Dear, faithful and true brother Mark,

I'm confused. Why is all the ice melting? Why are the polar bears drowning? Temperatures are rising. Does one day, one week or even one month of cold make up for decades of creepingly increasing temperatures?

Your sister, Mary Ann

You are very fair minded Mark. That is refreshing. Here’s a little something for you...

Al Gore's Inconvenient Electric Bill - the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported that Gore’s Nashville mansion consumed more than 20 times the electricity than the national average*.

"Fair and Balanced", that's ME! Seriously. Its good to care for the world we live in. But if this world is all we care about, I think that's being very short sighted. I wished everyone could refocus their attention from this planet and on to their own final destiny. The Bible says that there is a day of judgement coming.

 Talk about global warming on a personal level. By God's grace all who put their faith in Christ excape this awful event.

Mark well done I love this blog. I am a student at North Davidson High School and we did a project on global warming. We also did a small video on the effects and causes of global warming or in scientific terms the heating of the planet. The video was sent to the National Board to see if our biology teacher could become Nationally certified.

I can explain my information that I found out later. I have to go to a Kick off at my church for Youth Week. I also have a verse that I found.

Cya

Help_Stop_Global_Warming 

Mary Ann, Thanks for the star. I needed that!

Help_Stop_Global_Warming, Thank you for your comments and I would love to see your video and know the verse you found.

Karl K, Thanks for sharing the artical. I have to admit you guy's have made me think more seriously about this global warming subject. I have to admit that I have doughted its existance because most of what I have heard about it has originated from envionrmental extremist groups. These people drive me up a wall. They are such hypocrites. They don't want another tree cut down but they are living in houses built out of lumber from trees. They have their homes but don't want anybody else to get theirs. We live in a world that wants to save the whales but kill the babies. I think as Christians we need to learn how to look at all the facts and not let extremists lead us into radical thinking in either direction. We need to look at these things in a balanced way and stay in God's Word to find out how He wants us to view these matters. Then seek His strength to make the adjustments in our lifestyle that will improve our world.

We

I hit a wrong key and sent my comment early. Don't know what I did. Anyway, I have one more important thought.

We need to gaurd ourselves as Christians that we do not becaome overly exteme about the wrong things. It's good to care about the planet. But the great commission given to us by the Lord focuses on preaching the Gospel not saving the world. He says that He will make this world new so I believe that our job is to share with people His Gospel so more are ready for this world to come. We do need to be good stewards, like you said Karl of the world we are blessed to live in.

 Is amazing how gullible the average Christian is on this hyped up issue. I could understand the unsaved heathens buying into this hyped up issue, however it truly grieves me to hear some one that claims to be a Christian fall for this, “The sky is falling”, type argument. Evidently, some have never that little story of Chicken Little.

Are their Global Warming, yes there is and I thank God that there is, otherwise we would freeze to death, vegetation could not grow, thus the end of all life, as we know it. Nevertheless, the issue is not whether there is Global Warming or not, (and that is the question that is posed by those trying to exaggerate this for political gain).

 They know that no one can rightly say that there is not global warming. Thus, they have cleverly set their argument up in such a way that one would to appear foolish to disagree.

Here is the way it goes, an advocate for, and those that have been brainwashed in this issue, will ask the question to an unbeliever of this do you believe there is global warming. If you say no you are a fool, however, if you rightly say yes they confirmed in their belief that it is a bad thing that it will destroy everything and they will not be receptive to hear the truth from the other side of this issue. The honest question to ask is; do you think that the Globe is getting warmer than it should, and if you, do you think it is the fault of humankind? This would prompt an honest assessment of this issue and an honest debate.

When Gore was in office, he had a team of his take the Global Climate Study Report done years ago and had his team summarize it to say what he wanted it to say. The original study report was far too long to be presented to the public and he rightly knew no one would take the time to read it to find the actual conclusion of the study.  

However, those that have read the entire study know it does not conclude what Gores team claim in their summary and this was the basis for him to start this propaganda. In addition, the temperature samples that were taking for this were done in incorporated areas of high population and building density with much asphalt and concrete surface, not in remote virgin areas of which they claim are in danger. There is in fact many more scientist and researchers that do not believe that this is a danger as do believe.

However, here again is a clever way that they discount that fact. If you do not agree with this premise, you not considered a mainstream scientist; I know we have all heard them say at times the mainstream scientists all agree with the harmful effects of global warming.

 Again, as typical of these people, instead of dealing with the opposition on an honest level, they will merely attack the opposition’s credibility to even have a position on the issue. A similar tactic used by third world dictatorships, you either agree or you are destroyed.  Gore was once asked how could an aerosol can be such a detriment to the ozone layer When a volcano eruption will put far more damaging pollutants into the atmosphere than a hair spray can in ones bathroom..

His answer “well a volcano is higher up and won’t cause as much damage”. DUH!! Does any one actually buy Gores’ ignorant comment?  Well, he is not that ignorant, he is just a deceiver for political gain, and he will say what ever it takes to gain power.

Any Christian that is fretting over this has forgotten that the Bible teaches that “ we have not been given a spirit of fear”. Yes, we are to be good stewards of what we have, but we are not to follow a liar and a deceiver, as Gore has been proven to be.

Blessings ,Clyde

We should be good stewards of the earth.  God put us in charge of it.

However, we should also understand that God is in control.  As Mark mentions, we should not become "overly extreme about the wrong things."  God will use the natural to bring about the supernatural.  He calls us to be faithful to our mission.

Three comments on McLaren's article:

1.) I don't see how the story of Joseph can be compared to the situation today with a plethora of scientists trying to draw conclusions from incredibly complex, often ambiguous climate data from around the world. Joseph had a proven track record of interpreting dreams, which he gave credit for directly to God. Scientists of today are all over the map on global warming, there isn't anything close to a consensus on either whether the globe is truly warming OR if so then what's causing it.

2.) Given the legitimate level of disagreement on global warming among scientists, we are nowhere near ready to gauge possible impacts let alone solutions to a hypothesized problem. There persists a small minority of folks who predict dire circumstances are imminent -- I fear these people cause more strife and worry than is necessary.

3.) NOTHING the evangelical community can ever do will appease Richard Dawkins, he is militantly atheist. I grimace whenever I see Christians try to placate the likes of him. Dawkins will likely go to his grave complaining about anything and everything Christian, we shouldn't use his complaints to justify anything we do!

Unfortunately I don't place much stock in the article above. But then, that's just me! ~mike

I belive this whole global warming is a matter of opinion. We are to look for the day of the coming of destruction but we are to be stewards of his call. You can not stop global warming it will come and go. Scientists are not trying to stop global warming as you can see we have not changed the status of our work. This is a matter of greed, this gives us an opertune time to witness. Mark you say "This proves that global warming will happen..." It has already happened. It is happening in our yards, in our ocean. Glaciers are melting much faster than recorded.Thousands are dieing because of hungry because of drought. Organisms and species can no longer be studied because they are extinct. Coral reefs are bleaching, the weather is warming up causing storms to be in the 5's. Flooding is becoming a problem. 

But as long as we keep going the path we are going then we will go to a place we do not want to go. Greed, lies, these are things that encumber our opinions.

There are also matters of life. You all must be adults, I guess. Look at those who are me, teenagers. Will we have a future? If this goes at the rate it's going people like us will never have a future. In a way this is also a matter of want. I want this, you want that, the government wants money, people don't want to pay more on cars just to buy an electrical vehicle they will never use because it doesn't have good gas milage. In this I might want to commit suicide, to never see the world of freedom because it will not exist.

We are stuwards of his call. We believe in a future of no hate and no pain. This what we stive for. And then there is the cause of this destroyed world that will end soon. Want, hate, Greed, lies, deception, these are not Godly acts. (Not saying all people do this or christians for that matter)

My Bible says as follows: 2 Peter 3:11

"Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives..."

Are we living holy and godly lives? This is what i ponder on... 

Oh just so you know I read an article on Antarctica...

Methane gas, 1/3 of the polar ice cap has Methane in it. Methane is 30 times more potent than Carbon dioxide. As the ice cap melts the ocean is poisened and all life will die. The atmosphere will heat faster than ever and our planets ending point will be closer than we have estimated. The scientists estimate that the worst may come this year. I fear that this Hurricane sesson will be more devastating than all hurricanes combined.

I agree with Mike on the idea that Joseph had a different message...his was from God and he knew it. I don't see any prophet of the Lord standing up and saying "thus says the Lord". 

I think it is important to take good care of our environment and our world. He did give us dominion over it as has been mentioned here.

What is missing is consistency.  It wasn't twenty years ago we were all being told the ozone layer was disappearing and we were entering into a new ice age.  However, as more data is collected, it doesn't look like an ice age at all...maybe we are warming...and maybe we have been warming since the last ice age (would make sense)...and if that is the case, maybe there really isn't anything we can do about it...the warming, that is.  One more good volcano eruption and the impact is more than if we shut down all the output that humans make.  My question is, where is the consistent message?  It isn't global warming. It may be taking good care of our environment and I think that is a good message we all need to work harder at learning. IMHO.

Help Stop,

Just so you know what the fear mongers that are crying wolf over the climate now were saying before you even were born, read this article from the same scientific radicals.

(Excerpt) Read more at globalclimate.org ..

You sound like a caring young man that truly thinks that this over Global warming is a fact and that we have caused it, however, I know this is hard to accept but you have been clevery duped to believe this, and been given a spirit of fear. A Christian should not live their life in fear. 

Jan, I think you are a spectacular sister...and I love you from our communications on mychurch. I do believe though that we should honor all of God's wonderful creation. It is His gift to us. It should not be taken for granted and spoiled. It is greed that lays waste to our rivers and forests. I don't want to get off on a tangent here. I think you probably would agree with me. I am so in love with God, I am so thankful for the wonderful beautiful world He has created...and we are destroying...poisoning, polluting, wasting it away. Ohhh, do I sound Left Wing? I couldn't possibly be :-)

peace to you all...mychurch family,

Mary Ann

In Romans 8 we read that "creation was subjected to frustration", that creation is in bondage to decay, and that "creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth." And this was during the reign of the Romans, LOOONNGG before the evil capitalistic American empire! The fact is, God's entire creation is suffering from the awful effects of The Fall, and the only hope is for God's complete renewal, which we believers eagerly look forward to. Until then we could all become diehard humanist/environmentalists and recycle, plant trees, stop killing animals, cease all polution, and all that other good stuff, and creation would still be just a mere shadow of its original glory. In fact, despite our best efforts it will continue to decay!!

The fact is, disciples of Christ are the only true environmentalists, b/c only we desire to see creation as it was really meant to be, wrought by the hand of God Almighty! Amen brothers and sisters? ~mike

You just described a fatalistic mentality perspective...so pervasive in the “Christian” mindset… so sad…

Say, did I insult you Mike? I certainly did not intend to.

Jesus was a fisherman.  I think he would be sad that we can't eat the fish anymore. 

You didn't insult me, but I admit that I was a little frustrated at how hard it is for me to harness these little black and white squiggly lines and dots that form letters, and then when organized in the right way form words, then sentences. And those who are good at putting all these things together can actually convey whole thoughts! And then there's me. :-(

Of course, I have a smile on my face as I type this.

The thought above, that seems to have been misconstrued as fatalistic, was that our real hope is in Christ, and man's efforts to build (or preserve) a perfect environment here will not result in anything near what our Father has planned for us. Soooo, I look forward to that glorious time (even while taking care of the present earth), and I do not become fearful over the alarmist predictions of dire catastrophe. My mission is to minister and share the love of Christ, not convince tens, hundreds, or millions of people to recycle! I don't have time for that! For the global warming extremists, the end of civilization as we know it could be a few decades away. For many people in my life, eternity could begin tomorrow!

So I'm an optimist. Not an environmentalist, at least not the way Americans define the term. I look forward to an environment that few of them can even imagine, and none of them can do anything to create! I don't criticize them for their intentions though. Hope that makes things a little clearer! ~with love, mike

Very well said  Mark, as  well meaning as the rank and file who are following these alarmist are, as you so eloquently penned, there focus is far off the mark.

Blessings in the Lord Jesus Christ,Clyde

Matthew 5:43-47

You have heard that it was said "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?  Are not the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?  Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

DarZ, at first I thought your comment about fish was a diversion tactic, when Mary Ann and I seemingly became embroiled in conflict. (btw, she and I go to the same church, a small one at that, and I can assure you everything we say to ea other is completely in love)  However, it seems you might possibly be inferring that fish will become contaminated worlwide. Wow, that's far out!

I also don't understand why you're quoting Matt 5.

Clyde, I appreciate your perspective, and I believe that I share it! Thanks for the definition of fatalistic, it really doesn't sound like a bad thing now. Although I think the word also conveys a sense of "hopelessness" which I do not subscribe to.

