THE CHURCH MUST STAND UP FOR THE ENERGY RIGHTS OF ALL PEOPLE

A Guest Post by Vijay Jayaraj

The Church must stand up for the energy rights of people

In recent decades, the policies on energy are threatening to reverse centuries of development. In a time when the climate movement has engulfed the truth of reality, here is an appeal for the Church to stand for the basic needs of the poor in this world. For many Christians, Jesus’ commandments lay out the pathway for life and how Christians are to live in a world that is wrought with many challenges. Among them, are a set of clear commandments on how we should treat our neighbors. Jesus asks his followers to love their enemies, seek the good of neighbors, and care for those who are in need. In fact, Jesus goes as far as to say that anyone who does not clothe, feed, and shelter the poor are doing that disservice to Him. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus calls us to do to others what we would want them to do to us. Considering such an important call to seek the welfare of people, the Church must always be equipped with knowledge about the world around it. The influences of policies on the life of common people can be significant.

Energy, climate, and people

Since the end of World War II, economic development across the world has brought people out of poverty. An industrious economy helped societies become prosperous. A key factor for this achievement was a robust global energy system. The 20th-century energy sector harnessed naturally available resources such as coal, oil, and gas (collectively known as fossil fuels). This produced abundant electricity and copious amounts of fuel for transportation.

However, over the past 30 years, fossil fuel use has come under severe disruption due to policies that are being drafted in the name of climate change. A section of our society insists that greenhouse gas emissions from human fossil fuel use are warming our atmosphere to dangerous levels. The climate industrial complex is made up of politicians, scientists, businesses, nonprofits, and celebrities. It has devised policies that inhibit fossil fuel use and promote the use of alternative technology like wind and solar.

Big problems with the new climate and energy approach

Firstly, there is no evidence that sacrificing fossil fuel use will result in temperature reduction. Temperatures failed to rapidly rise in the past 20 years despite a rapid increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This mismatch is not new to geologists and paleo-climatologists as there were many non-greenhouse gas driven temperature increases in the past.

We have no existing mechanism to accurately predict future temperature levels. 90% or more of our current computer models are faulty. They over-exaggerate the impact of greenhouse gases on atmospheric warming. Yet, these models are used as the go-to reference for international climate policy.

We do not have any existing scenario where alternative technologies exclusively powered the nature of demand that exists in our cities. Neither can they provide on-demand electricity. Renewable champions like Germany, the UK, Netherlands, and France activated their coal plants this year due to energy shortage from ban on Russian gas.

Over-reliance on new and expensive alternative technologies renders our energy system unstable. Besides, it makes power more expensive and causes complexities in the transmission network. Places like California and Germany faced blackouts and rises in power tariffs despite having a high proportion of renewable technology.

Overall, it causes immediate and life-threatening problems for hundreds of millions of people in a short time span. An anti-fossil stance by the U.S. administration caused a historic rise in gas prices across all American states.

In developing parts of the world, the situation is worse. A coal shortage due to policy failure in 2021 caused unprecedented blackouts in 17 Chinese provinces causing loss of jobs, livelihoods, and widespread poverty.

Further, billions in Africa and Asia do not have electricity. For example, one old refrigerator in the U.S. uses more electricity in a year than what 3.3 billion people consume in a year. That is the adverse state of energy poverty in our world. Their future is likely to remain the same if the use of fossil fuels is restricted further.

THE CALL TO THE CHURCH

The call to the Church is this: Stand for the energy rights of the poor. It will enable poor people to become industrious and climb up the socioeconomic ladder. Access to life-improving resources is possible in an economy that is supported by a strong energy sector. And a strong energy sector is only possible with unrestricted use of abundant, reliable, and inexpensive fossil fuel sources. Hospitals and homes in Africa will have electricity sooner if the current ban on fossil fuel funding is lifted.

Stand against the lies of the world. For decades now, the political class and media have been exaggerating the nominal warming in our atmosphere. They have inculcated fear in people and utilized a doomsday theory to drive a climate agenda. The Bible calls us to expose the lies and not partake in them.

Empowering people to prosper is more ideal than keeping them poor and sending them occasional freebies. Besides, let us not deny third-world countries the same energy resources that made Western civilization prosperous.

The Church’s stance on this matter will be crucial. The more God-fearing people understand the truth of energy poverty, the more clarity there will be in the love they share with the people of this world.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, VA., and holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK. He resides in Bengaluru, India. His message is very timely. The preceding post has been slightly edited from his original article.