In early Genesis, God has an important task: To create the world. He could have done so with a breath, a wink, a smile, a thought or nothing at all. Instead, he creates the world in a way that will simultaneously introduce one of the most important ideas in the Torah. 

God creates the world with nine, "And God saids" – teaching us how important words are. If God creates his world with words and we are created in his image – then we, too, create our world with words. 

This theme continues in the plague sequence in Exodus. The text often refers to the "word of God" and the "word of Moses" – when it could have just as easily said "God" and "Moses." The Torah does this to impress upon us that the world is moved by words – and to provide a contrast to Pharaoh, who constantly went back on his word during that sequence.

The Torah later teaches us that there is nothing theoretical or abstract about this. In Numbers 30, Moses gives the people a message from God. "If a man will take a vow to Hashem or swear an oath to establish a prohibition upon himself, he shall not desecrate his word; according to whatever comes from his mouth he will do." Whether making a commitment to act (a vow) or attesting to the veracity of something (an oath), God demands that a man must do whatever he says. 

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This seriousness of words is reflected in the Hebrew language itself. The Hebrew word for word and thing are the same (davar) – reflecting the belief that words, though free and easy to use, are as real and powerful as any physical object. 

Fast-forward to the contemporary era. In his 2023 State of the Union Address, President Biden said that the "climate crisis" is "an existential threat." This is as strong and as urgent a set of words as a person could use – as an "existential threat," of course, is a threat to our very existence.  

The urgent boldness of this pronouncement was not unique. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Secretary of State John Kerry, Vice Presidents Al Gore and Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and countless others have all said the same thing, using the same words. 

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But none of them believed what they said.  

How do we know? Each of us knows how we would respond to a genuinely "existential threat." If someone believes that he will die unless he takes medication, he will take the drug. If someone believes that his child is in danger, he will drop everything to rush to her. If someone believes that a hurricane is coming, he will board up his home and get out of town. 

Everyone reacting to what he truly believes to be an existential threat will do something significant personally – and not just talk about it, or tell others what they should do. 

The aforementioned leaders who speak about climate change as an "existential threat" seemingly never do anything to act accordingly. They consume enormous amounts of energy in their homes, fly private and eat meat.   

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The older generation of people who proclaim that climate change is an "existential threat" might not take their words seriously.  

Fast-forward to the generation of their children. Kathleen Clark, the House Democratic whip, proclaims that "there is no question that the climate crisis is the existential threat of our time." In 2022, she told NBC of her child who wakes up with nightmares about climate change. There is nothing unusual about her child. 

In 2021, Lancet Planetary Health published the results of a study of 10,000 people between the ages of 16-25 from around the world. The study found that 59% of young people are "very or extremely" worried about the climate, and that 45% of young people feel so bad about climate change that it affects their "daily life and functioning." 

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And it’s not only their "daily life." A widely reported 2017 study by Environmental Research Letters measured the increase in one’s carbon footprint caused by various activities. An individual can cut his carbon footprint by .25 metric tons by washing clothes in warm water, .82 tons by becoming a vegetarian, 2.4 tons by never going in a car – and 58.6 tons by not having an additional child.  

A report from Morgan Stanley concludes: "Having a child is 7-times worse for the climate in CO2 emissions annually than the next 10 most discussed mitigants that individuals can do." 

The logic is clear: one who takes words seriously – one who believes that climate change is an "existential threat" – would refrain from having children. And that is exactly what young people are deciding. 

The Lancet study showed that 36% of young people are "hesitant to have children" because of climate change. This data is reflected in the Morgan Stanley report: "the movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline." 

So – the Torah is absolutely right about words. One can use them nonseriously, but they will eventually reveal their deeply significant essence – to such an extent that one who proclaims climate to be an "existential crisis" and goes about business as usual is likely to have made himself the parent of an "extremely" anxious child who does not give him grandchildren.

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FIRST ON FOX: A controversial judicial advocacy organization funded by left-wing nonprofits continues to work with judges and experts involved in climate change litigation despite publicly downplaying the extent of those connections.

"CJP doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case," the Environmental Law Institute Climate Judiciary Project President Jordan Diamond wrote in a recent letter to The Wall Street Journal in response to criticism of the project. 

The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Law Institute (ELI) created the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) in 2018, establishing a first-of-its-kind resource to provide "reliable, up-to-date information" about climate change litigation, according to the group. The project's reach has extended to various state and federal courts, including powerful appellate courts, and comes as various cities and states pursue high-profile litigation against the oil industry.

A Fox News Digital review shows that several CJP expert lawyers and judges have close ties to the curriculum and are deeply involved in climate litigation.

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Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer contributed to the CJP curriculum and presented "Evidence of Change: Judging Climate Litigation" with CJP’s Sandra Nichols Thiam at the 2022 Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference July 20, 2022. 

Oppenheimer has a long history of filing climate-related amicus briefs from 2019-2022 in litigation across several states.

Robin Kundis Craig, a professor at the University of Utah's Law School, wrote a module for CJP in 2022 and has also filed several amicus briefs showing she is active in court cases. 

One example occurred in 2023, when Craig is listed on an order granting legal scholars' request to file amicus, which was signed by Justice Mark Recktenwald, who, Fox News Digital previously reported, quietly disclosed last year that he presented for an April course in collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute Climate Judiciary Project. 