Mary Ann, when you wrote "The practicing ones? And, who might they be my dear brother?" it sounded sarcastic. But then, I am probably guiltier than most at reading too much into written comments. I am confident we are tight now, given that you were laughing at me in your following post. ~love, mike

Jan, I did read what you wrote. I don't see any condescension in my response. What specifically is troubling you? 

Mike, I was asking a legitimate question – regarding the “practicing Christians” – that was not defined…I was curious.  

Back to Jan, I’m glad I read what you wrote before posting my response to Clyde J Now, that would have been condescending. Thanks for the Holy-Spirit lasso sister.  Love to you all,

Mary Ann

Yes, I suppose "practicing Christians" can mean different things to different people. What I meant was...

A practicing Christian is in the habit of seeking God everyday, and is an active participant in their own sanctification, ever striving to close the gap between where they are and where God wants them to be in regards to holiness. Walking close to God is another way of saying "practicing Christian." Or even bearing the fruit of the Spirit. One doesn't accidentally bear fruit.

One who is led by the Holy Spirit tends to do what he/she is able to do in order to take care of God's gifts, including the world we live in. The word for that is stewardship, and it has been used many times in this blog. I think the vast majority of folks who've written to this blog are good stewards. ~mike

Thanks Mike.

Clyde, I do need to clarify one thing – the word I used was fatalistic from the word fatal, not fatalism.

Hi Joel,

I suppose it all depends on your source.

In its fourth assessment of global warming, released Feb. 2, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used its strongest language yet in drawing a link between human activity and recent warming. The average surface temperature of earth has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900 and the rate of warming has been nearly three times the century-long average since 1970…

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Mary Ann

 You have mistakenly chosen the wrong adjective whether you are aware of it or not. You may indeed need to go back and clarify again, or do you use a revisionist dictionary that has changed the meaning of fatalistic, fatalism and fatalist? Yes, there are revisionist that have changed meanings of words, that would put now put a negative spin on what a Christian is all about. The average Christian is not aware of all the subtle attacks against what we as Christians believe, but they are everywhere. Dont think that the Bible hating scholars have not infiltrated the dictionaries with changed meanings.

Jan, the "Holy Spirit Lasso" would be the Holy Spirit convicting you of something you are about to do. You then reflect on it prayerfully and, hopefully, choose the godly path. Your comment helped me to reconsider a response I was about to post. And, I thank you for that. Does that make sense?

Love,

Cathy,

Do you have one of those guys with a fan?  It is getting hot here...or maybe it is global warming...

Amen WYATT... Amen...

Al Gore how I love "An Inconvient Truth,"... How I dislike Al Gore...  

                                                                          We are all in this together,

                                                                                    Stephen
 

Hey, it's like the John F. Kennedy Quote...

"Do not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

In this case...

Do not ask what your planet can do for you, but what you can do for your planet." 

Greetrings, Stephen just a thought,should we not ask the question a Chrisitian should ask,

"What can we do for our Jesus Christ, to turn nonbelievers to him before they leave this world,  on their way to a devils hell. As their fate would be, for not accepting the free gift of salvation, as the fatlalistic Christians rightly  believe. And let God worry about everthing else. if we take on worry and fret over something in our life we have just taken God out of the picture, he will politely step back and let us competely make a mess of it, until we recognize that he is in control, as long as we are not. I do believe that God can do a better job, How about you?

Totally correct.

Yes I do believe, but worring gets my mind off death and suicide. Worring allows me to imagine what people might do or think if I take myself out of the world picture.

Stephen, God loves you beyond your capacity to even imagine, and he says to trust in him and not to fear or worry. He will give you a peace beyond your ability to even comprehend. You sound like a person that truly loves God,but he also asks that we trust him with everything in our life. Simply ask for his guidance and he will give you it. I see by your concern you have a heart to do right and help others, God truly has an exciting plan for your life, do not give in to the enemies attack on your mind.

Do not worry, Blessings Clyde

I see several differing ideas here and only a few seem to address the original context.  I think Mark was asking if this global warming idea was real.  The only content that shows detailed information - aside from the Hollywood venture of Al Gore - tends to show data that is unreliable at best. I believe this is the problem with the issue overall. Even scientists can not agree on what the data means and they have far too little data to make sense.  Every year they get more data, so the information getws better, but is still inconclusive.

The thread here I don't understand is the one that tends to imply that we shouldn't care.  When God put us on this beautiful earth, he told us to take care of it.  I don't recall anywhere in the Bible where it tells us to stop.  He does tell us not to worry.  That is a different topic for a different blog. The concept of stewardship, though, is a very basic one in the scripture. Certainly, if we are heirs and if the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, then we are stewards of this planet.  To not care for it would be, IMHO, taking the Lord's name in vain.

I contend we don't know enough about this planet to know how to take good care of it. We have certainly done things to damage it and we have taken some steps to correct some of that damage.  We have done other things to improve parts of it as well.  Surely we can do more.

I would further contend that there are some who are indeed called to help us take care of this globe. Perhaps the young man posting here as Help_Stop is one of them. I would encourage you to seek an education in environmental studies and become one of our leaders in this area. God knows we need more people educated in the environment who come from a biblical worldview.  With your background, you can make a difference and that difference may indeed be significant.

As a side note to this posting...Mary Ann, unlike Mark, I have never met you except on the other end of the ether, and I have found you to be one of the sweetest, most charming, and logical ladies I have ever met. I find it amazing that several times people misread your words here. Take a WhompIT and go smack a pillow or two.  Your words here were never divisive and the Holy Ghost can use that lasso on any of us anytime we need it.

Now, let's go join Cathy for an Earth Day celebration...

These are words of a wise man. Voice... 

Something I made up right on the moment. 

Song of the People

By: Stephen

We are Gods people,     

Praise His name.

We are his everlasting army

Of a great Nation!!!!!!

We are his people!!!!!

Praise his name!!!!! 

We seek to find forgiveness and rightousness!!!!!

We are his people

We are his people

The angles sing around,

The people sing rejoice!!!!!

Rejoice!!!!

Rejoice in the Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stephen, AWESOME on-the-spot praise to our MIGHTY LORD. Thank you for that.

Hay y'all I am sorry I have been missing in action to leave the salvation of planet earth up to all of you to handle alone. It has been a busy week for me. You guys have been hitting this subject hot and heavy. This sure is an emotion filled subject for us all. Looks like we all agree that we need to do our part to be good stewards of the earth in the best way we know how. Someone add that we need to "Leave the rest to God". I agree with that. We need to rest in this and get to the work that God called all Christian's to, that is to love people to Jesus Christ. 

Stephen I join Clyde in his encourgment to you. I appreciate your comments and openness. I can tell you are a young man with great potential and a big heart. I like your song. It almost sounds like something right out of the book of Psalms. You sound like you are a believer. If you are Praise God! If you haven't trusted in Christ yet I encourage you to seriously seek Him. The Bible says that those who seek Him will find Him. Keep your eyes on Jesus. I believe Mike stated we live in a fallen world, that is so true. I think that we all feel the fallenness (if that is a word) of this world and this causes us at times to wonder if we should keep on keeping on. Christ died on the cross to save us from all this and more. We can draw on His sacrafice for us as strength to over come this curse filled world we live in. Read your Bible everyday Stephen and let God encourage your heart. Hang out with some true Christian's that will build you up in spiritual things. Don't let Satan drag you down. I believe I speak for all who have joined this discussion in saying that we will be praying for you that God will encourage you and bless your life. Mark <>< 

Check this out brothers and sisters in Christ:

The Earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof - Psalm 24:1

As followers of Jesus Christ, committed to the full authority of the Scriptures, and aware of the ways we have degraded creation, we believe that biblical faith is essential to  the solution of our ecological problems.

Because we worship and honor the Creator, we seek to cherish and care for the creation.

Because we have sinned, we have failed in our stewardship  of creation. Therefore we repent of the way we have polluted, distorted, or destroyed so much of the Creator's work.

Because in Christ God has healed our alienation from God and extended to us the first fruits of the reconciliation of all things, we commit ourselves to working in the power of the Holy Spirit to share the Good News of Christ in word and deed, to work for the reconciliation of all people in Christ, and to extend Christ's healing to suffering creation.

Because we await the time when even the groaning creation will be restored to wholeness, we commit ourselves to work vigorously to protect and  heal that creation for the honor and glory of the Creator---whom we know dimly through creation, but meet fully through Scripture and in Christ. We and our  children face a growing crisis in the health of the creation in which we are embedded, and through which, by God's grace, we are sustained. Yet we continue to degrade that creation.

These degradations of creation can be summed up as 1) land  degradation; 2) deforestation; 3) species extinction; 4) water degradation; 5)  global toxification; 6) the alteration of atmosphere; 7) human and cultural degradation.

Many of these degradations are signs that we are pressing against the  finite limits God has set for creation. With continued population growth, these  degradations will become more severe. Our responsibility is not only to bear and nurture children, but to nurture their home on earth. We respect the institution of marriage as the way God has given to insure thoughtful procreation of children and their nurture to the glory of God.

We recognize that human poverty is both a cause and a consequence of environmental degradation.

Many concerned people, convinced that environmental problems are more spiritual than technological, are exploring the world's ideologies and religions  in search of non-Christian spiritual resources for the healing of the earth. As followers of Jesus Christ, we believe that the Bible calls us to respond in four  ways:

First, God calls us to confess and repent of attitudes which devalue creation, and which twist or ignore biblical revelation to support our misuse of  it. Forgetting that "the earth is the Lord's," we have often simply used  creation and forgotten our responsibility to care for it.

Second, our actions and attitudes toward the earth need to proceed  from the center of our faith, and be rooted in the fullness of God's revelation in Christ and the Scriptures. We resist both ideologies which would presume the  Gospel has nothing to do with the care of non-human creation and also ideologies which would reduce the Gospel to nothing more than the care of that creation.

Third, we seek carefully to learn all that the Bible tells us about  the Creator, creation, and the human task. In our life and words we declare that full good news for all creation which is still waiting "with eager longing for  the revealing of the children of God," (Rom. 8:19).

Fourth, we seek to understand what creation reveals about God's divinity, sustaining presence, and everlasting power, and what creation teaches  us of its God-given order and the principles by which it works.

Thus we call on all those who are committed to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to affirm the following principles of biblical faith, and to seek ways of living out these principles in our personal lives, our churches, and  society.

The cosmos, in all its beauty, wildness, and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator.

Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding each thing in its freedom, and all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while wholly other than creation and not  to be confused with it.

God the Creator is relational in very nature, revealed as three persons in One. Likewise, the creation which God intended is a symphony of individual creatures in harmonious relationship.

The Creator's concern is for all creatures. God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31); promises care in a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17); delights in creatures which have no human apparent usefulness (Job 39-41); and wills, in Christ, "to reconcile all things to himself" (Col.1:20).

Men, women, and children, have a unique responsibility to the Creator; at the same time we are creatures, shaped by the same processes and embedded in  the same systems of physical, chemical, and biological interconnections which  sustain other creatures.

Men, women, and children, created in God's image, also have a unique responsibility for creation. Our actions should both sustain creation's fruitfulness and preserve creation's powerful testimony to its Creator.

Our God-given , stewardly talents have often been warped from their intended purpose: that we know, name, keep and delight in God's creatures; that  we nourish civilization in love, creativity and obedience to God; and that we  offer creation and civilization back in praise to the Creator. We have ignored our creaturely limits and have used the earth with greed, rather than care.

The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a  patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing. "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land...Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away" (Hosea 4:1,3). Thus, one consequence of our misuse of the earth is an unjust denial of God's created bounty to other human beings, both now and in the future.

God's purpose in Christ is to heal and bring to wholeness not only  persons but the entire created order. "For God was pleased to have all his  fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things,  whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood  shed on the cross" (Col. 1:19-20).

In Jesus Christ, believers are forgiven, transformed and brought into  God's kingdom. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation" (II Cor. 5:17). The presence of the kingdom of God is marked not only by renewed fellowship with  God, but also by renewed harmony and justice between people, and by renewed harmony and justice between people and the rest of the created world. "You will  go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isa. 55:12).

We believe that in Christ there is hope, not only for men, women and children, but also for the rest of creation which is suffering from the  consequences of human sin.

Therefore we call upon all Christians to reaffirm that all creation is  God's; that God created it good; and that God is renewing it in Christ.

We encourage deeper reflection on the substantial biblical and theological teaching which speaks of God's work of redemption in terms of the renewal and completion of God's purpose in creation.

We seek a deeper reflection on the wonders of God's creation and the  principles by which creation works. We also urge a careful consideration of how our corporate and individual actions respect and comply with God's ordinances for creation.

We encourage Christians to incorporate the extravagant creativity of  God into their lives by increasing the nurturing role of beauty and the arts in  their personal, ecclesiastical, and social patterns.

We urge individual Christians and churches to be centers of creation's  care and renewal, both delighting in creation as God's gift, and enjoying it as  God's provision, in ways which sustain and heal the damaged fabric of the  creation which God has entrusted to us.

