The Cornwall Declaration

My wife put me on to a website that she had heard mentioned on a local radio show. After checking it out, I read the manifesto for the organization--which is called the "Cornwall Declaration." Here is just a brief excerpt from the letter, which outlines the differences they see between real-world problems and those made up by the leftists of the world to wreak havoc upon the rest of us; such as global warming.


The real and merely alleged problems differ in the following ways:
1. The former are proven and well understood, while the latter tend to be speculative.
2. The former are often localized, while the latter are said to be global and cataclysmic in scope.
3. The former are of concern to people in developing nations especially, while the latter are of concern mainly to environmentalists in wealthy nations.
4. The former are of high and firmly established risk to human life and health, while the latter are of very low and largely hypothetical risk.
5. Solutions proposed to the former are cost effective and maintain proven benefit, while solutions to the latter are unjustifiably costly and of dubious benefit.

Public policies to combat exaggerated risks can dangerously delay or reverse the economic development necessary to improve not only human life but also human stewardship of the environment. The poor, who are most often citizens of developing nations, are often forced to suffer longer in poverty with its attendant high rates of malnutrition, disease, and mortality; as a consequence, they are often the most injured by such misguided, though well-intended, policies.

Check out the full document and other information at The Interfaith Stewardship web site.