Climate Change

 November 21, 2022

We inhabitants of the modern era of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries tend to assume a  somewhat arrogant posture relative to the wisdom and knowledge of previous generations. We believe that the explosion of scientific and technological knowledge has somehow negated that of our ancestors; that we are better than they. Aside from the fact that the twentieth century was awash in blood, that all the cruelty and destructive aggression recorded in history cannot compare with what we did in just two generations, the absurdity of such thinking is appalling.

Just because our way of interpreting life is different doesn’t mean it’s better. Take the matter of climate change, for example. I have listened to experts for the past fifty years as like modern day Chicken Littles, they steadily predicted catastrophe in the next ten to twenty years if we didn’t grapple with first, global cooling, then warming, and now, merely “climate change,” which covers their backsides whichever way the wind blows. We are told that the future of life on earth depends on our cutting carbon emissions and jumping off the cliff of renewable energy. All this is predicated on computer modeling, which is often little more than the juggling of numbers. 

I’m all for science. Research into heart disease, cancer, and a multitude of other diseases has yielded incredible advances in medicine. We understand the benefits of hygiene and the detrimental effects of overcrowding in our cities. But we don’t know everything there is to know, which means it behooves us to apply a bit of humility to our knowledge.

In Deuteronomy 11, God tells his people that if they obey his laws, he will bless them with rain, good crops, and healthy cattle, but conversely, if they disregard his commandments and engage in the worship of the demonic gods of the inhabitants of the land, he would send drought and blight. Any modern scientist would dismiss this as mere religious superstition or as a means of scaring people into certain behaviors. This may be true, but if so, it is no different than today’s experts demanding that we abstain from certain behaviors lest we destroy the planet. 

I have to wonder though, whether or not the Scriptures have given us a balancing perspective we sorely need. Both world views contain implicit definitions of sinful behavior; the difference is in what kinds of behaviors matter, and although direct correlation can be hard to maintain, the fact that the further we move from our Judeo-Christian heritage, the worse our weather patterns seem to be, is to me, worth pondering. Being a good steward of the earth is built into the foundations of my faith; I am grateful tonight for those foundations, but also for the Scriptural testimony that when this world passes away, there is a far better one awaiting.