We recall Jesus' words that our lives do not consist in the abundance  of our possessions, and therefore we urge followers of Jesus to resist the  allure of wastefulness and overconsumption by making personal lifestyle choices  that express humility, forbearance, self restraint and frugality.

We call on all Christians to work for godly, just, and sustainable  economies which reflect God's sovereign economy and enable men, women and  children to flourish along with all the diversity of creation. We recognize that  poverty forces people to degrade creation in order to survive; therefore we support the development of just, free economies which empower the poor and create abundance without diminishing creation's bounty.

We commit ourselves to work for responsible public policies which embody the principles of biblical stewardship of creation.

We invite Christians--individuals, congregations and organizations--to  join with us in this evangelical declaration on the environment, becoming a  covenant people in an ever-widening circle of biblical care for creation.

We call upon Christians to listen to and work with all those who are  concerned about the healing of creation, with an eagerness both to learn from them and also to share with them our conviction that the God whom all people  sense in creation (Acts 17:27) is known fully only in the Word made flesh in Christ the living God who made and sustains all things.

We make this declaration knowing that until Christ returns to reconcile all things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God's good garden, our earthly home.

Here's another excellent document put forth by fellow Christian leaders and laypeople:

As American evangelical Christian leaders, we recognize both our opportunity and our responsibility to offer a biblically based moral witness that can help shape public policy in the most powerful nation on earth, and therefore contribute to the well-being of the entire world.1 Whether we will enter the public square and offer our witness there is no longer an open question. We are in that square, and we will not withdraw.

We are proud of the evangelical community's long-standing commitment to the sanctity of human life. But we also offer moral witness in many venues and on many issues. Sometimes the issues that we have taken on, such as sex trafficking, genocide in the Sudan, and the AIDS epidemic in Africa, have surprised outside observers. While individuals and organizations can be called to concentrate on certain issues, we are not a single-issue movement. We seek to be true to our calling as Christian leaders, and above all faithful to Jesus Christ our Lord. Our attention, therefore, goes to whatever issues our faith requires us to address.

Over the last several years many of us have engaged in study, reflection, and prayer related to the issue of climate change (often called "global warming"). For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority. Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of human-induced climate change. We commend the four simple but urgent claims offered in this document to all who will listen, beginning with our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, and urge all to take the appropriate actions that follow from them.

Since 1995 there has been general agreement among those in the scientific community most seriously engaged with this issue that climate change is happening and is being caused mainly by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels. Evidence gathered since 1995 has only strengthened this conclusion.

Because all religious/moral claims about climate change are relevant only if climate change is real and is mainly human-induced, everything hinges on the scientific data. As evangelicals we have hesitated to speak on this issue until we could be more certain of the science of climate change, but the signatories now believe that the evidence demands action:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's most authoritative body of scientists and policy experts on the issue of global warming, has been studying this issue since the late 1980s. (From 1988—;2002 the IPCC's assessment of the climate science was Chaired by Sir John Houghton, a devout evangelical Christian.) It has documented the steady rise in global temperatures over the last fifty years, projects that the average global temperature will continue to rise in the coming decades, and attributes "most of the warming" to human activities.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, as well as all other G8 country scientific Academies (Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, and Russia), has concurred with these judgments.

In a 2004 report, and at the 2005 G8 summit, the Bush Administration has also acknowledged the reality of climate change and the likelihood that human activity is the cause of at least some of it.2

In the face of the breadth and depth of this scientific and governmental concern, only a small percentage of which is noted here, we are convinced that evangelicals must engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or humanity's responsibility to address it.

The earth's natural systems are resilient but not infinitely so, and human civilizations are remarkably dependent on ecological stability and well-being. It is easy to forget this until that stability and well-being are threatened.

Even small rises in global temperatures will have such likely impacts as: sea level rise; more frequent heat waves, droughts, and extreme weather events such as torrential rains and floods; increased tropical diseases in now-temperate regions; and hurricanes that are more intense. It could lead to significant reduction in agricultural output, especially in poor countries. Low-lying regions, indeed entire islands, could find themselves under water. (This is not to mention the various negative impacts climate change could have on God's other creatures.)

Each of these impacts increases the likelihood of refugees from flooding or famine, violent conflicts, and international instability, which could lead to more security threats to our nation.

Poor nations and poor individuals have fewer resources available to cope with major challenges and threats. The consequences of global warming will therefore hit the poor the hardest, in part because those areas likely to be significantly affected first are in the poorest regions of the world. Millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.

While we cannot here review the full range of relevant biblical convictions related to care of the creation, we emphasize the following points:

Christians must care about climate change because we love God the Creator and Jesus our Lord, through whom and for whom the creation was made. This is God's world, and any damage that we do to God's world is an offense against God Himself (Gen. 1; Ps. 24; Col. 1:16).

Christians must care about climate change because we are called to love our neighbors, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to protect and care for the least of these as though each was Jesus Christ himself (Mt. 22:34-40; Mt. 7:12; Mt. 25:31-46).

Christians, noting the fact that most of the climate change problem is human induced, are reminded that when God made humanity he commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures. Climate change is the latest evidence of our failure to exercise proper stewardship, and constitutes a critical opportunity for us to do better (Gen. 1:26-28).

Love of God, love of neighbor, and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action.

The basic task for all of the world's inhabitants is to find ways now to begin to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are the primary cause of human-induced climate change.

There are several reasons for urgency. First, deadly impacts are being experienced now. Second, the oceans only warm slowly, creating a lag in experiencing the consequences. Much of the climate change to which we are already committed will not be realized for several decades. The consequences of the pollution we create now will be visited upon our children and grandchildren. Third, as individuals and as a society we are making long-term decisions today that will determine how much carbon dioxide we will emit in the future, such as whether to purchase energy efficient vehicles and appliances that will last for 10-20 years, or whether to build more coal-burning power plants that last for 50 years rather than investing more in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In the United States, the most important immediate step that can be taken at the federal level is to pass and implement national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through cost-effective, market-based mechanisms such as a cap-and-trade program. On June 22, 2005 the Senate passed the Domenici-Bingaman resolution affirming this approach, and a number of major energy companies now acknowledge that this method is best both for the environment and for business.

We commend the Senators who have taken this stand and encourage them to fulfill their pledge. We also applaud the steps taken by such companies as BP, Shell, General Electric, Cinergy, Duke Energy, and DuPont, all of which have moved ahead of the pace of government action through innovative measures implemented within their companies in the U.S. and around the world. In so doing they have offered timely leadership.

Numerous positive actions to prevent and mitigate climate change are being implemented across our society by state and local governments, churches, smaller businesses, and individuals. These commendable efforts focus on such matters as energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy, low CO2 emitting technologies, and the purchase of hybrid vehicles. These efforts can easily be shown to save money, save energy, reduce global warming pollution as well as air pollution that harm human health, and eventually pay for themselves. There is much more to be done, but these pioneers are already helping to show the way forward.

Finally, while we must reduce our global warming pollution to help mitigate the impacts of climate change, as a society and as individuals we must also help the poor adapt to the significant harm that global warming will cause.

We the undersigned pledge to act on the basis of the claims made in this document. We will not only teach the truths communicated here but also seek ways to implement the actions that follow from them. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we urge all who read this declaration to join us in this effort.

View signatories

Karl K., I read your comment "An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation" - very encouraging!!!

Started to read your comment "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action" - that one is sure to raise a ruckus here… J

Say brothers and sisters of mychurch, I think it is time to…

Thanks May Ann!

You're right - Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action" might raise a ruckus here, but there are many millions of faithful and true Christians who agree with both of the documents I posted here.

Here's an interesting bit of info to go along with my last post... a short list of just a few of the many Christian leaders who signed "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action".

(Recognize any of the names?)

Rev. Berten A. Waggoner, National Director, Vineyard, USA; Sugar Land, TX

I feel like I'm in good company here. And I doubt that anyone could succesfully charge any of these leaders with neglecting the gospel call to reach the lost or build up the believers.

Jesus Christ may or may not return in our lifetime, but that should not give us license to be careless with the planet He has entrusted to our care.  Our Father in heaven cares for the smallest of birds and the flowers of the field; and we, being created in His image, should do the same.

Regarding the stewardship of creation and the great commission to spread the gospel message, I hope to hear from My Lord: "You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things."

God's blessings and peace to you! 

Inconvenient?  

The following items were in last Tuesday's and Wednesday's "Best of the Web Today” – a Wall Street Journal on-line feature. I forwarded these two items to Mark and he asked that I post them here:

You've Just Gotta Believe!
Back in 1988, Time magazine named "Endangered Earth" its "Planet of the Year." In a letter to readers, then-publisher Robert L. Miller explained that Time had concluded it was time to give up on old-fashioned objective journalism:

By August Time knew it was no longer enough just to describe familiar problems one more time. "The new journalistic challenge," says managing editor Henry Muller, "was to help find solutions, and that by definition meant international solutions." So we invited a distinguished group of scientists, administrators and political leaders from five continents to a Time conference charged with producing a tough but realistic action program.

The issue excerpted a speech delivered at the conference by then-Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, who dismissed all dissent:

There are areas of uncertainty about the greenhouse effect and the dire nature of the ecological crisis we face, which are seized upon as excuses for inaction. This is a psychological problem common to all humanity. If strong responses are needed and yet there is some residual uncertainty about whether you are going to have to make those responses, the natural psychological tendency is to magnify the uncertainty and say, "Well, maybe we won't really have to face up to it."

But the fact that we face an ecological crisis without any precedent in historic times is no longer a matter of any dispute worthy of recognition. And those who, for the purpose of maintaining balance in debate, take the contrarian view that there is significant uncertainty about whether it's real are hurting our ability to respond.

Gore, of course, went on to serve eight years as vice president and lose the 2000 presidential election before retiring from politics to make a full-time career in the "global warming" business. This year his alarmist movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar for Best Documentary.

Now, more than 18 years after Time decided to abjure objectivity, the New York Times has decided to practice it. "From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype" reads the front-page headline in today's Times science section:

Part of [Gore's] scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

"I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. "But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data." . . .

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

"In an e-mail message, Mr. Gore defended his work as fundamentally accurate," the Times reports. Shades of "fake but accurate"?

What's clear from the Times piece is that, far from the "consensus" the media usually describe on global warming, there is a broad range of views among scientists. Almost two decades after Gore flatly claimed that "we face an ecological crisis without any precedent in historic times," we don't know if that is really true. Kudos to the Times for introducing some perspective.

On Wednesday, they followed up with this:

'An Over-Representation of Factual Presentations'
After our item yesterday on scientists critical of Al Gore's "global warming" alarmism, a reader called our attention to an interview with Gore that appeared last May in a publication called Grist:

Q: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

Gore: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

"An over-representation of factual presentations of how dangerous it is." Isn't that what people accused President Bush of offering vis-à-vis the erstwhile Iraqi regime? Didn't this lead a certain former vice president to thunder, "He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!"?

And it's not as if Gore's "over-representations" don't have harmful effects. They've caused a lot of people to get really sad and stressed out. Consider this report from BusinessWeek:

In recent years, the TED conference has gained a reputation for blissfully big ideas buoyed by unrelenting optimism. So few conference goers were prepared for venture capitalist John Doerr to choke up with emotion as he kicked off the second day of talks on Mar. 9.

"I'm scared," he told the audience, looking down at his 15-year-old daughter in the front row. "I don't think we're going to make it."

Doerr issued a passionate call to action for everyone to make environmental concerns their "next big thing."

And this one from the Post-Chronicle, about someone called Jennifer Garner:

Jennifer has also confessed she cries more now she is a mother. The actress believes the experience has made her more caring.

She said: "Since I became a mother, I cry more because I care about things more.

"I can't watch a movie where something happens to a child. And I've always cared about global warming and breast cancer, but now there seems to be an urgency about them."

GORE LIED, PEOPLE CRIED!!!!

On a more serious note, for a recent look at the state of "scientific consensus check out The New York Times' "From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype" (registration required). Key quote: “But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.”  And Canada's National Post is running a "series on scientists who buck the conventional wisdom on climate science." They're now on part 15.

For a more accessible (and entertaining) perspective, check out Michael Crichton's Why Politicized Science is Dangerous, his Author's Message from State of Fear, and his speech, "Environmentalism as Religion"
Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA, September 15, 2003.

There's also "The Great Global Warming Swindle" from Britain's Channel 4 and for a review of the economics behind these questions take a look at Thomas Sowell (a Stanford University economist). Iain Murray's "25 inconvenient truths for Al Gore" raises some fascinating questions. Murray also examines "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action" here.  

You might also want to take a look at Steven F. Hayward's Cross of Green: "Growing evangelical interest in environmental issues has made news headlines in recent months. This Outlook reflects on the inherent difficulties of this dialogue and speculates on what environmentalists and evangelical Christians can learn from each other."

