Oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for two months now, and there still isn’t an end in sight. And day by day, the news seems to keep getting worse.

Faced with what very well may be the worst environmental disaster in US history, it is understandable that people feel frustrated, angry, and helpless, especially those who live on the Gulf Coast and are watching their livelihoods sink into the black muck that is lapping at their shores. And even as the black blob grows in the satellite photos, most people have nothing to do in response but wait as BP and the Coast Guard work to counteract the oil flowing out of the hole a mile below the surface of the ocean.

So I cannot sit here and tell people how they should or shouldn’t react to the spill and what actions they should take to try and do something about it. But still, there is something about this that rubs me the wrong way:

A resolution encouraging people to pray for an end to the BP oil spill crisis has been approved by the Louisiana Senate.

Sen. Robert Adley, a Republican from Benton, won unanimous approval of the resolution last week. The resolution made this past Sunday a state-designated day of prayer in Louisiana, during which people of all faiths in the state and around the nation will be encouraged to seek divine intervention to end the crisis.

As Senator Adley explained after the measure passed:

As the resolution details, “citizens are urged to pray for a solution to this crisis, each according to his or her own faith, to pray for God’s continued guidance and protection and to join in the observance of a day of prayer, seeking God’s blessings upon both our state and nation.” The resolution also calls upon the people of Louisiana to join together to pray for an end to the crisis which is threatening our environment, our culture and our livelihoods.

And here’s the real kicker:

“Thus far the efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail,” Adley explained. “It is clearly time for a miracle for us.”

It is true that all that mortal humans have attempted so far has failed to fully quell the massive leak from the seafloor. I can see how a believer might decide that it’s time to pray for a miracle. And while I object to state legislatures passing prayer resolutions, because I think that they’re an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, that’s not even the point I want to raise here.

Rather, I think that this prayer resolution, and other similar calls for prayer, are removing focus from where it needs to be. In short: God didn’t do this. Humans did. And only humans can fix it.

What’s happening in the gulf is not like an earthquake. It’s not a natural disaster, no matter what anyone says. The evidence for BP’s inadequate safeguards, negligence, and even recklessness, is growing. And beyond the specific instances of negligence that caused this particular disaster, it is reckless to risk such a spill occurring when it is clear that neither BP nor the US government had the tools and means to contain and control it after the well suffered a blowout.

So this call to prayer is really a request for God to save us from ourselves. And as he’s made clear in the past, all too many times, God is unable or unwilling or unavailable to do that.

So people may pray, if it makes them feel better, but at this time, it is vital that we remember what I would call one of the fundamental tenets of humanism: we should never gamble with the health of our planet, and we can’t count on anyone but ourselves to save us if we do. There’s nothing in this universe worth trading the Gulf of Mexico for, and if it is to be restored, humans will have to do the hard work (and BP better pay for it!). Over the decades ahead, we might be able to finally sop up most of the oil from the shores of the Gulf, but let’s never forget the lesson of just how much destructive power we hold in our (unclasped) hands.

Monday’s LATimes contained an interesting piece on the Bald Eagle. In essence, many Indian tribes have religious practices, such as the Sun Dance, that require Bald Eagle… ahem…parts. The Bald Eagle is a protected species—even more so than other listed species due to a special act of Congress—and so an obvious tension emerges; how can the federal government protect the animal while simultaneously protecting the religious rights of native Americans?

Currently, the federal government runs a depository of dead birds and has a licensing program. The licensing program has been plagued with problems—many people are apparently unaware of it—and the depository has a long waiting list for many Eagle parts. To avoid long waits, some Indians occasionally shoot birds without a license and find themselves fugitives as result of their religious beliefs.

Larger than the Indian issue, this does raise some moral and political questions for those of us who avow a separation and church and state. I think many people would agree the Indians have a right to these birds; Indians have been hunting and shooting the birds since before the Europeans arrived. Simultaneously, government has an interest in protecting all endangered species. How do we rectify these conflicting priorities?

We could make like the soviets and just outlaw religion. Problem solved. But, of course, that’s absurd. On the opposite end of the spectrum we could say any religious belief is a right, but that’s a slippery slope. The government would then be in the business of defining what is and isn’t a religion (granted they already do this for tax purposes but look at the fight it causes over things like Scientology). Also, someone could have some insane beliefs that direct them, for example, to extinguish a species that is the devil incarnate or to practice human sacrifice. Do we really want to play an even worse version of the snake-handler game?

