Relax, the planet is fine

mont974x4 · May 30, 2007

We're really not doing as bad as you think. An honest look at industry today and you'll see we've come along way.

God loves it all? I know He said it was good but I would think He reserves love for us...since He gave the trees, animals and the rest of nature for our use and pleasure.

Candide · May 30, 2007

But I don't think that the Earth was created just so we could use it however we wanted, and I've never seen that in the Bible.

And no, we're actually not doing that great, as a society. We are drilling everywhere, and consuming many resources that won't ever come back, in addition to killing many forests, and polluting the air.

mont974x4 · May 30, 2007

Good thing God's in control.

Candide · May 30, 2007

Yes, I concur. But I don't see how that's relevant.

Merciel · May 30, 2007

mont974x4 said:
Good thing God's in control.

That won't keep humanity from living with the consequences of their actions. If you think otherwise, then I guess there's no reason why I shouldn't just start pouring old oil down gutters because Jesus will take care of it and spare me the consequences of my callous heart!

And I never understand how caring for the environment means "putting the creation above the creator." Is it not possible the care for the creation too? If I care for my mom, does that mean I'm placing her above God? Seriously, no Christian environmentalist has ever placed the creation above the creator or has ever worshipped the creation. This is such an awful strawman. It's disgusting and dishonest. I wish people would use it, but I guess to claim that we're "tree worshippers" is a great way to disregard our concerns and continue living as though everything's fine and dandy.

jad123 · May 30, 2007

Candide said:
We're cutting down his trees, polluting his air, and doing many more things with seemingly no mind to what the consequences of our actions are.

I'm not saying that you're not a Christian if you drive a truck, but I'm saying that I couldn't justify driving a machine that helps kill God's creation, just for the sake of "owning a truck" or "making my life easier".

As well, I'm not advocating that we worship the Earth. Simply that we recognize that it's God's beautiful creation (which he loved), and the we respect it, and change our lifestyles accordingly.

My friend, the trash you throw away is polluting the earth. The car you drive (if you have a car yet ) no matter what the gas mileage pollutes the air. I am not saying we should not be good stewards I am saying I do not buy into the stupid hype of global warming being caused by man. Hurricanes come and go, some years more than others, it has nothing to do with global warming as history shows.

Merciel · May 30, 2007

jad123 said:
My friend, the trash you throw away is polluting the earth. The car you drive (if you have a car yet ) no matter what the gas mileage pollutes the air. I am not saying we should not be good stewards I am saying I do not buy into the stupid hype of global warming being caused by man. Hurricanes come and go, some years more than others, it has nothing to do with global warming as history shows.

Yes, we are all guilty in some way. I don't see how that's relevant to anything. Does the fact that all Christians sin in some way mean that Christians shouldn't strive not to sin?
Whether or not humans cause global warming, I don't see anything wrong with making a little sacrifice for the sake of the planet. Personally, I'd rather make environmentally friendly choices and be wrong than live a carefree life and be wrong.

Candide · May 31, 2007

jad123 said:
My friend, the trash you throw away is polluting the earth. The car you drive (if you have a car yet ) no matter what the gas mileage pollutes the air. I am not saying we should not be good stewards I am saying I do not buy into the stupid hype of global warming being caused by man. Hurricanes come and go, some years more than others, it has nothing to do with global warming as history shows.

I've said time and time again that I'm not advocating one way or the other for Global Warming or against it. I think that as Christians, we are not caring for and respecting God's beautiful, loved creation. Period.

Yes, obviously, I live in the U.S.A, so I do contribute. And at the ripe old age of 17, I obviously don't have as many lifestyle options as I would under other circumstances. But I do ride my bike when possible (though my work and school schedules are such that it's not possible for me to get from one to the other without driving), and I do make sure to make all the difference I can. Because I couldn't do otherwise in good conscience, as an evangelical Christian.

jad123 · May 31, 2007

Merciel said:
Yes, we are all guilty in some way. I don't see how that's relevant to anything. Does the fact that all Christians sin in some way mean that Christians shouldn't strive not to sin?
Whether or not humans cause global warming, I don't see anything wrong with making a little sacrifice for the sake of the planet. Personally, I'd rather make environmentally friendly choices and be wrong than live a carefree life and be wrong.