Btw, the more intense among you might be interested in taking a look at the Acton Institute's Judeo-Christian Environmental Organizations Index. There's a link there to the monograph "Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Wisdom on the Environment" -- it's sure to keep you busy for a minute or two. 

The Acton Institute also links to the Cornwall Declaration, which I've found to be more doctrinally satisfying than most of the religious statements I've read on this topic. You can learn more about Cornwall (and even sign on to it) at the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. Here's the text from Acton:

When Al Gore lost his bid to become the country’s first “Environment President,” many of us thought the “global warming” scare would finally come to a well-deserved end. That hasn’t happened, despite eight good reasons this scam should finally be put to rest.

It’s B-a-a-ck!

Similar scares orchestrated by radical environmentalists in the past--such as Alar, global cooling, the “population bomb,” and electromagnetic fields--were eventually debunked by scientists and no longer appear in the speeches or platforms of public officials. The New York Times recently endorsed more widespread use of DDT to combat malaria, proving Rachel Carson’s anti-pesticide gospel is no longer sacrosanct even with the liberal elite.

The scientific case against catastrophic global warming is at least as strong as the case for DDT, but the global warming scare hasn’t gone away. President Bush is waffling on the issue, rightly opposing the Kyoto Protocol and focusing on research and voluntary projects, but wrongly allowing his administration to support calls for creating “transferrable emission credits” for greenhouse gas reductions. Such credits would build political and economic support for a Kyoto-like cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

At the state level, some 23 states have already adopted caps on greenhouse gas emissions or goals for replacing fossil fuels with alternative energy sources. These efforts are doomed to be costly failures, as a new Heartland Policy Study by Dr. Jay Lehr and James Taylor documents. Instead of concentrating on balancing state budgets, some legislators will be working to pass their own “mini-Kyotos.”

Eight Reasons to End the Scam

Concern over “global warming” is overblown and misdirected. What follows are eight reasons why we should pull the plug on this scam before it destroys billions of dollars of wealth and millions of jobs.

1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to www.oism.org for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.

2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error.

3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”

4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”

5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario reported by the IPCC. The period from about 5000-3000 BC, known as the “climatic optimum,” was even warmer and marked “a time when mankind began to build its first civilizations,” observe James Plummer and Frances B. Smith in a study for Consumer Alert. “There is good reason to believe that a warmer climate would have a similar effect on the health and welfare of our own far more advanced and adaptable civilization today.”

6. Efforts to quickly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop Earth’s climate from changing. Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990’s levels by the year 2012--the target set by the Kyoto Protocol--would require higher energy taxes and regulations causing the nation to lose 2.4 million jobs and $300 billion in annual economic output. Average household income nationwide would fall by $2,700, and state tax revenues would decline by $93.1 billion due to less taxable earned income and sales, and lower property values. Full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by all participating nations would reduce global temperature in the year 2100 by a mere 0.14 degrees Celsius.

7. Efforts by state governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are even more expensive and threaten to bust state budgets. After raising their spending with reckless abandon during the 1990s, states now face a cumulative projected deficit of more than $90 billion. Incredibly, most states nevertheless persist in backing unnecessary and expensive greenhouse gas reduction programs. New Jersey, for example, collects $358 million a year in utility taxes to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs. Such programs will have no impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. All they do is destroy jobs and waste money.

8. The best strategy to pursue is “no regrets.” The alternative to demands for immediate action to “stop global warming” is not to do nothing. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research now and in reducing emissions sometime in the future if the science becomes more compelling. In the meantime, investments should be made to reduce emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right.

This strategy is called “no regrets,” and it is roughly what the Bush administration has been doing. The U.S. spends more on global warming research each year than the entire rest of the world combined, and American businesses are leading the way in demonstrating new technologies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.

Time for Common Sense

The global warming scare has enabled environmental advocacy groups to raise billions of dollars in contributions and government grants. It has given politicians (from Al Gore down) opportunities to pose as prophets of doom and slayers of evil corporations. And it has given bureaucrats at all levels of government, from the United Nations to city councils, powers that threaten our jobs and individual liberty.

It is time for common sense to return to the debate over protecting the environment. An excellent first step would be to end the “global warming” scam.

Joseph L. Bast is president of The Heartland Institute.

by Nima Sanandaji and Fred Goldberg
by Nima Sanandaji and Fred Goldbe 

The media portrays a dramatic image of how the ice is melting in the polar regions as a consequence of global warming. We are warned that the North Pole might become icefree during the summer months at the end of this century and that the polar bears might become extinct due to this development.

But is this really a realistic image? Sure, there is research that indicates that the ice sheets are being reduced, but there are also studies that show the complete opposite. An example of this is a study in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letter where the Swedish researcher Peter Winsor compares data collected by submarines below the Arctic ice. His conclusions are that the thickness of the ice has been almost constant between 1986 and 1997.

If you look at the South Pole there are studies that show an increase in the mass of the ice. In a study published in the journal Nature a number of polar researchers showed that they had observed a net cooling of 0.7 degrees in the region between 1986 and 2000. Another study published in Science showed that the East-Antarctic ice sheet had grown with 45 million metric tones between 1992 and 2003.

Are the ices growing or melting? The simple answer is that there exist studies that point to both directions, perhaps indicating that scientists know relatively little about global climate. But what counts to most ordinary people is what media is reporting, and media is often highlighting the most alarming studies and seldom report of studies that go against the notion that human activity leads to global warming. To put it simply, the news is filtered through an environmentalist view of the world.

An interesting example of how media sometimes gets it wrong is how journalists reported that there had never been so little ice in the Arctic than in 2005. This claim was based on satellite images by NASA which showed that the geographic extent of the ice sheet had never been so small since measurement began in 1979. One must however keep in fact that about half of the ice in the Arctic melts each summer and that two months before this measurment the extent of the ice sheet was the same as the previous year. The problem is that satellite images show the surface of the ice but not the thickness.

Capten Årnell at the summer expedition with the polar-ship Oden could tell that he had never seen so much ice in the Arctic than in 2005. It was with great difficulty that he had passed through the region. What had happened in 2005 seems to be that the ice had packed densely against the Canadian part of the Arctic. The geographical extent had been reduced but the ice was thicker.

As for polar bears, much points to that their numbers are increasing rather than diminishing. Mitch Taylor, a Canadian expert on animal populations, estimates that the number of polar bears in Canada has increased from 12 000 to 15 000 the past decade. Steven C Amstrup and his college have studied a population of polar bears in Alaska and reported that the number of females had increased from 600 to 900 between 1976 and 1992. Even a report from the WWF which is entitled "Polar bears at risk" and warns that the populations of the polar bears might become extinct due to global warming, supports that the number of polar bears is increasing. In the report the polar bears in the world are divided into 20 populations. It shows out that only 2 of these populations are decreasing, while 10 are stable, 5 are growing and 3 are not possible to comment about.

Global climate is an important issue to debate, but it is sad that what is communicated often has a clear shifting towards the worst-case scenarios and the doomsday theories. There is no reason to scare people by giving them only one side of the argument.

March 18, 2006

Nima Sanandaji [send him mail] is president of the Swedish think tank Captus and the editor of Captus Journal. He is a graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Fred Goldberg is associate professor at the Royal School of Technology in Stockholm and was on a Polar trip whilst writing this article.

The global warming scam
Melanie Phillips ^ | 09 January 2004 | Melanie Phillips's Diary

Posted on 01/10/2004 6:01:06 PM PST by Lando Lincoln

Most Christians I know who are concerned about the care of the environment are not motivated by fear of global warming, but by a genuine concern to be good stewards of the world the Lord has given us.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why some people seem to be so strongly against the idea of taking good care of the environment.  Could it be because care of the environment requires us to look out, not only for our own interests, but the interests of all of God's creatures? Could it be because looking out for the interests of all of God's creatures might require some sacrifice and selflessness?

The Cornwall Declaration seems to read like some bizarre libertarian manifesto attempting to rationalize unrestricted industrial expansion, consumerism and materialism.

How many of those opposing enviromentalism on this blog live in large cities seriously affected by pollution resulting form too much industry, business and population concentrated in one area?  How many have to breathe polluted air and buy bottled water to drink?  How many are in areas where the garbage has no place to go - where there is no safe place to swim - or fish?

God gave us the gift of this earth for our enjoyment, but as any child knows... if you don't take good care of your gifts - if you abuse them and neglect them enough, they become useless and can no longer be enjoyed.

Can we honestly believe that God will not eventually judge this materialistic and consuming society for its selfishness, greed, waste, and destructiveness?

No, we as Christians know He will.  Just as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah He will. 

Selfish and arrogant stewards will be judged and found wanting.

I want to be a good steward.

Karl K said, "Can we honestly believe that God will not eventually judge this materialistic and consuming society for its selfishness, greed, waste, and destructiveness?"

Just a thought. God was willing to put aside judgment of Sodom for just 10 righteous people. What makes him think that God would be willing to destroy America for its "selfishness, greed, etc." while there are yet many thousands, and possibly millions, of devoted Christians (Biblically, "righteous") living in the land???  This seems to be anti-Biblical and appears to go against God's character, IMHO. ~mike

Judgment of sinful societies/nations is unBiblical even when righteous people are present? Well, let's not limit the test to only Sodom (and remember, Sodom WAS judged but the righteous few got out)! 

How about Jerusalem after Christ Jesus had returned to heaven in A.D. 70? It was filled with many Christians, but Titus surrounded Jerusalem, laying seige to it. Many Christians heeded God's warnings, and when this happened they escaped, hiding in the clefts of Petra, thereby escaping God's judgment of that wicked society. (See Luke 21:20-24 for the prophetic warning they heeded).

Here are a few good Scriptures for those who doubt that God judges societies for their sinfulness:

"The LORD spoke to me. "Mortal man," he said, "tremble when you eat, and shake with fear when you drink. Tell the whole nation that this is the message of the Sovereign LORD to the people of Jerusalem who are still living in their land: They will tremble when they eat and shake with fear when they drink. Their land will be stripped bare, because everyone who lives there is lawless. Cities that are now full of people will be destroyed, and the country will be made a wilderness. Then they will know that I am the LORD." The LORD spoke to me. "Mortal man," he said, "why do the people of Israel repeat this proverb: 'Time goes by, and predictions come to nothing'? Now tell them what I, the Sovereign LORD, have to say about that. I will put an end to that proverb. It won't be repeated in Israel any more. Tell them instead: The time has come, and the predictions are coming true! "Among the people of Israel there will be no more false visions or misleading prophecies. I, the LORD, will speak to them, and what I say will be done. There will be no more delay. In your own lifetime, you rebels, I will do what I have warned you I would do. I have spoken," says the Sovereign LORD. The LORD said to me, "Mortal man, the Israelites think that your visions and prophecies are about the distant future. So tell them that I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying: There will be no more delay. What I have said will be done. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!"   (Ezekiel 12:17-28)

"First of all you must understand this: In the last days mockers will come and, following their own desires, will ridicule us by saying, "What happened to His promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of creation. "But they deliberately ignore the fact that long ago the heavens existed and the earth was formed by God's word out of water and with water, by which the world at that time was deluged with water and destroyed. Now by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire and are being kept for the day when ungodly people will be judged and destroyed. Don't forget this fact, dear friends: With the Lord a single day is like a 1,000 years, and a 1,000 years are like a single day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some people understand slowness, but is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to perish, but wants everyone to come to repentance. But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will disappear with a roaring sound, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be exposed. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, think of the kind of holy and godly people you ought to be."   (2 Peter 3:3-11)

"Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."  (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

A fair and just God loves mercy but must also punish those who persistently sin against others. 

I hardly think poor stewardship is a reason God will use to wipe out a nation. That could just be me though. Instances in the Bible of God intentionally wiping out entire nations for reasons of judgment are incredibly rare (though I certainly don't argue that it happened). And when it did happen, God's reasons for doing so rarely leave us readers scratching our heads and wondering why He did it.

In my opinion (yes, just my opinion), for God to judge us because we are poor stewards seems pretty heavy-handed. C'mon, there are far more abominable nations around the world than the US. If God leaves us to our own devices and we end up destroying our nation, isn't that judgment enough? ~mike

Clyde, you do realize that if everyone took that pledge then eventually no one could justify any energy usage -- i.e. as people used less than the average, the average would drop...

Karl, just like the strawman about people wanting to see the environment destroyed, I haven't anyone here question

Of course, stewardship is not limited to care of the environment. Stewardship is to involve every area of our life. For example: What do we do with the truth of God's word? (A good steward will carefully strive to model his/her life after God's word)  How do we steward the gifts of family and friends?  How do we steward the financial resources God has given us? So, yes, when God brings judgment upon wicked societies and individuals it is indeed based on stewardship - mainly poor stewardship of all of these things and more.