Obviously, then, the answer lies somewhere between these two extremes. At some degree between zero and 180 is where we have been situated throughout history. The attempt to move the needle slightly one way is why groups like that AHA exist. Even though we claim to be proponents of religious liberty we cannot sit here and seriously say all peoples with a religious need have a right to shoot Bald Eagles at will. Defining that need is the purpose of the licensing program. To eliminate that is to open a can of worms so messy as to all but sign an extinction warrant for the Bald Eagle.

The current Bald Eagle services provided to the Indians by the federal government are pretty reasonable; they are by no means perfect, but the only other option I can see is to farm raise the birds. We do it with fish, why not birds? Is it even feasible, or will it devolve into the shame that is poultry production? Does a farm-raised bird even have the same essence as a wild one? Is that better, is that worse?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your daily dose of stupid, I give you Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) explaining why he doesn’t want to do anything about greenhouse gasses (via Thinkprogress):

“I would also point out that CO2, carbon dioxide, is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term. It’s not hazardous to health, it’s naturally occurring. I am creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, your Dr. Pepper, your Perrier water. It is necessary for human life. It is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, does not cause asthma.”

“And something that the Democrat sponsors do not point out, a lot of the CO2 that is created in the United States is naturally created. You can’t regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the US Congress can regulate God.”

Let’s say that a neighbor were spraying lots of water on his lawn, day and night. It’s ruining your garden, flooding your basement, and causing mold and mosquitoes to spawn in the standing water.

Would you be comforted to hear him say, “Did you know that H2O is naturally occurring? It’s in our Coca-Cola, is necessary for human life, is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, and does not cause asthma! Besides, rain is water, and we can’t regulate the rain!”

No, you would want him to turn off the damn sprinklers.

We know the harmful effects of greenhouse gasses. No longer suppressed by the Bush administration, the E.P.A. recently declared that there was “compelling and overwhelming” evidence that greenhouse gasses “endanger public health and welfare.”

Barton also had this familiar gem:

“If you think greenhouse gases are bad, life couldn’t exist without greenhouse gases. … So, there is a, there is a climate theory — and it’s a theory, it’s not a fact, it’s never been proven — that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat than the atmosphere would otherwise.”

Keep in mind: this man is the highest-ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Wonderful.

On Friday the Environmental Protection Agency formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be “pollutants that endanger public health and welfare.” In the decision that should lead to the regulation of these gases for the first time in the U.S., the EPA called the evidence “compelling and overwhelming.”

This decision has been long delayed, and the fact that it finally happened now is a testament to how the Obama administration is different from its predecessor. As reported in the New York Times:

In 2007, the Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. E.P.A., ordered the agency to determine whether heat-trapping gases harmed the environment and public health. The case was brought by states and environmental groups to force the E.P.A. to use the Clean Air Act to regulate heat-trapping gases in vehicle emissions.

Agency scientists were virtually unanimous in determining that those gases caused such harm, but top Bush administration officials suppressed their work and took no action.

In his first days in office, Mr. Obama promised to review the case and act quickly if the findings were justified. The announcement Friday was the fruit of that review.

It’s almost as if our government cares about science! My cynicism melted for a few minutes there.

But it came back in a hurry. Scientific evidence might overwhelmingly agree that high levels of carbon dioxide endanger public health, but not everyone in government is on board. Rep. John Boehner went on ABC’s This Week on Sunday and had this gem:

BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

Two quick notes: I don’t think anyone has claimed carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, only that in large quantities it has a negative impact on our health. Also, while I suppose cows exhale carbon dioxide like we do, Boehner’s euphemism implies that he’s referring to methane, not carbon dioxide. But these are minor corrections alongside the glaring logical flaw.

Boehner pointed out that carbon dioxide is one of our waste products. How is this evidence that it’s not harmful in large quantities? Humans also defecate, but I don’t want a corporation dumping solid waste in my water.

Rep. John Shimkus is better known for using Genesis to inform his environmental policy, but he also had this stunning line of reasoning: “It’s plant food … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.”

Boehner must belong to the Shimkus school of thought. It unfortunately seems to be growing.

(Crossposted at Friendly Atheist)

The Pew Forum is a reliable source of interesting surveys. This most recent one shows how strongly various religious groups believe that global warming is occurring and if so, whether the warming is caused by humans or not.

One number that does puzzle me is the 36% of Black Protestants who believe the Earth is warming, but due to natural patterns and not human activity. It’s twice that of the US population as a whole, and triple that of the unaffiliated. Why would that be?

But otherwise, the findings don’t surprise me. The most likely group to believe that humans are causing a global warming? Those unaffiliated with a religion, at 58%. Those least likely? The self-identified White evangelical Protestants, at 34%.

I’m guessing there are confounding factors – White evangelical Protestants are more likely to live in the South, so perhaps it’s their geographic location that causes them not to believe the Earth is warming instead of their faith. It’s a classic correlation vs. causation conundrum.

