'Twas the fight before Christmas

by Suzanne Chamberlin Bowdey
Dec. 17, 2005

If you're wondering what tops Santa's list this year, try job security. Despite the "clause" in his contract, St. Nick could fall victim to Corporate America's newest Ebenezer: holiday pluralism. And what's worse, with Christ on the outs and "X-Mas" on thin ice, charities may suffer their worse yuletide to date. This year, the war for goodwill has enlisted new troops: the Salvation Army and Religious Right.
In the bulls-eye of this holiday controversy (which is as old as the season itself) is Target Corporation, one of the country's largest retailers. Religious activists are up in arms about the company's decision to ban the Salvation Army from soliciting on its premises. The charity was ordered to stop ringing its bells at collection kettles, citing, "an increasing number of inquiries from nonprofit organizations . . . to open its doors to other groups that wish to solicit."
Some act surprised that the stores are more concerned about their bottom dollar than underprivileged families. But let's face it -- corporate America will dump competition faster than you can say "figgy pudding." To them, there's no business like snow business. And according to reports, it's a booming one for the industry, which stands to make 20 percent of its revenue in November and December.
Believe it or not, one spokesperson justified the decision by saying that the noise of the bells "is a bit too nerve-racking for the people [working]." But if the sound was truly their motivating factor, then the solution is easy -- lose the chime and keep the change. Instead, it's just another day in the commercialization of Christmas -- with the retail pot is calling the Army kettle black.
But before you put Target on your naughty list, it should be noted that the retail giant has tried to make amends for giving the Salvation Army the silent treatment, though precious little has been written about their new partnership. And with good reason). According to their recent announcement, "From Nov. 25, 2005 through Jan. 25, 2006, visitors to Target's Web site can view and purchase clothing, household items, personal products, and Gift Cards to be donated to [hurricane victims] across the country. The Salvation Army will distribute the purchases. . . ."
In other words, Target's latest "charitable" effort still stands to make a sizeable profit -- and on the less fortunate to boot. The company, in all of its benevolence, didn't offer to donate the merchandise but would be more than willing to take the money of those who would. Obviously the "ring" of the bells is more disturbing than the "cha-ching" they've come to expect from consumers.
As for the claim that stores like Target, Sears, Home Depot, Costco and K-Mart are bah-humbugging "Merry Christmas" in favor of "Happy Holidays," most chains insist that they have no policy against the greeting. Still, chalk it up to another victory for Generation Generic, whose list of politically correct victories is as compelling as their paranoia. Rather than accommodate all religions, these so-called pluralists have marginalized America's largest. Businesses everywhere are sending the message that when it comes to tolerance, 86 percent of the population need not apply.
Proponents of the move suggest that the store's decision has less to do with the bottom line and more to do with drawing it against church and state. But does protecting the feelings of a few customers at the expense of the majority really serve anyone's best interests? All we want for Christmas is consistency.
Even the Jewish community -- a demographic that retailers insist this measure "protects" -- has chimed in to say that this annual debate does a disservice to 2,000 years of Christian tradition. Don Feder, president of the Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, said that major chains ought to be more accommodating to a season that accounts for one-fifth of their earnings. Yet away goes the manger, gone are the carols, and all those wise men? Well, after this debacle, we're still looking.
To be fair, Christmas had been hijacked by plastic reindeer and eggnog lattes long before this latest transgression. For decades people have mistakenly believed that the gospel of pluralism will make up for a lack of true belief, that inclusivity will balance the moral ledger.
That's the snag in chasing parity. Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan -- they're all legitimate holidays, but that legitimacy is derived from the history and tradition of their faith -- not by a group of hypersensitive CEOs. Who says the grinches on Wall Street have cornered the market on holiday meaning? Maybe the real problem is that we are looking for validity in all the wrong places. Christmas isn't theirs to take -- it's ours to lose.
And perhaps the biggest rival for faith isn't Target after all, but the reason we go there in the first place. Is there too much rum in the wassail or have we forgotten that it's our fascination with the latest electronic gadget and newest fad toy that the stores are catering to? The gifts on their shelves compete more with Christmas than religious diversity ever will.
So when it comes to defining the season, ask not for whom the bell tolls . . . it tolls for thee.

Suzanne Bowdey is the projects director at the American Conservative Union.

What Planet Are The Eco-cultists On?

By Mark Steyn

Is it just me or are the global warming headlines starting to overheat a little? The Independent on Sunday gave its report on the Montreal climate conference the somewhat overwrought title: "What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (And do you care, Mr Blair?)" Nothing in the rather dull article underneath justified the hectoring hysteria.