Mike, you are right, it is Biblical to say that God often leaves us to our own devices, and we end up reaping our own judgment:

 "Turn at My rebuke; surely I will pour out My Spirit on you; I will make My words known to you.  Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out My hand and no one regarded, because you disdained all My counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.  Then they will call on Me, but I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently; but they will not find Me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of My counsel and despised My every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies.  For when the simple-minded turn away, it will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to Me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil."  (Proverbs 1:23-33) 

This should be all the more reason for Christians to work to warn people to turn from their wrong ways.  If we really love our fellow human beings, we will want to help them avoid destruction. As long as a person is alive, they have the opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior - it is too late for those who are dead.  Our actions should be those that will work to prolong lives while sharing the message of salvation!

I don't want poor environmental stewardship to lead to the premature death of anyone. I want to be a part of doing things that lead to life - and that more abundantly! 

Christ Jesus went about doing things to show the people that He cared about their lives here on earth. He healed the sick and fed the hungry.

We are called to be Christ-like! When people see that we care about them and the quality of their life - when they see us doing things to promote their welfare - they will be much more likely to be interested in our message of salvation. 

 Christians that also claims to be an environmentalist have aligned themselves with the kooks of this world. Any bible believing Christian would naturally be a good steward of what is in their control. The mandate from Christ is to go and preach the gospel, in other words to tell all, the good news that Jesus Christ has given my life on the cross, so that all may be justified in the sight of our Holy Heavenly Father.

The state of world climate and the control of it are not in our mandate from Jesus Christ.

(For the wacko tree huggers reading this, I did not say we could purposely pollute anywhere).  

 The nations and people that were recorded to have been destroyed in the Old Testament, had nothing to do with the environmental concerns, but had all to do with living a heathen lifestyle, forgetting God, and not caring for others. The U.S. does not fit into this scenario, although we are getting close to shutting out God. The U.S. is in fact the largest giver per capita than any nation on the earth, and the average U.S. citizen is the most generous giver in the world.

One of the latest posts, attempted to draw a correlation between the cities and people destroyed by God for a heathen life style as an example for God destroying or judging our nation because liberal scientist and researchers say that we are destroying the worlds climate, and we do not care.

 I assume that this kooky view makes then feel superior somehow, and that they care more than the rest of us, who rightly know that this premise is not a proven fact and that it is not even possible for us to do even if we wanted to. The world is held unto the judgment  and destruction of God , not unto mans gasoline cars, cans of hair spray, cows flatulence (Farting for tree huggers), air conditioners Freon, manufacturing plants emissions or any of the other reasons the kooks can come up with.. The following is the fate of the earth.

If you claim to be a Christian and still believe Al Gore, the Global Warming Prophet over the Prophet Peter of the Bible, then I humbly submit that you are not a Christian at all. You need to repent ask God to forgive you.

…I haven’t seen anyone here question whether God judges entire societies.  (Must...avoid...return key) Your comment, "Most Christians I know who are concerned about the care of the environment are not motivated by fear of global warming, but by a genuine concern to be good stewards of the world the Lord has given us." is equally true for me.

You then ask a series of "Could it be...?" questions and offer some pretty serious assertions about other's motives. How about we just apply Occam's Razor?

§       Some of us grew up hearing the threat of the "coming ice age" and we're a little skeptical about sweeping statements of impending environmental doom. 

§       Some of us believe a "cost-benefit analysis" is in order before adopting any significant change. We're skeptical about the folks who brought the deaths of millions of people to malaria in the name of banning DDT--the same DDT that is now being touted as the best available solution for Africa's malaria crisis. ("Each year, more than 500 million people suffer from acute malaria, resulting in more than 1 million deaths. At least 86 percent of these deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally an estimated 3,000 children and infants die from malaria every day and 10,000 pregnant women die from malaria in Africa every year. Malaria disproportionately affects poor people, with almost 60 percent of malaria cases occurring among the poorest 20 percent of the world’s population." -- cited in "WHO gives indoor use of DDT a clean bill of health for controlling malaria" from the World Health Organization; also see "What the World Needs Now Is DDT" from the New York Times.) 

§       We've seen what "central planning" has accomplished for so many countries and we're skeptical about solutions that seem to involve way too much of "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." and "Trust me."

§       The World Bank, the World Health Organization, and many others concerned with the world’s “least of these” concur that the single best thing that could happen to alleviate poverty and the misery that follows is development. For all the complaints about conditions in developed countries, having been in many countries around the world, I can tell you it’s better in the “first world.”  Many of the proposed solutions ask that those who are already behind, stop attempting to catch up. It’s too easy for “the haves” to ask “the have-nots” to just suck it up and that makes some of us skeptical.

§       Regarding the signatories to “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action” you said, “I feel like I'm in good company here.” You are—if the topic is the Gospel.  But I’m one of Mark’s (this thread’s owner) pastors and I can guarantee you that however good he feels about my grasp of the Gospel, he’s not interested in my opinions on engine diagnostics—nor should he be.  Properly placed trust is a good thing but so is recognizing one’s limitations. History is filled with the ill effects of the good-intentioned, well-meaning efforts of sincere people who were out of their depth (e.g., Socrates was a competent philosopher but a lousy defense attorney.) There are some areas where sincerity counts for nothing and the stakes here make this one of them.

Clyde and Carl, ad hominem attacks that impugn other's motives, faith, and/or character might make you feel validated but they do not contribute to meaningful discussion and have no place in a Christian environment. Quotes like “bizarre libertarian manifesto attempting to rationalize unrestricted industrial expansion, consumerism and materialism.”; “does not this give you a hint that this ‘Global Warming’ the sky is falling rhetoric is nothing more than a quasi religious sect, with Al Gore as its head prophet.”; and, “wacko tree huggers” aren’t rebuttal, they’re deflections relying on overly-broad labeling. If truth is really on your side then lay aside the labels, stop tossing around the mischaracterizations, listen, research, and then reply.

Clyde said:  "The nations and people that were recorded to have been destroyed in the Old Testament, had nothing to do with the environmental concerns, but had all to do with living a heathen lifestyle, forgetting God, and not caring for others."

Not having a concern for the environment shows a lack of concern for others, for poor environmental practices affect others negatively.

Of course, the judgment of ancient societies were not about environmental concerns because polluting industries were almost totally non-existent!

We face a different situation today.

The United States leads the world in polluting.  Here is a list of the top 100 corporate air polluters:

THE TOXIC 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters in the United States

Almost 4 out of 5 Canadians believe in global warming: poll

"Only 12 per cent of those surveyed viewed global warming as "junk science" and only two per cent believed global warming isn't happening at all."

Interesting...only about 10% of the North American population has a scientific background - a degree is a hard science...could there be a relationship there?

 With all do respct for the opinions of others;

I do not normally mention the names of others as you have done, and I have stated my opinion as truthfully as I can., as I am sure you have also. I have no doubt that  you are  a very caring pastor and person,  and  have only the purest of motives in your comment to the two persons you named and think that you have the spiritual authority to dictate how others should or should  not speak.

 However, and I do not mean this in a sarcastic way, but have you considered that you may not be the final discerner of what is and what is not an not appropriate comment  for a Christian  environment. No one has yet used any curse words or off color remarks. Some quotes from others you may not like and would not use, and that is you right and choice as a Christian.

 However, labels are always used to identify a person that has aligned himself or herself with a particular mindset. Just as the ‘Label’ Christian refers to a follower of Jesus Christ and a ‘Pastor’, which you use, links you to a mindset and particular belief that most people are commonly aware.

A tree hugger is commonly used to refer to a person that has aligned their thinking to the radical environmental movement. Naturally, not every person that cares about the environment is a “tree hugger”, and I did not say that a Christian that cares about the environment is a whacko tree hugger, meaning a radical environmentalist; I merely said that they have aligned their thinking with them. As far as your claim that we have done a mischaracterization, I have rightly defined the group that I was referring. 

You may disagree that is your right, but it does not necessarily make you right. I am not a religiously or politically correct Christian; I call it as I see it. Your Pastoral authority is in your Church not on this Blog. Do not misunderstand me I admire and have great respect for any one that would take the mantle and pastor in today’s environment, (no pun intended)  However, your Pastoral authority is in your Church not on this Blog.

You made some very common sense remarks, in my opinion, before this lesson on how a Christian is supposed to express them selves. I appreciate another levelheaded voice on this issue.

Would you have also corrected Jesus Christ in these following scriptures, as you say an overly- broad labeling? Truth is very often found in labels as Jesus demonstrated, and often used. Perhaps you are the one trying to feel validated, by telling others how they should express themselves. I do not need validation myself.

 The enemy has often tried to do away with or change labels, abortionist want to be called women rights advocates, Perverted Homosexuals want to be called Gay, Socialist want to be called  liberal democrats, Garbage collectors want to be called sanitation engineers etc. You get the point Labels often tell exactly what a person commonly believes and often how they will act.

Don’t think that  I wasn’t aware that  my last was not going bring out  posters that would want to try and correct my  turn and use of  non political terms  and expressions.

 This discussion, by the way is on the validity of the claim that Global Warming is or is not caused by people and if it really exists, the stewardship slant has been brought in as I see it by Christians trying to justify their following of Al Gores ‘the sky is falling’ syndrome ( I know you do not like that, But I really don’t care, as it rightly describes his tactics). For those that have read that little story of ‘Chicken Little’ will know what I mean in the comparison, as that is what it was.

(If truth is really on your side then lay aside the labels, stop tossing around the mischaracterizations, listen, research, and then reply.)

Would you call these statements of Jesus a labeling mischaracterization?

1 Timothy 1:10 (KJV)
For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

Titus 1:12 (KJV)
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

Revelation 2:2 (KJV)
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

Revelation 21:8 (KJV)
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

Sorry, I don't think that link I provided will work, so I'll try with this one:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/644830974?z00m=9419861&z00m=9419861&ltl=1174607866

Randall Balmer? It's hard to find anyone in the "church" with a more liberal point of view than he. In digging for info on this guy, I was amused to find the following:

In his recent book Thy Kingdom Come, "he (Balmer) has a long section arguing that if evangelicals are biblical literalists, they should have a hard time condemning abortion. Sample quotes: "For a people who take pride in a kind of slavish literalism, constructing a case against abortion [from the Bible] is not easy. . . . The problem is, the Bible is rather silent on the matter of abortion." (pp. 6-7). Well, if evangelicals were to push for "slavish literalism," there's at least one passage that would seem to apply: "Thou shalt not kill." Balmer doesn't mention this rather obvious point, not even to refute it."  (from Stuart Buck's blog, The Buck Stops Here, 10/22/06)

It would seem that Balmer doesn't condemn abortion, given the above quotes. For me that kinda marginalizes anything else he says...

Can we expect anything but these kind of sources from one that would use a poll from a socialist country?

Karl, your comment:

"We are called to be Christ-like! When people see that we care about them and the quality of their life - when they see us doing things to promote their welfare - they will be much more likely to be interested in our message of salvation."

This is truth. This is love. This is beautiful.

I haven't read Balmer's book, but I felt his article on Moral Myopia was good. If Balmer is not pro-life, I would not agree with him on that. I am pro-life, and have served time in jail for being arrested while praying in front of an abortion clinic in Fargo,ND back in the early 90's.

About socialism, one defintition is: "common ownership of land and economic equality among citizens." 

Acts 4:32, 34-35 tells us:

"Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common... nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they disributed to each as anyone had need."

If it was good enough for the early church...

Well, hats off to Canada!

By the way, they have a parliamentary system of freely elected officials. Their cities are clean, and their cities have much less violence per capita than do the cities of the United States. They also provide health care for all of their citizens.  It probably wouldn't hurt us to learn a few lessons from our neighbors to the north! 

Karl, duck friend...uh-oh, socialism and universal healthcare. Better save those for a blog unto themselves. :-)

Cathy, Where is that Womp-it? Folks let's refocus our toughts onto what we can do to improve things and stop pointing fingers at everything and everybody else. What exactly has God called us to do? How much time and concern do you think God would have us spend on improving our environment while souls are going into hell? I don't say this to minimize that we have a responciability to be stewards of our planet. I know I do all I can to help in the effort. Our marching orders as Christian's are found in Matthew 28:18-20

Since Jesus has "all power" over heaven and earth and He will be with us until the "end of the world". We might want to let Him handle planet earth, which by the way will end with much fire and heat while we follow His command to go "and teach all nations".  If we do that I believe He will be true to His Word and not allow the place to go up in flames before His appointed time. 

You continue to amaze me with your lack of wisdom and knowledge. If you believe that Canada is superior to the US. I would be willing to donate to move you there. You are sounding more and more like you are a socialist supporter, you might be happy there.

As pastor Dan so rightly stated ,you do not know the difference in the social arangement in the Bible and the central controlling socialistic governments of today. Perhaps if you were to lived in one for a while you might learn the difference.