But I don’t think we can dismiss the notion that faith affects people’s environmental views. Not when we have examples like Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) who read from Genesis in a congressional hearing and proclaimed that “The Earth will end only when God declares it is time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth, this Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”

On the other hand, we have to ask: why are these Hong Kong Christians building a full-scale replica of the ark?

Over the weekend I read that during a congressional hearing, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) tried to argue against a cap & trade policy because… here, you have to read it for yourself:

SHIMKUS: It’s plant food … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.

I did the usual laugh-through-my-tears routine and moved on. But I found out that there was more. Moments later, he concluded his questioning by saying:

The basic finish for this comment is “the Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”

Yes, he’s using passages from Genesis to inform his policy decisions. As it turns out, he had given a speech at the beginning of the hearing about his religious beliefs:

For those of you who can’t watch the video, he reads passages from the New Testament, professing to believe it the infallible word of God. After closing the book he says: “The Earth will end only when God declares it is time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth, this Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”

Many people have asked me how religion is harmful. This is the harm. Any time we encourage (or allow) people to trust faith as a legitimate knowledge source, we run the risk that their faith will be contrary to reality. Our observations of this world have indicated that global warming is a threat. Representative Shimkus’ faith instructs him that there is no danger. We have a problem.

Eventually the real-world evidence might build up to the point that he is forced to ‘reinterpret’ those passages, but I don’t want to wait and see.

What I DO want is for members of our secular government to make decisions based on secular reasoning–without being influenced by their beliefs about the supernatural. If Representative Shimkus is unable do that, then he is unfit to perform his job.

When we hear about biofuels we tend to think of happy, green, renewable and sustainable energy. Bio anything is usually a good thing right? Well a new report called The Gallagher Review indicates that biofuels may not be our salvation but just another step deeper into trouble. Amoung other things the report concludes

“… there is a risk that the uncontrolled expansion and use of biofuels could lead to unsustainable changes in land use such as the destruction of the rain forest to make way for the production of crops,” she said. “This might in turn actually increase greenhouse gas emissions as well as contribute to higher food prices and shortages.”

The problem with biofuels comes, as does our oil dependence, from a supply and demand issue. The European Union is looking to meet 5.75 percent of its transport power by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020 from biofuels. The United States is looking for 35 billion gallons a year. If we could meet our own quotas, there wouldn’t be any problem. But while we create jobs in other countries we are moving into rain forests and reducing the number of plots being used for food production.

In an opinion piece from the International Herald Tribune Eric Holt-Giménez, the executive director of the Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy says this:

Hunger results not from scarcity, but poverty. The world’s poorest already spend 50 to 80 percent of household income on food. They suffer when high fuel prices push up food prices. Now, because food and fuel crops compete for land and resources, both increase the price of land and water.

The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. Caloric consumption declines as price rises by a ratio of 1:2.

This again raises the issue of how interconnectedness of humanity and nature. Normally our actions impact animals and plants, but this time we’re directly having an impact on human welfare. Jobs may help people have income to spend, but if those jobs force the price of food up we’re faced with an unending cycle. I know we need alternate fuels and we need them now, but we also need to keep our heads on straight when thinking about these issues. We have the ability to implement the use of biofuels in a way that limits the impact, while decreasing our dependance on oil, and hopefully doing something to clean up the environment.

The Washington Post had a nice editorial today regarding the recent proposal in Annapolis, Maryland to ban retailers from distributing plastic bags to shoppers. The idea is to get retailers to offer only recycled paper bags and reusable bags, and thus cut down on the environmental costs of making plastic bags and eliminate the clog of plastic litter that threatens the Chesapeake. Though the Annapolis government certainly has good intentions, the Post rightly points out that paper bags aren’t a particularly green alternative to plastic: they’re costlier to make (plastic bags cost 2 cents each, whereas paper bags cost 5 cents) and create more pollution in the process than recycled plastic. Moreover, banning plastic bags isn’t exactly good for business–retailers can swallow the cost of a ban or reflect the cost in higher prices, but in either case business loses out.

The Post offers a much better solution than a complete plastic bag ban, which is to create incentives for customers and retailers to use and offer reusable bags. Examples include Giant Food, which gives discounts to customers who use reusable bags, and IKEA, which charges customers for disposable bags. (Side note: IKEA was given an A- grade for social and environmental responsibility by Better World Shopper.)

Not only do these solutions encourage customers to go green without the costs associated with a plastic bag ban, but they also raise money that can be spent directly on green causes: IKEA donates all the money they earn from disposable bag sales to local community forests. Whoever said that being pro-business and loving the environment can’t jive?