Creation Groans | World of Wounds

Faith & Science Conversation
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I disagree. I think we very much need to be concerned with science and that includes environmentalism and meteorology.

I feel that your argument is similar to saying to someone you don’t need to worry about feeding your kids healthy food and keeping them physically active because they will get a resurrected body one day.

Also there is a wider range of interpretations of revelation and restorative theology than the one you may believe in.

The podcast “ The Bible Project “ has a entire series dedicated to “ heaven meets earth” and “revelation”.

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Dear Skovand,

I think you misunderstand my point. I am concerned, and as a scientist I’m deeply interested in what the science says and being a responsible steward of creation, as I live coram Deo. My point is that the topic deserves to be more fully explored in a way that opens the topic to Christians who live in faith before a God who is providential and sovereign, and has given us brains to view all perspectives on a topic. I don’t think it is appropriate to adopt the climate ‘apocolypse’ perspective (religion) without looking at the whole scope of the problem and its possible solutions (and their potential consequences), in way that provides a more complete perspective on the problem. I’m asking for a more balanced analytical perspective grounded a Christian framework to replan the emotional, and dogmatic perspective of the series.

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Is it appropriate to adopt a climate change denial perspective when the evidence overwhelmingly weighs against the denialists?

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Mervin,

No, it is not appropriate to adopt a climate denial perspective. As you say there is overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing (warming on average), and that human activity likely contributes to the warming, and that contribution is likely due to emissions related to fossil fuel use. Apocolyptic scenarios are entirely a different thing. The IPPC reports continue to revise their models (downward) and most scientists do not believe worst case models have a high probability (not zero) of coming true. That said, the activist community loves the worst case scenarios and uses them to bludgeon the rest of us into submission, or at least to be labeled as a ‘denier’ for not buying in. Unfortunately, Biologos seems to want to participate into the religion of climate activism rather than considering a more holistic view of how we as Christians should approach the problem (yes, I agree, it is a problem). Call people names who don’t agree is not helpful.

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I’m not aware that there is a “Biologos” view on this. Other than that we want to attend to what consensus science thinks is probable, and to also attend to scriptural imperatives toward stewardship and attention to the poor. That’s all a lot right there without needing to pursue anything like apocalyptic extremism, which I’m not sure I’ve observed much around here from any official or semi-official Biologos voices, though our public forum will run the gamut of all up and down that spectrum.

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On the topic of rising sea levels and loss of biodiversity, where would you land? The scientific evidence has been mounting, and it is looking worse, not better. Articles in Nature have featured the impact on the Amazon or Gulfstream, for example -impacts that look to shift towards tipping points. Tipping points do not equate to apocalyptic prescriptions; they do warn of major shifts and changes in the ecosystems we have come to rely on. These warnings have been coming from ecologists, including Christian ecologists, since the 1970’s (at least). Part of what I hear in this series is a groaning for the loss of life (biological) and anticipated loss of life (or at least livelihood) from rising sea levels. (Again, rising sea levels are not apocalyptic pronouncements or predictions; the science is solid.)

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Thanks! I’ve been listening to the podcasts for some time, though I haven’t posted on the forum before.

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That’s the third part coming next week :wink:

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This past Monday our guest speaker at the horticultural society was the daughter of our recording secretary and her topic was biomimicry. My initial take when it was proposed was not favorable. But I found it very interesting and more upbeat environmentally than most who take it up are able to achieve. I was very touched when she described how defeated and overwhelmed she had felt as she was going through college. But when she heard about this she described how energized and hopeful it had made her feel. She ended up majoring in related fields, teaching virtual courses on it during through pandemic and starting a podcast. I was very touched by that as I have enormous guilt over how bad things have gone for the natural world during my lifetime. I don’t feel personally responsible but I do feel enormous shared guilt over this. If biomimicry gives her hope I’m a fan. I refrained from expressing my doubts that it can ever reach into boardrooms and make corporations behave more responsibly. But as a blueprint of how to proceed once the will is there I think it is indeed hopeful.

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Hillary - I’m looking forward to hearing that episode!

