It seems like a good time to move from discussions about Islam to Global Warming or, to accept the new view, Global Climate Change (GCC).  Believe it or not, this topic has a Christian dimension, even though it might not be immediately evident.  We will get to that in due time.  To begin, let’s review what is currently happening.  Climate Change is coming under increasing fire from so-called “Climate Deniers.” These are scientists who have come to different conclusions from the GCCers, based on their analyses of models and on empirical data.  They have been criticized and hounded and even harassed by the mainstream media and GCCers for their views.  So how should we think about all this?

First, it is really odd that the GCCers call themselves scientists and then refuse to take seriously any challenge to their models and conclusions.  That isn’t science, that is ideology.  Shouldn’t we be saying, “Let’s do all the research we can and account for all the results that meet the test of sound methodology, regardless of their conclusions”?  The case for Climate Change (CC) is not by any means settled, despite the alleged settlement.  And why should we expect it to be.  Science has historically changed paradigms in some pretty important ways—we used to believe in geocentrism, we used to believe in spontaneous generation, etc.  Changing paradigms arise with further scientific work.  It is just “natural.” I daresay that maybe (I am being optimistic) the evolutionary paradigm may someday be challenged in a significant way, to the point that it could become passé.  Regardless, the GCCers are not acting like scientists.

Second, it is worse than childish to engage in ad hominem attacks on non-GCCers.  It is grossly barbaric and should be condemned by the scientific community.  This seems obvious.  But it seems some have sunk to that level, one actually saying that anti-GCCers ought to be executed (after a trial of course).

Third, how should we approach the issue of GCC, both as Christians and as scientists?  To begin with Scriptural foundations and parameters, I assume that Genesis One gives the criterion for our use of the earth.  We are to “take dominion” but to be “stewards” of the natural world.  At the same time, dominion has also to do with making other humans better off in the process.  So in exercising dominion we are called both to create “flourishing” for humans and to be good stewards of the environment at the same time.  They are not mutually exclusive goals, but neither are the simple goals, especially when we think about how to optimize them.

To begin with flourishing, this is the realm of economic thought and practice within the parameters of Christian theology.  The goal is for individuals, churches and the state to create conditions that will maximize flourishing, defined as “a right relationship with God, with others, and with God’s good creation.  It is the way God intended things to be when He created the universe.” (James Connor and Annd Bradley, “Freedom and the Path to Flourishing,” tifwe.org/resources/economic freedom).  How does this idea then translate into policy?  Does it mean the same thing as “conservation” now means among environmentalists?  No it does not.  The notion among the more radical environmentalists is that our natural environment should be virtually untouched, and, to the extent it has been “touched” by human activity, returned to its pristine state.  Now the only way to accomplish that goal is to take an economy back to not only a pre-Industrial Revolution stage but to nearly a modified “hunter-gatherer” stage.  One might legitimately ask what happens to the well-being of people—leaving aside for the moment the rest of creation?  Simply, they live at a relatively subsistence level and some even starve.  Why?  Productive growth will have been cut off, advances in science and technology will have been reduced substantially.  And in the event a new innovation is discovered, it would become impossible to actually implement it since regulations for clean air and water (to name but two) would be so onerous as to prohibit the new technology.  If the technology happens to prove “pollution free” then it would be too expensive to use and if it were, it would still restrict productive growth because of cost.

This is the dilemma the GCC community faces, though it seems unaware.  Christians are sometimes also unaware in their zeal to attain a better natural environment.  What is the problem then?  It is simply that everything involves costs, or, as some would put it, tradeoffs.  It sounds good, even spiritual, to talk about environmental stewardship, but it requires more than sentiment.  It requires a calculation of both benefits to mankind and costs to mankind.  After all, it is man that is made in the image of God.  His well-being—the well-being of every human—must be kept in view.  So we begin not with an unattainable ideal, but with flourishing.

Flourishing fits well with the biblical idea of dominion (Genesis 1).  It is dominion, not non-use, that God commanded in the Genesis narrative.  In other words, God did not say, “do not cultivate or improve the garden.”  He placed Adam in it to work it, to improve it, to make it better—but not to just let it grow on its own.  That implies an appropriate use of the natural world so as to make it better than it was for other humans and for oneself.  To do that is different from the pristine movement—vastly different.  It means that we ought to encourage innovation, technological growth, industry, etc.  Do these produce pollution sometimes?  Yes, but that does not mean prohibit all such endeavors or impose oppressive regulations.  It means examining the costs from the pollution compared to the benefits of it, ate different levels of pollution, to discover how we can maximize human well-being while also being good stewards of the environment.

Now back to Global Climate Change.  The GCC movement (or most of it—some acknowledge non-human caused change) obviously links pollution to climate change.  But they have only done so as a hypothesis.  They have also constructed models of what climate change would look like, based on temperature trends.  But even here a recently discovered problem for them is that apparently their temperature figures may have been fabricated to suit the models.  This is a “double whammy.”  First they don’t primarily use empirical evidence for their hypothesis and second, they then may have falsified the figures they do use from the past.  By the way, when empirical evidence does become available, they appear to deny it—for example, the Arctic ice cap is not actually decreasing, but the GCC movement ignores that fact.  On the other side of the coin, they consistently blame unusual weather phenomena on climate change, without the evidence—it is part of the model.

But that isn’t all.  They then give virtually no weight to the human cost (cost to humans) of reducing climate change, even assuming it was true and man-made.  Their case rests on their speculations about the catastrophic results (costs) to the earth.  We don’t even know whether, if climate change was man-made, it would produce some sort of environmental apocalypse.  This too is speculation.  Problems abound.  Identification of costs and benefits is biased.  Measurement of costs and benefits is skewed.  And even the existence of a cost-benefit situation is denied.

Let’s think more now about the proper Christian response.  I have already cited Genesis 1 as the foundational text on our natural environment, not to mention the basic fact that God did create it.  But the text itself and the fact do not make the question of proper policy simple.  We are not told exactly how to go about being stewards, taking dominion, and “tending the garden.”  But there are some basic implications from Genesis 1: 26-31, and Chapter 2.  First, dominion is about making efforts to improve on what God has created—applying or adding our own human labor, reason, gifts, and innovation to further build on what has been given.  Second, the goal of dominion is first the glory of God and second human flourishing.  By definition that means that we do not support mere “pristinism” or “primitivism.”  We want to make the earth a better place than when each of us arrived.  That achievement takes place in all sorts of ways, many of which involve using the natural world in various ways to improve human well-being.  There may be costs associated with that activity, but there may also be significant benefits for real people.  In some cases, it means the difference between a population having enough food or starving.

So let us be clear on this issue of climate change.  The “science” is most certainly not settled.  Moreover the GCC movement is not helping the science but obstructing the pursuit of truth itself.  Christians ought more than anyone to value truth and reject disingenuousness.  We ought to support Genesis 1 as our “blueprint” for how we relate to our natural world, created by God Himself for our good and to be used, wisely to be sure, but nevertheless to be used.

Further Reading:

E. Calvin Beisner, Where Garden Meets Wilderness:  Evangelical Entry into the Environmental Debate.  Eerdmans, 1997.

Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship (2000).

An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming (2009), Cornwall Alliance.