Climate Change – A Christian Response (Pt-1)

I grew up in a family that was very environmentally conscious – long before it was fashionable. In the 1960s we grew organic strawberries and vegetables, made cottage cheese from our two cows which never saw an antibiotic or any other chemicals. The pastures they grazed on were only treated with organic fertilizers.

When I did my degree in Agricultural Science, we had to present a seminar on a topic of our choice to the whole student body and the whole faculty. When the notice for mine went out entitled Does Organic Farming have a Scientific Basis, my fellow students and some of the faculty thought I was playing a practical joke, and asked me what I was really going to do! I must have argued the case well as I got a very good mark for my seminar!

For my honours project, I researched the nitrate and phosphate loadings of rivers in Tasmania, seeking to determine how much came from agricultural activities. When I worked as a farm advisory officer in the Huon Valley, I actively promoted methods which reduced the amount of farm chemicals which were being used. I wrote the Question & Answer page in the Tasmanian Organic Growing Magazine for over 20 years. In our churches I have led camp studies on A Christian Perspective on the Environment. ( I wrote on it for T&S back in1990)

Why am I telling you all this? Because I want to make it clear that I am passionate about protecting the environment, reducing pollution, minimising the adverse effects of agriculture on the quality of soils and the wider environment. My passion for this arises from the conviction that we are stewards of God’s creation, and that for having lived on this earth, we should leave it in better shape than when we were born. I am not only about conserving what there is – I am an advocate for improving the environment!

So no doubt you would expect me to write an article warning you about the pending disaster caused by man induced global warming (known as Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW for short). As a scientist with a life time track record of environmental concern, you may be shocked by what follows. But I believe it needs to be said, for the sake of the poor of the world.

As part of my science training, I was taught to be sceptical. To always ask: What is the empirical data? What are the hard facts? Have other scientists been able to replicate the experiments or measurements that gave this data? If there is no empirical, repeatable data, you are moving from the realm of science into the realm of speculation. Speculation has its place, because you can do experiments to see if your speculation is heading in the right direction. But to promote speculations as scientific fact is nothing less than telling lies.

As data becomes available, one can formulate a hypothesis, which accommodates all the known empirical data. But as new data becomes available, one must be willing to revise one’s hypothesis, to accommodate the new data. So what are the hard facts about climate change?

Climate has never been static. Evidence indicates that climate changes have generally been gradual, and often cyclical (such as ice ages occurring around every 120,000 years). Sometimes changes have been more sudden, such as the events which snap froze mammoths in the Arctic some 20,000 years ago, with the grasses and flowers they had consumed, still readily identifiable in their stomachs today!

The Bible tells us that there was a major change in climate that occurred around the time of the Flood (Gen 7 and 8). Rain fell as it had never fallen before. After the flood, God made a covenant declaring: As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease Gen 8:22 – thus indicating that the earth will continue to provide for man’s needs.

Then there were the various droughts that the Bible tells us about. The 7 years of plenty in Egypt were followed by 7 years of great drought not only in Egypt, but also in the land of Canaan. (Gen 41- 47).

We know that from around 900 to 1300 AD it was 2- 3C warmer in Europe and North America than it is today (known as the Medieval Warm period – the temperatures peaked around 900 to 1100) which led to the colonising of Greenland and Newfoundland. But the subsequent increasing cold led to the Vikings deserting Greenland by 1400. Archaeologists have excavated Viking house ruins under the current permafrost. Again, this climate change was not caused by man’s activities.

We also know that the temperature was lower from 1400 – 1900 – a period known as the Little Ice Age. In those days the Thames in London froze over most winters! As the climate cooled, farmers had to adapt to shorter growing seasons. Again man’s activities were not responsible for the change.

In the period 1940 to 1970 there was a global cooling phase, which led to some scientists to claim we were entering into a new ice age. The y claimed the cause was that we were draining too many swamps, thus reducing the production of methane, which is a green house gas! One of the current leading advocates of AGW theory, Dr. Stephen Schneider, in the 1970’s claimed that small particulates (called aerosols) were to blame, and that their effect was orders of magnitude greater than carbon dioxide warming the environment.

No one – not even the global warming alarmists – is claiming that these clearly recorded major changes in climate were caused by human activity. Everyone agrees they were caused by “natural phenomena”. (Al Gore and his followers find the Mini Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period a very inconvenient truth, and so either ignore it, or even deny it every happened!)

If climate has changed so markedly over so many thousands of years, without the influence of man, we must ask the question: Are the current changes in climate (a warming of 0.6C in the past 100 years) due to man’s influence, or is it simply the result of the same natural forces which changed the climate in the past?

