Avoiding global warming should not be our primary motivation for caring for the planet.
Creation care is much bigger than temperature, as significant as it may be. At AEA we are united in our purpose to respect our Father’s world and to care for it as responsible stewards. This is true regardless of whether or not humans are causing the present warming trend.
Even if global warming were completely false, we would still need to deal with:
- Increasing rates of breast cancer and respiratory diseases from industrial pollution (NIEHS, WHO).
- The negative health affects of insecticides, herbicides and GM foods.
- Mercury in fish and other sources (EPA Advisory).
- The over-fishing of sea creatures (Wiki).
- The effects of modern farming methods (Frog deformities & Dead zones).
- Destruction of Habitat of God’s amazing animals (U of M).
- An unsustainable economic system dependent on continual growth which is currently fueled by cheap oil (Bhutan).
The list just goes on and on. Even though global warming is currently in the spotlight, we must remember that the environmental movement is much bigger than this one topic. Thankfully, most of our efforts to counter the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, if done wisely, are beneficial to life on this planet regardless of the source of warming.
Why am I addressing this today? I have previously noted some of the evidence against human activity as the main cause of global warming, and these issues were again in the news this week—Small group of US experts insist global warming not man-made (NewsMax.com). After I’d finished the first draft of this post, my father-in-law shared a U.S. Senate report of 400 scientists who dispute man-made global warming. Apparently, they have not seen the proof presented on this blog (jk).
Let’s consider all evidence with a balanced mind. This green movement is not dependent on proof that global warming is caused by cars, cows and consumption. These are important issues for reasons other than warming, reasons that were apparent back when some scientists feared global cooling.
We know two things: Humans are mucking up the place (pollution and ecological degradation), and it’s going to get warmer before our story here gets a breather (Revelation 16:8). Establishing causation is not our most important battle. It’s also true that God doesn’t appreciate people who mess up his planet, whether environmentally, politically, militarily, socially or in any other way (Revelation 11:18).
And if someday it is “proven” that human economic activity is not causing the climate change we are witnessing, let’s not throw the baby of creation care out with the global warming bath water. That baby is far too precious.
We will continue to discuss global warming on this blog because it is a significant issue of our time. However, I want to stress that this is an open movement where multiple views on any given topic are welcomed and expected.
By: Jeff Boyd
PERSONAL NOTE: My two favorite references in this article are Bhutan and We Cannot Serve Two Masters.
Filed under: Stewardship Tagged: | climate change, conservation, consumerism, Creation Care, ecology, global warming, God, Pollution, Scripture, Stewardship
Hi Jeff,(sorry-might have previously posted on wrong strand.)
Visited your and Jared’s site.
A similar passage to Rev.16:8 is in Joel 1:19,20. These are Judgment Motifs.
If you choose to believe in “manmade global warming” that’s fine. I would suggest it is not a “biblical described entity.”
Likewise if you choose to be a vegetarian that is also great but that also is not a biblical mandate and I would suggest it is “anti-biblical” if indicated it is a necessity for believers.1 Tim.4:2-6.
The interestng thing to me in the manmade global warming debate is “IF” the following EGW’s quote is true, How will you tell if mankind or satan is controlling weather events as God allows in the future?
“Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields his creatures, and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what he has declared that he would, he will withdraw his blessings from the earth, and remove his protecting care from those who are rebelling against his law, and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some, in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others, and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.
While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hail-storms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” [ISA. 24:4, 5.] {GC88 589.3}
Please note also that Isa.24:4,5 was cited by me above strand post in regards to “corrupt,destroy” in the LXX.(defiled)
It might also be interesting to discuss and they “repented not to give Him glory” in Rev.16:9…may indicate that men loved creation and the created order more than Him (Rom.1:25)… The Creator of all things? Rev.14:7
Posted by: pat travis | 05 January 2008 at 6:21
This series of videos will be appreciated by those who believe human activity is causing global warming and will have to be carefully studied by those who disagree:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610
Beware of
LATENT HEAT
the real
HIDDEN DRAGON
that can roast Mother Earth alive!
Here are two eggs in a pot of ice water on a stove set on slow heat. Stir it with a thermometer and take readings at 30-second intervals. Question: When will the eggs begin to feel the heat? Answer: After all the ice cubes have melted off. For as long as there is ice left to melt, the infused heat will go to melting the ice first, not in raising the temperature. The amount of heat which goes into melting the ice without raising the temperature is called the Latent Heat of Melting. Scared yet? No? Hold on.
Now imagine the Arctic Ocean as the pot of ice-water, receiving solar heat every summer at a steady or accelerating rate. For as long as there is ice remaining to melt, the temperature of the Arctic Ocean won’t increase much, because most of the infused solar heat would be in the form of Latent Heat, going into melting the ice, not raising the temperature, and global warming deniers say, “Warming? What warming?”, while laughing all the way to the bank.
But as soon as all the ice has melted off, the temperature of the Arctic Ocean will rise sharply. This in itself will lead to unprecedented droughts and be devastating to agriculture, but worse it will accelerate the melting of the permafrost and the sea floor methane hydrate deposits, releasing gaseous methane by the billions of tons into the atmosphere. Methane, being a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, will generate its own feedback loop, where more methane warms the Earth more, releasing even more methane, thus kick-starting the dreaded Runaway Global Heating..
For those who care for nothing but money, consider this. Suppose you inherited $1 million. You use your credit card to purchase everything you need and want, averaging $10,000 per month. At the end of each month, you withdraw $10,000 from the inheritance to pay off your credit card debt. You have never missed a payment and your credit rating is A1. At this rate, you have enough money to make 100 monthly payments, and until the 100th payment, your credit rating remains A1. But as of the month after that, your credit payment will plummet. In this analogy, of course, money = ice, and credit decline = temperature rise. The Arctic Ocean will be ice-free as early as 2013, at which point the Arctic A/C will konk out, and the temperature will skyrocket.
Anthony Marr, Founder and President
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
http://www.HOPE-CARE.org
http://www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
http://www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr
http://www.myspace.com/Anti-Hunting Coalition
http://www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
http://www.ARConference.org
http://www.AnimalVoices.org
604-222-1169
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