to-a-church-near-you/>
[15] David Mikkelson, “Houston Hustle: Did the city of Houston, Texas, subpoena pastors’ sermons as part of a crackdown on preaching against homosexuality?,” Snopes.com, October 2014 <http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/houston.asp>
[16] Andrew Egger, “LGBT Bill Threatens California’s Religious Schools,” DailySignal.com, June 9, 2016 <http://dailysignal.com/2016/06/09/lgbt-bill-threatens-californias-religious-schools/>
[17] Associated Press, “Judge rules against Catholic school in gay hiring retraction,” BostonHerald.com, December 17, 2015 <http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2015/12/judge_rules_against_catholic_school_in_gay_hiring_retraction>
[18] Dr. Susan Berry, “Gay teacher files federal discrimination lawsuit against Catholic school,” Breitbart.com, July 1, 2015 <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/01/gay-teacher-files-federal-discrimination-lawsuit-against-catholic-school/>
[19] Jonathan Kaminsky, “Fired for gay marriage, Seattle-area Catholic school official sues,” Reuters.com, March 7, 2014 <http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gaymarriage-seattle-idUSBREA261TC20140307>
[20] Ben Shapiro, “CA Moves to Strip Boy Scouts, Christian Youth Groups of Nonprofit Status,” Breitbart.com, April 10, 2013 <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/04/10/gay-boy-scouts-ca/>
[21] “Facts & Statistics,” Anxiety and Depression Association of America <http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics>
[22] “Percentage of Americans on Antidepressants Nearly Doubles,” MadinAmerica.com, November 6, 2015 <http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/percentage-of-americans-on-antidepressants-nearly-doubles/>
[23] Sally C. Curtin, Margaret Warner, Holly Hedegaard, “Increase in Suicide in the United States, 1999-2014,” CDC.gov, April 2016 <http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db241.htm#suicide_rates>
[24] Gina Kolata, “Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites,” NYTimes.com, January 16, 2016 <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html>
[25] Chana Joffe-Walt, “Unfit For Work,” NPR.org <http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/>
[26] Jeffrey Sparshott, “The Great Recession May Have Worsened Drug Abuse Among White Men,” WSJ.com, March 1, 2016 <http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/03/01/the-great-recession-may-have-worsened-drug-abuse-especially-among-white-men/>
[27] Gina Kolata, “Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds,” NYTimes.com, November 2, 2015 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html>
[28] Olga Khazan, “Why Are So Many Middle-Aged White Americans Dying?,” TheAtlantic.com, January 29, 2016 <http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/middle-aged-white-americans-left-behind-and-dying-early/433863/>
[29] Kanita Dervic, M.D., et al., “Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt,” The American Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 161 Issue 12 (pp. 2303-2308), December 2004 <http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2303>
[30] Frank Newport, Sangeeta Agrawal, and Dan Witters, “Very Religious Americans Report Less Depression, Worry,” Gallup.com, December 1, 2010 <http://www.gallup.com/poll/144980/religious-americans-report-less-depression-worry.aspx>
[31] Joseph A. Califano, “Religion, Science and Substance Abuse,” AmericaMagazine.org, February 11, 2002 <http://americamagazine.org/issue/360/article/religion-science-and-substance-abuse>
[32] Flavio Francisco Marsiglia, et al., “God Forbid! Substance Use Among Religious and Nonreligious Youth,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (2005 Oct; 75(4): 585-598) <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043382/>
[33] “US Public Becoming Less Religious,” PewForum.org, November 3, 2015 <http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/>
[34] “Religion,” Gallup.com <http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx>
[35] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster: New York, 2000), 264-265.
[36] Robert Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Lauren R. Noyes, “Sexually Active Teenagers Are More Likely To Be Depressed And To Attempt Suicide,” Center For Data Analysis Report #03-04 <http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/06/sexually-active-teenagers-are-more-likely-to-be-depressed>
[37] Ugo Uche, “A Link Between Sexual Promiscuity and Depression in Teens,” PsychologyToday.com, January 14, 2013 <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/promoting-empathy-your-teen/201301/link-between-sexual-promiscuity-and-depression-in-teens>
[38] Megan Charles, “Promiscuity Linked to Anxiety and Depression in College Students,” Inquisitr.com, July 4, 2013 <http://www.inquisitr.com/831186/promiscuity-linked-to-anxiety-and-depression-in-college-students/>
[39] Emily Badger, “The unbelievable rise of single motherhood in America over the last 50 years,” WashingtonPost.com, December 18, 2014 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/18/the-unbelievable-rise-of-single-motherhood-in-america-over-the-last-50-years/>
[40] Martha Roberts, “Sanity and single motherhood,” Psychologies.co.uk, May 5, 2015 <https://www.psychologies.co.uk/sanity-and-single-motherhood>
[41] Seamus McGraw, “Is Frackin Safe? The 10 Most Controversial Claims About Natural Gas Drilling,” PopularMechanics.com, May 1, 2016 <http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/g161/top-10-myths-about-natural-gas-drilling-6386593/>
[42] Everett Rosenfeld, “EPA says no evidence that fracking has ‘widespread’ impact on drinking water,” CNBC.com, June 4, 2015 <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/04/epa-says-no-evidence-that-fracking-has-widespread-impact-on-drinking-water.html>
[43] Ibid.
[44] Brooke Borel, “GMO Facts: 10 Common GMO Claims Debunked,” PopSci.com, July 11, 2014 <http://www.popsci.com/article/science/core-truths-10-common-gmo-claims-debunked>
[45] David Macaray, “The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives,” HuffingtonPost.com, October 15, 2013
[46] Ben Shapiro, “Trump Embraces RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaccination Garbage. Here Are 11 Reasons He’s Wrong,” DailyWire.com, January 10, 2017 <http://www.dailywire.com/news/12303/trump-embraces-rfk-jrs-anti-vaccination-garbage-ben-shapiro>
[47] Matt Ridley, “Climate Change Will Not Be Dangerous for a Long Time,” ScientificAmerican.com, November 27, 2015 <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-will-not-be-dangerous-for-a-long-time/>
[48] Judith Curry, “The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown,” The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2014 <https://www.wsj.com/articles/judith-curry-the-global-warming-statistical-meltdown-1412901060>
[49] “Paris climate promises will reduce temperatures by just 0.05°C in 2100,” Lomborg.com <http://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises>
[50] Robert Bryce, “Wind-Energy Sector Gets $176 Billion Worth of Crony Capitalism,” NationalReview.com, June 6, 2016 <http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436228/wind-energy-subsidies-billions-and-billions-your-tax-dollars>
[51] Institute for Energy Research <http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/wind/>
[52] “Renewable Energy Explained,” US Energy Information Agency <https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=renewable_home>
[53] Michael Bastasch, “Feds Spent 14 Times More On Green Energy Per Year Than Embassy Security,” Dailycaller.com, February 12, 2015 <http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/12/feds-spend-14-times-more-on-green-energy-per-year-than-embassy-security/>