There's a story of a toddler using the toilet during an earthquake. When the earthquake ended the child asked his mother, "What did I do?" The story is amusing and it's a good reminder that we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Dogs also do this. The mailman arrives every day, the dog barks and the mailman goes away. The dog lies back down proud that his barking once again drove off the mailman.
This mindset is evident in paganism. Pagans generally adopt a pantheistic view that assumes an interconnectedness between the world, themselves and god(s). Through the proper knowledge, spells, sacrifices and incantations pagans believe that they can influence their environment. The Aztecs slaughtered, beheaded and ripped out hearts in hopes of appeasing the sun. The sun relents and the Aztecs are reinforced in their barbaric practice. The ancient neighbors of Israel brought their prostitutes to the tops of hills in order to arouse the sky god. The rains came and the pagans continue in their fertility rites.
The dog barks and the mailman goes away.
Today we're told that our actions are having an enormous impact on the environment and I wonder, are we like the child sitting on a toilet during an earthquake? Are we returning to a pagan mentality? Growing up in Alaska I was told that we caused a hole to appear over the arctic. The ozone hole was a rather frightening thing to learn about. I wondered if I was going to get skin cancer and I heard rumors that salmon were going blind. In 1987 the Montreal Protocol initiated a series of steps that would deplete the use of chloroflurocarbons which were thought to deplete the ozone. By 1996 chloroflurocarbons were no longer in use and now today, twenty years later, the ozone hole no longer exists or is, at least, no longer a concern. Al Gore swooped in on his plane, pulled the inhaler out of my mouth and replaced it with one twice as expensive and half as effective. Alaskans can once again lay out in the sun and tan their beautiful bods while asthmatics cough up a little more money.
Did we save the planet in 1987? Was the rapid healing of the ozone due to the decisions made in Montreal or did the mailman go away after we barked? Why isn't 1987 celebrated as the day we saved the ozone and, by extension, the planet? As soon as the ozone scare dissipated another scare replaced it. The concern floated from the arctic to Florida which would be underwater in the not too distant future. California and the rest of the West would become a vast desert, although every picture I see of the West lately includes a ton of water. A few years back we witnesses a polar vortex and the semantics shifted from global warming to climate change. Recently I watched a video suggesting that we don't see the huge effects of global warming because our planet is actually supposed to be in an ice-age. The world should actually be very cold right now and it just so happens that human-caused global warming has made things appear normal. Talk about interpreting facts to fit your conclusions! The beauty behind the science of human-caused climate change is that any environmental fact can be used to support the theory. The earth is too cold, the earth is too hot, the climate is stagnant, the climate is dynamic, there are no hurricanes, there are lots of hurricanes - any of these facts can be placed into the climate change model. Facts should mold models, models should not mold facts.
Consider Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Bill Nye in the clip below. After Bill talks about the settled science of climate change Tucker asks a very simple question: "To what degree is climate change caused by human activity?" Bill can't answer it and he obviously gets very uncomfortable as he tries to buy time by playing word games. The interview becomes very awkward and Bill seems to be in a very bizarre mental state by the end.
One of the reasons why children abandon their religious faith is because their questions are not taken seriously or they are chided for questioning authority. The same thing happens when questions are raised over human-caused climate change. When I was in middle school I asked why I shouldn't be a suspicious when a politician like Al Gore becomes the voice of global warming. I asked about the historical ebb and flow of glaciers and even sea levels. Later I asked about the medieval chills and warm periods. After that I asked if the relationship between carbon and temperature is logarithmic rather than linear and if urban heat islands account for the apparent rise in global temperature. I asked about solar activity and sunspots. The responses to such questions amount to condescending shrieks or patronizing attempts to educate. I believe that the greatest enemy to those who preach climate change are, in fact, the climate change zealots and their inability to recognize their dogmatic methodology.
I'll never forget my middle-school self watching a show called Sea Quest which took place in a submarine in the not too distant future. There was an episode where one of the characters had smuggled beef. Yes, smuggled beef, because cow farts kill the planet. Farts were supposed to be funny not threatening. I turned the TV off and thought about the large herbivore dinosaurs and how their farts must have destroyed the environment which led to their extinction. Good riddance to the brontosaurus, I guess. Last year I was very amused when I learned that cows in Argentina are now decked out in fart collecting backpacks.
The absolutism of human-caused climate change is not based upon science but upon a belief system Since human-caused climate change is based upon a belief system, skepticism is not tolerated. Radical environmentalists appoint themselves as priests endowed with a special gnosis which lies beyond the reach of the unenlightened.The pantheistic fantasy of James Cameron's Pandora is a religious parable that teaches the dogma of pagan environmentalism. The planet and its contents are deified and the pillaging mechanistic hordes of humans are demonized. Since the pagan mindset deifies both humans and the planet, our actions (even small ones) impact the environment. Our evil actions can kill the environment and our good actions can save it. We can drive our hybrids, reduce our carbon footprint, and pat ourselves on the back like proud little ecological Messiahs.
Humans can certainly have an impact on the environment, but I wonder to what extent. Just because I'm skeptical of certain climate claims doesn't mean that everything climate change advocates preach is inherently false. Why throw the polar bear out with the arctic bathwater? Skepticism also does not mean that I'm not going to do my part to care for the environment. In fact, the people I know who have the smallest carbon footprints are not the hip urban dwellers who preach an ecological end of days, but the out of touch country bumpkins who live in nature, respect it, understand it and do their best to conserve it.
Perhaps when the metaphorical waters clear and the smog lifts we will be able to see the truth more clearly. Until then I would advocate that we treat the earth like God's masterpiece rather than an impersonal deity that pathetically needs our protection. The Bible begins in a garden and pictures the land of Israel as a beautiful blessing worthy of respect, care, and at times, rest. Scripture teaches that the earth groans and awaits redemption. Christianity gives hope not just to dying humans but to a dying planet. Christians need to articulate an environmentalism that views humans as stewards and curators of God's masterpiece rather than slaves that must sacrifice themselves to Gaia.
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