People who fail to act over global warming are “as guilty” as Josef Fritzl – denying our children a future, a senior Anglican bishop has warned.
The Bishop of Stafford, the Rt Rev Gordon Mursell, said a refusal to face the truth about climate change was akin to locking up future generations and “throwing away the key”.
He insisted he was not accusing those who ignored the environment of being child abusers, but added that such shocking parallels were needed to make people aware of their responsibility.
Fritzl, 73, held his daughter Elisabeth captive for 24 years in a dungeon beneath the family home in Austria, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven children, one of whom died days after birth.
Nothing quite like using public slander to advance a debatable argurment. Asshat.
Since the weather shammons can’t explain why there has been no warming for the last decade there is considerable question about distant future predictions. Beware the next mini iceage.
Isn’t it amazing how some bishops who express no outrage over the violation of EXPLICIT moral prohibitions that are firmly embedded in the clear and consistent teaching of both Scripture and Tradition will ironically heap scorn and ridicule on anyone who opposes a highly debatable moral stand based purely on Reason, with no such consensus of Scripture and Tradition behind it? Since when did bishops become experts on climate change?
This is merely one more example in an innumerable list of signs of capitulation by Anglican leaders to the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, at least among the elite, opinion-forming groups driving our western culture. It’s one more sign of our cultural captivity.
And thus the need for a radical New Reformation in order to create a wholly different KIND of church, a confidently sectarian, Christ-against-culture, post-Christendom style Anglicanism.
When a “senior bishop” in the CoE issues a whopper of a blunder in a public statement like this, you have to either laugh or cry, or perhaps get mad enough to do something about it. When Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his promotion of the cause of battling global warming, that was bad enough. That was just stupid. But there is nothing sacred about the Noble Peace Prize.
What Bp. Gordon Mursell has said is actually much worse. It’s far worse to bring shame upon the Church of Jesus Christ than on some illustrious secular group that makes fools of themselves while awarding the prestigious Nobel prizes.
What we see here is the same rush to judgment that is apparent on the part of those who are SURE science has shown that people are “born gay.” Never mind that the scientific evidence just isn’t there; they know it’s true. “Everybody” does.
Now there’s actually far more evidence that global warming is real than that there is any genetic predispostion to same sex attractions. But the existence of global warming is one thing. Human culpability for it due to greenhouse gas emissions is a totally different matter. And our ability to make any significant difference on the pace of global warming, much less reverse it, also appears to be in serious doubt. There is lots of room for reasonable doubt on that whole matter.
But my point is that there are large numbers of people who are SURE Al Gore or Louis Crew are right. Not because there is convincing scientific evidence that compels agreement, but simply because that is what has become the “accepted” viewpoint in the social circles in which they move, or with which they choose to identify themselves.
I sure wish bishops like this one in Stafford, or ++Rowan Williams, or +Tom Wright, or many lesser figures, would stick to their areas of expertise and responsibility. When a bishop makes a patently ridiculous statement like this one, it is profoundly embarrassing and only hurts the cause of Christ and the Kingdom of God. Let them take up their proper responsibility for fixing the problems of the Church, before trying to fix the global environment.
That is NOT to say bishops shouldn’t get involved in politics. But they should do so based on the testimony of Scripture and Tradition, not on the basis of some politically correct opinion in elite social circles that has nothing to do with the Christian Tradition in any clear way.
David Handy+
Climate change. That’s cool. That means we can be blamed either way: hotter or cooler. What bilge.
Guess he forgot to take his nuance and tolerance pills that morning!
Understand the implications of what he is also saying: child sexual abuse is no worse than being less than responsible in one’s environmental behavior. He may be thinking he is defining environmental sensitivities up, but he is thereby also defining down the most heinous of crimes. And since even those who say they are all green and environmentally aware really aren’t, he is in essence giving license to those sickos who already have trouble seeing the difference between their aberrant, dangerous behavior and the peccadillos of others.
I have a couple of doctorates and thus know enough to say that I don’t know whether or not: global warming is a true trend, if so is it caused by fossil fuels, if so is it reversible (if it isn’t…let’s party!), etc.
This poor bishop is taking a lot of heat (baddah boom!) for his remark. I see it as merely a silly analogy that can be made in the course of a conversation. Definitely not deep enough for drawing the conclusions that RomeAnglican is making.
What I do agree with is that we need to look past the next election cycle, past our generation. Dean Munday has a great video on the irresponsibility of the present health care finances – paying for a just a portion of the cost and charging the rest to our children and grandchildren. I wouldn’t mind at all if all the global warming hotheads won the day and fossil fuel consumption was reduced by subsidies of energy sources that don’t benefit the islamofascists.
Of course, Father Handy is correct. Clergy need to be tending to the flock first and foremost.
