Climate Change - Debating the Facts

Faith & Science Conversation
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I reckon it was quite a dark period after Chicxulub smashed into the Planet…
Cute that you think you’re as tough. As a planet-killing asteroid, I mean.

There is a population-system crisis.
This can only be solved by either a new system or a much lower population of Humans.

But I think the big issue is carbon in the atmosphere, yes? Hasn’t it increased by 0.02% in the last 100 years? Wouldn’t that coincide with the amount of deforestation that has occurred in the last Century?

You and I are not responsible for deforestation. And we cannot stop it from happening.

You and I are not responsible for any climate crisis. You and I can do nothing to solve any climate crisis.

Are those responsible going to make a change? It’s getting to the point where I really do wonder what those responsible, those who can create real change, expect or want to happen… Something has got to give. And I fear they would rather you and I simply… Went away. Or maybe they are going to take away all our comforts and rights? If 8 Billion plebs stop driving cars and using air conditioners, the few rich and powerful can continue to do so without a care in the world. Or do you truly believe they will change with you?

The rich, at least, have already found a way to turn the blame back onto you and I in the form of The Carbon Footprint (trademark), dreamt up by BP. What do you think of that move? BP themselves haven’t changed a thing they do, have they?

None of this is a Biblical issue. We are dealing with a small population of rich and powerful companies and government, causing MASSIVE problems due to their behaviour, their greed. And passing the buck onto you and I.

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I’m not going to argue with you. But I will say this. Throughout history, the response from government to events called “crises” have always been worse than the “crisis” itself… And it has always lead to a loss of rights and freedoms for regular people. Even a loss of their lives. Almost always it has even been the government that has created the “crisis” in the first place. And the solution magically ends up being what they wanted to happen all along.
Maybe the government is not responsible for this particular “crisis”. And there is evidence this particular “crisis” is another con. But I am terrified of the possible “solutions” the government may come up with and enact in combatting it.

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It took government intervention and a war to stop the problem though, didn’t it…

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Honestly, while I think the warming is real this seems to rest on climate alarmism which I don’t share.

And fossils fuels are absolutely wonderful to me. They ended slavery.

The secret to helping the “environment” is to do the opposite of what God commanded early in Genesis: do not be fruitful and multiply.

Vinnie

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I should have been clearer, I’m not from the US, but the UK. There was no war to end our slave trade.

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Well, … it took a war in the U.S. anyway. That’s the only mental hammer we seem to carry around and perpetuate here. Through lack of imagination and lack of being taught any other sort of precedent, we just can’t seem to imagine any other way of solving problems that doesn’t involve killing each other over here. It explains a lot about our current culture.

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To see real change in this climate “crisis”, you would have to destroy and even end Millions of lives. You would have to shut down entire industries, destroying economies and people’s livelihoods. You would have to stop the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which holds all the carbon. You would have to deal with India’s over-population epidemic. You would have to erase China off the map…
The entire population of the UK could all go back to the stone age and it wouldn’t make a difference when you still have the above.

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Or you paint others as bad guys and use God as an excuse to kill or subjugate them and take their land.

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Benjamin, I appreciate the perspective you bring to this conversation. I am open to hearing solutions. I am also distrustful of going along with a story that is at ease with an unbelieving world. I think counteracting atheism is more important than counteracting climate change. But that’s just me. And I also think that there is more to be gained from piercing the hearts of the elites, than driving an electric car, which doesn’t seem all that great for the environment anyhow. Cleaning up the oceans and using less single use plastic would be something I should probably take more seriously. But those bags from Walmart do make for a decent kitchen garbage bag. And garbage bags seem to be a necessary evil.

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It depends on your definion of Christian. In the western societies, those that have done and are doing much damage to the environment are often labelled Christian, often being respected members in churches. They have taken the advice to cultivate and reproduce but have mostly forgotten that our purpose has also been to be good stewards of the Earth.

Overpopulation is globally a problem, especially as climate change and greed are destroying locally the possibilities to produce sufficient crops. Yet, spreading education has had a positive effect on this problem as population growth has declined much or stopped in most parts of the world. At the moment, Africa is perhaps the most influential exception. This shows that positive changes can happen even without killing huge numbers of people.

Changing attitudes among Christians would probably have a great impact on the near future because there are a lot of Christians and many live in countries that pollute more than the global average. The reason climate change, loss of biodiversity and other global problems continue with the current rate is that even Christians are not willing to do much because ‘I could not stop the climate change’.

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That’s a stretch!

