Global Warming?

[Harlan Norris]

20,000 scientists, of whom about 2,700 of them are physicists,
geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers or
environmental scientists, who are in a position to understand the global
warming issues, have signed the following statement:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon
dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and
disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific
evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many
beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the
Earth.1

Christians especially need to be cautious when it comes to the issue of
global warming and other environmental issues. One of the reasons is that
these issues have been hijacked by individuals who desire to change our way
of life, and in particular, the Christian worldview that has guided the
Western Hemisphere. [Columnist] Veith [noted in an article]: "A big part of
the problem is that the current environmental movement has been hijacked by
the far left."2

1. Beisner, E.C., P.K. Driessen, R. McKitrick, and R.W. Spencer, 2006. "A
call to truth, prudence, and protection of the poor: An evangelical response
to global warming," p. 10.

2. Veith, G.E., 2006. To protect and conserve. World 21(20):30.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/human-caused-global-warming

First of all,you must understand that,one's political affiliation does not a Christian Make. Frankly,it seems quite likely, that the end of the world as described in Revelation,is similar to the global warming scenerio. Also the reasons given. Our selfish refusal to regulate our use of hydrocarbons,or limit our spending of natural resorces,has a definate effect. We're greedy. There is a penalty for that. The battle for good against evil,is fought in the heart of each and every one of us. Not between republicans and democrats,but between our desire for salvation and our desire for the things of this world. We are all guilty, but we are not all contrite. If we can look directly at the signs of our greed,and not see them,it is only because we are losing the battle in our heart,between good and evil.

 

[Maccie]

Ah well, only time will tell!

 

[Macrina]

It seems to me that being good stewards of creation requires us to make what improvements we can -- as individuals, communities, and nations. We may differ over the extent to which our actions are needed or effective, but why condemn those of us who seek to make what positive difference we can?

I respect the right of an individual to believe that global warming is not influenced by human factors; I disagree, but I respect the position. What I don't understand is the impulse to personally condemn those of us who believe human actions have an effect. Is there something intrinsically offensive about that position, or is it just the manner of some of the extreme elements which is bothersome?

 

[WesternCanuck]

Macrina, were not condemning those that want to believe that the ecology or global warming is caused by human interference.....were just saying their is no link by science yet established....

I agree in the meantime we can be as good stewards to the world that the Lord has given us and we all need to be more generous and less materialistic.....these are Christian ideals...to be good stewards...

It's just sad that so many people have been duped by things like Kyoto which would do nothing to help the enviornment and would kill our western economies....and the worse polluters like China and India are not even included under this sham...

Their are good honest ways have helping to take care of our earth...it just isn't the useless Kyoto inpired plan....

 

[Voegelin]

It seems to me that being good stewards of creation requires us to make what improvements we can -- as individuals, communities, and nations. We may differ over the extent to which our actions are needed or effective, but why condemn those of us who seek to make what positive difference we can?

All depends on what is being done. Al Gore and his followers are socialists in the model of Trofim Lysenko. They are scare mongering about global warming and using junk science in order convince people a world wide redistribution of income (via curtail of economic activity in the west) is needed. They also seek to empower the state even more than it is. At best, that type of Nanny State equalitarian scheming retards progress. At worst it produces misery. Which either is the case, it won't help the environment.

I wish they would just be honest about it and try to sell their marxism on greed or envy as they used to do rather than debase science.

 

[Maccie]

Thanks very much, but Al Gore and his merry men are hardly influencing us British!!! Most people wouldn't know who he was if he came up and bit them!

No, we have plenty of perfectly good, reputable scientists of our own (yes, we are civilised over here, and our education system is just fine!) who have studied climate, etc. etc. and have plenty of excellent scientific evidence of their own to convince me that man has affected the global climate.

I can tell the difference between junk science, and good, honest science, thank you. And marxism doesn't come into it over here.

There are two, honest, well-researched opinions over global warming. You just have to believe this, and stop accusing those of us who have a different view from you of believing junk science, being marxists or planning a world-wide redistribution of income.

Though that wouldn't be a bad idea, anyway!!

And where on earth is CT??

 

[WesternCanuck]

Uh Maccie, being a Marxist or redistributing wealth is not a bad thing?

Are you serious????

 

[wildthing]

Maccie is it ture that your government has hired Al is an advisor or something like that. His in your back yard and you don't even know it. Maccie I remember from the last time you didn't prove a thing with your evidence.

 

[Maccie]

redistributing wealth is not a bad thing?

Well, if you don't think that some people have got an obscene amount of money, and millions of people can barely live, then I think you need to read your Bible!!

I didn't say being a Marxist was a good idea. There was an "or" between the marxist and wealth redistribution.

Are you sure Al Gore has got over here to advise???

But you should remember that governments are not necessarily reprsentative of the people.

 

[Maccie]

No, Al Gore hasn't been "hired by the Government"! I've just checked. He is over here speaking at various places on global warming.

That's OK by us - speech is free in the UK.

 

[Voegelin]

If Gore and his buddies main goal isn't to redistribute income, why do they not demand China and India slap on the same pollution controls the west does? What good does it do to spend billions, perhaps trillions, making marginal improvements in the already clean west when the serious pollution is in Asia?

We see this with oil too. Charles Schumer whines about how drilling in Alaska will spoil the pristine wilderness. He filibustered ANWR. Yet he supports Russian oil companies who have nowhere near the pollution controls we do (Schumer appeared at the opening of the first Russian gas station in America and declared it a "win-win" for consumers.)