[blockquote]When a bishop makes a patently ridiculous statement like this one, it is profoundly embarrassing and only hurts the cause of Christ and the Kingdom of God. [/blockquote]
The Church of England recently got their butts kicked in the abortion and hybrid embryo debates. Rowan Williams shares the blame because he has compromised the moral authority of the church with the sharia and other remarks.
In England, especially, there is more openness to the idea that Global Warming — or is it Climate Change? I can never keep track of the polit-speak on the issue — is not a settle issue as to cause. the BBC actually ran a special (it’s on the internet somewhere) showing the science that leans towards a natural cycle cause rather than human cause.
In spite of this, however, we here in the US are still faced with the clamp on these scientific studies, and one example of this is the comparing those who question GORbal warming (i.e., human cause) with those who deny the holocaust and now it seems with child abusers.
Nothing can ever go forward as long as one side insists on vilifing the other side. We need OPEN DEBATE on this issue and settle it in the arena of true scientific challenge: hypothesis, testing hypothesis, conclusion. So far all we have is hypothesis, shouts of DON’T QUESTION MY HYPOTHESIS!, conclusion of constricting legislation. That may be politics, but it’s not science.
Jim Elliott
Gorbal warming denier
It cannot be denied that the climate of our planet is changing, and has changed in the past up and down. We know this because the dinosaurs are gone, and there are not glaciers in Ohio. The melting ice in many of the news articles is revealing former habitations (ie: man once lived where there is now ice) or trees (ie: it was warm enough for long enough that trees could prosper there), etc.
Unfortunately, there is NO clear evidence that man has actually caused this to happen, and the climate alarmists are (in my opinion) living out the Chicken Little story. The good Bishop seems to be preaching that ‘the sky is falling’, and has fallen for the ‘big lie’ (if you shout it long enough and loud enough it becomes the truth).
Nice to see that lower than average intellectual comparisons aren’t limited to this side of the pond.
Pardon, but obviously the cream rises to the top in England and New Hampshire….http://http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/12963/#comments
I NEVER disagree with robroy, but here I must. THis was not a mere clumsy aside: it was a deliberate effort to draw a moral equivalency. The “clarifying” statements issued after the furore that followed this ridiculous comparison make that plain. And logically it is the case that when one makes such similes, one risks devaluing the thing that is used as the point of comparison. IF inaction about global warming is the equivalent of locking a child in an underground dungeon for years and raping her and impregnating her, then the converse is true as well. And that totally dehumanizes the victims in this case, and gives comfort to those who think it’s no big deal to do such a thing–and there are people out there who think that way. Whatever one thinks about global warming–its existence and cause–there is no defense for comparing one’s response to it with such a frightening, depraved act. Jews rightly object when the Holocaust is devalued so in similar comparisons. We should likewise take great offense when such comparisons are made. That an Anglican priest made that equivalency is disgusting.
I suppose I should not allow myself to weigh in but I feel I must. I am continually amazed at how people can say that Global Warming is bad science. The fact of the matter is, that, if any of the bloggers here took an engineering, scientific, or even math curriculum in college, they would surely have taken a couple of physics classes and, thus my puzzlement at these comments.
Now it is a provable fact that as carbon increases in concentrations in the atmosphere of any planetary body – all other things being held constant, that planetary body will increase in temperature. It Is also a provable fact that carbon concentrations have risen from where they were at the start of the industrial revolution (around 1760) at 280 ppmv to where they are now at nearly 385 ppmv, and that the rate of increase in concentrations is also increasing, adding now nearly 2 ppmv per year (in the 1990s the increase was just 1.5 ppmv per year). It is also a provable fact that most of this increase in carbon concentration is the direct result of man burning fossil fuels, where carbon has been stored (sequestered) for hundreds of millions of years, in just 250 years. Ergo, and I think I can say this scientifically, man has increased the temperature of the Earth – that is if we can actually detect that the Earth’s temperature has risen.
It would be laughable for any serious climatologist, scientist or even politician to now suggest that the Earth has actually cooled in the past 20 years. In fact, we are now witnessing massive melting of glaciers and the ice pack in the Arctic not to mention the ice caps on Greenland and Antartica. They are now talking about a new sea passage opening up in the Arctic (which has the people in Panama worried about their livelihoods). In fact, in the last 100 years the Earth’s temperature has risen almost 1.5 degrees F and most of that rise in the 45 years since the early 1960’s. The UNFCC’s last report, a scientific report, I might add, says that this rise was most likely caused by anthropogenic forces, ie man-made.
