God, Man, and Green at Yale

Weekly Standard: By Ernest Lefever

A HALF CENTURY AGO, William F. Buckley, Jr., created quite a stir when he published God and Man At Yale, bemoaning the junior status accorded the Almighty within its ivied walls. Today a new phenomenon is sweeping the Yale campus, especially at Yale Divinity School, where in the mid-1940s I studied theology and social ethics.

Yale has not escaped the many moods and causes dredged up by the countercultural zeitgeist. None has been more colorful, flamboyant, or intense than the current green revolution. This is dramatically manifest in the current issue of Reflections, the official quarterly of the Divinity School. It's theme and title is 'God's Green Earth: Creation, Faith, Crisis.' ...

I could go on and on, but this may be sufficient to suggest that Yale Divinity School is promoting a new Pantheism, the belief that "nature is God," a worldview popular in the eighteenth century and long held by many tribal peoples who are persuaded their god speaks to them through volcanoes, earthquakes, and lightening[sic].

Reading this version of Yale's new green creed, including it's[sic] veneration of all living things large and small, recalls a limerick I wrote two years ago:

I love all trees and buzzing bees
And great things like the Seven Seas.
Everything global
Makes me feel noble
But I still have a problem with fleas.

And, I dare say, with spelling, grammar, and cognizance of the real world.

Buckley, Lefever, and the Weekly Standard deserve one another (although I think Buckley can spell, unlike the other two). I'll take Yale.

And let me insert a plug for panentheism, somewhat distinct from pantheism.

Lefever's tiresome rant eventually finds its way to a discussion of nuclear energy, a subject I have discussed in previous postings. I actually share the view that consideration of nuclear alternatives for generating electricity should not be summarily dismissed. But Lefever's advocacy is smug and deceptive (the nuclear fuel cycle, both in early and late stages, is environmentally toxic, although in different ways than fossil fuels), and neglects a number of major challenges that must be addressed forthrightly (not least security in a time of terrorist threat, both at plant sites and along transportation routes).

G!d (immanent or transcendent, pantheist or panentheist) save us from the idiocies of those with whom we may, a little bit, on a very few issues, maybe, partially, agree.

Record Failures at Refineries Raise Gas Prices

New York Times: By JAD MOUAWAD

Oil refineries across the country have been plagued by a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens of them to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping to drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer’s records....

“You have a system that is taxed to the limit,” said Adam Robinson, an energy research analyst at Lehman Brothers. “This is what happens when spare capacity is eroded.” ...

Many factors have led to the rise in gas prices, including disruptions in oil supplies from places like Nigeria and Norway. But analysts say the refining bottleneck in North America has been one of the main drivers of higher energy prices this year.

The refining crunch has pushed wholesale gasoline prices up 35 percent this year and has contributed to a 23 percent gain for crude oil prices. ...

Some critics of the industry have theorized on Internet blogs that the squeeze on gasoline and other refined products points to a deliberate effort among oil companies to bolster profits by keeping supplies tight. But experts point out that the companies have little incentive right now to hold back on fuel supplies.

Are those the same experts who poo-poohed speculation about market manipulation of electricity and natural gas supplies in California several years back? At moments like this, one's mind turns gently to floating thoughts of Enron...

It’s a marvel we can continue to run refineries the way we do these days given the many requirements and specification changes we have,” said Charles T. Drevna, executive vice president of the refining industry’s main trade group, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. “There comes a time when the piper has got to be paid.”

And surely this guy trained at the Enron Institute for Public Communication, with post-graduate work in The Dick's back office. I assume the piper is named "ExxonMobil"?
How about a Congressional investigation into the determinants of domestic refinery capacity over the past generation or so (during which no new refineries have been built)? I expect we'll be told it is the fault of environmental regulation. Unless, of course, the Congressional investigators (both Republicans and Democrats, I would venture to speculate, are so in the pockets of the oil companies that this goes nowhere, slow...