Hey Mark, global warming aside, meeting peoples felt needs is something Jesus did as well as meeting their spiritual needs. Our trip to Mississippi in April is a prime example. That is why I whole heartedly agree with Karl's statement:

"We are called to be Christ-like! When people see that we care about them and the quality of their life - when they see us doing things to promote their welfare - they will be much more likely to be interested in our message of salvation."

See you in about 14 hours. :-)

Mary Ann, I can agree fully with that statement. I wanted to attempt to redirect the bulk of the conversation on to solutions. I find it so easy myself to point fingers at, lets say, the top 100 corparations that are polluting (and maybe they are) but loose sight of what I am doing. The only thing I see we could do to try to stop big business from polluting is boycott them. The fact is that boycotting, for example, the list posted a ways back in this blog would almost require us to move to another planet. These companies and their subciduaries (sp) make up life as we know it on planet earth. If you could somehow force all of them out of buiness then 100 more rise to the top. That creates no progress. I would love to go move out in the woods and forget the rat race we live in and exist out there. But even then I would end up messing up the emvironment somehow out there in the woods. 

Thank you for bringing up the coming Mississippi trip. When we get back we need to blog about that some so people can get a real picture on what's really going on down there over a year and a half after Katrina. The media has sure moved on to other topics. I don't view our trip as us going down there to help correct the effects of global warming as some folks would say. I think this statement "We are called to be Christ-like! When people see that we care about them and the quality of their life - when they see us doing things to promote their welfare - they will be much more likely to be interested in our message of salvation." comes in. Hurricans have been happening for ever as I believe it was mentioned by Jan earlier in the Blog. I still remember Agnes that hit Maryland in I believe 1972. It was a cat1 hurrican that came out of the Gulf of Mexico and moved up the east coast then stalled at the Mason-Dixon line (border of MD and PA for those unfiamluar with east coast terms) for a couple of days feeding off of moisture from the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean dumping a unbelievable amounts of rain on central Maryland. Back then I remember prople blaming it on NASA going to the moon and a coming ice age.

I got to run off to work now hate to drop out here but I must. Love all of you. Have a great Friday everyone! Mark <><

By listing some positive things about our neighbors to the north I was not suggesting that one country or the other was superior. Both countries have things they can learn from each other.

Mark asked, "What exactly has God called us to do? How much time and concern do you think God would have us spend on improving our environment while souls are going into hell?"

About how much time did Jesus spend healing the sick, feeding the poor, and rasing the dead? About the same amount of time that He spent preaching the Gospel message (if not more)! The point is, they went hand-in-hand together.

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't do the same! There is no reason to leave social justice issues left undone because we are supposed to be out preaching the gospel message!  They can be done hand-in-hand! The call to carry the Gospel message was not meant to replace the other responsibilities God has given us - it is an added responsibility that is reinforced when we carry out God's call to love others and care for this world...

I don't see an equivalence between "healing the sick, feeding the poor, and raising the dead" with social justice/environmental issues. The difference? Most often when Jesus did the aforementioned activities, he was dealing with individuals. Usually he physically touched them.

The list in Matt 25 (When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.) again deals with ministering to individuals. Using the logic described above, I could become a patent lawyer and claim to be fulfilling God's call to feed the hungry etc.

I'm not speaking to any larger issues, this comment only applies to the comparison just made. Try again, you can do better!  :-)

Since poor care of the enviroment can lead to pollution of water and food supplies, environmental care can have alot to do with giving the least of these water to drink or food to eat. 

When Jesus fed the 4000 and 5000 He was not dealing with individuals, but a large population group.

So, are you arguing that we can't be involved with social justice issues and care of the environment while sharing the Gospel message at the same time?

I imagine that there are many patent lawyers who are able to reach a population group that many of us could never touch. Are you implying that just because they are patent lawyers they cannot share the gospel with the people they come into contact with?

My point is, we need not leave off doing good things while also sharing the gospel message.

When Jesus fed the 4000 and 5000 I would think that He most certainly did deal with individuals. Distribution of bread/fish via small baskets, I can see He and/or the disciples visiting each person in the crowd.

I agree with the point you just shared! ~mike

I want to repost a some verses posted earlier by Russ. According to the above prophecy that Peter made a LOOOOOOONNNNNG time ago, the Earth is heading into the direction that the Bible said it would. NO?

Yes! Yes! The earth is headed towards a destiny of destruction - so let's help it on its way! Let's do all we can to bring sickness, death and destruction to this earth! Those are the kinds of things the Lord would have us do!   

Since the earth will one day be destroyed anyways, the least we can do is just sit back and let it get worse and worse - how dare we try to care for this earth as God instructed us in Genesis 2:15. That's so Old Testament!

Karl,

I agree that the big corps need to do all they can to improve. I also agree with you that sharing the Gospel and taking care of the environment can be done in tandem and it should. Who would listen to our message otherwise?

My point is, I suppose, that I don't personaly feel called to lead a crusade on the environment other than to lead by example. I see some capable people within the Church and many outside of the Church concerned about these issues in a big way. My point has been and will continue to be that we as Christians need to focus our main effort somewhere. Keep in mind we only have so many hours in a day. I see many good people working on these matters so at one point I had to ask myself, "How much time and concern do I think God would have me spend on improving my environment while souls are going into hell?" I concluded for me that I am not called to spend a large part of my spare time on social issues. That is not to say that God isn't calling you in a different way. We all need to think these things through and seek God's guidence is how we become stewards over our time. I guess the bottom line question we need to ask ourselves is, How does God want me to bring honor and glory to Him in this world with the time and energy He provides me? 

Karl, that's as shallow as saying since we're forgiven we should continue to sin. God forbid!

We can and should take care of Creation all we want. I would argue our time would be better spent leading as many people as possible to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The relevancy of many of these post are not even close to providing a justification for following Al Gores hyped  up Global Warming farce. When the other side of common sense finds that they have run upon an opposition that will not buy the radical social engineering ideas of the  socialistic model for society, they will always cloud the issue with many irrelevant  examples like the last one, which has nothing at all to do with the original premise.

Many of the opposing views to this Global warming premise have been touted around the Idea of stewardship and the argument that if one does not believe and subscribe to this phony Global Warming premise, that they are somehow not a good steward and God is going to judge them for that omission. In addition, ties have somehow been tried to be linked to not believing in Global Warming somehow discredits our witness to the unsaved people in other nations.

 One extreme example was couched around the fact that some people in third world nations do not have clean and sanitary drinking water. In addition, I would assume the insinuation was trying to be made that a non-believer in Global Warming would somehow stop or not want to help in bringing clean water to people around the world. However, the tie to Global Warming in this example and the link that non believers in Al Gore and his phony premise is responsible or causing this problem  is a stretch so far  as to be laughable.

 This premise of course being, that the earth is heating up to a lethal state, and that humankind has somehow caused this by his greed and wanton abandonment of concern for others. The social model to deal with this phony hypothesis is to have a central governing body of social engineers to recommend and put in place, new taxes, create new laws and restrictions on the general populace. However, the elite like Al Gore and his well to do cohorts are some how given an out to all the new restrictions , I.E. carbon offsets so that they will not  have give up their current affluent life style in this process.  

An affluent life style is not in and of its self an evil thing, unless you are a social liberal democrat, and even then, it is only evil to those that do not buy the socialist ideology. It is okay for the elite, however, not for the common person. No, he must sacrifice so people like Al Gore can buy what he calls carbon offsets, (in this case buying offsets from a company that he is a part of, which invests in his own profitability). Which hints of only a ploy to deceive others into thinking that he is doing his part for this phony issue he has championed, being its prime prophet and evangelist.

The general citizens ‘must’ give up so Al Gore can buy these phony carbon offsets in an phony attempt to convince others that he too is doing his part; and he can then continue to keep his affluent life style unfettered from the restrictions that he wants to impose on the rest of us. It does not take a, as an old saying goes, ‘a rocket scientist’ to see through this sham.  

Although, sadly there are many Christians that have not yet seen through this deception, they are in fact deceived. They are not necessarily bad people, as a true Christian is still a Christian and a Brother or Sister in Jesus Christ to me.  However, many are deceived nonetheless and this is a fight with the forces of evil not the deceived Christian.

I can hear some of you already thinking, who does he think he is saying that I am deceived?

If you are thinking this, it is very possible that you are one of the deceived, as the undeceived in this phony issue would not be thinking that. 

Question for the people who have by now taken issue to what I have said about being deceived.

We all remember the Jones Town, Jim Jones mass suicide when they all drank the poison Kool-Aid. Do you think that they may have been deceived? Do you think that if you had told one of them before they drank of the Kool-Aid “you are deceived”, do you think that they would have known it? Of course, they would not have known it, which is why they followed this man to their destruction; they threw away common sense for a perceived prophet. Followers of Al Gores phony premise are also being deceived and have thrown away God given common sense for the ranting of a political social liberal democrat. Of whom one of his  friends in Congress called  him a “prophet” to this issue, does not this title hint of an religious agenda, the liberal Democrats phony separation of Church and State mantra is somehow forgotten in this case (the religion being Global Warming Climate Change) , as long as it bolsters their socialistic ideas and agendas

We have two choices to either believe Al Gore And his new Global Warming religion, or believe God and what he had the true prophets write in the Book, “The Holy Bible”.

The Earth is in the control of God himself, not in the control of his creation Humankind.

We cannot either destroy or change the destiny of this earth, to think so is to disbelieve God and his written word.

You got it mixed up Clyde! I'm a born-again, Spirit-filled, tongue-talking Christian posing as a social activist!

Here's my personal testimony, the one I gave at the Crookston, MN Gideons Pastors' Appreciation Banquet on this past Tuesday night, March 20th:

My Personal Testimony of Christ's Saving Grace

Even though my parents divorced when I was young, my mother made sure we made it to Sunday school and church on a regular basis. I really looked forward to going to church, as it was one of the few places I could go where my self-esteem was built up. I loved the choir and the youth activities, and by the time I was 14 years old, I was even teaching a first grade Sunday school class!

My mom eventually remarried. My stepfather was an Irish Catholic, raised during the depression, and he harbored bitterness due to the hard childhood he'd been through. He felt that we kids had it too easy, and he often tried to find extra work for us to do. He didn't seem very happy if we had free time to play and be kids. We also never seemed to be able to do a job according to his liking. It was very frustrating and depressing. He didn't like to go to our church either. He was always running down the church, calling everyone hypocrites - complaining that the ministers were thieves - "always passing the collection plate". If my brothers or I ever did anything wrong after church, he'd say that it was proof that the church was no good - "why did we bother to go?" etc. But the thing that bothered me the most was the way he ran down and criticized my mom. I knew that my mom was trying her best to make him happy, but he could just never be pleased. He had a very foul mouth, and his choice of negative adjectives for my mom really angered me. When I was a young teen, I began to fight back - telling him how wrong he was. My anger grew so strong, that several times at night my pillow would become the victim - almost torn to shreds. I was afraid of what I might do if things didn't change, so I knew that I needed to have a way of escape!

My dad would come to visit us a couple times a month from his home in Lansing, Michigan. We often spent several weeks during the summer with him, and I had grown to like my stepmother. My dad knew that things weren't going very well between my step-dad and I, so he took advantage of the opportunity to say that, if I would like, I could move in with him when I was 15. So I did!

My dad was not a churchgoer, but he didn't discourage me in going. I decided to check out a nearby Congregational church, since my church in Traverse City had been Congregational. I was hoping to find the same acceptance and excitement that I had known at my church back home! I walked the two blocks to the church that first Sunday, and slipped into the huge, expansive sanctuary. I was greeted by an elderly usher at the door, and was helped to a seat far from the front. I felt so far away! No one did any visiting, and the mood was stifling and funeral-like. I felt very alone and very small. I looked around to see if I could find any young people my age, but I could hardly even find anyone my dad's age! This church was apparently just for old people! The whole service was so boring and dry that I vowed I would never go back!

Lansing was a much larger city than my home-town of Traverse City, and therefore I was soon exposed to things I had been previously protected from. My older stepbrother Larry was in a rock band and he often would invite me along to their practice sessions. During their breaks they would go upstairs and smoke pot or hash in small pipes. I had never thought of trying it, but I really admired Larry, and he seemed to deal with it ok. I still wasn't sure what it would do to me - so when Larry offered me a chance to try it, I asked him. He just laughed and told me that I probably wouldn't even get high. He told me you actually needed to smoke it several times before you got even mildly high. And so I began my experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

I graduated high school in 1974 and returned to Traverse City. In the summer of 1977 I was working at the brand new Traverse City K-mart store as assistant manager in the home improvement department. I was making pretty good money, had a nice car, and I had begun dating a gal who worked in the toy department. Things had become serious. We were talking marriage, and were making some real concrete plans. But, unknown to me, Jolene had a former boyfriend from her short stint in the Army - a sergeant named Phil. They had talked about marriage too, but they had not been in contact since she had left the service. Jolene had held out for Phil for some time, but after January 1, 1977 she decided that if Phil did not contact her, she would start seeing other guys. That's where I had come in! Well, when she got ahold of Phil to tell him we were getting married, he couldn't believe the news! He lamented that he still wanted to marry her - that he had even purchased the trailer home they had talked about. He had been really busy, and wondered why he hadn't heard from her too. Well, she was torn. She told me that she thought she still might love Phil, and she had to know for sure before she could marry anyone else. She decided to move in with Phil down in Georgia to see if it would work out. I found myself reeling from the rejection. In my heartbreak, I went on a drinking spree and got into some real trouble for driving my car over a golf course while intoxicated. I was facing the possibility of a long jail term . The charges were "Driving Under the Influence " and "Malicious Destruction of Property. On the advice of a friend, I joined the military, hoping that I could leave my problems behind. I avoided the jail term, but I still had time to do - 4 years of it - in the military!