I agree with you are saying. We should all be good stewards of this earth and should do what we can. But it comes down to personal choice and having some crazy man like Al Gore for instance using scare tactics and preaching about the environment while driving big cars, living in a huge house, and flying in private jets drives me crazy.

Candide · May 31, 2007

But Al Gore has nothing to do with what we're saying. As far as I know, he's not a Christian.

DidGodWeTrust · May 31, 2007

While there is no doubt that this is a temporary home, and i dont buy into all the "Global Warming" stuff, we still have a responsibility to take good care of this place while we are using it. It is where God rests his feet . But it is not to take out eyes off of our duties as Christians. To spread the Word and to Love.

Merciel · May 31, 2007

jad123 said:
I agree with you are saying. We should all be good stewards of this earth and should do what we can. But it comes down to personal choice and having some crazy man like Al Gore for instance using scare tactics and preaching about the environment while driving big cars, living in a huge house, and flying in private jets drives me crazy.

Some environmentalists go too far, but that doesn't mean that their message is wrong. It's like with Christians. There are some Christians who don't present the Gospel well, but that doesn't mean that the message of the Gospel is wrong. Just the messenger.

dcyates · Jun 1, 2007

Candide said:
But I don't think that the Earth was created just so we could use it however we wanted, and I've never seen that in the Bible.

And no, we're actually not doing that great, as a society. We are drilling everywhere, and consuming many resources that won't ever come back, in addition to killing many forests, and polluting the air.

In industrialized nations like the US and Canada it's thought by many experts that there are actually more trees now than there was when Europeans first arrived here. Regarding the air, even Gore's former senate aide and hand-picked administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Carol Browner, regularly admitted the steady improvement of the environment as measured by many key indicators. For instance, her final Annual Performance report acknowledged these long-term trends:
"Between 1970 and 1999, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants decreased 31%.... These improvements occurred simultaneously with significant increases in the nation's population, economic growth, and travel and are a result of effective implementation of clean air laws and regulations, as well as enhancements in the efficiency of industrial technologies."

(2000 EPA Annual Report: Performance Results, Section II [Clean Air])

In other words, people were driving more (vehicle-miles traveled were up by 140%), the US GDP was up 147%, the US population climbed 33%, and STILL air pollution fell. For 8 years, Clinton-Gore took credit for these gains--which had been under way for decades--while they simultaneously claimed tens of thousands of annual deaths from air pollution whenever such claims could justify their desires for greater regulatory controls (such as the November 1996 proposed revisions to the Clean Air Act's NAAQS).

But there is one of your listed concerns where perhaps you could provide some clarification: "consuming many resources that won't ever come back." Although I've heard this line of thought expressed many times, I'll confess to never really understanding it. If we're not supposed to use resources now because they "won't ever come back," when are we supposed to use them? If we're not to consume non-renewable resources now because their use is then denied to our children and grandchildren, when they're adults won't the same argument apply: their use of non-renewable resources denies its use to their children and grandchildren? The end result is that copper or oil or what have you remains in the ground and nobody will benefit from them. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Besides that, I honestly don't believe we're going to run out of anything we genuinely need or want. The fact is, nobody can accurately assess how much we have of any resource. Please see my previous post (#25) on this thread that addresses such concerns. In addition to what is found there, something else I came across recently: proven reserves of crude oil were estimated at 51 billion barrels at the end of 1944. But by 2002, after 58 years of "myopic" gas guzzling, the official figure for proven reserves had GROWN to 1,266 billion barrels worldwide.

On top of that, have you ever read Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick"? If the page after page after page (after page after page after page...) that Melville devotes to describing the practice of whaling in 19th-century New England is any indication, whale oil derived from their blubber was exceedingly important to New England's economy. But soon the whale population became dangerously low. I don't know how many New Englanders derive their living from the whaling industry today but my guess would be not many. And yet are New Englanders destitute now because of the collapse of the whaling industry? Of course not. We switched to other forms of energy and industry. And when, eventually in the distant future, we actually do run out of fossil fuels, we'll change again. As the late, great economist, Julian Simon, believed, it is really human ingenuity that is our ultimate resource.

