mightychurch.com

Yep, weather and climate, 2 very different concepts. It’s interesting how often smart people intentionally confuse them.

So far, 2010 is the world’s hottest year on record, NOAA data show

So far, this has been the hottest year in recorded history.

On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data showing that, from January to July, the average global temperature was 58.1 degrees [F]. That was 1.22 degrees over the average from the 20th century, and the highest since 1880, when reliable records begin.

Although NOAA experts say global climate change isn’t the only reason 2010 has been so hot—an El Nino event earlier in the year pushed temperatures up—they said it’s still the most important reason.

“We would not be where we are without” the influence of climate change, said Deke Arndt of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

:P

But Luke, it’s been ‘cooling’ since 2010! ;-)

(And then “cooling since 2015”, and “cooling” since every new heatwave year that smashes the records.)

This is a reply to Dannii in the TV thread.

Wall-E scared me. I know it was just a kids movie, but it was the inevitability of ecocide in that movie that just rang true. Peak oil is our most urgent economic issue right now. If you look over at the peak oil thread it is becoming increasingly apparent that we only have 2 to 5 years before actual decline begins. Hirsch has even insisted there’s a conspiracy of silence regarding peak oil going into the upper echelons of US government!

But I wonder whether global warming or ecocide will, in the long term, prove the most devastating? We could use the ‘sulfur gun’ if global warming really got nasty. But ecocide? Extinction is forever. Once gone, various species that make up a viable ecosystem can never be replaced. Gene pools are becoming shallower and scarcer. They’re dying out. And the economic value of these ecosystems is only just becoming apparent.

I believe that from whatever angle you look at it the future is grim. The situation has been getting worse from Adam’s first sin, and it will only change when Jesus finally returns and takes over. Not that that event will be pretty.

Vaughan Roberts in God’s Big Picture uses this sort of diagram to shape out the OT:

It’s a helpful one for the book, but I really think it should be a downward slope the whole time.

As to ecocide… I guess here’s where my creationism pays out: I believe God created all life with a huge potential for variation. Without a doubt many species are becoming extinct, and others’ gene pools are becoming shallow. Some ecosystems will change, but I’ve got hope that they won’t be destroyed totally.

I forgot you were a creationist. How could I do that?

Well I’m not a normal one.

Wow - even the Melbourne Age’s cartoonists are waking up to the spin. Here we see a ‘graphic’ Premier John Brumby being grilled before this Saturday’s Victorian State Election :

Wasn’t in jpg form, so you will need to go to : 
http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/opinion/john-spooner/20090716-dmsv.html?selectedImage=1

Ummm, the scientific point being made is….?

Pffft. This is denialist rubbish not even fit for the compost pile. Let’s imply the same argument for water.

The body is 57% water. You can drink it and not die. Without it, you will die. Without it, your land will die. Without it, our Australian agriculture, tourism, and economy will die.

Water is natural, plentiful, life-giving, and beautiful.

Therefore it is impossible to drown in it or have a tsunami wash you away to a watery grave!

Here’s one for all you climate denying Christians… RESISTING THE GREEN DRAGON!
Watch this 12 minute preview about how you too can resist the Green Dragon — Satan and all his works — because this is not about stupid human behaviour against the laws of physics that God built into his creation. It’s not like the time we found out lead was bad for us and banned it, or absestos was bad for us and banned it, or dioxins were bad for us and tried to eliminate them. No. This whole climate thing is a conspiracy of the DEVIL!

Just type “RESIST” in caps if the password request comes up.

http://www.vimeo.com/15849648

Learn how you too can ‘RESIST THE DEVIL’ and of course save the American way of life. They’re the one and the same thing you know? ;-)

This is a letter I emailed them.

As a Christian, I can only feel shame for the hyped up paranoid conspiracy theories the American church is pushing today. Climate change is based on the laws of physics God built into this world. Many climatologists are CHRISTIANS THEMSELVES. Indeed, the head of the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, is a Christian. Bill McKibben is a Christian! These men are not at all interested in pushing an alternative gospel because they believe our gospel, OK? So try to separate out the cultists from the climatologists, especially your Christian brothers and sisters in climate science. This stuff is slandering your own brothers and sisters in Christ!

