Gotta bit of room to breathe, so I thought I’d post this article on global warming (beating a dead horse, yes, I know…but did the horse die from global warming is the question!). The Daily Mail in England has this article, arguing that zealotry over global warming will ultimately harm the environment.
[HT: David Field]
Just a couple of thoughts on Keith’s earlier post:
In a roundabout way, this brings me to my question: why don’t evangelicals on the whole care about this? Why do we get our panties in a dither over scientists expressing concern that the earth might be heating up? Is it really a green-Marxist conspiracy? Come on. Is it really a direct assault on capitalism? Meh
As a Christian who doesn’t believe that there is consensus in the scientific community about the causes of global warming (for more see here), I do want to point out that in one sense the issue is irrelevant. Whether the earth is warming and whether said warming is due to man-made causes does not give me any greater impetus to care for the environment. Man was given a mandate in the opening chapters of Genesis to have stewardship over the earth – and that includes environmental care. So whether the earth is warming or not, I still want to be conscientious about what we do to the environment.
I have a corollary question: why do “eco-theologians” care so much about the environment that they often, in my experience anyways, neglect the gospel. For clarification, I mean here by gospel: “Jesus Christ came to save sinners.” It seems to me that many eco-friendly (i.e. obsessed) Christians evangelise more about the environment and less about Christ.
Any thoughts on this?
(NB: the observations about eco-theologians has nothing to do with Keith. I know his concern for the gospel is great. I’m speaking in more general terms!).
Keith raised an interesting issue in his post about Global warming skepticism:
An unfortunate consequence of the evolution-creation debates is that evangelicals have become skeptical of science in general. This is ironic given how dependent we moderns (and wannabe pre-moderns) are on science.
There are a few issues here. Firstly, I don’t think skepticism about global warming is limited to evangelicals, as most right-wing groups seem to take a skeptical stance toward this issue. Also, as Dan pointed out, it’s not just anti-market groups who support a non-skeptical stance.
What this seems to signal to me is that skepticism over this issue is not primarily because of religious or laissez-faire ideological motivations, but perhaps I’m wrong.
As well, I’m not sure that evangelicals are “skeptical” towards science in general; it seems to me they are more skeptical on matters that have no (immediate?) practical payoff. Evangelicals are not Amish, they seem to understand that advances have been made in medical, transportation, communication and other forms of technology, and they take those as basically good and helpful things. If there is any skepticism about science, it seems to relate to either the unrepeatable past (evolution), or predictions of a generally highly uncertain future (the weather). There are notably different kinds of scientific activity; in fact, both evolution and global warming predications are really more fields of history than of science, at least by the Modern scientific method. So I’m not sure it’s entirely inconsistent on their part, to be skeptical of the latter kind of science and not the former.
Ken Alexander has an excellent editorial in this month’s edition of The Walrus on global warming. Alexander doesn’t believe that Harper is naive about global warming whatsoever. Indeed, he’s downright Macchiavellian! Trampling on the success of Kyoto, Canada (with an obvious nod to the US) has insisted that either everyone does the global warming jig or no one does. Obviously not everyone can, so Canada has refused to partner up and dance. Alexander writes,
At Bali, Canada framed itself as Britain circa 1800: a developing country, not yet industrialized, even backward, and as a result its own and the world’s environmental hereafter will be sacrificed for the economic here and now.
This positioning – Canada like Britain then, like India and China today – was a stroke of strategic genius, and as markets remain volatile and we settle down to do our taxes, Harper believes it will sell.
In a roundabout way, this brings me to my question: why don’t evangelicals on the whole care about this? Why do we get our panties in a dither over scientists expressing concern that the earth might be heating up? Is it really a green-Marxist conspiracy? Come on. Is it really a direct assault on capitalism? Meh.
An unfortunate consequence of the evolution-creation debates is that evangelicals have become skeptical of science in general. This is ironic given how dependent we moderns (and wannabe pre-moderns) are on science.
Are there arguments against global warming? I’m sure there are, possibly even good ones. But, that’s not my point. Why is it that our immediate impulse is to scoff and say ‘here we go again’? It’s interesting, no?
I wrote a while back about Ronald Wright’s fascinating and frightening book, A Short History of Progress. I am somewhat reminded of it by this post at the Internet Monk’s site. A sample:
“It seems that traditional Christian eschatology, especially the post-millennial variety, has to assume some kind of uniformity and to reject the worst case scenarios of catastrophe. Catastrophe’s of the world-ending type don’t do well on the eschatology charts of most Christians.”
This maybe the case, but what are the implications? Does the fact that Christian eschatology renders some horrible end to human civilization (and not as a prelude to Jesus coming back or something) just inconceivable cause Christians to wave aside concerns such as global warming or even the wise use of our non-renewable resources?