Now we know that the Earth’s Climate is cyclical and that previous trends in the Earth’s temperature are a result of the cyclical nature of our environment. If our impact as described above were small then I suppose you could ignore the human element. However, 1.5 degree increase in 100 years is not a small change, but a massive change in a relatively short time. The rapidness of this change will only accelerate as feedback mechanisms kick-in. These feedback mechanisms include the sudden absorption of the sun’s heat into the dark heat absorbing waters of the Arctic instead of the reflection of that heat back into space because of white reflective ice after the ice pack has melted. Another feedback mechanism is the sudden release of methane, a very potent Greenhouse gas, long sequestered in the frozen tundra of dead plants but released when the tundra melts, etc. What worries just about anybody seriously interested in climate, or the environment, or even the poor of the world least likely to adapt, is that these changes will be much more sudden than anything that occurred in the cyclical past resulting in widespread misery and death.
So I think it is out of line to tell the good Bishop of Stafford that he should stick to what he knows. I say he is and applying what he has been told by most of the scientists of the world, that if we are to take care of the poorest of the world about whom Jesus said, “Whatever you do onto the least of these brothers of mine, you did also onto me.†Then we had better get busy and reduce our penchant for burning up fossil fuels and releasing all that stored carbon into the atmosphere.
Finally, I want to dispel the idea that somehow heeding the warnings on global warming and advocating that we change our ways puts us in the reappraiser camp. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, my upbringing in the church and my reverence for scripture is why I feel we are to be judged harshly at our Father’s throne for inaction – for we have been warned.
Remember the man who sat on the roof of his house in the flood praying to God to be saved. A man floated by on a door frame and offered to help the man down off his roof, but the man replied; “Thank you, but I have prayed to my Lord and he will rescue me.†The water rose some more and then a motor boat came along and threw the man a life ring to grab onto to swim to the boat, but the man replied; “Thank you, but I have prayed to my Lord and he will rescue me.†The water rose some more and then a helicopter came and lowered a rope ladder to the man, but the man replied; “Thank you, but I have prayed to my Lord and he will rescue me.†The water rose some more and the man drowned. When he arrived in heaven he asked; “Lord, I prayed to you to rescue me from the rising flood waters but I still drowned. “ and the Lord responded; “My child, I heard your prayers and sent to you a man, a boat and even a helicopter, but you did nothing.â€
The good Bishop is reminding us that we have been warned, maybe we ought to stop labeling him as a reappraiser and do some reappraising of our own inaction. I know I need to.
AldenJr [#13]: Kudos for a thoughtful and (on T19 or Stand Firm) courageous post. I particularly appreciate your desire “to dispel the idea that somehow heeding the warnings on global warming and advocating that we change our ways puts us in the reappraiser camp.”
Get ready for the predictable reaction.
Two things:
1) The Bishop embarrasses himself with this crass, clumsy and insensitive analogy. A brutal attempt to induce guilt rather than put a point accross with clarity. Truly moronic.
2) It highlights a deeper malais. The C of E has largely lost faith. High days and holy days give way to faitrade sunday and ecological issues. Clear teaching on Christ is given less priority than environmentalism. The environment may or may not be in trouble. Regardless it is for environmentalists and politiians not Bishops. There are too many lost souls to worry about first…
Honestly its as pathetic as it is sad. Find your backbone House of Bishops and put energy into pulling the church together and evengelising in the 21st Century. This smacks of re-arranging deck chairs whilst the ship goes down…….
Now it is a provable fact that as carbon increases in concentrations in the atmosphere of any planetary body – all other things being held constant, that planetary body will increase in temperature.
This is NOT a provable fact. Warming PRECEEDS the rise of CO2. Oceans are pretty important in this regard. Warm water holds onto CO2 less than colder water. You can test this with bottles of setlzer. The real question then, if CO2 is not the Cuase of warming, but the consequence, is, “What is causing the warming?”.
My theory is that it has a little bit to do with a large flaming gas ball in the sky. The sun has cycles of sunspot activity. This would also explain why the earth hasn’t warmed since 1998. It’s not like we’ve stopped pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere since then.
It should be an axiom of moral law that no subject that requires experts to know the truth of it (unless those experts are Apostles) can be the basis for moral imperatives.
VaAnglican, I am NOT defending the this guy. Rather, I think that people are give too much credit for deep thinking on his part. He is as deep as Al Gore which is to say very superficial.
But I am saying that if the Al Gore types win the day, and we implement policies to reduce our “carbon footprint” then, most likely, it would not make one whit’s difference with respect to the climate, but it might send less money to the Wahabists who brought us 9/11 and who buy religious converts in Kenya and Uganda.