By the summer of 1978 I was a 23 year-old Seaman Apprentice aboard the USS Hunley AS-31 stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately, alcohol and drugs were just as freely available in the Navy as they had been when I was a civilian, and the pressures of military life invited me to escape in the way I had before - with lots of drinking and drugs!

As a result, I started spending all of my paycheck, and beyond, to stay stoned. This led to a large amount of debt! To help pay this debt, I agreed to sell drugs for one of the fellows to whom I owed money. But, instead of selling the drugs to pay off my debt, I did all of them by myself in one day!

I had really made a mess of things now! I couldn't face the prospect of what might happen to me for not being able to pay my debt! I was filled with great fear and dread! I didn't want to face it any more, so I decided that I was going to take my life.

Before I did this, I decided to pour out my heart to one of my drinking buddies, Randy – a backslidden Mormon. To my surprise, I found him in his bunk - reading a Bible! When Randy heard of my plans for suicide, he asked, "Why do you want to do that? - God put you here for a reason!" I replied, "I've tried God, I even taught Sunday school, it just doesn't work." Randy retorted, "If you had really given God a chance, do you think that you'd be where you are right now?" That was like a knife in my chest - deeply convicting me! I knew that if I had truly followed God's ways, I would not have been in the trouble I was in right then! I decided to give God one last chance!

Randy let me borrow his Bible and two Mormon books, and I went to the mess hall to a table where I could read without being disturbed. It was about 2 a.m. by this time.

A phone began ringing in the Marine Detachment Office right behind where I was sitting. When it didn't stop, I decided I had better get up and answer it. I took Randy's Bible with me, but left the two Mormon books at the table where I had been sitting.

After handling the phone call, I returned to the table, only to find the two Mormon books missing! Afraid that Randy had found the books abandoned, and had taken them back to his bunk, I went to check. Randy wasn't awake, and didn't know anything about it, but when he realized that I had lost his Mormon books, he took his Bible back!

Well, I went back to my berthing area and laid on my bunk, full of despair! I hadn't found the answers that I was looking for, and now I had no Bible in which to search for them! I couldn't sleep! Something just had to happen, or I would never be able to go on!

Filled with frustration, I got out of bed and fell to my knees. Kneeling over, with my face buried in my bed, I cried out - "If there really is a God - I need your help!" It was about 4 a.m., and not a soul was stirring in the darkness of the berthing area.

As I prayed, my hand bumped against something on my bed. I looked, and I saw a small Gideons New Testament! It had not been there when I had started praying! No one had been around to put it there! Chills went through my body, as I realized that it must have been God (or an angel), who had put it there, just for me, in my time of need!

I was helped immensely by the Scripture references in the front of the Bible under the "Where To Find Help" section! My faith was built up, and eventually God led me to read in the book of John, where I realized anew His great love for me! It was while I was reading in the book of John that Christ came into my heart, replacing the emptiness and despair! The power of His Spirit washed over me! With the great void in my heart finally filled, I no longer had the desire for alcohol, drugs, or shameful passion! With the assurance of God's love, and His presence in my life, I could now face the future with peace and hope!  I certainly had not done anything to merit such love - what amazing grace that Jesus Christ would give His life for me!

I could very easily have died without the hope of eternal life that night if someone had not been faithful to print, purchase and distribute those Gideons New Testaments. I thank God for the Gideons and all who have supported their cause through these many years!

For more information about the Gideons, follow this link: http://www.gideons.org/

I also have written two books of Christian poetry, a book on the Holy Spirit, and a book on prophecy which can be previewed at: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=672794

I also invite all to visit my poetry website:  http://www.poetrydevotions.bravehost.com/

You see, I've been busy about my Father's business, and it hasn't all been advocating for a cleaner environment.  I also spent several years working as a Supervisor/Chaplain at a Gospel Rescue Mission (homeless shelter), and I've also worked for the Salvation Army as supervisor of their fundraising. 

And I certainly have not been busy on this blog accusing anyone else of "posing to be a Christian" just because their views differ from mine.

There are millions of born-again Christians who do accept the science on global warming, and I would not hazard to say that they are "posing to be Christians".

The tone of Clyde's responses seem to indicate an intense animosity towards those who have and/or defend views that are contrary to his. I harbor no such animosity, and pray that God will bless each and every one who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

By the way... Mark, I don't want to forget to thank you for your last comment. I agree that not everyone will share the same burdens and callings.  What might be an intense burning issue for one person may not be all that important to another. I believe it is important that we recognize this, and give people the space to do what God is calling them to do, not insisting that they be just like us.

For a long time my burning passion was to do evangelistic outreach in New York City. I spent almost 4 years there. Through that experience the Lord gave me a burning passion to work with the homeless at a rescue mission. I spent several years doing that.  And then God moved me on to some different areas, using the administrative gifts I had sharpened in my mission work to help at the Salvation Army.  Then I got married and my passions became my family, homeschooling my son, writing, teaching, speaking, and also advocating for social issues and the environment.  I've always tried to stay open to how God may want to use me, and so I have been blessed to have many varied experiences, reaching a very wide and diverse cross-section of people.

It's my prayer that we will all remain open to the leading of the Holy Spirit by having a willingness to embrace new things as or if the Spirit so leads.  AMEN! 

I'm a bit amazed at the insinauted attacks flying from both sides of this viewpoint. Yes, it is a viewpoint as there are scientists on both sides of the fray that say Global Warming is a threat and ones that say Global Warming is a natural climatic trend.

Why does it have to be that if one chooses to believe in the Global Warming threat, that he or she is somehow incompetant? Why is it if someone chooses to believe that Global Warming is either a farce or a natural climatic change, that he or she is not "doing their part" and is without coming right out and saying it, is basically sinning against God for not taking care of His creation? (BTW these aren't questions I expect to be answered, they are merely here as thoughts to reflect on from both sides).

In my experience I have seen that those Christians who do believe in the "threat" as I'll call it hence forward, are simply as passionate about the planet as they are about life. The two are interconnected in their eyes. Obviously if the planet dies, so do people. So the idea here is to protect the planet to protect its inhabitants. In my experience I've also seen that those who are opposed to the idea of the threat are not hapless polluters either and care very much about the planet. They'd never polute, they think it's a fantastic idea to recycle and coming up with energy saving ideas makes life better for everyone and usually makes everything more cost effective down the road. Am I generalizing a bit? Yes, but to go into a great depth on the ins and outs of both sides would take forever. I merely am making a point based on the obvious. I will not say to which side I subscribe to as that would only cause someone to try to discredit me as a result.

I personally think the question shouldn't be whether someone does or does not believe in the threat AS A CHRISTIAN as some have implied, but it is rather a much more simple question: Should we as Christians be concerned about the environment? I believe the answer is yes, of course. Regardless of our standpoint, I'd contend that everyone here does in fact care or we wouldn't be discussing the matter at all. Some would say that if you don't believe in the threat that you don't care about the environment at all. Without duplicating what I've already said, I'll just simply say that I've never encountered a Christian who didn't care about the environment. Some would say that if you do believe in the threat you are wasting your time and efforts as it'll all be over soon anyway. Once again without duplicating a former made statement, I'm glad there are passionate people who love the Earth and want to do all they can to preserve it, just as long as it's not at the expense of freedom which I think we all agree on as well.

Should one side blast the other as being ignorant because the other side wont accept their viewpoint? That's up to the individual I suppose but from every post I've read thus far, neither side has budged one iota towards the other so this very topic as a result so why continue in that? It seems to me that this topic, as many other hotly debated Christian topics, has become a stalemate. Does it make it any less valid? Nope, I think not. But we shouldn't try on either side to present stories and personal opinions and polls are percentages as reasons for taking the standpoint we do. If it's going to be based on facts, then let it be based on facts alone (or at least supposed facts since most facts are refuted by other facts).

I may seem to be coming off as a higher authority, and for those who feel that way, I sincerely apologize to you as I've not the slightest bit of intention to do so either way. The idea isn't to offend (as this isn't about the Cross which the Bible tells us does offend), but it is about the quality of life we all share. Let's try not to be clique-ish here and discuss these things reasonably as Jesus would have us do. Let's not try to discredit the other side without providing support for our own. He who slings mud loses ground. Besides, that's a political tactic, not a Spiritual one. Jesus never corrects us with methods that would discredit Himself so why should we do this to each other?

 With blessings and love to you all,
 -Eric

One correction....paragraph 5 on my last post 2nd sentence should've read "That's up to the individual I suppose but from every post I've read thus far, neither side has budged one iota towards the other so why continue in that?" Disregard the "so this very topic as a result" as that point is made in the 3rd sentence.

 -Eric

I want to make it clear that I do not think that anyone who has a view differing from mine is necessarily incompetent or "not doing their part". 

Even so, it has grieved and puzzled me as to why so much mockery and animosity has been expressed in this blog towards fellow Christians and others who accept the science on global warming and care about the environment.

Here is some of the caustic vitriol that has been spewed forth towards those who support the science on global warming and care for the environment:

gullible
ignorant
liar
deceiver
fear monger
radical
alarmist
extremist
leftist
wacko
tree huggers
hypocrite
kooks
socialist supporter
'Sky is Falling ' group
shallow
laughable
phony
deceived
liberal social activist posing as a Christian 

As far as I know, the closest I came to saying anything that might have been contrued as insulting was when I gave my opinion of the Cornwall Declaration as something that "seems to read like some bizarre libertarian manifesto". I was not saying that anyone commenting on this blog was either "bizarre" ot "libertarian", just that I felt that some of the points in the Cornwall Declaration came off as being "bizarre" and "libertarian" to me.

As I said in an earlier comment:

"Not everyone will share the same burdens and callings.  What might be an intense burning issue for one person may not be all that important to another. I believe it is important that we recognize this, and give people the space to do what God is calling them to do, not insisting that they be just like us."

Blessings and Peace!

Karl

Being part of a political debate should not give us license to leave Christian civility at the door. 

Name-calling (that's what words such as ignorant, liar, deceiver, radical, alarmist, extremist, leftist, wacko, tree huggers, kooks, etc. amount to) should have no place in any debate (political or religious) if we are trying to model a Christ-like character.

Involvement in politics should not so negatively influence us that we feel it is alright to stoop to the world's political tactics of divisive name-calling. Christians have been called to a higher standard. 

Clyde... If you carefully read my post, I said that I wouldn't disclose which side I agree with, not that I do not have an opinion as what it seems to be that you are claiming I did ( I may have misunderstood you, but that seems to be your first point). I definately have a very clear stance on this subject. Is it out of fear you asked. Nope, common sense really. I knew that even without disclosing my personal belief, that someone would toss that out there and of course it doesn't bother me either. I expected that. I just figured that my first response in this thread should be one of neutrality to serve the purpose of making my point about Christians getting along rather than arguing the same points back and forth with no ground being gained either way.

I perhaps misworded my point about the environment being a Christian one. I meant it more that it was a topic hotly debated by Christians not that it's necessarily a biblical precept. Let me be more frank on that. I still hold true to the statement that to ignore that God does give us charge of this Earth and the brains to figure out new ways of doing so gives us the responsibility of doing so (not suggesting you don't but since details are never given on this point, I figured I'd delve in). Since we're at this point in the fray I may as well say that I don't believe in the threat myself. But I do believe in the principle of taking care of that which God has given us. To show passion for His creation is not a bad thing (not saying you've said this, but it definately seems implied). There are extremists in this matter, but they exist on both sides of the fence as well (again, not implying that you are one of them). My point, which I feel like it was missed, is that a debate is just that, a debate. A debate has to be based on facts and not everything else thrown into the pot. Once that begins, personal feelings get hurt and everyone starts taking things personally whether they were meant to do so or not. I prefer not to force anything on anyone. Does that mean I quitely bow my head out if the kitchen gets hot? Only if the debate takes precidence over the point of the debate itself. Do I take the stance that those who do believe in the threat are misguided? Yes, I do. But, when I engage in such debates, if what I'm bringing forth isn't making any progress I let it go and leave it to God. I'd rather pray and ask God to guide those I feel may be misguided in the right direction, all in love and understanding that no one is 100% right on everything, all the time. Which in short means, I don't always pray as though I'm always right. Same goes if someone claims what I believe is incorrect. if no progress is being made, I let it go there too and let God take over. I'd rather be wrong and let God show me as such, than to be staunch on being right because of pride.