TJO

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I don’t think I’ve ever changed a person’s mind who was not already changing a little bit. Except my fiancée. She use to be terrified of spiders. Now she won’t touch them, but she will use a cup to move them. She use to be a shoe grabber when she saw them and scream while attacking if she was the one in danger of dying. I guess it’s hard for me to get to moved over the loss of nature. I mean I get upset, and I’ve cussed at a few people and stuff when they were hunting out of season or killing a snake for no reason in a nature preserve. But I’ll never like get clinically depressed over it. I guess it’s because I know it’s still going to be here when I die. I expect the worse for like 200 years from now. But I can’t really get sucked into that because it’s just to fictional I guess for me. I also get hope from knowing more and more people are getting into native plants, accepting science and so on. My holdback is that they think humanity will triple in the next century. So if even 1/3 did not care then that’s equally to everyone not caring right now and that would be intense. I imagine poverty will keep growing. I see in my future skyscraper neighborhoods falling apart where everyone is still check to check each week. Seems like Gotham city when everyone is under the joker ot something. It seems bleak and I imagine the will mess up a lot of stuff and I would hate to be alive but it’s also so far fetched ( maybe ) that can’t really get lost in it outside of random pondering. Maybe though by the time I’m 80 in half a century it will be really bad though. Like you drive two hours to get to a tree grove and that’s if the pollution is not so bad I choke on it she outside of my filtered house lol.

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Mark - that is tragic, and unnecessary. As is your “guilt over how bad things have gone…” The facts are that nearly everything is so much better than it was 50yrs ago it is almost impossible to imagine it. You really do need to read Matt Ridley’s book The Rational Optimist or other books like Ronald Bailey’s The End of Doom or Michael Schellenberger’s Apocalypse Never. Also check out the Factfulness website. On almost every metric that matters to human and planet earth’s well being we are much, much better off than we were 50, 100 or 500 yrs ago - pick your time period. We as humans love to focus on the negative to the detriment of the positive and that is especially true of our social media obsessed world. Saying all that, I do agree that we need to continue to work to defeat injustices and unnecessary assaults on the natural world.

Onward and Upward!

TJO

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Interesting. I had not heard of biomimicry before, at least not as (what might be called) a movement. This article gives a clear explanation with a good variety of examples of the concept in use and its benefits. I also ran across the Biomimicry Institute that seems to be the advocate for the R&D and application of various technologies inspired by nature in the search for solutions to contemporary problems of all kinds. This type of organization seems to be interested in doing exactly what you are concerned about, Mark, making it’s way into the powerful spaces.

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And I wish them all the luck in the world with that. May their cleverness with public relations spread like weeds.

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Finally got to listen to this episode and the next one with the liturgy of lament. I had also just listened to the interview with Jonathan Moo, so grouping environmentalism topics together. I appreciate the honest and careful way that Jim and Colin are laying out the horrible environmental realities in conjunction with a discussion of the effects of dispair on action. The attention placed on HOW to deal with these realities at our individual psychological level is unique and valuable. Developing and publishing the second, extraordinary episode in this series is extremely daring. It’s one to go back to regularly and share widely. Thanks so much!

As a follow up to Moo’s interview, I have looked up the Dark Mountain movement’s website and manifesto. The contrast between it and the Liturgy of Lament is valuable and instructive.
Kendel

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Yes, the West in particular, has built current forms of culture and enormous wealth on the burning of fossil fuels. Likewise, we have benefitted enormously from our ruthless practice of colonization and exploitation of the colonized. We have stolen continents and murdered or ghettoized as many of the inhabitants as needed to subdue them and then used them to extract the wealth from the ground and use it for ourselves. We have benefitted from the purchase, sale and trade of human beings in the U.S. and U.K. But it happened before any in living memory; so it’s all easy to forget.

Recognizing evil and destructive practices is essential to change, and change we must. In a few ways we have faced the evil and at least stopped practicing some forms of it. We haven’t repaired much, if anything. Continuing to practice destruction, because it’s beneficial to anyone, is unjustifiable.

To claim that the recognition of the destruction we are doing to our only home by our use of fossil fuels and a commitment to greatly reduce or even eliminate their use is equivalent to “want[ing] to limit that prosperity for those who need it most” is simply dishonest.

The environmental cost of continuing to use fossil fuels as we do has been well modeled by many. The effect of that environmental cost on “those who need [prosperity] most” has also been well modeled. The poor everywhere are the most vulnerable to the increasing ecological and climatological devastation that is making itself widely known. Any gains from continuing to make the problems worse by maintaining our unbridled use of fossil fuels will be short-lived for the people who are living at the bottoms of our economies.

You can stick by your dissenters and claim to be “listening to all sides.” But sometimes the dissenters have been heard, understood and rejected for good reason. Then it’s time to move away from the things we wish were true and work with people who are seeking real solutions that will eventually damage fewer lives and help more.

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Kendel, I’ve heard this argument before and I appreciate the passion with which you believe the future must be different. What I struggle with is that is seems to say that the whatever the negative consequences are for the less privileged is legitimized by the need to act now and dramatically rework the global structure we have. I’m sorry that I believe that is unacceptable and is not likely to succeed either.