As is this:

And naïve?

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It’s all your fault – that’s where the industrial revolution and coal burning took off (cheek mostly full of tongue, but not entirely :slightly_smiling_face:). And a ‘Christian’ nation.

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As the immediate, proximal cause yes.

You’ll get no argument from me on that score. And yet the ultimate cause of climate change may well be our modern way of thinking about the world, our high regard for our narrow self interest and what we think we are here in the world to do. All of these are issues which the Bible addresses so perhaps while the issue itself is not biblical perhaps some insight into how we need to change can be found there?

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Hear, hear! Leastwise not everyone needs to multiply. It needn’t be thought of as a right of passage everyone needs to cross. Perhaps those whose natures might be improved by parenthood aren’t the best candidates for the job. We need a limited number of the ones whose nature most befits them to the job to apply. Celebrate them and celebrate those of us who recognize we are not prime candidates who do not contribute to the population.

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I also think this “dark night of the planet” alarmism is a bit over the top. The concern is certainly warranted, but dealing with pollution and our negative impact on the environment not a new problem, not for our species or many others. The basic logic that releasing all the CO2 from fossil fuels back into the atmosphere which was stored in the transformation of the atmosphere from the primordial one to 20% O2 is irrefutable – no, deforestation has very little to do with it, that is a whole different set of problems. But the natural variations in climate are enormous and biggest threat is not to the earth but primarily to that excessive population and the way of life we are addicted to. I really don’t think the reactionary backwards moving ideas are helpful. We are not going to turn back the clock. Change is the one constant of life and what we need to be seeking is the way forward – using our new knowledge and technologies to answer the arising problems.

Uh… NO! We are the ones responsible. Government and industry is our responsibility – and our children will reap the consequences.

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I don’t vote. I only drive a car to get to work which I am forced to do by the current system. Government and industry are not my fault, neither am I able to influence or change them in the slightest.

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But if everybody says that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s like me saying, if I toss my trash out the car window, it makes no difference in the slightest to the community because I can already see a lot of trash in the ditches, and the fact that my little pittance got added to it all (a miniscule difference on the whole after all!) means I need not feel any guilt about whatever little bit I add.

And … because of people thinking just like that, we now have trashy roads. It’s called the “tragedy of the commons”. And in large part it explains why we can’t have nice things (including sane people to elect into government - at least not in both parties). Since people believed the lie that their vote makes no difference, they don’t bother with primaries, and then the nut jobs carry the day. As I’ve heard observed: we get the government we deserve.

It is true, though, that the planet will be just fine (or at least we won’t be doing anything to actually ‘destroy’ it.) But our civilization - our ‘ecological niche’ - that isn’t likely to remain just fine for long if we don’t step up to try to take care of things in much better ways. If we love yours (or other people’s grandchildren, and grandchildren-to-be), then we’ll definitely care what we’re doing to our environment. It’s our own place in it that hangs in the balance and is in question here. The planet itself couldn’t care less.

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I agree with your sentiment, Merv, but it’s looking unlikely that the planet will be fine - expect in an “it’ll still be here orbiting the sun sense”. Germany and the UK both reported a 70% and 60% (respectively) reduction in flying insects over the last 20 or so years (sources available on request). Most of these insects are pollinators that we, and most other animals, are dependent on for food. Couple this with poisoned rivers due to sewage and pesticide runoff and plastic at every level of the oceanic food chain the likelihood is the planet is looking at a cataclysmic ecological collapse unless we, collectively, make root and branch changes. And even then we can only hope and pray that it isn’t too little too late for much of the planet’s ecosystems.

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Well yes … the planet will be fine. But as for life on the planet, that’s another matter entirely. You’re right. Though I’ll dare say that life tends to find a way. Species die - and some of that has been caused by us in ways by us in ways that we would have been wise not to do. You’ll get no arguments out of me in that regard.

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That is not what I am saying at all. I’m not involved in the phenomenon of destroying the planet. I don’t litter. I don’t destroy anything, at all. Anything unnatural I do is because I am forced. Like driving a car. I do not enjoy driving. I have to drive to and from work, however. If I am a part of any system that is destroying the planet, it is not that I am a member by choice.

You know well the issue is bigger than a bit of littering in your local neighbourhood. You know that isn’t what is being discussed. I’m saying that the real issue, is not one you or I can solve. I’m not going to keep cutting down forests and dropping nukes simply because I can’t make a difference… I’m not doing the damaging things in the first place.

As for Humanity… I do not care if we go extinct.

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