Global warming will force faith organizations to significantly increase spending on humanitarian efforts–including refugee resettlement, feeding the hungry and disaster relief–according to a new study by the National Council of Churches.
More financial resources and volunteer services will be needed due to global climate change, which is expected to increase the lack of food, shelter and water available, especially among the poor, the study said.
“Individuals or communities living in poverty in developing countries tend to rely on their surroundings more for their day-to-day needs,” said Tyler Edgar, associate director of the NCC’s Climate and Energy Campaign. “These people are more likely to go down to a local river or stream to bring water for their family. With climate change, those systems are extremely vulnerable.”
Nothing objectionable here: More opportunities for Christian service, what’s wrong with that?
Global warming is a natural phenomena, and as such, we humans will have to deal with it in one way or another. So, why not take the moral and spiritual high ground and show Christ’s love for the world, and (hopefully) win others to Him through our actions?
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Oh, I did find this:
[blockquote]The current trend indicates that over the next 30 years, more than half of all hurricanes will be category four or five. Faith communities will need to provide not only financial resources, but temporary shelters, meals, home and church repair volunteers, counseling, and medical aid. [/blockquote]
That is simply not true.
Of the last ten years of hurricane prediction, when scientists have been (mis-) stating the sharpest rise in Global Warming temperatures, only a few hurricanes have been in the cat 4 or 5 in development, and even fewer in that category when making landfall. The last three hurricane seasons have been spectacular duds, with predictors and forcasters continually revising [i]down[/i] the direness of their forecasts.
New studies show that warming trends in the Gulf and Caribbean actually tend to REDUCE the severity of storms!
Just for the record, according to the [url=http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/0805Katrina/]National Weather Service[/url], Katrina is FOURTH on the list of strongest storms to hit the US coast:
· The Labor Day Hurricane, Florida Keys, September 2, 1935, Category 5, 892 mb
· Hurricane Camille, Mississippi, August 17, 1969, Category 5, 909 mb
· Hurricane Andrew, Southeast Florida, August 24, 1992, Category 5, 922 mb, record holder for wind gusts of over 200 mph, estimated sustained wind speed of 190 mph at landfall.
Katrina: landfall wind speeds at Grand Isle, Louisiana were approximately 140 mph (category 4, NOT 5) with a central pressure of 920mb – the 3rd lowest on record for a landfalling Atlantic storm in the US.
That doesn’t minimize the devestation, but let’s keep honesty here!
I have been praying that Al Gore is right. I am, however, losing faith as it is the middle of April and we have had snow on the ground since November. I have never seen such a year.
An inconvenient truth.
Don
correction:
The wind speed record holder is Camille, not Andrew, correct info in bold below:
· The Labor Day Hurricane, Florida Keys, September 2, 1935, Category 5, 892 mb
· Hurricane Camille, Mississippi, August 17, 1969, Category 5, 909 mb [b]record holder for wind gusts of over 200 mph, estimated sustained wind speed of 190 mph at landfall. [/b]
· Hurricane Andrew, Southeast Florida, August 24, 1992, Category 5, 922 mb,
Latest article from Australia indicates that meteorologist, actually, have been recording lower than average temperatures the last two years, and the ice forming in the arctic regions (north and south) is growing back rapidly and more thick than usual, and that global warming is a farce. Meterologists around the world apparently know this but are trying to be politically correct, until the evidence is so overwhelming that all scientists (and politicians) will have to acknowledge it. While certainly there is no reason to waste or corrupt natural resources, there is also no reason to change whole socio-economic communities on the basis of quack science and the politics of Al Gore and his Hollywood minions.
The more strident Al Gore and his people become about global warming being as real as the earth is round (he likened doubters to the flat earth society recently), the more skeptical I am. They seem to have foreclosed on any and all possibility that they may be worng – that is very dangerous.
Regardless of global warming though, opportunities for mission will continue to abound. I attribute that to the lack of democracy (primarily in sub Saharan Africa) more than anything else…..
Remember when 30 yrs. ago scientists were sounding dire warnings about a new ice age? Sounds like we exercised our godlike secular humanist powers and averted that catastrophe! 😉
I seem to remember a science fiction story where greenhouse gasses were actually masking a period of “global cooling,” stopping the comming ice age. When mankind became afraid of “global warming,” they reduced their greenhouse gas emission and an ice age began.