Why does Schumer have no problem with serious pollution by unaccountable companies on one side of the Bering Sea but won't let responsible, advanced western oil companies drill on the other?

 

[Ino]

ummm... so Voegelin, are you against redistributing wealth?
tax, charity etc is a bad thing?

i hope i have misunderstood your messages. please explain the point you are trying to make.
btw, USA is still in lead when it comes to pollution, i believe. do correct me if i'm wrong.
but redistributing wealth a bad thing? wow...i just can't even...wow..

 

[wildthing]

Sir I would check on the use of high sulfer coal that both China and India are using. The amount of population produced by our gas powered plants are much lower. The silly kyotha agreement does not cover that. It is also non varfiable joke treaty. We would have to take China's word for it that they are in complance. At this point China's word for anything is not worth a whole lot.

 

[WesternCanuck]

Ino, Jesus NEVER preached wealth distribution....what he taught is that we should give of our own free will.....especially to those that need it....but when the state forcibly tries to take money from people who have earned it in their wealth distribution scams, then it is dead wrong!

Wow...just wow that anyone could think that taxation and forced redistribution is right....sounds like someone has been reading Das Kapital or the like....certainly not the Bible...

 

[WesternCanuck]

Whew Maccie you had me worried there for a minute....I thought you were saying Marxism was cool??? Sorry I misread you.......

 

[billwald]

Western Washington State has had four "100 year" weather events in the last three years.

 

[Voegelin]

ummm... so Voegelin, are you against redistributing wealth?
tax, charity etc is a bad thing?

i hope i have misunderstood your messages. please explain the point you are trying to make.
btw, USA is still in lead when it comes to pollution, i believe. do correct me if i'm wrong.
but redistributing wealth a bad thing? wow...i just can't even...wow..

If done by government on a large scale it is a proven diaster. The 20th century proved that. Want to do the greatest good for the greatest number? A clear rule of law, property rights respected and low taxes will do it.

No way bureaucrats in D.C. or the old Kremlin could or can manage the affairs of hundreds of millions of people. The USSR redistributed income. It had price controls on over 24 million items. The result of that was poverty for all but those who decided who got what.

Liberty is the key to a healthy and prosperous life, not taking from one person to give to another (usually for votes).

Bureaucrats are no more enlightened, no more compassionate than anyone else. If people are unable to care for each other, bureaucrats won't help. In fact, they magnify and concentrate the sins we are all prone to. Better neighbor help neighbor, we form local safety nets (with some role for the Federal government but not much) than have someone making big bucks in an office in D.C. decide what help a farmer in Alabama, a lobsterman in Maine and an Inuit in Alaska should receive from others.

During the New Deal, the aid FDR sent out did not go to the poorest of the poor. Why? Because the South, where poverty was worst, was solidly Democratic. Roosevelt and his New Dealers handed out money to regions which were not so much in favor of his policies, regions where Democrats could pick up the most votes in the next election. During the Great Depression, those who did not need help got the most help and the poor got very little. All because of politics. That will never change.

Frederick Bastiat saw all this before the horrors of state redistribution in the 20th century. In 1850, he wrote:

God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty.

Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.

http://www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm

 

[WesternCanuck]

Vog is exactly right....wealth distribution is a brutal idea from a government pov .......they only mess it about and destroy our economy in the process!

However, as Christians, we are to always distribute what we have..whether money or material goods....Christ commanded this...and we are to first help the household of faith...and then to the unbeleiver..

I cannot imagine anyone that is truly regenerated by the holy ghost and HAS the means, will not share....

I am always at this time of year in particular moved by Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol........helping the widows and orphans and all the down treaded who through no fault of thiers are struggling...

I have to say in Christ's humility, I have obeyed this teaching....not because I knew it would mean brownie points or any other such silliness.....but Christ so calls me from the inside to help the helpless...

But Christ NEVER taught to take from those that have forcibly and then giving it to the pooer....he taught we are to voluntarily give...and truly, if we have the Savior inside, Giving is a Joy..

Of course it would be my prayer that the Wealthly would gave abundandtly..........but sadly many don't.......hence Jesus's warning about the rich and their chances into getting into Heaven....sadly their first love is wealth...and they have their reward in this lifetime!!

But because of their avarice, I am never commanded to take their money away........I can only pray that they will be moved to generously help those that so deparately need it!

Bless you all.....

 

[Ino]

i can't say i would ever find it to be a sin to pay tax....
i mean, poor people have the right to health care and education (yes, that's paid by tax as well).
elderly deserve their pension, etc.

so you would give away some of your money to help your neighbours kids go to school. a meal to a homeless kid once a week is the charity we're willing to do, but to donate voluntarily 20-40 % (+ 10% to your church)per every dollar we earn? it just wouldn't happen and we all know it. especially when we know that some of that money might not go to a CHRISTIAN person...God forbid..not to mention drug addicts, prisoners, alcoholics, mentally ill etc.

also, if tax is such a disaster to the economy, please explain the african nations. they've got low tax rates, so they're doing great. right?

it sounds like you have some trouble parting with your money, to be honest. again, correct me if i'm wrong. i'm waiting to be mesmerized by the amounts of money you donate.
P.S. Matthew 22:17-21

 

[jad123]

The early Christians, at least in Jerusalem, freely shared their material goods with the needy in the community of faith. However, these voluntary followers of Christ never attempted to forcibly redistribute the assets of non-Christians or even fellow believers.

2Co 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, solethimgive; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.