By Phillip J. Chesser / Chronicle contributor
When it comes to chutzpah, modern day global warming alarmists have nothing on Johann Tetzel (1465-1519), the Dominican friar who sold indulgences during the early 16th century. Readers will recall that Tetzel’s abuse of the church’s teaching on indulgences was one of the scandals that led to the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther is reported to have been inspired to write his 95 Theses after becoming disgusted with the actions of Johann Tetzel. For those who don’t know: indulgences remit temporal punishment for sins committed by a person still living or for those in purgatory. The Catholic church has always granted indulgences and does to this day. The church has never taught, however, that indulgences could be bought and sold.
Environmental global warming alarmists, however, have created modern versions of indulgences that people can buy, and they are called carbon credits or carbon offsets. Rich environmentalists such as Al Gore and his Hollywood sycophants regularly purchase carbon credits after using huge volumes of fossil fuels, the big villains in global warming, to reduce their carbon footprints, which are also huge. You see, Al Gore and his green disciples travel thousands of miles in gas guzzling limousines, gas drinking SUVs, and jet fuel consuming aircraft for the purpose of persuading you, the benighted American consumer, to reduce your carbon footprint by driving your family in a Yugo-like death trap, by taking fewer vacations, and by shivering in the dark in your home.
When the news of the former vice president’s exorbitant personal fuel use in his mansions, his vehicles, and his jets became widely known, he excused it all by claiming that he was carbon neutral. That means he had bought carbon credits from companies, which he has shares in, that plant trees or built electricity generating windmills. According to the environmentalists, trees reduce carbon in the atmosphere, and enough planted trees will reduce one’s carbon footprint. Rich former vice presidents and Hollywood billionaires can buy all sorts of carbon credits and therefore waste as much fuel as they wish. You, on the other hand, are not so privileged. Our modern day environmental Tetzels will not sell carbon credit indulgences to you; you don’t have enough money.
It’s another inconvenient truth: You must sacrifice because the pope of the environmentalists grants carbon credit indulgences only to rich and famous proselytizers of green politics, and this pope requires lots of green money.
