Even for Americans — who are constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start — even for us, the world looks a little terminal right now.
It’s not just the economy: We’ve gone through swoons before. It’s that gas at $4 a gallon means we’re running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It’s that when we try to turn corn into gas, it helps send the price of a loaf of bread shooting upward and helps ignite food riots on three continents. It’s that everything is so tied together. It’s that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the “limits to growth” suddenly seem … how best to put it, right.
All of a sudden it isn’t morning in America, it’s dusk on planet Earth.
What an ill-informed, non-scientific, and, for want of better adjectives, stupid editorial.
If one is to be consistently naturalistic and scientific about it, all life is ultimately pointless and futile. But then again, so is my annoyance at the finger wagging of the inconsistently naturalistic and scientific.
In short, it’s baloney!
The fuel market is starting to look like the real estate bubble. I don’t think I would want to have a large position in oil futures when the bubble pops, say, around 8:00 AM on November 3rd.
Kendall,
Thanks for posting this. As my screenname suggests, I am wary of people bearing insidious ‘gifts’ (e.g. the ‘gift’ of revised Christianity); also as it sugggests, I am concerned that we too often ignore the prophets because we are focused on our own short-term gain and we ignore what ought to be clear to us. McKibben is one of our great environmental writers, and a faithful Christian whose concern for the environment is tied to his love for Christ and for the poor Christ commanded us to care for. His voice is, in some ways, like that of a prophet.
Here’s something worth thinking about: each year we go through petroleum that took tens of thousands of years to make. Simply put, it will not last forever, and it won’t likely last for long. Our use of limited resources should not be myopic, but should consider that (a) we will someday run out of some resources, and so we should not be caught by surprise by that; (b) when we use up resources, we are deciding that future generations will simply not have access to those resources, even if they might have better uses for them or greater needs; and (c) when the consequences of our actions eliminate species, or habitat for humans, plants, and animals, we are similarly limiting our options and the options of those who come after us.
God told our forebears to tend the garden and make it a place where life could flourish; Jesus told our spiritual forebears to care for the poor, to defend the defenseless, and to love one another. Careful stewardship of the world God made and called “very good” surely is an important part of how we obey those commands.
Again, Kendall, thanks.
Laocoon
Just for funsies, go back, way back, way, way back to 1974 and the impending doom of the planet scenario then considered…
http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf
And it was in TIME so it MUST BE TRUE………
I ceased my donations to Middlebury nearly ten years ago (I’m Midd ’71) because they enthusiastically and repeatedly support such piffle. The last straw was their effusive praise of Eve Ensler’s (Midd ’82) ‘Vagina Monologues,’ described by the leftist lesbian professor, Camille Paglia, as “ragingly anti-male.”
Middlebury used to be a good school. It’s departments of science and languages still are. As for the rest … well, McKibben’s piece is depressingly typical.
#5 spot on.
Some other respondents in this thread may one day rue their naive optimism. Problem is, there’s a propaganda war going on, and most people simply aren’t remotely qualified to make up their minds which of the arguments are scientific and which ones are merely pseudo-scientific drivel. So, unsurprisingly, most choose to believe simply what is congenial to them.
Very postmodern, that. It’s interesting how that can coexists with an orthodox Christianity and, presumably, a recognition of absolute truth. Not just in individuals, but entire cultures. Deeply self-contradictory, if course, but that’s human nature post-Fall.
Bart,
Have you considered supporting the Midd Christian Fellowship? Those students work extra hard to be salt and light on campus, and do a good job at it.
Laocoon
Bill McKibben does his homework. His view, of course, is that churches can save the world. He’s a writer – and a popularizer of science and economics. His book, Deep Economy, is readable and excellent.
People can call it “pfiffle” but there’s no evidence. Why is 350 wrong? They call his science bad, but offer no evidence to counter it.
Bart, Cynedd, GDB – perhaps you might inform the less educated of us why NASA’s chief climatologist, James Hansen, would write: in GDB’s words, something “ill-informed, non-scientific.” Mckibben is simply reporting that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.” Most of you seem confident enough that the scientists at NASA are idiots. NASA. Unscientific.
I think I’m going to trust NASA. I’m going with the rocket scientists.
Well said, John Wilkins.
Well, for starters an awful lot of geologists, astronomers, and solar physicists are highly skeptical of the entire global warming scenario.
For example, recent high resolution ice core studies at the Russian Vostok base in Antarctica have determined that temperature increases lead CO2 rise by about 800 years. A lagging phenomenon cannot cause a leading one.
For example, Earth radiates as a blackbody at 300 K (about 80F). At that temperature CO2’s overwhelming IR absorption spectra at 13.5 to 15.5 can account for only 8% of radiation. Conversely, over 90% of Earth’s IR radiation is unaffected by CO2.
For example, CO2’s IR absorptive capacity saturates out at about 200 ppm. Beyond that point it can absorb no more energy. Consequently a putative decrease from 385 to 350 is irrelevant. That’s why 350 is wrong: it doesn’t matter.
For example, in Roman times Britain produced abundant wine, something it hasn’t been able to do for the last 1000 years … back to when Greenland was, well, green.
For example, 450 million years ago Earth’s CO2 levels were better than ten times those of today, yet it was the coolest period in the last billion years.
For example, 50 million years ago climate near the North Pole resembled that of Memphis, complete with cypress trees.
For example, leading Canadian solar physicists are deeply concerned that current low solar activity — and ten years of gradual cooling — may presage a return to the Maunder Minimum of the late 17th Century … the “mini Ice Age.”
For example, observed atmospheric temperatures above 10 km demonstrate a trend opposite that predicted by all extant global warming models.
There’s plenty more, from hundreds of very reputable scientists, but I’ll leave it at this for now: climatologists in general are remarkably ignorant of [i]paleo[/i]-climate, a near-fatal flaw in their perspective.
450 million years and 50 million years there weren’t any human beings. You say an “awful lot” but… who are they? why haven’t we heard from them?