That is an obvious question, which must be answered. Until we know the answer, we can not know whether there is any value in reducing our carbon dioxide emissions.

As Paul Murray commented in the West Australian recently[1] if you dare to ask such questions, then you are labelled a “sceptic” which is the next worst thing to being called a paedophile! One CBS reporter has even labelled sceptics of AGW as “holocaust deniers”! If we are to be good stewards of the earth God has entrusted to us, we must not be afraid to ask the hard questions. We must insist on scientifically verifiable answers. We can not just accept the media hype at face value.

The media and the spin doctors assure us, that “the science is settled”: Man’s carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of global warming. We are told that while there are a few ill informed scientists refusing to face reality, the “consensus” among the world’s leading scientist is that there is no doubt that man made carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of the current “alarming” rate of global warming and climate change.

The very fact that “consensus” argument is needed, shows that the data available is inadequate to establish the assertion being made.

Science by consensus is never good science. If the facts are clear, then a discussion can take place as to what the facts mean. But the facts must first be established. Science works on the basis that you can do experiments in your own laboratory or take measurements in nature. Others must be able to do the same, and get the same answers. That establishes the facts.

When people claim “scientific consensus” you know that the data is not yet clear, and that any assertion made is speculation rather than science.

Historically, scientific consensus has all too often been wrong. A few examples:

Scientific American in 1905 labelled the Wright brothers as fraudsters for claiming to have flown with a machine that was heavier than air. The scientific “consensus” – even 2 years after they had flown - was that it could not be done.

As part of his anti Jewish campaign, Hitler organised a group of 200 eminent scientists to have a forum which condemned Einstein’s theory of relativity E = mc² . Asked whether the condemnation of 200 eminent scientists bothered him, Einstein responded: “It doesn’t need 200 scientists to disprove Relativity, it just needs a single fact”.

The first medical doctor who discovered the connection between high salt intake and high blood pressure was struck off the medical register in the US for giving the unjustifiable advice to his heart patients to eat less salt!

In the 1970s the scientific consensus was that we were about to enter a new ice age!

The scientific consensus today is that evolution is a “fact”. But many eminent scientists do not believe in evolution. Some, such as Michael J Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box – the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution demonstrates that the notion of evolution is inconsistent with the empirical data from biochemical research.

While the media and the AGW proponents do their utmost to silence those who hold a different view, there is no consensus among scientists that the 0.6C warming in the last century has been caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Atmospheric scientists tell us that the water vapour in the atmosphere has 30 times the influence on the earths temperature, as does the level of carbon dioxide.

It may surprise you that over 4,000 scientists have signed the “Heidelberg Appeal” including more than 70 Nobel Prize winners. A 1997 Gallup Poll of eminent North American climatologists (who one would have thought understand more about climate than journalists or politicians such as Al Gore!) showed that 83% did not support the claims of AGW. In 1998, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine issued a petition for signature by atmospheric scientists saying there is no scientific evidence indicating that green house gases cause global warming. That petition was signed by more than 17,000 scientists and leaders involved in the issue. [2] Unfortunately these kinds of things do not make it into the media, because most journalists have adopted the “cause” of Global Warming and want to “advance the cause” rather than report objectively on the debate.

It may surprise some, but the IPCC reports are first produced by the scientists, and then non scientist bureaucrats “rewrite” them. The bureaucrats deleted these two statements from the scientists 1995 report:

1. None of the studies cited have shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in green house gases.

2. No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to…man made causes. Interestingly suspicious, wouldn’t you say? It gives the impression that a political agenda is being driven at the cost of truth.

One of the biggest problem facing anyone trying to determine the truth about environmental issues is that very little of what is published about the environment is actually published in peer reviewed scientific journals. And some of the prophets of doom about carbon dioxide emissions want to keep it that way. Stephen Schneider, one of the prophets of the ice age in the 1970s, and now a strong advocate of AGW has stated: …we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That of course means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Schneider effectively admits that the pursuit of truth must be sacrificed on the altar of “pushing the agenda”! In commenting on this quote in the Federal Parliament, Dr Dennis Jensen, currently the only PhD qualified scientist in our federal parliament stated: an honest scientist would never bend the truth to push an agenda. Sadly, pushing the AGW agenda has become more important to journalists and many scientists, than scientific integrity and pursuit of the truth.

Next month I will present scientific evidence relating to AGW, and explore the possible effect its agenda will have on the world’s poor.

[1] West Australian, June 12, 2007 p 16

[2] http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4674 accessed 4/1/2008