One morning, about three years ago, while riding down a busy avenue on my bicycle, I crashed. Proud and cocky, I was going way too fast for the situation, and hit a parked car. Amazingly, I got off with minor injuries and had to pay only a few hundred dollars for damage to the car. Some would say I was just lucky, but I took it as God’s gracious wake-up call. My bike-riding habits had grown foolish and arrogant. I was in pretty good shape physically, could “crank it” fast, and was taking too many risks. I needed to change my attitude and behavior. I have subsequently become much more careful and cautious. It takes longer to go places now, but I am more likely to actually get there. If I had ignored this “wakeup call” and continued riding the way I was, I may have gotten away with it until now – but, then again, maybe not.
I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. When I asked the doctor about my future, he gave me only possibilities and probabilities. For example, he said that 50% of all men my age (50s) actually have cancer in their prostates, but, obviously, most of these were of no consequence since 50% of men in their 50s (or older) are not dying of prostate cancer. Obviously most of these cancers never grow or spread. So I asked him if I could just ignore it and go on with my life. He said I could do that, but there was a “reasonable chance” that the cancer would “get me” in the next ten years or so. I asked him exactly what that chance was, and he said he didn’t know. I asked him if, in the next few years, a test might be devised to distinguish which cancers were dangerous and which could safely be ignored. He said research was ongoing, but he did not know when and if such a test might become available. For a specialist (urologist), he sure seemed to not know a lot. He recommended I have the prostate surgically removed or undergo radiation treatments. I asked why I should do that when he couldn’t even tell me if this cancer was really important or not. He said that at this point, science has no way to determine which cancers will “get you” and which will just sit there and not spread. So they take a cautious approach and recommend treatment for everyone (except really old guys). I said that they must be treating a lot of people who, in reality, did not need to be treated. He said yes, but this was the best science could do for now. So I decided to have surgery, and I am now “prostateless.” I could have ignored this and gone on with my life, and I might have gotten away with it – but then again, maybe not.
I wonder if global warming and climate change is kind of like my bicycle crash and prostate cancer. In what is obviously a limited and finite world, arrogant, self-assured humans continue to live as though there were no limits. Like my bicycle accident was a wakeup call from God to me about my need for a change of attitude and behavior, I wonder if global warming is a wakeup call from God to all of us – that we are beginning to bump up against the limits of the biosphere’s capacity to absorb our waste – and we need to change our attitude and behavior. Like my urologist doctor who could only give me possibilities and probabilities, maybe the possibilities and probabilities of the climate scientists is the best they can do right now. Maybe they’re wrong – or, maybe they’re right. Maybe in the next few years, they will come up with something better, or maybe they won’t. If we continue living as we are, ignore the scientists’ warnings, maybe we will get away with it – but then again, maybe not.
John Mustol is a retired physician, currently a Th.M. student at Fuller Seminary, Pasadena. He is married to Betsy, an amazing woman, for 34 years, has two children, and lives in Normal Heights, San Diego.
2 Comments
This is an interesting musing, but I cannot agree with your closing question. As with all who subscribe to the theory of “global warming”, I cannot help but believe you have chosen to be informed on the subject by the popular media rather than by hard fact.
A Gallup Poll reveals that “53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe [man-caused] global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed [man-caused] global warming had begun.” (http://tinyurl.com/5fmg4v).
Even though 2,500 of the world’s top scientists agree with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assertions about man-caused Global Warming,14 well over 10,000 scientists do not.
In fact, scientists have been theorizing about radical climate change for almost a century. In the 1920s, the newspapers were filled with scientists warning of a fast approaching Glacial Age; but in the 1930s, scientists reversed themselves and instead predicted serious Global Warming. Again in 1972, Time cited scientific reports warning of imminent “runaway glaciation,” and in 1975, Newsweek reported overwhelming scientific evidence that proved an approaching Ice AgeI. n 1976, the U. S. Government itself even released a study affirming that “the earth is heading into some sort of mini-ice age.”
Now, however, just a few years later, the warning of an imminent Ice Age has been replaced with the warning of an impending Global Warming disaster.
But whether or not you believe that Global Warming is real, God has promised believers a new earth (Rev. 21). I’m not saying that we should be profligate with the resources we’ve been given, but as evangelical Christians, we should be more concerned with saving the lost than saving the earth - No?
George,
Thanks for your comment. Yea, global warming and climate change is pretty ambiguous, probabilistic, and uncertain. I think my comment, “Maybe they’re wrong or maybe they’re right” made it clear that I understand that. In an area of science such as this (and prostate cancer, too) where there so much uncertainty, there will always be controversy. It reminds me of when I was a doctor. (I used to be a general surgeon.) Doctors always work with partial, incomplete, and probabilistic information. That’s just the nature of applied science. If you’re a Cartesian looking for certainty, you will never get it and you will never do anything because certainty and “proof” is just not going to happen until the predicted event is upon us – if the probabilities bear themselves out.
Global warming and climate change is an extremely complex and difficult scientific problem (actually a set of problems) that involves several different disciplines – atmospheric physics, ecology, oceanography, meteorology, biology, sociology, economics, etc. We laypeople do not have the tools to understand or evaluate the data, hypotheses, and theories, so we have to rely on the scientists, who, as you say are divided. In reality, it is probably inaccurate to say scientists are either for or against global warming; they are all over the map. The skeptics have all kinds of conflicting criticisms and ideas. Scientists, of course, live in social systems just like everyone else, and they are influenced by their philosophical, religious, or social biases. I would love to see a study on scientists that looked at the correlation between, say, their religious background and their views on global warming. Do you know of one? And of course, we “consumers” are also influenced by our social/religious/philosophical background as well. For example, maybe support for the Iraq War and opposition to global warming would correlate. But you would have to do a study to look at that. So who do we believe and what do we do? I guess we will just have to wait until the scientists develop a consensus or the global warming apocalypse arrives or both or neither or the Lord comes or you and I are dead and our children are dealing with it or whatever.