Science fiction or science theory?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I find it entertaining that a (nominally) religious organization is not only issuing dire warnings about a meteoroligical event that may or may not be occurring and may or may not be man-made, but also on the supposed economic effects of said phenomenon.
The NCC has been trying to foist a collectivist economy on us for decades now. This is just the latest excuse.
Phil,
I think the story you are thinking of is [url=http://www.baen.com/library/067172052X/067172052X.htm]”Fallen Angels”[/url] by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn. (Click link to read the entire book online).
[blockquote]One minute the two space Hab astronauts were scoop-diving the atmosphere, the next they’d been shot down over the North Dakota Glacier and were the object of a massive manhunt by the United States government.
That government, dedicated to saving the environment from the evils of technology, had been voted into power because everybody knew that the Green House Effect had to be controlled, whatever the cost. But who would have thought that the cost of ending pollution would include not only total government control of day-to-day life, but the onset of a new Ice Age?
Stranded in the anti-technological heartland of America, paralyzed by Earth’s gravity, the “Angels” had no way back to the Space Habs, the last bastions of high technology and intellectual freedom on or over the Earth. But help was on its way, help from the most unlikely sources ….
Join # 1 national bestsellers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn in a world where civilization is on the ropes, and the environmentalists have created their own worst nightmare
[/blockquote]
P.S., that link takes you to the bottom of the first chapter. Don’t know why it does that, but I couldn’t check it before I submitted it.
Try [url=http://www.baen.com/library/067172052X/067172052X.htm]this one[/url]. It should take you to the TOP of the chapter. 🙂
By the way, as much as I like Michael Crichton, this is a much better story than “State of Fear”, even though you can’t beat Crichton’s end notes for research!
Jim Elliott <><
World temperatures peaked in 1998. The past ten years have been cooler, and 2008 will be notably cooler, apparently because of La Nina.
Nope, didn’t work, oh well, just scroll up. 😉
Or click on the link on the page that says ‘contents.
As a flat-earther (according to AlGore) I think the current research shows that we will be fighting a millenial cold wave. That being said, I agree with LibraryJim that we should help the less fortunate among us as following Christ’s teaching.
And, to make it an even colder day in h_LL, I agree with the PB: Jesus died to take away our sins; not our minds. It just so happens that I refuse to surrender my mind to the mindlessness of the current GW debate.
McCain seems sold on Global Warming.
Several times a week, I go jogging along the same beach and shoreline. Have been doing so for 26 years. Despite all the global warming hysteria about us being inundated by rising sea levels, the shoreline has been right where it’s been for the past 26 years.
I read recently that Lloyd’s of London recommended lower insurance rates for the coming year, due to the absence of major catastrophic events.
Beg your pardon, John316, but it seems that Mr. McCain is more the champion of general environmental prudency than global warming – a worthy goal for all of us who are called to stewards of this earth.
Just becuase Gore is dead wrong doesn’t mean WE have to be careless.
Libraryjim, thank-you as usual for your on-target reasearch and comments in this area.
The proper term is “climate change” and not “global warming.” global warming is an “average” but we don’t psychologically experience “averages” that well. Jim says that global warming is “natural” phenomena, and in the sense that human beings are a part of nature, he’s perfectly correct. But we are still responsible. We change our environment. Library Jim might not believe it, but – fortunately – the scientific consensus is pretty universal.
I’m sure Library Jim has some expertise in the area, but it seems that lots of people are waking up to the fact that humans are responsible for it. Some people will never be convinced. They’ll argue that it always happens. But this isn’t an argument. It just ignores evidence that we also change the environment.
But the greater point is one of game theory. If we decided to do something now, and we’re wrong about our influence, it might cost money, but we will have done something. But if we don’t do anything, we’re screwed. Doing something results in either 1) expense and things stay the same, or we save the world. Doing nothing means we get lucky, or complete catastrophe.
Avoiding catastrophe seems worthy. But given that we are all sinners, I doubt we can restrict our consumptive tendencies without governmental interference, or religious fervor.
