Disclaimer: I don’t care whether you think the case for anthropogenic warming is correct or incorrect. But I do care about why those who take up a sword over the issue do so.
Over four years ago, a well-known Christian blogger wrote a post about global warming. What was informative to me about the post were the examples of self-empowerment that dotted the comments section.
Conservative evangelicals are very adamant in their opposition to what the political left is trying to accomplish with climate science, but their opposition is likewise political. It’s just stupidly political. What do I mean?
Well, let's take a brief climate rabbit trail first. The
gist of the case made by the vast majority of climate-related scientists is
that humanity’s increasing of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere will, umm,
increase the amount of heat being trapped. I can’t put it more simply than that.
Let's chase
our rabbit into space by making a very basic astronomical comparison. On a Mars summer day, your high temperature
may be a fairly mild 40 degrees F. But
your low temperature the next morning?
Try -100 F. Why? There are virtually no heat-trapping gases in
the atmosphere, and most of the daytime heat escapes. Quickly.
Now look to Venus. Daytime
temperature is a hellish 900 F. And your
low temperature is: pretty much the same
hellish 900 F. Why? Its atmosphere consists mainly of heat
trapping gases. The heat does not
dissipate. If we can see what the lack
of heat trapping gases can do, and what a super-abundance of them can do, what
can we basically assume will be the impact of doubling their miniscule amounts
in our own atmosphere?
Okay, back
to earth. What do I mean by “stupidly
political”? One of the Christian commenters
beneath the blog post wrote: “The right doesn’t make this a political issue,
only the left.” Well now, that’s how the
right crafted it to appear. But the
right makes it as much of a political issue as the left, only the right goes
about it stupidly, in my opinion. Here’s
why: the left sees this hockey puck of
data and tries to score these politically self-empowering goals: taxes, carbon footprints, no pipeline, no
SUVs, yadda yadda. The right sees this
hockey puck of data and tries to score political goals too: hate the left, fear for your wallet, it’s all
a scam, climate-gate, 15 year pause, yadda yadda. The problem for the right, as I see it, is
that their political goals are self-empowering only for the short-term (just a
couple of elections if they’re lucky), but over time they will likely be self-defeating. If your whole party marks itself as a mocker
of the issue, and then you are shown to be wrong, you make yourself obsolete. Why not take the hockey puck of data and
pursue long-term political goals, just like the left is doing, and just like
the left and right try to do with every other possible issue imaginable? For example, push tax cuts for the competitive
development of technology that safely removes excess carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere
and oceans.
Oh well, that’s
the end of my hypothetical political punditry.
Neither the right nor the left are your friends, Christian.
Back to the
blog commenters. Another one wrote, “Global
warming and population control are hand-in-hand, and therefore Christians
should not support any ideology that leads to such evil.” Let me try to rephrase him: “A Christian who says that ‘increasing
heat-trapping gases increases the amount of heat trapped’ has been fooled by
scam lies of commie conspirators, and is supporting an evil and deadly
ideology.” Is this what the Spirit is saying
to the churches?
Another
wrote: “Global warming is not happening because God is sovereign.” I fail to understand his point now as much as
I failed to do so 4 years ago. Would he
say Chernobyl, or radiation poisoning in Japan, are not happening because God
is sovereign? Does he understand
concurrence? I think his meaning was,
roughly, “God is creator, therefore puny man cannot harm the global environment
by his pollution or exploitations.” Is
this what the Spirit is saying to the churches?
Another
wrote: “It doesn’t matter what’s going on because seedtime and harvest, summer
and winter, will continue.” In other
words, “Who cares what we’re doing, it doesn’t matter. Why polish brass on a sinking ship, right?” Is this what the Spirit is saying to the
churches?
Another
wrote: “What we have observed over the past 100 years is strictly natural
warming.” At least that is a step toward
the acknowledgement of warming in the observations. But we can also shift our response a
bit. For every 90 climate scientists who
acknowledge anthropogenic warming, there are 10 (and that is being generous)
climate scientists who do not. Actually,
among that ten percent, some do acknowledge anthropogenic warming but argue it
will make the earth better. Some others had
also provided “scientific” argumentation supporting Big Tobacco against the
government. Etc. etc. And yes, among the 90 percent there are some
dubious characters as well. But before
you fire off a huffy comment about how I haven’t yet dealt with your favorite
climate pundit, let me cut to the chase:
Are the 10 percent – those who have the ear of conservative
evangelicalism -- arguing in support of
God, or Mammon? I will confess that most
of the deniers that I have heard or read -- whether in the end they end up
being on the right or wrong side of the science matters not for what I am about
to say – have as their bottom line their own wallets and the very temporary victory
of their particular partisan political preferences. Is this what the Spirit is saying to the
churches?
The initial
context of “This is what the Spirit says to the churches” are the letters at
the beginning of the Book of Revelation.
These churches lived under Roman domination; their tax dollars benefitted
the beastly Caesars; they were opposed by locals; still facing tribulation and
martyrdom. Several of the letters also
contained a “But this I have against you.”
These criticisms weren’t about how they failed to do enough to silence
some scientific consensus, nor how they could have kept more of Caesar’s coins
in their own pockets to give to the church, nor how Christian liberty requires
fighting for political liberty. Not only
did none of the churches hear such a thing, one church heard these words:
I know your
works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot
nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and
I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and
naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold
refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may
clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to
anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those
whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Revelation 3:15-19
The climate
wars, and especially the warfare of the climate-change deniers that has been
embraced by conservative evangelicalism, has much (much much) more to do with
self-empowerment than with martyr cross racing.
Also around
four years ago, I quipped to a group of Christian guys who were mocking
climate-change (because it happened to be cold that day) that it seemed odd to
me that those who think men will be scorched with burning heat (Rev 16:8-9) and
that the Lord will destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:18) would have absolutely
no big-picture concern about the issue at all, whatsoever.
Mammon
talks.
But the climate wars were just the beginning of where I saw self-empowerment lurking. And you don't even have to be a redneck to understand it. More to come.
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