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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1987)
Friday, November 13, 1987/The Battalion/Page 7 l( orum questions evangelists’ right to solicit funds Photo by Robert W. Rizzo Steve Carter waits to be called on to speak against evangelists soliciting funds on television. By Elisa Hutchins Staff Writer Viewers tuned into the Christian Broadcast Network Thursday night may have heard impassioned pleas from evangelists to send in money, but some students at the Texas A&M Debate Forum would rather do away with media evangelists’ rights to so licit funds on the air. Two forum members each gave a seven-minute speech for or against the issue of “tele-evangelism.” Jay Huckabay, a senior agricultu ral economics major, argued for the resolution (pro). Karen Hurwitz, a senior math ma jor, argued against the proposal (con). After members presented their sides, the forum was open to re sponse from students and a vote was taken to decide the most convincing argument. Should evangelists like the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggert be prohibited from mass-media fundraising? You decide who had the most convincing argument. PRO: Huckabay said that if evangelists showed more concern for the min istry’s followers and spent less time on television begging for money, the members would, in turn, provide the needed resources. Charitable institutions, such as Praise The Lord ministries (PTL), don’t have to make their financial statements public by law. And, Huckabay said, this gives rise to sus picion as to how the millions of dol lars in donations are being spent. He also noted that in 1986, 16.3 million viewers watched the former Assembly of God ministry leader and 1988 presidential candidate Pat Robertson. Viewers sent in more than $233 million dollars. Huckabay said the slick-talking leader decides how much and for what the funds will be used and no one knows if they actually are used for that purpose. Students for the resolution said leaders instill fear in members by telling them that they (the leaders) will die if people don’t send money. Some also said the lavish lives ministry leaders have led, docu mented by Jim Bakker’s $450 suits and three homes, are proof that money is not being used properly. CON: Hurwitz said, “Jerry Falwell has requested outside auditors to inspect church finances and make them public. But that is not the issue.” She said any charitable organiza tion has the right to solicit funds and if religious groups are singled out, their rights are being abridged be cause current law allows such solici tation. “If television fundraising is pro hibited, ministries will still continue to get large sums of money, but se crecy on fund dispursement will worsen,” she said. Students who agreed with Hur witz said if the resolution passed, a snowball effect would put fund raising organizations like the Muscu lar Dystrophy Association and the United Way in danger of being next on the list. They said the evangelists are exer cising their rights to freedom of reli gion in a democratic society and while some students might not agree with their methods, they are within the law. The resolution prohibiting evan gelists from soliciting funds gener ated 220 votes of support and 136 votes against. Geology professor warns A&M audience about ‘greenhouse effect’ By Janet Goode Staff Writer -mai p^ e “greenhouse effect” and its ■rning trend on the Earth’s cli- ■te may be sudden rather than Bdual, raising the Earth’s tempera- claijire nearly 4 degrees centigrate, a ■wherry geology professor at Co- anupibia University said Thursday ■ht in Rudder Tower. ANjJhe greenhouse effect is caused (•^■atmospheric changes due to the lease of carbon dioxide from our ■ustrialized society, Dr. Wallace loecker told nearly 200 Texas BcM students and faculty. tThe reason CO2 is changing the mate is because it is a one-way fil- I, he said. It can absorb some of r infrared light that is leaving the grth, but it can’t intercept some of jincoming sunlight, he said. Therefore, it is like a greenhouse it is like putting a blanket around : earth, causing the earth’s tem- rature to rise,” he said. Broecker said that raising the th’s temperature in this manner i ,i6e |ouldn’t disrupt life on the planet if ■ne gradually. But, he said, all the ects that would go along with a )icnK drastic change is what people are concerned about. Carbon dioxide is a primary nutri ent in plants, Broecker said. “In a century we will have doubled the CO2 content of the at mosphere,” he said. “If you double the CO2 content in the air it is cer tainly going to change the plant qual- ity.” Broecker said most of what scien tists can do to predict what will hap pen has been done since the models oeing used don’t have the capability to adapt for dynamic Earth changes. “There are still many major un certainties,” he said. “We don’t know, for example, how much the ice caps will melt or what this would do to the wildlife. “Therefore, it has been docu mented that if you gradully change the greenhouse capacity of the atmo sphere, the change in the climate on earth will follow gradually. “But the Earth's climate doesn’t operate as simple as the models dic tate.” Broecker takes his evidence that the change in climate will be sudden from studying the Earth’s systems and their past responses. He points to the way the Earth responded to the glacial transition by a sudden, to tal reorganization, when the glaciers melted. Broecker also said this is re lated to the atmospheric change. “One can link the salt flow through the ocean and the water va- E or flow through the atmosphere to ow our earth’s system can respond in ways we would never nave dreamed of,” he said. “I think this is God’s message to us that if we monkey around with cli mate, funny things can happen,” he said. “That doesn’t prove that the Earth is going to reorganize when we add CO2,” ne said, “but it says to us, ‘Hey, you better be careful. There are things going on that you don’t understand.’ ” Broecker said the message for the future is that people are tampering with a system — the Earth’s climate — by oversimplifying the problem. If the system reorganized and did it over only a few decades, the people of the world wouldn’t be preparea. “We (Americans) need to develop strategies to respond rapidly to things that are going to happen as a result of this (carbon dioxide warm ing),” he said. “If we had a couple of centuries, we could cope with it,” he said, and jokingly adaed, “We could move the beaches and ski resorts around.” Animals couldn’t be moved around because they would be trapped, he said, threatening the food supply. “I think these problems are as complicated as developing a star wars strategy or dealing witn curing cancer,” he said. “The point is we don’t know just what’s going to happen, he said. “Should we really just stick our heads in the sand and hope that ev erything is going to be alright? 4 “I think it behooves us (America) as the wealthiest nation in the world to put a little more effort into this problem and try and exert some leadership. If not, we will be con ducting tne greatest geophysical ex periment of all time. It will be one of which we will have no choice but to let it continue. 7 back and calculate what’s happen ing. But for people who have to live on this planet, it will mean a lot of trouble. Photo by Jay Janner Dr. Wallace Broecker speaks about the “greenhouse effect. % MSC Political Forum ‘Decision '88 cries presents Tfi/ce ‘Dufcafyis Meet "The Duke" Democratic Presidential Candidate in a nationally televised address Friday, November 13 3:15 pm Rudder Theatre Free Admission This program is presented for educational purposes, and does not constitute an endorsement for any speaker. — -- - — - - — . — — —^ — —