Chris –
You said;
My theory is that it has a little bit to do with a large flaming gas ball in the sky. The sun has cycles of sunspot activity
Your theory that the warming is a result of a big flaming gas ball in the sky has been pretty much refuted already by a study in 2005 that shows, in charts on pgs 1295 and 1296, what the cyclical nature of solar activity has been on warming in comparison with the anthropogenic forces. Anthropogenic forces are overwhelming the climate. It’s a few years old now, but it is the best other review of recent science by the leading experts:
“Detecting and Attributing External Influences on the Climate System: A Review of Recent Advances†[It’s actually by “The International ad hoc Detection and Attribution Group.â€] http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~nathan/pdf/idag.pdf
Warm water holds onto CO2 less than colder water
I am glad that you agree with me that the ocean is warming and that it holds onto more CO2 than cold water, but I am not sure how that helps advance your argument against the position that carbon concentrations in the atmosphere is driving up the Earth’s climate. The signature of warming in the ocean is unmistakable as this recent paper points out. (Please look at the charts on pgs 4 & 5.
“Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World’s Oceans.†http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/1112418/DC1/1
One of the reasons that the Earth has not heated as rapidly in the past few years is that there has been a cooling trend in the Antarctic region due to the closing of the ozone hole;
“Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change†http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/antarcticfactsheet
“Hence, the present cooling of Antarctica is consistent with the rest of the Earth’s surface warming in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrationsâ€
The conclusion of that study (above) continues to support the physical relationship that increasing carbon concentrations increases a planetary body’s temperature (all other influences held constant).
You said;
This is NOT a provable fact. Warming PRECEEDS the rise of CO2,
Please provide me with specific scientific papers proving that warming causes CO2 concentrations to increase (make sure it identifies where the warming is coming from) because all the science papers I am seeing show the effect of global warming coming from the increased absorption of IR from the sun due to increased CO2 concentrations which are literally increasing the height of our atmosphere.
“Contribution of anthropogenic and natural forcing to recent tropospheric height changes.“ http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/301/5632/479
Here’s NOAA: “The Detection and Attribution of Climate Change.“
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Perhaps in light of reactions such as #13 & 14 above, I should clarify what I was trying to say in my #3. I was NOT saying that supporters of taking strong measures to counteract global warming are somehow implict reappraisers or anything of that sort. Rather, my point was partly that I detect in both cases a similar RUSH to judgment and a premature jumping to conclusions with regard to the scientific evidence and what it does or doesn’t show.
Now perhaps that wasn’t a fair comparison. There are LOTS of scientists who have jumped on the global warming bandwagon, and they have plausible reasons for doing so. However, there is absolutely NO clear evidence, or even plausible evidence, that a homosexual orientation is genetically predetermined or immutable. That is a huge difference. I’m sorry if my #3 seemed to some readers to tar all advocates of stopping global warming with the same brush as those advocating the “gay is OK” nonsense.
But I stand by what I wrote about the absurdity of the bishop of Stafford getting all lathered up denouncing all opposition to the alarmist view of global warming as if it were a proven fact that we humans are responsible for that worrisome (if disputed) phenomenon and, more importantly, as if all skeptics that we can reverse that dangerous trend are somehow equivalent to the most vile of rapists and child abusers. That is literally ridiculous, and pathetically so.
But my point also partly was, and continues to be, that bishops who make such ludicrous public statements are not only making fools of themselves and bringing disrepute on the Church, but they show a very disturbing failure to understand and respect healthy boundaries. That is, they demonstrate a failure to recognize what is the Church’s business and what is not, and in particular what is the business of bishops and what is not.
At the risk of being annoying by repeating myself or belaboring the obvious, we Anglicans have been left to wonder what collective madness has seized many prominent bishops when some of them make public statements that are patently ridiculous when they venture into dubious territory outside their area of professional expertise and responsibility. And the irony is that the same bishops who presume to speak so forcefully about secular matters outside their direct realm of control and responsibility are nonetheless strangely reluctant to speak nearly so forcefully about the theological and moral crisis that is literally tearing the AC apart. It is that grievous misplaced sense of responsibility and misuse of their important position as leaders of the Church that I am decrying.
For example, I greatly admire +Tom Wright as a NT scholar, but I see no reason to think he knows anything more than the average educated person about international affairs. Now when he, or the whole Lambeth Conference (in 1998), goes on record as urging massive levels of forgiving international debts incurred by greedy, tyrannical governments in the developing world that’s one thing. For there is no doubt about the basic facts in this case, and there is a clear biblical warrant for addressing issues of debt and poverty in general terms. But the application of general moral principles to the specifics of actual cases of foreign debt remains much more dubious an exercise in episcopal responsibilities. And it’s quite another thing altogether for +Wright to wax eloquent on other controversial political and social matters, as he often does, that are far less clearly related to biblical principles and where the facts or the application of those principles are much more disputable.
And as for ++Rowan Williams, who would want to defend his silly statements about the inevitability of respecting Sharia law to some degree in England? Or what Anglican among us is not ashamed because of his wild and irresponsible remarks about the U.S. and the U.K. as particularly egregious in their use of their military might in Iraq, as if we were in the same league with grossly oppresive military regimes like North Korea, Burma, or Sudan?
