Global Warming
The issue of global warming is probably
settled. The issue that it is manmade is still moot.
At the same time as people in hi-vis “yellow
vests” were rioting in the streets of Paris over French President Macron’s draconian
“Carbon Tax”, which is due to his adherence to the “Paris Accord”, at the UN’s
Climate Change Summit in Katowice, Poland (November 2018), David Attenborough
was saying,
If we don’t take action, the collapse of our
civilsations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon…
Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest
threat in thousands of years: climate change.[1]
Talk about scaring the
kids! While all of this was going on, there were teachers who allowed their
classes to attend a protest instead of school. On Friday, 30 November, 2018,
these scared kids gathered in Brisbane city. Says ABC News in an article,
Thousands of Australian students have defied
calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school and instead marched on the
nation’s capital cities, and some regional centre, demanding an end to
political inertia on climate change. Protests were held in Sydney, Brisbane,
Perth, Coffs Harbour, Bendigo and other cities, as students banded together to
pressure the Morrison Government in the lead-up to a federal election. “The
politicians aren’t listening to us when we try to act nicely for what we want
and for what we need,” said Castlemaine student Harriet O’Shea Carre. “So now
we have to go to extreme lengths and miss out school.”[2]
So, at the same time there was one lot
protesting their President’s unwavering adherence to “The Paris Agreement”, we
see another lot protesting their Prime Minister for not adhering to it enough!
Who is right? Well, President Trump! The Climate Change
protests are all about unfair taxes.
How can we talk about Global warming without
mentioning the Prophet of Doom, Al Gore and his Inconvenient Truth propaganda
movie? In 2006 Al Gore said that sea-levels would rise 20 feet. Denis T. Avery
refers to this in the following,
The study, “Snowfall-driven Growth in
East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-level Rise.” was led by Curt
Davis of the University of Missouri, and reported in Science
on June 24, 2005.
Thickening ice in the Antarctic, in
fact, is just about offsetting the meltwater being released from the edges of
the Greenland ice sheet–which has also been thickening in its center. This
leaves us with a global warming sea level gain of about 1.8 millimetres per
year–or 4 inches per century. The rise has remained constant during the 20th
century despite the moderate 0.6 degree C warming of the planet.
In the movie, a whole Antarctic ice
sheet shatters on Gore's computer screen. In the real world, that isn’t
happening. It is only the Antarctic Peninsula–2 percent of the continent’s land
area that sticks up toward the far-off equator–that is warming. It recently
earned headlines by calving an ice flow as big as Rhode Island, not an unusual
event.
But the East Antarctic ice sheet is
more than 2,000 times bigger than Rhode Island, and the ice is two miles
thick! John Stone of the University of Washington, reporting in Science on January 3, 2003 says the West Antarctic
ice sheet has been retreating so slowly for the past 10,000 years that it still
has not fully accommodated the end of the last Ice age, and apparently still
has about 7,000 years of ice to melt–and the East Antarctic ice sheet is
melting even more slowly than that.
So, Al Gore says Antarctic melting
will suddenly raise the sea levels by 20 feet, and the experts say 4 inches per
century.”[3]
If we start with an ice-age all are agreed
that the planet is warmer now than then. But, what caused the great glacial
ice-sheets to recede? This is where we enter the area of speculation. Likewise,
when we discuss contemporary global warming, its rate and its causes. If we
begin with the Ice-Age we will quickly see two opposing views emerge, viz., the
Christian (or Biblical) perspective and the Uniformitarian. Let’s call the
former ‘Creationist’ and the latter ‘Evolutionist’, noting there’re variables
within both these worldviews.
Though believing that the earth is 4.5
billion years old, because of global warning, like a religious zealot, the
Evolutionist believes that ‘the end is nigh!’ – if we do not do something.
Panic! The Creationist? Well, the Creationist looks to God and His written
Word. ‘And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that
it was already filling. But He [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.
And they awoke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are
perishing?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be
still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them,
‘Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?’ Mark 4:37-40. The
Lord controls the weather. Consider Jonah fleeing from the presence of the LORD.
‘But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest
on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.’ Jonah 1:4. Examples
could be multiplied. Does what we do affect the climate? You bet, but it’s more
moral than physical. We need to consider Noah’s ark and the Flood. ‘And God
said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled
with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’…
All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights’ Genesis
6:13; 7:11b-12. As it was for the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, so it was
in the global Deluge. The divided waters came together sandwiching man and
beast across the earth. That is why we find millions of dead things that have
been buried quickly in solidified sediment, including fossil fuels, i.e., oil
and gas reserves.
Post-Flood, primarily due to the ensuing
soaring global humidity, centuries of heavy snowfalls caused the polar regions
to greatly expand. Therefore, unlike the Uniformitarian/Evolutionist, who works
off a timescale of billions of years, the Creationist looks to the ensuing
effects of the global Flood some 4,300 years ago. The Ice-Age lasted for a few
hundred years. Job, who lived before the time of Abraham, when speaking of snow
and ice (not normal for his region), may be referring to the Ice-Age. ‘The
waters harden like stone, and the surface of the deep is frozen’ Job 38:30.
(E.g., see also Job 6:16; 9:30; 24:19; 37:6; 38:22,29.) That, in a nutshell, is
the Creationist take on global warming.
Is the planet warming? Yes! Should we panic?
No! Are fossil fuels the primary cause? If Western nations stopped using fossil
fuels it would have minimal effect on the climate. Does God want us to be good
stewards of His earth? Yes! ‘Therefore, whether you eat or drink, whatever you
do, do all to the glory of God.’ 1 Corinthians 10:31.
[1]
Evening Standard (on-line), 04 December, 2018.
[2]
ABC News (on-line), Friday 30 Nov 2018.
[3] Denis
T Avery, Will Sea Levels Rise as Gore Predicts? Canada Free Press, Tuesday, July 11, 2006. https://canadafreepress.com/2006/avery071106.htm
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