Christians Are Not Pessimistic About The Future!

---by Craig Dumont

I am getting very tired of hearing apocalyptic scenarios of food and energy shortages set forth as though they are fact. In fact, I'm downright annoyed by the Christian community buying into this sinful mentality "hook, line and sinker," as my father would say. The Christian should know that there is no overpopulation problem. There is no shortage of food or energy or anything else for that matter. To parrot the media line is to speak out of faith and ignorance, not faith and facts!

To combat the anti-Christian worldview that accepts the fact that the world is running out of resources and time (Tim LeHay and Jack Van Impe please take note) I have put together several short pieces that will give you the real picture of where we are; a kind of "state of the world's resources" if you will.

USA has 4X's the total oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. God is Good . . . but our political leaders are something else.

From Yesterday's "Investor's Business Daily":

[We continue to hear the mantra] "We can't drill our way out of our energy crisis."

Actually, we can. As we've noted before, conservative estimates put the total amount of recoverable oil in conventional deposits at about 39 billion barrels. Offshore, we have another 89 billion barrels or so. In ANWR, 10 billion barrels.

In oil shale deposits, we have more than 1 trillion barrels of oil. In perspective, that's about four times the total reserves of Saudi Arabia. And if estimates of shale reserves as high as 2 trillion barrels prove true, we'll have about a 300-year supply of oil just from shale. This compares with current estimated total U.S. oil reserves of about 21 billion barrels.

ANWR alone is expected to yield 1 million barrels of oil a day. Now make the highly conservative assumption that we're able to get a like amount of oil from the other sources - for a total increase of 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil a day.

That's an enormous rise in oil output. Today, we produce just under 8 million barrels of oil a day from domestic sources. So we could, in effect, boost our energy output 50%, and thus our energy independence, by bringing an additional 4 million barrels of oil to thirsty world markets each and every day.

By the way, those calculations don't include the trillions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas found in the same locations, which, along with nuclear power, could be used to fire our power plants.

From the "Thou shalt not bear false witness" file: Politicians mislead and try to stir up hostility towards oil companies and their management. But who are the real price-gougers?

From 1981 to 2006, the oil industry made $867 billion in profits. Yes, that's a lot. But over that same time, they paid total taxes of $1.2 trillion, Energy Department data show. And that doesn't include taxes of $519 billion paid to foreign countries.

So oil companies (owned by hundreds-of-thousands of Americans in the form of investments in stock) made billions (or about 8% return on investment, compared to 15% for computer companies) BUT THE GOVERNMENT HAULED IN ALMOST 2 TRILLION FROM OIL TAXES when you count both direct and indirect taxes. And with foreign gov't taxes included it jumps to almost 2.5 TRILLION Dollars in taxes!

How about a "windfall tax rebate" to every American. That would dwarf the current stimulus checks just mailed out!

China's Population Now Being Fed Higher Protein Diets Through The Nation's Own Beef Production! Brazilian Beef Benefits The Entire World!

From the livestock report, "The Stackyard News":

China looks set to overtake the European Union as the world's third largest beef producer according to figures produced by Meat and Livestock Commission's Economics department. Their latest publication, International Meat Market Review points out little of the extra Chinese production will hit the international market as it will be swallowed up by rising domestic demand. . . Argentina and Brazil also increased production . . . EU beef exports were significantly lower year-on-year as Brazilian supplies provided increased competition on the key Russian market.

China is dramatically raising their beef production, greatly reducing EU imports. Argentina and Brazil are exporting beef around the world, improving diets and lowering prices. Can you say "The future looks brighter for the world's hungry and malnurished!"

Even the United Nations now admits the world is getting better fed (Gee, I guess that "population bomb" scare really missed the mark!).

In a recent Food & Agriculture Report they note:

[I]ndividual food consumption rates (measured as Kcal/person/day) will continue to rise in developing countries. Citing the latest FAO assessment of undernourishment, the study reports that the percent of the world's undernourished has been dropping since the late 1960s. Projections of food consumption will continue to rise in developing countries over the next 30 years, moving from an average of 2626 kcal in the 1990s to nearly 3000 kcal in 2015. The average daily consumption rate in developing countries is expected to exceed 3000 kcal by 2030. The report also predicts that over the next 30 years more and more people will be living in countries with medium to high levels of individual food consumption. Associated with this rising level of consumption will be a diversification in the diet and subsequent improved nutrition.

On food production the United Nations report states that they are:

...relatively optimistic that, at the world level, there will be sufficient agricultural production to meet increases in demand over the next thirty years. By 2030, for example, crop production in developing countries is projected to be 70 percent higher than in the 1990s. . . The report indicates that while the predictions in the rate of annual growth in global crop production is expected to decrease over the next 30 years relative to those advances seen in the previous 30, it will still exceed the demand for increased agricultural production. With lower population growth and the gradual attainment of medium to high food consumption levels in most countries, crop productivity will continue to outpace the overall growth rate in the demand for food.