What I’m saying is that this sort of episcopal misbehavior shows a deplorable lack of judgment on the part of not one, but many Anglican bishops. Let them seek to set our own Anglican house in order before venturing so are out of their depth and responsibility in attempting to save the world.
Irenaeus, I respect you. I hope that sheds more light than heat.
David Handy+
Alden,
we could post just as long a list of scientists who disagree with the IPCC. In fact, many scientists who worked on the IPCC report have demanded that their names be REMOVED from the report, since they disagree with the conclusions of said report.
The fact (FACT) is — this is not a settled issue. The fact is that there has been and continues to be censorship on the issue which effectively allows only one side to be presented to the public.
In a scientific debate, all sides must be given equal priority. Otherwise what we have is politbureau-styled propaganda.
Jim Elliott
PS,
might I point one to the article [url=http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/unsoundscience3.pdf]Unsound Science by the IPCC[/url] by New Zealand professor Dr. Vincent Gray, a member of the International Climate Science Coalition and an IPCC reviewer, as well as his other work [url=http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=35]Spinning the Climate[/url]? Fascinating works, both.
One of his conclusions:
“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.”
Alden, here’s a list of names for you (31,072 to be exact). They all signed the following petition: http://www.petitionproject.org
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
My source, The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition—a non-government/UN influenced group. http://nzclimatescience.net
David [#21]: I agree about the importance of avoiding a misguided rush to judgment.
For purposes of discussion, let’s assume that in the big courtrooms of scientific opinion and elite opinion leaders, there’s a danger of enforced groupthink that disregards contrary evidence and squelches dissenting views.
My concern is that in the mini-courtroom of the orthodox Anglican blogosphere, there’s a parallel rush to judgment in the opposite direction: a reflexive, exceedingly dogmatic insistence that concerns about global warming are all balderdash. How can one be so sure? And how, given some of the most strident commenters’ expertise, can they be so sure?
One my my overarching themes here or in any Christian context is wariness about seeing Christianity yoked to any secular power or ideology—a point fully consistent with your meta-theme of Christ Against Culture. Christ has not annointed the United States, much less one U.S. political party or a few strands of faddish, selfish, present-centered U.S. political thinking, to be his representatives on earth.
We dishonor Christ (and ourselves) when we treat the gospel as simply the most important strand in a left-versus-right culture war in which the gospel conveniently validates a largely secular set of prejudices and passions.
PS: I in no way aimed my comment at your comment #3. You made legitimate points.
Irenaeus (#25),
Thanks for the clarification. And I share your valid concerns about knee-jerk conservative rejections of things like worries about global warming just because they are associated with figures on the left (like Al Gore etc). Actually, there are quite a few evangelicals who have made public statements showing profound concern over the global warming issue, including the president of my alma mater, Duane Litfin of Wheaton College. Perhaps more significantly, the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) has issued a controversial statement expressing such concern about our stewardship of the environment too.
Please allow me a light-hearted personal anecdote.
On Easter Sunday, I was at the large, thriving AMiA church in Wheaton, Church of the Resurrection (ASA 700+), and as a part of the sermon, a young couple gave their testimony of how they had come to saving faith in Christ in the last few years through the witness of people in that congregation. They had been completely lapsed Roman Catholics until they had children, and then they decided to find a church to help them raise their kids to have good values. They had friends who invited them to “Rez” and they got progressively more and more involved in the church. But one thing they shared in the course of that testimony just brought the house down with laughter, and that’s what I getting to here.
The wife in this young couple humorously related how one thing had kept them back from committing themselves fully to the church. They were deeply committed to protecting the environment; she even said they were “tree-huggers.” And unfortunately, they labored under the (false) impression that everyone at Rez was deeply suspicious of the whole global warming cause and critical of it. In her words, they had this imaginary checklist in their minds that they projected onto the parish in terms of expected beliefs of all its members:
Do you believe in the deity of Jesus Christ? OK, check.
Do you believe Christ is the only way to salvation? OK, check.
Do you believe God is still in the miracle-working business? OK, check there too.
Do you global warming is bogus?? (Pause)
At that point the congregation erupted in laughter.
But it was so funny because there is a reason why that’s the stereotype about conservative Christians. Obviously, if there weren’t lots of examples of peole who fit that assumption, the stereotype wouldn’t exist or persist. That is, a lot of us orthodox Christians are in fact unduly rigid in automatically assuming that everything associated with “green” causes is somehow tainted by being a liberal cause (and therefore presumably unChristian).
All that to say that I agree with what I take to be your concern herem Irenaeus. After all, the jury is still out on this one.