Maybe you could help me understand how you have eliminated fossil fuel use in your life, and how you might see the people of central Africa our of poverty and improve their well-being without it.

Also, the “West” is an easy punching bag but I think you’ll find that all of human history is colored with the same brush you’ve used to paint it. Unfortunately, we are fallen beings and our corrupt and selfish behaviors often cause immense harm - nothing new there in the last 200yrs from the previous million.

God willing, there is a path forward that leads to similarly remarkable environmental improvements of the last 50yrs in the next 50yrs. I’m thankful that in God’s sovereign not where we are today by accident and we should have confidence in our future, despite our human failings. That does not mean He does not expect us to be better care-takers of our planet.

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The primary questions need to be (1) whether we need to reduce and eliminating fossil fuel use in society and (2) what are the best (ecological, economical, political, social) solutions for our energy use and consumption? There are several ways in which we as individuals can reduce and radically cut our fossil fuel usage. Solar for many is becoming competitive and governments are giving incentives (as they have with other energy options). But more and more countries in the West, for instance, are supporting this transition. It is unclear if you are asking for example (to try yourself) or a justification of whether she is practicing what she is preaching. I would say, whether she is or not, does answer whether we should. Nor does it address the fact that different places will require different solutions (for all kinds of reasons).

The central question though is whether increased CO2 levels are damaging our planet (in the many ways described on the podcast), and whether fossil fuels are the primary source of that CO2. Scientifically the answer is an unequivocal yes and yes. In your responses to various posts, I am still unclear whether you agree that greenhouse gas emissions are problematic; and if so, how much?

The IPCC, with very conservative models, indicated in the third report that the window of opportunity to respond is rapidly closing.

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Andrew, I do believe that human contributions to greenhouse gas emissions causes global warming and is potentially dangerous to the planet and its inhabitants. I do agree that one person can do little and that much larger scale solutions are required. I do not thing solar or wind have enough energy density to have much impact. As an example consider how CO2 emissions dropped in the US over the last 15 yrs, and how it is primarily due to switching from coal to natural gas. The small fraction of energy produced by solar and wind has had a small impact and the carbon foot print of solar and wind are not insignificant - same for EVs. The only large scale solution that can have an impact is switching the electric grid to be dominated by nuclear. No other solution comes close. The time horizon is longer but the other solutions are very high cost, have practical limitations, and will not get us were we need to be. Read Shellenberger’s Apocalypse Never for a much better explanation.

Throwing fire bombs at the US and western culture advances which have provided incredbile benefits to millions/billions of people is of zero help to anyone.

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You have clearly thought through your position and know your own mind. And you are welcome to hold your views.

I, on the other hand, see no way of avoiding the devestation I described above without enormous worldwide cultural and technological changes that will allow us to move away from the use of fossil fuels and the sooner the better. Like it or not, the must change or start watching more and more of the planet become truly uninhabitable. And it will be those at the bottom who die first and suffer most in the process.

So, I leave your bait, regarding my use of or elimination of fossil fuels in my life, right where you put it. My individual changes, even if I were able to completely wean myself for all fossil fuel use, are so minute in comparison to what is needed I would only be setting myself up for condemnation: not doing enough, or being ineffective in my doing.

Indeed the “West” is an easy punching bag. I stuck with the theme your originally developed, unless, of course you had some other part of the world in mind, when you said “we in the West have benefited the most from it.” I was merely pointing out that we in the West have benefitted from a great many other evils that needed to be eliminated. But maybe I missed something.

Yes, we live in a fallen, corrupt world, where we often see the devestation full force. God has allowed it to rage all over and throughout time. Maybe you read a different newspaper and different books. I see no reason to believe that he would prevent us from killing each other and ourselves in our sinfullness, if we insist on it.
On the other hand, I see the world populated by His image bearers — the worst of which is full of great worth in His eyes and should be in ours as well. I see no reason to avoid dealing with the serious state of the environment head on with all the possible tools we have and developing the ones we lack. Since there is only one Earth to live on, and science fiction is still fiction.

I live in a region where there is enormous resistance to research and development of alternative fuel and electrical sources. I have no idea why. And I’ve heard no good arguments. No arguments at all, really, beyond “This is stupid. We don’t need this.” Maybe around here we can pretend. We have more water than other places. It’ll last a little while. But our climate is also changing in ways that make that water less plentiful. So, someone had better be thinking about water purification systems as well, which will need more energy somehow.

Feel free to maintain your views and rely on your desenters. I, too, recognize your arguments, and find them unconvincing.

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