Monday, February 19, 2007
The Earth is the Lord's
My post on my Global Footprint provoked a wee bit of debate, so I spent a lot of my (very quiet) weekend on call reading around the issues of global warming and how we as Christians should be responding to it.

Most scientists seem to agree that global warming is taking place at a faster rate than ever before. The polar ice-caps are melting and are unlikely to exist at the end of 21st century. Apparently the earth has warmed up by 0.6 degrees over the last century, the most rapid warming of the planet for 10,000 years, and CO2 in the atmosphere has risen to its highest level in 400,000 years. I am not sure how this squares with beliefs in Creation and a Young Earth, but it certainly appears that something going on.

Whatever that something is, since God gave his commands to Adam in the Garden of Eden, we have been called to have stewardship over the earth. We have been given dominion over this planet to subdue it, to tend to it and to nurture it (Genesis 1:26-31, Genesis 2:15, Psalm 8).

Some have suggested that environmentalism has itself turned into a new religion. Ray Evans of the Lavoisier Group said:
To put it in its bluntest terms, when you don't believe in God you don't believe in nothing. You believe in whatever is the fashion of the day, and environmentalism has scooped the pool.
This, of course, is different to many of the values held by some in the environmentalist movement where human life is seen to have no more intrinsic value that the life of an ant or a tree. Patrick Moore was a founding member of Greenpeace before he felt compelled to leave as the initial "broad-based vision [was] challenged by a new philosophy of radical environmentalism."

In the name of "deep ecology" many environmentalists have taken a sharp turn to the ultra-left, ushering in a mood of extremism and intolerance...It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a 'cancer' on the face of the earth. The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good...This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be 'good' if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population
Environmental stewardship to me is more taking responsbility for God's creation which itself acts as a testimony to his goodness and as a means of common grace. Earth and heaven will be cast away and replaced by a new heaven and a new earth just as our own bodies are, but we equally look after our bodies until that time. In the same way as it would be wrong for me to refuse to treat your diabetes on the grounds that illness came with the Fall and is part of God's curse, it is irresponsible to ignore the damage that we might be causing to the earth. Our stewardship involves responsibly developing and nurturing the earth for our benefit and for God's glory, preserving it well for future generations.

As a native of the "Oil Capital of Europe" and from a family dependent on the oil industry for work, I've grown up knowing that oil reserves are eventually going to run out. It reminds to be responsible for the energy that I do use, as much as I have to consider what happens to the rubbish I throw away and how I use the earth's resources. I therefore want to limit what I consume and use and to be careful about what I am using. For me, this will mean buying more local-grown food, reducing and recycling packaging, and trying to remember to turn the heating off when I go out to work. It will perhaps be only a tiny contribution to a much greater problem but a small step in the right direction.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

Psalm 24:1-2

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  posted at 10:08  
  3 comments



3 Comments:
At 20 February, 2007 07:49, Blogger Sherrin said...

I won't even try to comment on the last comment!

I think it is good that you aim to take care of the earth.

I am not sure if climate change is a massive concern - it is difficult to measure what climates were like many, many years ago and I am skeptical of claims that we can know. My skepticism partly comes from Dave's, since he knows far more about science than I do!

Whatever the truth is about climate change, it is worth trying to limit actions which harm the world. I do not do enough of this.

In Australia, the government is planning to ban the usual light bulbs by 2009 and make it so that only energy saving fluros can be sold.

 
At 20 February, 2007 12:44, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apparently the earth has warmed up by 0.6 degrees over the last century

Well, "last century" is interesting - why did the rise start then? Why not shortly after the start of the industrial revolution? Why not in the 1960s? In fact, the global air temperature reaches a peak in the 1940s, and then it gets cooler for the next 30 years. Is this explained by human activity? (See here for the relevant graph.)

I am not sure how this squares with beliefs in Creation and a Young Earth

This is a really good point. It demonstrates that these models are all based on presuppositions. The timing of the earth's ice ages seem to be especially significant in the whole debate.

I find Wikipedia's list of scientists opposing global warming consensus interesting.

Your conclusion is a good one - much of what we are urged to do as a result of climate change paranoia involves things we should be doing anyway. Like reducing waste and using less oil...

I blogged on this issue a while ago. My conclusion is here.

 
At 20 February, 2007 22:41, Blogger Keziah said...

Sushil - Thanks for that contribution. I am quite sure that you are right when you say that the "fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems", but I think the rest of your comments go to prove Patrick Moore's concerns about followers of "Deep Ecology".

Sherrin and John - Thank you for your own thoughts. It has been so interesting reading all about it, more than I have ever done before. The science just isn't as clear-cut as we are led to believe in the media, but I know we agree that we need to be responsible for our care of the planet's resources.

As an aside, have you ever read A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson? I disagree with SO much of what he writes, but it is an excellent and easily read textbook of modern scientific thought. He does mock anyone who is crazy enough to believe in Creation and not in Evolution, but does not realise how many leaps of faith he himself is taking as he accepts theories tenuously built upon other theories then presents them as clear scientific fact!

 

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