Is Global Warming More Than Hot Air?

13 Responses to “Is Global Warming More Than Hot Air?”

1. C Brown

   February 15th, 2008 at 10:42 am

   I also was disappointed with the Humphreys article. He’s a scientist, but he spent the whole article lecturing on theology. Why did we need an agroecologist to review a book by Francis Schaeffer?

2. jolivetti

   February 15th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

   We need an agroecologist to review Francis Schaeffer because Schaeffer means something to his world beyond mere ideas. I’m all for pastors reviewing theology, but Micah is theologically well-read and passionate about his work. He’s able to take a theologian’s theology and make it as practical as soil. Something theologians aren’t often able to do.

   Micah and I don’t agree about everything in terms of environmental issues, but I certainly think it’s appropriate for him to show us Schaeffer through his lens and show us ecology through Schaeffer’s lens. He does it much better than I would.

   (due diligence: Micah’s a good friend of mine. But I hope my reply would be the same if I didn’t know him.)

3. W.H. Chellis

   February 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

   I certainly do not want to be down on Micah’s review. It was certainly solid as far as it went. My concern is that the Witness included a fairly rigorous article about why we do not need to worry about global warming and a fairly lightweight response. I was hoping for Micah’s scientific analysis of the problem in light of the theological framework that he laid out. It ended way to soon.

   Micah is a man of science and what we are interested in knowing is whether he believes the science behind global warming is credible. Send him over here in order to set us straight.

4. C Brown

   February 15th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

   Jared,
   I thought you might come to the defense here! It’s about time we had another RP pastor make comments on this blog.
   My disappointment was more with the editor of the Witness than it was with Humphreys. Humphreys has every right to review and to apply Schaeffer’s theology. But non-scientists are also capable of doing that. When the Witness features the subject of global warming, and when they have an agroecologist writing an article, I think most readers would expect that article to contain some science. That’s what I was looking for, but I didn’t find it. Hence, I was disappointed.
   Ironically, the theologian’s article (by Beisner) contained more references to scientific data than did the scientist’s article. That’s not bad, it’s just bizarre.

5. jolivetti

   February 16th, 2008 at 7:03 am

   Bill & Charles,

   Thanks for the clarification. I’ll poke Micah to maybe send something to post on DRC so far as his take on the science goes.

   Last night at our college meeting, one of our elders spoke on this issue, really pressing us to see the Marxist politics behind the most ardent of the global warming advocates, and how such politics ultimately will harm the poor most.

6. W.H. Chellis

   February 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am

   At the risk of sounding like a northeastern liberal, I am happy to play the “devil’s advocate” on the environmental issue.

   One of your Elders suggested that global warming advocates are driven by Marxist politics. Well, there is truth to the old joke- why are environmentalists like watermelons? A. They are both green on the outside and pink in the middle. Still, I am uneasy with the way folks toss around the label “marxist” as a devil word. Label the opposition as Marxist and you have won the battle. Although I am sure that there are plenty of Marxists who are banging the environmental drum, should this make us callous to the problem?

   It is interesting to me that Caleb Stegall was once called a Marxist by Jonah Goldbergfrom National Review. I suspect that more than one “conservative” weaned on Rush Limbaugh has suggested that Wendell Berry and the old Agrarian are/were “marxists.” The label is the thing.

   Still, I cannot help but remember that Russell Kirk taught us that nothing was more conservative than conservation. Free markets are not a panacea. Sometimes markets destroy what we hold most dear. Conservatives and Christians have spent the last 100 years seeing global markets destroy our traditional communities (including the RPCNA) should we be suspicious of the claim that they might destroy our environment?

7. M.Kwiatkowski

   February 17th, 2008 at 1:03 am

   The Great Global Warming Swindle (pt. 1 of 8- http://youtube.com/watch?v=fo4R7yXz-90&feature=related), a BBC program (programme?), presented the case for global climate relating primarily to fluctuations in the sun, not from anything done by man, and suggests how established scientists profit from people believing otherwise. It interviews scientists who do not subscribe to the UN report, yet were named as supporting it, and addresses causal claims made in Gore’s film.

8. RPWitness

   February 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am

   I, too, am sometimes disappointed by the editor of the Witness.

   And I, too, am interested further in what Mr. Humphreys has to say on the details. It would be valuable information, for certain.

   However, he would not want readers to focus on the details and miss his main point. His objective, at least as I saw it, was to answer the question, “If I had just one message to give you to help you address global warming and other issues like it, and had just one opportunity to make a lifelong impact on nonscientific readers, what would I say in a two-page article?”

   He sticks to one central message, but that is exactly what he set out to do. And the fact that he is a scientist with some expertise in fields related to global warming lends credibility to his focus. That is different from a theologian reviewing Schaeffer and saying the same things.

   Nearly 30 years ago I read a long interview with Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist who some have said has the greatest mind in the world. He was having a frank discussion with the interviewer about the origin of the universe, particularly the Big Bang Theory. Near the end of the article, the interviewer pressed Hawking to go beyond the science and theory he had been expounding and to tell what he thought happened prior to the Big Bang. “In the beginning, God,” he replied.