Merciel · Jun 1, 2007

dcyates said:
In industrialized nations like the US and Canada it's thought by many experts that there are actually more trees now than there was when Europeans first arrived here.

So, there's more trees. Does that actually mean the environment is better now than it was before? This reminds me of a headline on why global warming might be a good thing! It really shows the extent people will go to to deny the damage that humans do to the environment.

dcyates said:

But there is one of your listed concerns where perhaps you could provide some clarification: "consuming many resources that won't ever come back." Although I've heard this line of thought expressed many times, I'll confess to never really understanding it. If we're not supposed to use resources now because they "won't ever come back," when are we supposed to use them? If we're not to consume non-renewable resources now because their use is then denied to our children and grandchildren, when they're adults won't the same argument apply: their use of non-renewable resources denies its use to their children and grandchildren? The end result is that copper or oil or what have you remains in the ground and nobody will benefit from them. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Click to expand...

Or we could perhaps practice a little bit of moderation?

dcyates said:

On top of that, have you ever read Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick"? If the page after page after page (after page after page after page...) that Melville devotes to describing the practice of whaling in 19th-century New England is any indication, whale oil derived from their blubber was exceedingly important to New England's economy. But soon the whale population became dangerously low. I don't know how many New Englanders derive their living from the whaling industry today but my guess would be not many. And yet are New Englanders destitute now because of the collapse of the whaling industry? Of course not. We switched to other forms of energy and industry. And when, eventually in the distant future, we actually do run out of fossil fuels, we'll change again. As the late, great economist, Julian Simon, believed, it is really human ingenuity that is our ultimate resource.[/LEFT]

Click to expand...

[/QUOTE]

I'm sure there's a slight difference between the worldwide dependence on crude oil and the New England's blubber oil industry, besides the difference in scale. But I guess that's a good policy in life. Don't bother with it now. Let's wait until it actually becomes a problem. Hopefully, we'll be dead by then, so it won't matter.

dcyates · Jun 2, 2007

Merciel said:
So, there's more trees. Does that actually mean the environment is better now than it was before?

I think I already answered this with the quotation of Carol Browner, Gore's former administrator of the US EPA--a quotation you appear to have deliberately elided in your response to me. I honestly don't want this to turn nasty, but I have to wonder why you would do that.

This reminds me of a headline on why global warming might be a good thing!

And why shouldn't it be a good thing? Yes, there are some negatives but the positives may very well far outweigh them. Huge stretches of the planet's land mass lies north of the 49th parallel, and yet in a nation like Canada the vast majority of the population huddles within 100 miles of the Canada-US border; it's simply too cold much beyond that. Generally warmer weather would open up colossal amounts of land all across the northern hemisphere for human habitation, growth of food crops and overall longer growing seasons. These are areas that already provide a significant portion of the world's food supply. Warmer weather would mean more of it. (Isn't it, by-and-large, the same people who are so anxious over the issue of global warming also the ones wringing their hands over such issues as alleged overpopulation and lack of enough food to feed them?)

Besides that, the last time the northern hemisphere experienced a prolonged warming trend was roughly 1,000 years ago (hence the name the Medieval Warm Period, a.k.a. the Medieval Climate Optimum to climatologists who study the weather of this era) and it was a veritable golden age for them. As I've already mentioned, they experienced longer growing seasons, they could grow a greater variety of crops, life-expectancy shot up, the arts flourished (this was when a large number of those magnificent Gothic cathedrals were constructed), it resulted in the renaissance of the 12th-century which led to the Renaissance of the 14th/15th-century. They were growing thriving vineyards in northern England, for goodness sake! You can go to some of those north English towns today and find some of those old streets and lanes still named, "Vine Street" or "Vineyard Lane" and see the vineyards they depicted in the glass windows of their great Gothic cathedrals that we already talked about.