If global warming/climate change is true, it will most likely happen very slowly, with a lot of variation and ups and downs along the way, and not many dramatic events to make it appear more threatening. Sort of like the “environmental crisis” that environmentalists have been talking about for forty years, it’s going to be a very slow thing, and just how fast or how slow is impossible to predict. Humans tend to be moved by immediate concerns, so we may not do much until something really big and obvious hits us in the face – again, if anything ever does hit us in the face. It could be a “frog-in-the-kettle” thing, but if it’s all false like you say, we don’t have to worry about it.
By the way, I couldn’t get the link, (http://tinyurl.com/5fmg4v), to work. I got a website called the “National Post” and a “the page you requested does not exist at this address” message. You alleged that I am using the “popular media rather than hard facts” to formulate my views. This “National Post” website does not appear to be a scholarly/scientific resource presenting “hard facts.” It looks like a “popular media” website. I was unable to find an “about us” link so I could learn who is behind it and what their agenda is. For me this makes the website suspect. While I didn’t find the piece on global warming, I did find the article about the “near-naked high school cheerleaders” provocative. I don’t mean to be blunt, but do you really get your information from sources like this???? Why don’t you try this one: http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
For the record, here are some of my resources:
Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, 3rd edition, 2003, by Sir John Houghton, an evangelical Christian and former chairman of the IPCC
Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, 2004, by Mark Maslin, a reader in environmental change research at the University College, London.
IPCC’s 2007 report. I think I deserve a star for laboring through it.
Cool It, 2007, by Bjorn Lomborg, perhaps, the world’s leading environmental skeptic, who, of course, does not accept global warming. I have also read his famous book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Climate Confusion, 2008, by Roy Spencer, another skeptic.
Climate Affairs, A Primer, 2003, by Michael Glantz, a sociologist who specializes in this stuff.
To be honest I really don’t pay much attention to the popular media on this. I admit that the above is only a smattering of all that is written, but I just don’t have time to read more. But after reading the above, including the skeptics, I am suspicious that something is going on with the climate, and it’s caused by human activity, and it may not be good.
Your comment about the replacement of the current earth with the new heavens and a new earth (Rev. 21:1) is problematic. Although you offer a disclaimer about “profligacy,” the implication seems to be that since in the end God is going to trash the place, we don’t need to worry about it. This thinking leads to neglect of our stewardship mandate as redeemed image-bearers, and it presumes on God’s grace, both of which are sinful attitudes. Allow me to offer a little theology. First, if God created this earth (including the “firmament” or atmosphere), then it must have value in his eyes (Gen. 1:3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). That is to say, it possesses moral considerability. Second, creation, including the earth, praises God (Ps. 19:1-4; Ps 148). Third, God owns the earth and everything in it, and we don’t (Lev. 25:23; Ps. 24:1, etc.). It’s all God’s property. (If you were allowed to live for free in someone else’s house that they had built would you trash it?) Fourth, we humans are “of the dust of the earth” (Gen 2:7), i.e. we are of a piece with the earth and its creatures, and we are utterly dependent upon it and them. Fifth, according to Colossians 1:20, Jesus’ blood redeemed the earth and everything in it. (The Greek ta panta means all things which is equivalent to the Hebrew merism, “the heavens and the earth” in Gen. 1.) Fourth, in the parousia (when Jesus comes again) the earth will not be annihilated and replaced, it will be transformed into the new heavens and new earth (just like our bodies, 1 Cor. 15:35-58). Please read the excellent paper by evangelical New Testament scholar, Douglas Moo, “Nature in the New Creation: New Testament Eschatology and the Environment,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, no. 3 (September 2006): 449-88. If God made the earth; and it has value in his eyes; and it glorifies him; and he owns it; and we are “dust-beings” (i.e. physical beings) totally dependent on it; and Christ’s blood redeems it; and it is destined to be transformed in the eschaton, then it seems manifestly obvious that we (who call ourselves Christians) need to take care of it (Gen 2:15). That means that even the “possibility” or “probability” of damage to it should get our serious attention — and action. Yes we need to be critical thinkers, but we also love and worship God, and that means we take proper care of what he has made and graciously placed in our hands and which belongs to him.
I agree with you that evangelism is of central importance. But what is evangelism? What does it mean to bear witness to the saving grace of Christ and to the reality of his kingdom here and now (Mk 1:15) in word, action, and lifestyle? What does it mean to be a Christian who worships the Creator, Owner, and Redeemer of the earth and its creatures? What is the material nature of the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus Christ and of which we are citizens? How does our discipleship affect our material lives and our relationship with God’s earth and his creatures? Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor” What does neighbor-love mean in a limited world with 6.8 billion people (and counting) who all want the “American dream,” and where at least a billion of them do not have enough to eat and do not have decent water to drink? What does it mean to be an American Christian in a culture of rampant selfishness, consumerism, individualism, and self-indulgence?
Paul tells us we will receive new bodies (1 Cor 15), but we should not respond to this “good news” by trashing our current bodies. Most of us at least try to take care of our bodies, although two thirds of Americans (including Christians) are overweight or obese – again a manifestation of rampant self-indulgence and consumerism that Christians have thoughtlessly bought into.
I will end with a quote from Francis Schaeffer in a book he published in 1971 called, Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology, p. 6:
“On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who – with God’s help and in the power of the Holy Spirit – is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then.”
I encourage you to read this book and many others (I can give you a bibliography) written by evangelical Christians who see the physicality and earthiness of our discipleship and of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and our solemn responsibility for care of God’s good earth and his creatures.
John Mustol