   Hawking has also been quoted as saying he “believes in a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.” I sure don’t want to get into a debate about Hawking’s spiritual beliefs (or his science), but I bring up the example to make a point. I had heard many theologians say “In the beginning, God,” and it certainly had significance, knowing they were reflecting a basic fact about the God of our universe. But to hear Stephen Hawking say it also had a tremendous impact. It was a rare glimpse of a great mind who is revered by atheistic scientists saying something utterly theological, and acknowledging that there were limits to human understanding.

   When Mr. Humphreys, as a Christian agroecologist, tell us to keep our eyes on the big picture, that says something. Some of you are too young to remember a similar fearmongering; but when I was growing up, scientists were warning that we were headed toward an ice age. I was taught that in school.

   If someone has but one message to give, it seems to me that Mr. Humphreys’ message is the right one. Christian, be a steward of the earth. Don’t do it because you’re afraid, because others are pressuring you, because it’s the issue du jour, or because you don’t yet understand the science and so have to accept what others are saying. Be a good steward of the earth as a grateful servant of God, and do not fear. God’s promises remain.

   –Drew

9. W.H. Chellis

   February 18th, 2008 at 11:07 am

   Drew,

   Thanks for the comment. I am in fundamental agreement. If I were in a place to make suggestions, I would have suggested leading with Humphrey’s big picture piece and followed with two articles, one making the case for global warming and one against. The way it stood created the impression of unbalance.

   Of course, I also remember the global cooling argument from when I was a small child. I am no scientist. I may be giving the impressing that I am a global warming advocate. The truth is that I am also a sceptic.

   Still, I want to be a realist and not an ideologue. IF global warming is being significantly influenced by our behavior, the Christian and conservative response would be to take it seriously. I sometimes wonder how Christians so fully adopt the premises of libertarian economics to the detriment of their own interests. Is global warming a case in point? I do not know but I do want to keep an open mind and not simply pass it off as some kind of warmed over Marxist attack on America.

   I fear that we look at environmentalists the way the left looks at pro-lifers. We have a prejudiced view toward the whole based on the actions of the kooky fringe. Not a healthy impression or conducive to edifying dialogue.

   BTW I hope you do not take my comments as criticism of your role as editor or criticism of the good work of Dr. Humphrey. To the contrary, I wish every issue of the Witness was as engaging. Keep up the good work.

10. Christian

    February 18th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    I too was disappointed in the Witness coverage of the issue of global warming. It seems that American conservative Christians have to agree with conservative economic forces or else… I would have appreciated more science from the soil scientist. Beisner’s piece only shows that the atmosphere is so complex that current models cannot adequately and conclusively predict. However, look at pictures of the polar region: the NW passage is now open in the summer for the first time in recorded history. Fish migrations of warm species have moved further north into the Pacific than ever before. Glaciers are melting not only in Greenland, but in the Alps, the Himalayas and Africa. The permafrost in the arctic is softening, and if you ask the native peoples of northern Canada, they will tell you that they are dealing with conditions their ancestors never had to deal with. So, science may have a hard time measuring and hypothesizing an effective model, but maybe as Christians we can follow the advice of Job: Job 12:7-8 ” But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; 8 Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you.
    And, of course, the hand of the Lord has done this. So if this is wake up call for Westerners, and Americans in particular, to get rid of their huge vehicles, burn less coal, cut back on garbage etc. what is Biblically wrong with this? We live in a culture of undeniable excess. Feed lots pollute waters and soil so people can eat cheap huge steaks. The cost of food is going up all over the world to people can have more fuel for their huge cars.

    It is time to go back to Calvin and read his analysis of the use of the present life (Institutes, III.10). I quote only one of his principles below:

    Let it be the aim of all who have any unfeigned desire for piety to learn, after the example of the Apostle, “both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need,” (Phil. 4:12). Scripture, moreover, has a third rule for modifying the use of earthly blessings. We have already adverted to it when considering the offices of charity. For it declares that they have all been given us by the kindness of God, and appointed for our use under the condition of being regarded as trusts, of which we must one day give account. We must, therefore, administer them as if we constantly heard the words sounding in our ears, “Give an account of your stewardship.” At the same time, let us remember by whom the account is to be taken—viz. by him who, while he so highly commends abstinence, sobriety, frugality, and moderation, abominates luxury, pride, ostentation, and vanity; who approves of no administration but that which is combined with charity, who with his own lips has already condemned all those pleasures which withdraw the heart from chastity and purity, or darken the intellect.

11. Baus

    February 19th, 2008 at 8:21 am

    You can sift through all the pros and cons HERE at Climate Debate Daily:
    http://climatedebatedaily.com/

    Here’s some old news:
    NPR Debate
    FOS Catastrophe Cancelled
    Convenient Fiction 1, & 2

    GWPolitics

    There’s so much more.

12. C Brown

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    Thank you, Christian, for your very helpful comments. (Maybe you should be writing regularly for the Witness!)

13. W.H. Chellis

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    Or for the blog. Christian, I would love to have you as a DRC regular!

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