So let me return the favor. As you’ve acknowledged my initial post (#3) raised some legitimate points, I freely acknowledge that your post #14 does too.
David Handy+
Ok, let me reiterate my points here:
1) I do not believe global warming is the result of human action. Why? Because a) the propaganda put out by the pro-human side that attempts to silence and discredit those who disagree.
b) the mounting evidence by qualified scientists who state the natural cycle cause is becoming more and more overwhelming. It is not a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction, it is the result of study and listening to dissenting voices like David Deming and Bjorn Lomberg thanks to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (hey, if pro-human side can use Al Gore and Leonardo di Caprio, why not Limbaugh and Beck?).
2)I DO believe that environmental stewardship IS the concern of Christians, that it is a Biblical mandate, in both Testaments. But that we have fallen behind in this area since the conservation movements of the Republican party in Teddy Roosevelt’s day. Unfortunately, that means someone had to step in to fill the gap. And that was either a) new agers, tree huggers, earth worshippers, etc or b) left leaning socialists who used terrorist tactics and now legislative coercion for their purposes/goals.
3) I DO believe that we can have a Christian environmental movement that purposefully separates from the above two examples, or as Tony Campolo put it “Rescuing the earth without worshipping nature”. We have many examples of the past: the Psalms; the desert fathers; the Celtic Christians; St. Francis of Assisi; etc. that we can use as heroes of Christian environmentalism and conservation.
3) I don’t believe that Man is the enemy of nature, or that Man is a disease upon the face of the earth that has to be legislated into compliance. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, but because of the Fall, we don’t necessarily do things as we should. That’s where redemption comes in, and all creation waits with groaning for us to come into completeness with Christ.
4) I recycle & reuse. I don’t go as far as some, but there you have it. None of use will EVER get everything right.
5) I will continue to speak out against human caused Gorbal Warming until a full debate is allowed in the public arena. Which is starting to happen. Did you see the Czech president calling out Al Gore to a full debate? What did Al Gore say? Nothing, as far as I know.
Is that enough? I’ll answer any further questions if you like.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Library Jim and Barrdu:
“We could post just as long a list of scientists who disagree with the IPCC.
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.â€
What I have said is not complicated and doesn’t really need all of these references for support, even though I had provided them, with charts, to verify what common sense to anyone who took a physics course should already know. Additionally there are simply irrefutable facts, namely;
1) Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing – measurements confirm this over and over again;
Even Bjorn Lomberg and David Deming don’t deny this.
2) CO2 concentrations trap more Infrared which heats up the atmosphere, and, thus the Earth. This is easily demonstrated in College or even High School Physics and Astronomy courses involving other planetary bodies.
I haven’t seen a single scientific paper that refutes this basic physical property.
3) Humans are pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere at ever larger amounts which must lead to increased carbon concentrations, ergo, common sense says that humans are heating the Earth.
Please provide me an explanation, research paper with charts that refutes these common sense points.
Most of the debate between scientists now is over various positive or negative feedback mechanisms and natural climate cycles which would serve to either dampen or reinforce the human element mentioned above. This whole discussion is akin to dissecting the intricacies of hitting a pool ball with the cue ball. There are a lot of tiny variables which may make the ball go this way or that, but one thing is certain the macro laws of momentum (mass times velocity) will transfer that energy from the cue ball to the pool ball. In other words we know that the pool ball is going to move when it is hit by the cue ball. Similarly, commons sense says that if we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, as we have been, at ever increasing rates we will certainly increase the temperature of the Earth.
I find it incredulous, that, while we all acknowledge we can destroy the world through detonation of all our nuclear weapons, we believing Christians cannot seem to accept that humans can heat the world up by burning all its stored carbon.
It would all be an interesting dinner conversation, if the subject were not so potentially deadly. Because, as we debate and give continuing credence to the idea that humans have no capability that we can alter the planet’s temperature massive new coal plants are being raced through the approval process as if we are not already emitting enough carbon. It is now eleven years after the Kyoto Treaty was presented to and signed by Al Gore, and yet we have not as a society reached the point where we start saying “NO†to new carbon intensive technologies and “YES†to more renewable and alternative energy. We are now importing more of this technology from other countries that said “YESâ€, because our country, as a whole, has stood by and done very little on this issue. What would have been a leadership position for this country and one that would have rewarded it economically has brought us to a position that I find hard to defend, or be proud of, when I travel to the developing world.