Recktenwald co-presented at a December 2022 National Judicial College webinar sponsored by CJP, "Hurricanes in a Changing Climate and Related Litigation." In 2023, he co-presented with Professor Robert DeConto at a National Judicial College seminar, "Rising Seas and Litigation: What Judges Need to Know about Warming-Driven Sea-Level Rise."

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In October 2023, Recktenwald’s Hawaii Supreme Court denied an appeal from oil companies to toss a Honolulu climate misinformation suit.

Craig also filed an amicus in Hawaii state court in July 2022, where an order was signed by Judge Jeffrey Crabtree allowing the brief to be filed. Crabtree is a member of the National Judicial College Curriculum Development Committee, which creates curricula for "Environmental Law Essential for the Judiciary."

"Don’t underestimate the importance of the role of state court judges in environmental law," the curriculum's website states.

Ann Carlson, who joined the Biden administration in 2021, served on ELI's board of directors for years while also "providing pro bono consulting" for Sher Edling, an eco law firm representing a number of jurisdictions, on litigation against oil companies, financial disclosures showed. Sher Edling counsel Michael Burger has also participated in multiple ELI events, and former Sher Edling lawyer Meredith Wilensky was previously an ELI Public Interest Law Fellow.

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Burger is the executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and an ELI presenter who has filed amicus briefs in support of plaintiffs in climate cases across the United States. 

UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment hosted a talk in October 2017 with Sher Edling’s Vic Sher, "Suing Over Climate Change Damages: The First Wave of Climate Lawsuits." Ann Carlson was the moderator for that discussion.

John Dernbach, listed as an expert on CJP’s website, filed an amicus brief in 2019 as part of a brief of legal scholars in support of plaintiffs in City of Oakland v BP. 

"Judges attending Climate Judiciary Project events are advised that they are walking into a left-wing lobbying shop," American Energy Institute President Jason Isaac told Fox News Digital. "Under the guise of ‘judicial education,’ CJP uses activist academics to give a pro-plaintiff sneak peek at climate change lawsuits. This kind of politicking underlines that the climate change lawsuits themselves are a left-wing attack on our quality of life.

"The Supreme Court will have an opportunity early next year to hear a case asking whether blue states and far-left mayors like Brandon Johnson can sue energy providers for climate change. Let us hope the court takes the case and ends Green New Deal lawfare."

Fox News Digital previously reported that since it was founded more than five years ago, the project has crafted 13 curriculum modules and hosted 42 events, and more than 1,700 judges have participated in its activities. And multiple judges serve as advisers at CJP, potentially having an impact on its curriculum and modules.

"So-called ‘climate change lawsuits,' lawsuits claiming that private companies should be monetarily liable for damage to public infrastructure allegedly caused by climate change, have exploded in the past five years," GOP Sen. Ted Cruz wrote in a letter to Environmental Law Institute earlier this year.

"In tandem with this unprecedented litigation, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) launched a ‘first-of-its-kind effort’ to provide judges with ‘education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.’ It appears that ELI’s goal in providing this ‘education,’ however, may be to influence judges to side with plaintiffs in climate change cases."

The letter went on to label Carlson as "one of the program’s architects" and requested "information to allow the Committee to evaluate the efforts of both Ms. Carlson and ELI to influence the federal judiciary in its adjudication of climate litigation."

Cruz alleged that "ELI intends to accomplish via the courts what it cannot get enacted into law: a radical environmental agenda."

"To help judges reach those ‘appropriate’ decisions, the Project developed the ‘Climate Science and Law for Judges Curriculum’ (the Curriculum). While ELI claims the Project is ‘neutral' and ‘objective,’ the Curriculum reads like a playbook for judges to find in favor of plaintiffs in artificial climate change cases against traditional energy companies: it includes courses that ‘show how climate science is built on long-established scientific disciplines' and 'explore the human-caused component of [global] warming,’ such as the ‘causal connections between emissions’ and ‘changes in the climate.’"

An American Energy Institute report earlier this year alleges CJP "hides its partnership with the plaintiffs because they know these ties create judicial ethics problems."

AEI says Sandra Nichols Thiam, an ELI vice president and director of judicial education, acknowledged as much in a 2023 press statement, saying, "If we even appeared biased or if there was a whiff of bias, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing."

"Taken together, it appears CJP made the thinnest possible disclosures to create the appearance of rectitude," AEI states. "But their admissions confirm that CJP exists to facilitate informal, ex parte contacts between judges and climate activists under the guise of judicial education. And secrecy remains essential to their operation, whose goal, as Thiam has said, is to develop ‘a body of law that supports climate action.'" 

AEI, a group self-described as "dedicated to promoting policies that ensure America’s energy security and economic prosperity," says CJP’s work is "an attack on the rule of law."

"In America, the powerful aren’t allowed to coax and manipulate judges before their cases are heard," the report states.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, an ELI spokesperson said, "CJP doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case. Our courses provide judges with access to evidence-based information about climate science and trends in the law.

"Of course, experts in the field are welcome to provide their expertise to CJP programs while separately and independently providing that same expertise in another setting that is unrelated to the CJP program. It is routine and encouraged for judges to participate in continuing education that exposes them to expertise in a wide variety of disciplines."

Fox News Digital’s Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report