Actually, JW, more and more studies and scientists are coming out every week proclaiming just the opposite: that humans have nothing to do with Global Warming (“Climate Change” was only adopted after the worst winter in recent memory called the phrase “Global Warming” into question) , that it IS a natural cycle, and is actually in a cooling phase now.
At the IPCC confrence in Bali, 100 scientists were denied the right to speak an opposing view (in fact dissenters were prohibited from attending at all) so they issued a public letter of opposition. Soon after 400 more scientists signed a similar statement.
One report stated:
[blockquote] IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants. “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any affect whatsoever on the climate. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails. It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics.â€[/blockquote]
The founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, recently said global warming is “the greatest scam in history” and is calling for a fraud investigation on Al Gore’s selling of carbon offsets as a way to stimulate honest debate instead of Gore’s propaganda machine that attempts to silence debate by intimidation and threat.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming]Wikipedia[/url] which I would never quote in an academic paper, nevertheless has an impressive list of scientists who oppose the ‘consensus’ view, and their credentials, as well as why they oppose the mainstream view. It’s worth looking over.
Oh, and by the way, my ‘expertise’ is simply that I kept an open mind on this issue since I heard about the ‘coming ice age’ in High School (late 1970’s) and sought out the dissenting opinions to look at their results and found them more compelling than the ‘human cause’ or anthropogenic theory. As a Reference Librarian, I can do no less than examine all sides.
Actually, that’s all any of us can do, as well: examine all sides of a scientific argument, and see which is more compelling and which offers the best evidence. So far, for me, the inconsistencies in the Anthro. side leave it far behind. As does the constant attempts to silence debate and dissent.
True science welcomes debate and dissent, and is in fact based on falsification: Here is my theory, disprove it if you can!
That element has been missing in the GW debate up until now, and in fact, Al Gore (who has no scientific credentials of his own), continues to yell into the camera “the debate is over, there is no debate” or write “those in the scientific community who disagree with us need to shut up and let us get on with the business of saving the earth”. A clear contradiction — which is it? That there is no debate, or that scientists who disagree exist but need to shut up?
This line should read as:
So far, for me, the inconsistencies in the Anthro. side leave it far behind. As does [b]their[/b] constant attempts to silence debate and dissent.
MJD_NV,
Ever since his 2004 “Senate Global Warming Hearings”, I’ve believed that McCain was pretty much in Gore’s camp on Global Warming/Climate Change, and he’s much more likely to be president and act on his belief.
Here is part of an Oct. [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/us/politics/17climate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin]article[/url]
on presidential candidate McCain and Global Warming:
[blockquote] Mr. McCain, who acknowledges that he knew little about the climate problem when he sought his party’s presidential nomination eight years ago, held a Senate hearing on climate change in 2001 and quickly became a convert to the notion that carbon emissions were warming the planet.
In recent years, he has fought to introduce measures for caps on dangerous emissions. Last week, Mr. McCain promised to demand sharply higher fuel standards from the automobile industry.
He also promised to have the United States join the international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, although only on the condition that India and China join, too. Many experts say that condition is unlikely to be met at the moment.
“I don’t know what it is going to be like the rest of my life on this planet,†Mr. McCain said at the Global Warming and Energy Solutions Conference on Saturday in Manchester, N.H. “But I can tell you this. I have had enough experience and enough knowledge to believe that unless we reverse what is happening on this planet, my dear friends, we are going to hand our children a planet that is badly damaged.â€[/blockquote]
Another strike against McCain! Politics, politics! John Wilkins, since you are so sure climate change is man caused, perhaps you would like to explain the medieval warm period, when temperatures were warmer than even the fear mongers predicted for this warming period (that is, the warming period that isn’t happening anymore). What caused that one then?
What a bunch of bunk. There are just as many “experts” who purport no change in long term global weather. The only people who “believe” in global warming are those who wish to control others and need a way to “excuse” it. Another way to tax, and control. Scare people into doing the right thing.
It is so much of a lie that it’s becoming embarassing.
bl
ann r – I will explain it. There wasn’t any. Perhaps a couple wineries, but that doesn’t explain why the temperature is rising faster now than it ever has.