At least America and, particularly, Christians could have adopted, what I call, the “No Regrets†strategy and supported an aggressive move to energy efficiency and alternative energies and saved a lot of the, formerly American, companies that made them. It is a “No Regrets†strategy because even if we were wrong we would have wrought much good. And, even if we were wrong, it is a far more defensible position to be wrong in seeking to do the right thing than wrong in doing nothing when the stakes are high. History has judged harshly those who stood by and did nothing. The priest and the business man in the Good Samaritan story; Revelation churches that were luke warm; Nero and Rome burning; Louis IV and Marie Antoinette and the starving poor of 1790’s France; McClelland and the Army of the Potomac; Hoover and the Great Depression; Chamberlin and Nazi Germany; The World and the Holocaust; Clinton and Rwanda; — Bush and Global Warming?
Before I go to my maker, I would want to make sure I was on the side of helping those who he cares most about. Common sense – not all of these papers, reports or studies, says I need to lend my voice to slowing and reversing more coal and oil consumption and being part of a transition to zero emission energy.
What I don’t understand is why you and the pro-human cause are so afraid of debate on the subject? Why does Al Gore shout into the camera “The debate is over! There is no debate!” when he even admits that there is dissent when he writes “Those who disagree with (these findings) should shut up and let us get on with the business of saving the Earth.” (Earth in the Balance).
I mean, why should we listen to people that admit they skew the data (stating the IPCC predicted a 20 foot rise in sea level as opposed to their actual quote of 1.5 ft in a worst case scenario) to prompt a response?
[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, Grist Magazine, May 9, 2006[/blockquote]
Why do they allow this? because it is their chance for social engineering on a global scale:
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
–Tim Wirth , former U.S. Senator, Colorado
“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, [i]Calgary Herald[/i]
No thanks, I’m not going to build my future on those who knowingly lie about their findings. It does give more credence to those coming out against the ‘consensus’ that isn’t a consensus.
Petr Chylek
(Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia) has noted this as well:
“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.”
[i]Halifax Chronicle-Herald[/i], August 22, 2001
As does William Gray (Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University):
“Researchers pound the global-warming drum because they know there is politics and, therefore, money behind it.”
([i]Denver Rocky Mountain News[/i], November 28, 1999)
I prefer the view of Jane Francis (British scientist ), who says:
[blockquote]” What we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within our big icehouse climate.” and ” It’s really farcical because the climate has been changing constantly… What we should do is be more aware of the fact that it is changing and that we should be ready to adapt to the change.”[/blockquote]
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Oh, I forgot one of the best quotes, admitting they lie!:
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. [b]Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.[/b]”
–Stephen Schneider [i]Discover magazine[/i], Oct 1989
[i]emphasis added[/i]
😉
Aldenjr, what happened to the hole in the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere? What about the recent reports that say that Antarctica’s ice pack is now thickening, even though the Arctic’s may be melting? What about the meteorological reports that show that the Earth is not now warming but has been cooling for several years now? (I’m sure you know that is why the term used was changed from “global warming” to “climate change.”) The lack of credibility on these things shows the lack of agreement. Most agree that waste is not something we want to do; all Christians agree to help the poor all we can. But social engineering, denial of rights, and extra taxation on the basis of something that is so unsettled is simply not right and isn’t going to happen with a debate and scientific data that all agree on. And if Mr. Gore and his ilk won’t debate and put their data up to dispute, they will lose their argument and lose their influence, as seems to be happening presently. (By the way, your arguments seem to come directly from the talking points of the Episcopal Church Public Policy Committee, which is run by extreme environmentalists and former lobbiests and overseen by the PB.)
LibraryJim;
“What I don’t understand is why you and the pro-human cause are so afraid of debate on the subjectâ€
I am not afraid of debate for I have been debating this issue with folk like you and some of my family members for 20 years now. There is a point when we must move decisively if the evidence is compelling. You haven’t answered my request to refute the basic physical premise that humans are increasing CO2 concentrations and those increasing CO2 concentrations are increasing the temperature of the planet.
Do it this way:
Are humans increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere? Yes or No … Proof;
Are increasing CO2 concentrations leading to a warmer planet? Yes or No …. Proof;
Ergo; are humans increasing the temperature of the planet? Yes or No … Proof
Pardon me for being blunt and to the point, but a debate that lasts over 20 years, when human lives are at stake to me, is to enter into serious denial of Christian responsibility: (Katrina, Tsunami, Myanmar). Should we have debated the holocaust for 20 years before deciding to enter the war against Germany? Should we have debated for 20 years whether to march on the Confederacy when South Carolina and the rest of the southern states seceded? Should we have debated for 20 years, whether Cuba was putting Soviet missiles in place before we confronted them?
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing—in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.â€
–Tim Wirth , former U.S. Senator, Colorado
“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.â€
–Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada, Calgary Herald
No thanks, I’m not going to build my future on those who knowingly lie about their findings. It does give more credence to those coming out against the ‘consensus’ that isn’t a consensus.
