Your Best Climate Now

I make a concerted effort to remain on a certain trajectory with this blog, but I make an exception today. That being said……

From DailyTech:

• Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.
  

• No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

• A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

I have pretty much sat, somewhat agnostically, on the sidelines whenever there is a conversation over global warming because I have nothing much to add to the discourse. However, I feel the urge to chime in here and now with some completely unoriginal thoughts.

• One, I am of an age where I remember the global cooling scare of a few decades ago. It seems we are always ten years from a climatic apocalypse.

• Two, perhaps I am a bit cynical, but I believe “science” is sometimes driven by political agendas.

• Three, I think it is the height of hubris, given a system so massively complex as the climate and given current limitations in our understanding of climate, to make dogmatic assertions regarding mankind’s impact on global weather systems.

• Four, in my gift for stating things obvious, I think that, in a culture where our window to the world is most often the monolithic media of television, a greater level of skepticism and critical thinking needs to be arrayed against what we are being fed by those with sometimes a less than transparent agendas.

• Five, (perhaps also a reiteration of ‘two’) while I cannot claim credit for the following analogy, I think that many on the leading edge of the climate debate are watermelons. They are green on the outside and red on the inside.

• Six, I think there is a presupposition by many that climatic conditions are persistent and we have recently been experiencing the ‘best’ climate. If nothing else, history illustrates the volatile nature of the climatic system.

• Seven, it concerns me when voices of dissent in the global warming dialog are sometimes compared to Holocaust deniers. I have heard this charge from people who should know better.

All that being said, what I am absolutely not advocating is environmental apathy. I do, however question the legitimacy of the philosophical foundation of some who issue environmental mandates. I addressed the issue of environment stewardship in a somewhat unfocused essay here.

Some thoughts on environmentalism

I am green. In fact, I am so green, the following post has been recycled, with some modification, about three times since I originally posted it on my now fallow Stumbleupon blog. I have thought a bit about the “new atheism” that has been gaining traction for some time as evidenced the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al, on the the best seller lists. Below are some brief thoughts on secularism and its claims on environmental stewardship. More broadly, there is the question that seeks an answer as to what foundation can a secularist build a substantial moral framework. I would assert, in reference to the aforementioned question, that materialists essentially piggyback onto the ‘moral bandwidth’ of the Judeo-Christian world-view.

Where exactly does humankind reside in the natural hierarchy? If, as the materialist would assert, we are merely a hairless ape with no more importance or than an amoeba in the greater scheme of things, how can our impact on nature, on the environment, for better or worse, be given an ethical value when that of other natural phenomena is not? Is a volcano evil when it spews ‘toxic‘ gases into the atmosphere? Does the beaver wrongly exploit the environment when it fells trees and builds dams? I have cats for pets and have observed them stalking, catching, and then toying with chipmunks that they found in the backyard. Are they cruel or are they acting in accordance with their nature? How is the drilling for oil in the ANWR wrong? How can an oil spill be `wrong‘? How can the deforestation of a rain forest be condemned? All the aforementioned are natural results of a natural action by a natural entity.

What can truly be defined as ‘unnatural‘? How can a materialist, for all intents and purposes, deify nature and then place humanity outside of nature? The point is this: Unless nature is the effect of a transcendental cause and humanity occupies a position of ascendancy over nature, one cannot coherently and rationally make moral judgments concerning humanity’s stewardship and impact on nature. Indeed, how can one derive any moral imperatives from a naturalist framework? The foundation is so plastic, so pliable, that any act can be justified within the confines of natural selection.

Think on this: Zoology Professor Pianka of the University of Texas seems to endorse the elimination of ninety percent of the human population, perhaps by Ebola, in order to preserve sustainability. He has received accolades for his ideas.

In the world, but not of it….

I have been, over the years, a bit of a political junkie. My political consciousness was initially raised in the late 1970’s, but with the rather recent advent of political ‘blogging’, I found my interest in things ideological sent on a rather steep upward trajectory. I would voraciously read political blogs from both sides of the divide; I lived on a steady diet of, for example, the DailyKos and the Huffington Post as well as Little Green Footballs and Powerlineblog. I enjoyed spirited debates with those on the opposite side of the ideological aisle, be it in person or on internet forums; I invested quite a bit of time and energy on political rhetoric.

However, I began to develop a bit of unease with my focus. I began to question if my energies were being directed appropriately. I asked myself if my conversations on deeper, more important things, things of eternal import, were compromised by the political baggage that I had left on the table. Was I primarily identifying myself, even if not intentionally, with a political label, or was I seeking to declare my identity as a disciple of my Savior?

While politics are not necessarily unimportant and political activism is not inherently wrong and to always be avoided, I have come to understand more clearly that I must remember where my citizenship lies. I must remind myself constantly that I am merely a sojourner upon the earth whose only call is serve my Savior in whatever capacity He may chose for me. We in Christ are in the world, but not of the world. I will not wrap the Cross in a flag or use it as an anchor for a political ideology. To allow anything to compromise the lordship of Christ Jesus in our lives, be it our politics, our work, our possessions, our families, or our hobbies is a disservice to our Messiah and to those whom we are to carry the Gospel in order to make disciples.

I Timothy 2:1-2
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives…

James 1:27
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.

Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.