How should a Christian view global warming? - Printer Friendly
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Question: "How should a Christian view global warming?" Answer: As Christians, we should be concerned about our effect on our environment. God appointed man to be the steward of this world (Genesis 1:28), not the destroyer of it. However, we should not allow environmentalism to become a form of idolatry, where the “rights” of an inanimate planet and its non-human creatures are held in higher esteem than God (Romans 1:25) and man created in His image. With global warming, as with any other topic, it is crucial to understand what the facts are, whom those facts come from, how they are interpreted, and what the spiritual implications are. A careful look at global warming, as a topic, shows that there is a great deal of disagreement about the facts and substance of climate change. Those who blame man for climate change often disagree about what facts lead them to that conclusion. Those who hold man totally innocent of it often ignore established facts. Experience and research leads us to believe that warming is, in fact, occurring; however, there is little to no objective evidence that man is the cause, nor that the effects will be catastrophic. The idea of earth “wearing out” is an apt analogy. This entire world has been continually decaying since the fall. Global warming “facts” are notoriously hard to come by. One of the few facts universally agreed upon is that the current average temperature of Earth is indeed rising at this time. According to most estimates, this increase in temperature amounts to about 0.4-0.8 °C (0.72-1.44 °F) over the last 100 years. Data regarding times before that is not only highly theoretical but very difficult to obtain with any accuracy. The very methods used to obtain historical temperature records are controversial, even among the most ardent supporters of the theory of humancaused climate change. The facts leading one to believe that humans are not responsible for the current change in temperature are as follows: • Global temperature changes from past millennia, according to available data, were often severe and rapid, long before man supposedly had any impact at all. That is, the current climate change is not as unusual as some alarmists would like to believe. • Recent recorded history mentions times of noticeable global warming and cooling, long before man had any ability to produce industrial emissions. • Water vapor, not CO2, is the most influential greenhouse gas. It is difficult to determine what
12/4/2018, 1:06 PM