This is not lying, at least not in the sense that I think of lying; deliberately telling a falsehood or omitting the truth in order to mislead. These are honest statements pointing to the certainty of other benefits of pursuing a strategy when information is not perfect. This confirms the “No Regrets†Strategy I spoke of in my earlier post.
The continued complicity with those that want to say that we don’t know what physics teaches us about the global impacts of pumping carbon into the atmosphere is playing right into the hands of those socialistic utilities rushing to build more coal fired power plants and pay for it, while they still can, with rate payer funds. Not only will the debate, that you want to characterize as not over, succeed in getting us into a much more carbon intensive position, but we all will be paying much more for it.
Would it not be wiser to force the Federal and State Governments to stop authorizing coal plants and instead provide incentives for alternative energy now?
“What happened to the hole in the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere?”
Billy [#31]: You tell me.
There is good reason to believe that long-lived manmade fluorocarbons have catalyzed the depletion of stratospheric ozone worldwide. This is the Rowland-Molina theory, which goes back some 30 years and has stood up well under scrutiny (not least by Dupont, which manufactured the chemicals in question).
The basic idea (as I understand it) is as follows: Ozone is formed in the stratosphere when solar radiation converts some normal oxygen (O2) into ozone (O3). Stratospheric ozone plays a key role in limiting how much biologically active ultraviolate light reaches the earth. When manmade fluorocarbons reach the stratosphere, they are broken down by solar radiation and release a chlorine, which catalyzes a reaction transforming ozone into ordinary oxygen. The result: a significant and continuing depletion of stratospheric ozone.
The “ozone hole” over Antarctica is or was an extreme case. But ozone depletion is real and many measurements worldwide corroborate it.
Billy:
“Aldenjr, what happened to the hole in the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere? What about the recent reports that say that Antarctica’s ice pack is now thickening, even though the Arctic’s may be melting?â€
I already covered this in my entry #19, but here it is for you to save you time:
One of the reasons that the Earth has not heated as rapidly in the past few years is that there has been a cooling trend in the Antarctic region due to the closing of the ozone hole;
“Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change†http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/antarcticfactsheet
“Hence, the present cooling of Antarctica is consistent with the rest of the Earth’s surface warming in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrationsâ€
I’m sorry that cooling in some areas confuses some like you about whether warming is happening in the real time. What we are seeing is the hiccupping of other events occurring at the same time and masking the overall steady rate of warming.
I know you saw the movie “Titanicâ€. The movie closely mirrored real life when the ship broke in half as it was sinking. To many people it looked like the Titanic had righted itself. Does this mean that the ship wasn’t going to sink after all? I imagine many people on the ship felt a sudden, if not very brief, sense of relief. But, in the end it was just a hiccup of events that confused the situation until the terrible reality returned with renewed vigor.
“By the way, your arguments seem to come directly from the talking points of the Episcopal Church Public Policy Committee, which is run by extreme environmentalists and former lobbiests and overseen by the PB.â€
I do not consult with the PB or the National Episcopal Church, and she and the National Church have had little to do with my family or any of the mission activities I am involved in, so what are you trying to imply? I have been debating this point long before the Episcopal Church or the PB decided to use them as talking points, so, perhaps, I should be flattered. Afterall, isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery. However, if you think this makes me a Reappraiser, I would certainly tell you, “Noâ€, because I believe the scriptures are true including John’s Gospel “I am the way the truth and the life, I tell you the truth; no one comes to the Father except through meâ€.
[i]Would it not be wiser to force the Federal and State Governments to stop authorizing coal plants and instead provide incentives for alternative energy now? [/i]
It would, IF the technology existed. But it doesn’t — except for nuclear, and the enviros won’t let those be bulit anywhere.
[i]Are humans increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere? Yes or No … Proof;
Are increasing CO2 concentrations leading to a warmer planet? Yes or No …. Proof;
Ergo; are humans increasing the temperature of the planet? Yes or No … Proof [/i]
Would you REALLY read and accept the proof that NO is the answer to questions 2 & 3? If you did then my quote in 23 and Barrdu’s in 24 should give you the correct answer:
“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.†— Dr. Vincent Grey, International Climate Science Coalition
Barrdu’s:
[blockquote]“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.â€
My source, The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition—a non-government/UN influenced group. http://nzclimatescience.net [/blockquote]
It must be nice to have a theory that adapts to all evidence. if it warms up that’s proof. If it doesn’t warm then that is due to some natural cooling trend (though of course that doesn’t mean that the warming is a natural trend). This makes anthropogenic warming a virtual unfalsifiable theory. And a theory that has no way of being falsified also has no way of being verified. This makes it less scientific theory than dogma.
I already have my dogma in Christianity, thank you. I don’t need any more, especially one that makes me panic about destroyong the earth and stuff like that. God told us not to worry, so I eschew any ideology that requires me to worry.