And, to be honest, I've no real idea what it means. Is the IoS asking whether Mr Blair cares what planet Mr Bush is on? Well, no doubt he'd be startled to hear the President's moving to Pluto, but I expect he'd take it in his stride.

As to what planet Mr Bush is on, he's not on Pluto but on planet Goofy, a strange lost world where it's perfectly normal for apparently sane people to walk around protesting about global warming in sub-zero temperatures. Or, as the Canadian Press reported: "Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."

Unfortunately, no one had supplied an updated weather forecast to the fellow who writes the protesters' chants. So, to the accompaniment of the obligatory pseudo-ethnic drummers, the shivering eco-warriors sang: "It's hot in here! There's too much carbon in the atmosphere!" Is this the first sign of the "New Ice Age" the media warned us about last week?

The story originated in Nature, the hitherto distinguished scientific periodical whose environmental coverage increasingly resembles that celebrated Sunday Sport scoop about the London double-decker bus found frozen in the deepest ice of the Antarctic. That, of course, is absurd - in reality, as the trained scientists at Nature would be the first to point out, the Clapham omnibus would be lucky to make it as far as Tulse Hill before being embedded in a glacier.

The eco-doom-mongers were speculating on possible changes in thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic - or, as the Daily Mail put it: "Is Britain on the brink of a New Ice Age?" Europe could get so chilly that shivering Muslim rioters might burn the entire Peugeot fleet on the first night. Which would be good for the environment, presumably. After that, they'd be reduced to huddling round the nearest fire-breathing imam for warmth.

But the point is, as Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace puts it: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with." Got that? If it's hot, that's a sign of global warming, and, if it's cold, that's a sign of global warming.

And if it's just kind of average - say, 48F and partially cloudy, as it will be in Llandudno today - that's a sign that global warming is accelerating out of control and you need to flee immediately because time is running out ! "Time is running out to deal with climate change," says Mr Guilbeault. "Ten years ago, we thought we had a lot of time, five years ago we thought we had a lot of time, but now science is telling us that we don't have a lot of time."

Really? Ten years ago, we had a lot of time? That's not the way I recall it: "Time is running out for the climate" - Chris Rose of Greenpeace, 1997; "Time running out for action on global warming Greenpeace claims" - Irish Times, 1994; "Time is running out" - scientist Henry Kendall, speaking on behalf of Greenpeace, 1992. Admirably, Mr Guilbeault's commitment to the environment extends to recycling last decade's scare-mongering press releases.

"Stop worrying about your money, take care of our planet," advised one of the protesters' placards. Au contraire, take care of your money and the planet will follow. For anywhere other than Antarctica and a few sparsely inhabited islands, the first condition for a healthy environment is a strong economy. In the past third of a century, the American economy has swollen by 150 per cent, automobile traffic has increased by 143 per cent, and energy consumption has grown

45 per cent. During this same period, air pollutants have declined by 29 per cent, toxic emissions by 48.5 per cent, sulphur dioxide levels by 65.3 per cent, and airborne lead by 97.3 per cent. Despite signing on to Kyoto, European greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 2001, whereas America's emissions have fallen by nearly one per cent, despite the Toxic Texan's best efforts to destroy the planet.

Had America and Australia ratified Kyoto, and had the Europeans complied with it instead of just pretending to, by 2050 the treaty would have reduced global warming by 0.07C - a figure that would be statistically undectectable within annual climate variation. In return for this meaningless gesture, American GDP in 2010 would be lower by $97 billion to $397 billion - and those are the US Energy Information Administration's somewhat optimistic models.

I've mentioned before the environmentalists' ceaseless fretting for the prospect of every species but their own. By the end of this century, the demographically doomed French, Italians and Spaniards will be so shrivelled in number they may have too few environmentalists to man their local Greenpeace office. Is that part of the plan? To create a habitable environment with no humans left to inhabit it? If so, destroying the global economy for 0.07C is a swell idea.

But even the poseurs of the European chancelleries are having second thoughts. Which is why, in their efforts to flog some life back into the dead Kyoto horse, the eco-cultists have to come up with ever scarier horrors, such as that "New Ice Age". Meanwhile, the Bush Administration's Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate brings together the key economic colossi of this new century - America, China and India - plus Australia, Japan and South Korea, in a relationship that acknowledges, unlike Kyoto, the speed of Chinese and Indian economic growth, provides for the sharing of cleaner energy technology and recognises that the best friend of the planet's natural resources is the natural resourcefulness of a dynamic economy.

It's a practical and results-oriented approach, which is why the eco-cultists will never be marching through globally warmed, snow-choked streets on its behalf. It lacks the requisite component of civilisational self-loathing.

Wake up and smell the CO2, guys. Sayonara, Kyoto. Hello, coalition of the emitting.