I will say that you are right on the point that this topic has strayed off of its original course, and thats basically the reason I commented. I felt that maybe someone coming without taking a side, could help refocus this topic and put it back on track.

On a separate note, I couldn't tell because the text cut off in your response, but I will say that I did read EVERY post from beginning to end, I didn't just skim and then insert foot where I thought best.

I'll now sit back and continue to read the posts from both sides for the compelling (or lack thereof) evidence on this subject. I will reiterate though that as long as it is a topic of debate, it should be kept that way (this is comment to everyone, not any one person). Produce facts or reasoning with data. If opinions must be placed, lets try not to use them in support of our facts. Opinions and feelings though meant well do not hold water against trial and testing. This is for both sides to consider. Again, hoping no one think ill of me for taking the stance that I do, my post is not meant to be taken as "holier than thou" but rather, "let's keep it on track and not stray off" regardless of who may be doing it.

With love and blessings
-Eric

Your comment; On a separate note, I couldn’t tell because the text cut off in your response, but I will say that I did read EVERY post from beginning to end, I didn’t just skim and then insert foot where I thought best.

Dear Karl and Clyde,  In Christian love I ask you guys to chill out a little. I am worried the two of you are going to end up taking blood pressure medicine over all this. I had a person at church today who has been following the comments suggest I pull the blog. I don't realy want to do that. I have to agree with Licensed to Revive when he said, "when I engage in such debates, if what I'm bringing forth isn't making any progress I let it go and leave it to God. I'd rather pray and ask God to guide those I feel may be misguided in the right direction, all in love and understanding that no one is 100% right on everything, all the time." Which in short means, I don't always pray as though I'm always right.  I have enjoyed both of your comments. They have been very eye opening and even amusing at times. There are a number of things we all can agree on and if put into practice would improve our planet greatly. Let's focus in those things. Maybe my next blog needs to be about how to handle topics that divide us Christian's.

Go have a bowl of ice cream, kick back and watch the highlights form the NASCAR race at Bristol today. Forget the fact that none of the cars they race have any type of emission control systems on them, that will just get you all stressed out again. LOL.  I hope you guys have a great week.

Thanks for the thoughts, I rather enjoy  watching an activist try to justify a political issue by a  theological means, As I said  in my last post  this is a polotical issue and my issues with Karl are strictly on his Global Warming  activistism, not his theology,which he brought into the mix at every turn.

Any way you also have a pleasant weekend,

Blessings, Clyde

Here's my 2 cents worth on GW. 

If metorologists can predict the weather accurately for 1 month, in advance, where I live including:

1. the exact high/low temp at the local airport,

2.  the exact amount of rain/snow fall,

3. and the hour by hour barometric pressure over that period of time, 

then I might begin to think they might have something worth listening to! 

I live in Canada.

In the south here in B.C. it is quite mild in the winter.Maybe some frost at night.

But up north above the artic circle,they have had continuous temperatures of minus 40 celcius continually.

A little more fun from OpinionJournal.com's Best of the Web Today:

A Scientific Survey?
Christopher Mims of Scientific American, a global-warmist magazine, trumpets as a "reality check" a new poll result:

Via the very-much-worth-checking-out Sietch Blog:

In what can only be considered a tidal wave of public opinion, a new Yale research survey reveals a significant shift in public attitudes toward the environment and global warming. Fully 83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a "serious" problem, up from 70 percent in 2004. . . .

Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States "is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists."

In other words, 63% of the American public now agrees with the 2003 Pentagon report that, while speculative, said as much.

(The rest of the survey results are well worth reading, and demonstrate U.S. citizens' growing concern about extinction, air pollution, and other environmental issues.)

Well, if 63% of the American public says it, it must be true, right? That's how science works!

So we checked the survey results (PDF), as Mims recommended, and we found another interesting finding: 58% agree that "as the Bible says, the world was literally created in six days." So according to Scientific American, the biblical story of creation has only slightly less scientific merit than global warming.

And if you think the people in the survey are unqualified to weigh in on such matters, they beg to differ: 71% of them agreed with the statement "I consider myself an intellectual," and 59% agreed that "I have more ability than most people." We'll bet a high proportion of them read Scientific American.

I'm back to share some good info. One of my friends from Yahoo!360 has posted some really good stuff about global warming. Here are the links to her blogs containing that info:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-HrvreVs2cbb1OopRYPeW7uuVIOXWNw--?cq=1&p=831

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-HrvreVs2cbb1OopRYPeW7uuVIOXWNw--?cq=1&p=832

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-HrvreVs2cbb1OopRYPeW7uuVIOXWNw--?cq=1&p=833

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-HrvreVs2cbb1OopRYPeW7uuVIOXWNw--?cq=1&p=834

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-HrvreVs2cbb1OopRYPeW7uuVIOXWNw--?cq=1&p=838

Here is a letter of interest written to Dr. James Dobson from RestoringEden.org, a group of Evangelical Christians:

Issue 2, Volume 2
March 23, 2007

[View the letter as a PDF here]

An open letter in reference to the call of Dr. James Dobson and fellow family ministry leaders for the National Association of Evangelicals to either silence or dismiss NAE vice president Richard Cizik

On March 1, 2007, Focus on the Family’s founder and director Dr. James Dobson and a group primarily composed of leaders in Christian family ministries (the “Dobson group”) sent a letter to Dr. Roy Taylor, chairman of the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (“NAE”). In it they urged him to call for the resignation of Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president of governmental relations, if Mr. Cizik did not cease from being an outspoken advocate of evangelical involvement in addressing the problems created by global climate change. The Dobson group stated that because global warming is “a subject of heated controversy throughout the world,” and because it is uncertain “why it might be happening and what should be done about it . . . we believe it is unwise for an NAE officer to assert conclusively that those questions have been answered, or that the membership as a whole has taken a position on the matter.”

We respectfully disagree with the Dobson group. Although Restoring Eden understands that the matter of climate change due to global warming is politically controversial, it does exist and its consequences now and in the future remain a reality that must be addressed by the church. Global climate change, along with multitudes of proven negative human impacts on God’s good creation, has practical implications for followers of Christ in their thinking, living, and working. Many evangelicals have for more than twenty years pled with James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell and the leaders of several other conservative evangelical ministries to stop ridiculing and criticizing how creation-care advocates believe we ought to live in obedience to God, and to instead add to their own ministries the biblical mandate to love and care for our Lord’s creation. We call on the Dobson group to come to a common table to discuss with evangelical leaders in the creation-care community how we can support each other in our work and Christian living by adding creation care to the foundational framework of all our ministries.

It is certainly true that Richard Cizik’s personal beliefs regarding climate change—as well as those of many other prominent evangelicals concerned with the health of God’s creation—have received a great deal of coverage in the national media for over two years. The Dobson group has characterized this coverage as coming from the purported “liberal media” as the result of a “relentless campaign orchestrated by Cizik.” This characterization, however, reflects primarily the Dobson group’s bias, not that of the media. It would be more accurate to say that because Mr. Cizik is a conservative evangelical and former pastor, his outspoken advocacy in the evangelical community for an attitude and behavior change in the church regarding our stewardship of God’s good creation—including the call for us to change our human behavior in order to combat the effects of global warming—he has raised the attention of all media that report on public policy issues. Mr. Cizik’s comments are newsworthy because the Dobson group and other large parachurch ministries have for years reinforced a notorious perception in America that the evangelical community does not care about the world’s environmental crises and the suffering and loss created by them. To have a representative of the NAE speak in favor of evangelical involvement in addressing the problems created by global warming and other environmental degradations is indeed news.

Mr. Cizik’s statements and beliefs have received media attention because they are strongly opposed to the statements and beliefs about environmental matters that have been a part of the nay-saying media blitz of Focus of the Family and similar organizations for years. Their organizations have been perceived by many in the national media as the dominant voices for America’s evangelicals for some two
decades. It is not in any sense surprising that the emergence of a new and strikingly different evangelical voice should attract media attention.

Restoring Eden is disappointed that the Dobson group seems blind to its own culpability in forming the impression in America that  evangelicals as a whole do not care about the state of the environment, the very world that came from the hand of the Creator whom we say we honor and worship.  Indeed, the letter from the Dobson group reflects a shocking haughtiness concerning what issues evangelicals should be concerned about. For example, the letter states that Mr. Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from “the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children . . . . We implore the NAE board to ensure that Mr. Cizik  faithfully represents the policies and commitments of the organization, including its defense of traditional values.”

We at Restoring Eden are astonished that the Dobson group would criticize Mr. Cizik’s wider beliefs about what are “great moral issues”  and “traditional values,” and yet be blind to the extreme narrowness of their own list of legitimate concerns for evangelical Christians. We know of no Scriptural support for narrowing the list of Christian moral issues to abortion, the integrity of marriage, and the teaching of sexual morality to our children. Further, for the Dobson letter signatories to fail to recognize that care of creation is a vital aspect of  valuing and saving human life is a strong indication that these leaders are ignorant of the meaning and scope of humankind’s stewardship role regarding the Lord’s creation—and of evangelical Christians’ egregious failure to address creation’s degradation. It is as though they have so insulated themselves from the other biblically mandated moral issues that they have made spiritual blinders for themselves. It can only be for this reason that they seem shocked and scandalized to hear fellow evangelicals advocate caring for creation as both a biblical “moral issue” and a Christian “traditional value.”

Dr. Dobson and many of these other self-professed leaders have often spoken of being instructed and motivated in their ministries by the beliefs and conclusions of Francis Schaeffer. Since Schaeffer was himself an outspoken advocate of caring for creation as a biblical moral value and a traditional Christian value, it strikes us as odd—and deeply saddens us—that the Dobson group consistently misses making the care of creation an aspect of their own foundational frameworks. It seems they were not paying attention to Schaeffer when he said these things in his 1970 book Pollution and the Death of Man:

Another architect of modern evangelicalism was Carl F. H. Henry. Dr. Dobson and many of his fellow parachurch ministry leaders honor Henry as a great teacher and mentor to them in their calling to ministry. It seems, though, that they missed Henry’s words as well:

Even James Dobson’s fellow conservative, Charles Colson spoke to the issue in his book The Body:

Undeniably, Creation is the source of all material life, which will one day be redeemed and restored along with God’s people. If the Dobson group had paid better attention to these and many other evangelical voices of the past and present, they would recognize what both Schaeffer and Henry saw—and Colson in his more introspective moments—sees: because we worship and serve the Creator, we have a responsibility to wisely use, earnestly protect, and faithfully serve His creation.

This is clearly and absolutely an evangelical call, and Richard Cizik has just as legitimate a responsibility to issue that call from the platform of the NAE in the same manner as the Dobson group has issued calls from their own platforms regarding the sanctity of life, marriage protection, and the teaching of biblical sexual morality to our children. Their strident and narrow messages have caricatured the beliefs of evangelicals, and have for years drowned out the voices of many, if not most, others who identify with the NAE.

We applaud the decision of the NAE board to reaffirm their commitment to Cizik. Evangelicals are called to give attention to all of God’s mandates as they are verbally communicated in His special revelation and non-verbally articulated in His general revelation, the natural creation, which declares God’s glory and His love.

In closing, we again earnestly plead with our dear brother in Christ, James Dobson, and his fellow ministry leaders to come to a common table to discuss with the NAE and with evangelical leaders in the creation care community how we can support each other in our work by reaffirming that creation care as foundational to all our ministries and by promoting it as a legitimate biblical mandate. We owe that to ou  great Creator and Savior.

Sincerely,
The board and staff of Restoring Eden

Just thought I would stop by to clean up your blog......

I don't know if you heard this, but here's an extract from a news report.

The think tank that generated headlines by reporting that Al Gore's Nashville mansion uses about 20 times as much energy as the average home, has been bombarded by hate messages ever since.

Nicole Williams of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research tells the Scripps Howard News Service that she received about 10 death threats by phone, and more than 100 threats that said in one way or another — "I'm gonna get you."

The center received nearly 3,000 Gore-related emails — many too vulgar to repeat here. Of those that can be, one said: "I hope you all die slowly and have your hearts and brains trampled to pieces — you small-minded, ignorant, backwoods ideologues."

Another e-mailer said: "You bunch of stupid hick rednecks. I am sure you are quite religious, yet you have no problem destroying His creation with pollution; and, rather than addressing that, you cast dispersions on Al Gore's home energy use."

Yet another: "You are a total waste of skin and air. Help the environment and jump off a cliff."

 So much for "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

( http://healthandenergy.com/images/uncle%20sam%20and%20gwx9.gif)

something else we should talk about...

Outbreaks...

We are studying viruses in Biology and outbreaks like Ebola.