It really shows the extent people will go to to deny the damage that humans do to the environment.

I deny no such thing. I'm fully aware of the horrible damage humans are capable of wreaking upon our planet. But at the same time, in the interests of giving credit where credit is due, I'm not going to sit back and allow environmental alarmists to scare-monger us into claiming we're responible--or even capable--of more harm than we really are.
There's a reason most of advocates of anthropogenic global-warming are also those of the largely secular, hard Left on the political spectrum. The more our society loses its believe in God, the more divine attributes we ascribe to ourselves. As a result, we're not just littering in our cities and therefore 'Let's keep our city clean. Don't litter.' We're "KILLING THE PLANET!!" Al Gore is the perfect example of this. He once went to divinity school but dropped out and became a radical environmentalist. Oh, and need I add that he's now on a mission to "SAVE THE PLANET!" C'mon Al, grab a little humility for a change.

Or we could perhaps practice a little bit of moderation?

Sure. But who's idea of moderation? Mine? Yours? Surely not Al Gore's!?!

I'm sure there's a slight difference between the worldwide dependence on crude oil and the New England's blubber oil industry, besides the difference in scale.

Yes, obviously all analogies break down at some point. But here's not as much of a difference as you'd think. There was a huge demand for whale-derived products, not just the oil. A demand large enough that we almost hunted whales to extinction, after all. And it was also a worldwide industry.

But I guess that's a good policy in life. Don't bother with it now. Let's wait until it actually becomes a problem. Hopefully, we'll be dead by then, so it won't matter.

Let's cut the sarcasm and keep this civil, okay?

gwynedd1 · Jun 3, 2007

Merciel said:
So, there's more trees. Does that actually mean the environment is better now than it was before? This reminds me of a headline on why global warming might be a good thing! It really shows the extent people will go to to deny the damage that humans do to the environment.

Or we could perhaps practice a little bit of moderation?

I'm sure there's a slight difference between the worldwide dependence on crude oil and the New England's blubber oil industry, besides the difference in scale. But I guess that's a good policy in life. Don't bother with it now. Let's wait until it actually becomes a problem. Hopefully, we'll be dead by then, so it won't matter.[/quote]

The issue is global warming not the environment. Global warming or carbon dioxide may very well not be an issue. However your point about moderation is dead on. Why should we let it become an issue ?
However the solution presented will be by the same people that provided you our world today. That is why they are presenting false solutions that will allow them more power and control while scape goating the average person. Here are simple ones?

1. Why not switch from grass to natural prarie? All those lawn mowers are big polluters and all the natural prarie would remove a lot of carbon in the air.
2. Why not end corn subsidies? Why do we subsidized crops that need pertolium fertilizers?
3. Why do we subsidize beef ?
4. Why didn't congress pass the same standards to SUVs as they did cars?
5. Why do environmetal leaders often have private Jets?
6. Why not build cities that are safe for pedestians and bikers? The roads are plowed in the winter but not the sidewalks. I know because I take the sidewalk and a big heap of snow is placed there.
7. Why did the government destroy the Missippi flood plain?

Concern for the environment will be used to scam the ordinary person unless we stop them. We sould make our leaders stop abusing pretty much everthing and everyone. We can do our part in a reasonable way. We can use things in moderation and we can improve many things.

Candide · Jun 4, 2007

That was a wonderful post. Kudos.

Elspeth688 · Jun 5, 2007

god will take care of his creation

Calliso · Jun 6, 2007

While I am kinda on the fence *I believe global warming/ climate change is both human influenced and a natural process* I still think we *human kind* really should take better care of the planet. We can;t just assume God will swoop down and save us all before it gets too bad.

jad123 · Jun 7, 2007

Merciel said:
Some environmentalists go too far, but that doesn't mean that their message is wrong. It's like with Christians. There are some Christians who don't present the Gospel well, but that doesn't mean that the message of the Gospel is wrong. Just the messenger.

Thats actually a very good point. But for me I have read to many articles and studies by respected scientists that conflict with the "human cause" of global warming.

Relax, the planet is fine

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