And they think Evangelicals are whacked out!?

Remember when Pat Robertson was running for president and the secular world denounced his candidacy because he was (gasp!) an evangelical Christian? What was the big fear? It was the supposition that any evangelical in the office of the presidency would have access to our Nukes and wouldn't hesitate to use them in order to facilitate the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Of course, Pat Robertson never even suggested such policy and no doubt denied it vociferously. Still, that disturbing supposition was indelibly ingrained into those who decry Christians in leadership positions.

With that in mind, what are some of the hopes and dreams of some esteemed Environmental Scientists on the future of our planet?

In a piece linked on DRUDGE, in the The Citizen Scientist, Professor Forrest Mims III, who is a member of the Texas Academy and chairs its Environmental Science Section, describes a speech he heard given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka. Here's a portion of Mims' description of the speech:

Saving the Earth with Ebola

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures . Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.

He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.

Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, 'We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.'

With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him, Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been applauding some of his statements now sat silent.

After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he reflected on the oil situation.

'And the fossil fuels are running out,' he said, 'so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.' So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating a third of the world's population.

How soon must the mass dying begin if Earth is to be saved? Apparently fairly soon, for Pianka suggested he might be around when the killer disease goes to work. He was born in 1939, and his lengthy obituary appears on his web site .

When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn't merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause.

Let's see now, Dr. Pianka actually thinks Ebola is the best solution to saving the revered Mother Earth and he actually looks forward to that time? Has any Christian ever eagarly anticipated anything this self-destructive or diabolical (aside from some whacked out despot who therefore wouldn't be a Christian)?

Pianka also "spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their one-child policy."

Professor Mims speculates about Pianka and others like him:

Let me now remove my reporter's hat for a moment and tell you what I think. We live in dangerous times. The national security of many countries is at risk. Science has become tainted by highly publicized cases of misconduct and fraud.

Must now we worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria? I believe that airborne Ebola is unlikely to threaten the world outside of Central Africa. But scientists have regenerated the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people. There is concern that small pox might someday return. And what other terrible plagues are waiting out there in the natural world to cross the species barrier and to which scientists will one day have access?

Meanwhile, I still can't get out of my mind the pleasant spring day in Texas when a few hundred scientists of the Texas Academy of Science gave a standing ovation for a speaker who they heard advocate for the slow and torturous death of over five billion human beings.

Dangerous times, indeed!