Bob – actually, the number is like 2500 to just a few. But the few have a lot of money behind them. Now here are just a handful who believe that we are responsible
* Royal Society of Canada
* Chinese Academy of Sciences
* Academié des Sciences (France)
* Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
* Indian National Science Academy
* Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
* Science Council of Japan
* Royal Society (United Kingdom)
* National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
* Indonesian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Here are a few others:
* NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
* State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
* Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
* Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)
* American Geophysical Union (AGU)
* American Institute of Physics (AIP)
* National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
* American Meteorological Society (AMS)
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
Library Jim disagrees with these organizations. As do a few scientists. Are they all liars? yes – there has been change; but in geological time. Not in the speed we are experiencing it.
a few? Try 17,000 at last count by various organizations.
The little ice age (check out the Discovery Channel, it re-runs a special called “Little Ice Age Big Chill” from time to time) came on with more suddeness than is being claimed for this change, contributing to the death of, for example, Norse colonists in Greenland, and the legendary ‘year without a summer’.
No, John, there is NOTHING extraordinary about the ‘speed’ of this change compared to other climate changes, and in fact, there is every indication that this latest round has either slowed or stopped completly, perhaps reversed with a cooling trend. Even the prestigious Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that:
[blockquote] has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century. [/blockquote]
It’s all hype and propaganda.
As to consensus, what do you say about all those reports at the turn of the 19th to 20th century that predicted a new ice age? Or the consensus that called for a new ice age in the 1970’s?
Outcome
Oct. 7, 1912
New York Times
Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age
June 28, 1923
Los Angeles Times
The possibility of another Ice Age already having started… is admitted by men of first rank in the scientific world, men specially qualified to speak.
Aug. 9, 1923
Chicago Tribune
Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada
December 1932
The Atlantic
We must be just teetering on an ice age which some relatively mild geologic action would be sufficient to start going.
Feb. 20, 1969
New York Times from Col. Bernt Bachen
The Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two.
February 1974
Fortune magazine from Reid Bryson
There is very important climatic change going on right now… It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth – like a billion people starving.
March 1, 1975
Science News
The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed, and we are unlikely to quickly regain the “very extraordinary period of warmth” that preceded it.
March 1, 1975
Science News
The temperature has already fallen back some 0.6 degrees, and shows no sign of reversal.
July-August 1975
International Wildlife
But the sense of the discoveries is that there is no reason why the ice age should not start in earnest in our lifetimes.
1992
Al Gore, “Earth in the Balance”
About 10 million residents of Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level, due to global warming, in the next few decades. *
Feb. 2, 2006
The Daily Telegraph
“Billions will die,” says Lovelock, who tells us that he is not normally a gloomy type. Human civilisation will be reduced to a “broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords”, and the plague-ridden remainder of the species will flee the cracked and broken earth to the Arctic, the last temperate spot, where a few breeding couples will survive.
[url=http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice_resultschart.asp]Business and Media Institute[/url]
Of course I could add Ted Turner who said on Charlie Rose last week that the temperature is going to rise 8 degrees in the next 30 – 40 years, resulting in no crops being able to be grown and humans resorting to canibalism.
So what’s behind it all?
[blockquote] “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
–Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
recent quote from the Calgary Herald[/blockquote]
So, it’s all about one group trying to get their political agenda advanced through suspect science presented as a ‘done deal’ when it is not even close.
JE.
*Al Gore has admitted that he exaggerates the effects of Global warming to get attention called to the issue. In other words, he doesn’t mind lying if the end cause is ‘just’ in his eyes. Of course he was trained by the Clintons, so what would one expect?
[blockquote]”Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.”
–Al Gore, [i]Grist Magazine[/i], May 9, 2006[/blockquote]
Of course, this approach is not without its critics:
[blockquote]Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are.”
Petr Chylek, Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August 22, 2001[/blockquote]
Just a clarification, if you couldn’t tell, I meant to put a note between the 1975 report and the 1992 quote, something along the lines of:
[i]Now we switch to the present where the danger is not in an ice age, but global warming (according to the same type of ‘experts’):[/i]
Sorry for the omission.
JE