The christian response to global warming

[pinacled]

Many people do many of those things.

I remember a friend who was notionally far more "environmentally conscious" than I was. He ticked the boxes as far as people could see. One evening we were at a party and there were a load of bottles waiting to be rinsed and put in the recycling. So he turned the tap on, rinsed each bottle in turn, and put the whole lot in the recycling. All well and good, but the amount of drinking quality water he used was substantial given the task. The next load of bottles surprised him - I part-filled one from the tap and turned the tap off. Then I poured that water from one to the next to the next, at which point he asked "are you serious about this?" (he could see the answer). He'd let several gallons of water pour down the sink as he rinsed the last drops of liquid out of empty bottles. I used maybe 12oz of water to do the same thing.

At my last house I periodically got letters from my gas company inviting me to take an energy survey so they could help me save money. In the UK we set the thermostat in degrees Celsius so numbers appear lower than in the US. The first question asked what temperature I set my thermostat, with options to tick from 20 to 25 degrees (approximately 68-78 degrees F). My answer was 18 degrees (about 65 degrees F), so I figured there probably wasn't much point answering the rest of the questions.

Much of what we can do to reduce is the sort of thing that doesn't generate great fanfare. It might score "good citizen" points to be seen taking a sackful of plastic to the recycling but it's better not to use the plastic in the first place. Not using it is far better, socially and environmentally speaking, but nobody sees it. Simply opting out from much of the overdone commercialism saves a huge amount of waste, not to mention a huge amount of money, but unless someone notices your lifestyle is fairly simple it slips under the radar, so you still get the occasional lecture from the person who flies every month but thinks everybody else should drive an electric vehicle to save carbon emissions.

The key thing is stewardship overall. It's all well and good to recycle but better to use less. It doesn't help anyone to plant a tree if you're going through single use plastic like there's no tomorrow. Recycling cans is great but if you're driving a honking great SUV that gets 11mpg you're missing the point. Solar power and batteries are great, but they require mining that pollutes the land where the mining takes place. Of course that bit is out of sight, so the person who drives a battery powered car can ignore the environmental damage caused by digging lithium out of the ground and lecture people about carbon emissions, even as they recharge their battery powered car using electricity from a coal-fired power station.

As a rule anything that focuses intently on a single issue is probably missing the point somewhere.

A well principled thought.

instead of plastic,
Wouldn't it have been better to speak of natures representation of the flow of water?

 

[MennoSota]

this article is from the NASA web site

"The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.1
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.
The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2 Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming."

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

What are your thoughts about what our response should be as Christians to global warming?

Repent! For the End is Near!

 

[Andrew]

I'm no Dr. Phil.... but it seems to ME there's something in people that almost WANTS to be afraid of something, WANTS to fear that the sky is falling.... or maybe those who NEED people to be in some constant fear. As soon as one "OMG, we're all gonna die!!!!!" thing passes, something new comes to fill the void. Ain't saying any of the are overblown or fake, just seems weird to me. But then, I'm no psychologist.

You don't have to be an expert to know that humans generally thrive off fear because it's exciting for them, horror movies and amusement park rides seems to be a clear indication that the idea of fearful situations is a door to "bravery"... at least that's how I interpret it