Now onto some of the myths you promoted. Yes we breathe out Co2. SO? We also pass water, we need water for life, and much of our body IS water. But too much water and we drown, OK? Too much Co2 simply IS changing the Radiative Forcing Equation. Measuring the effects of Co2 on energy wavelengths is a simple matter of spectrometry!  (I’m so tired of my ignorant Christian brothers and sisters spreading these trite myths!)

Are all climate activists Christians? No way! Of course there are Atheists, Communists, Cultists, Buddhists, and even Occultists. Some directors even — shock horror conspiracy! — make pantheistic Sci-Fi movies. But can we please try to distinguish between Climate Science and Science Fiction? Can we please learn that concern for the environment is EASILY tacked onto ANY world-view, and whether we are fighting to save the climate or a forest of beautiful Redwoods, we might easily find ourselves amongst unbelievers. And this is a GOOD thing! This is a gospel opportunity. Because as a Christian activist myself, I have had countless opportunities to share the gospel, the reason for the hope that I have.

Seriously, burning fossil fuels is not a “God-given right” if it hurts people. We once used lead in our petrol, and found out that was a public health concern. We banned it and adapted. We once used asbestos in our buildings. We banned it and adapted. It’ *should be* that boring — a matter of public health and welfare policy.  The ‘hype’ and alarmism from climate scientists has become more shrill because they are trying to save the countless African villagers and poor South Americans that will be impacted by global warming because PEOPLE LIKE YOU REFUSE TO TAKE THE DEMONSTRABLE SCIENCE ON BOARD!

Not only that but you’re running out of fossil fuels. Peak oil has already passed, peak gas is sooner than later, and even peak coal is on the horizon. We’ve burnt through the first half of all the fossil fuels. The second half is going to be harder to mine, and far more expensive. We ALWAYS go for the low hanging fruit FIRST, and now it’s gone. There’s plenty of ‘fruit’ left, but it is higher up the tree, is going to take longer to fetch, will not be coming to us as the same fast rate, and will cost exponentially more.

In short, whether you believe in climate change or not, America is going to have to wean off the fossil fuels anyway. And given how burning coal oil and gas causes lung and throat cancer, and given that Americans spend $600 billion a year buying overseas oil, bankrupting your own nation and funding people who don’t like you very much, I am ashamed to see Christians defending a harmful industry like fossil fuels. You should repent of this paranoid silliness and go back to preaching the gospel to those greenies you should be rubbing shoulders with in the trenches. You should BE concerned for the climate! But you’ve been brainwashed by the unscientific myths of the Denialists, and are now co-opting many Christians and churches into fighting King-Coal’s dirty battles for them. Nice. When are you going to do part 2, “Fighting the Coal-Dragon”?

Some more proud moments for Denialist’s. You should be so proud that you share their company! ;-)

From George Monbiot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/sep/21/climate-sceptics-evidence-gullible

Are the climate change deniers with no evidence just naturally gullible?

To dismiss a scientific canon on the basis of evidence that has been debunked evinces an astonishing level of self-belief

I’ve often been struck by the way in which people who subscribe to one set of baseless beliefs are susceptible to others, in fields that are not obviously related. The internet is awash with sites that explain how the US government destroyed the twin towers – and how alien landings have been covered up by the authorities. Many of those who insist that Barack Obama is a Muslim also believe that sex education raises the incidence of unwanted pregnancies.

A rich collection of unfounded beliefs is a common characteristic of those who deny – despite the overwhelming scientific evidence – that man-made global warming is taking place. I’ve listed a few examples before, but I’ll jog your memories.

Lord Monckton, whose lecture asserting that man-made climate change is nonsense has been watched by 4 million people, also maintains that he has invented a cure for Aids, multiple sclerosis, influenza and other incurable diseases.

Nils-Axel Mörner, whose claims that sea levels are falling are widely cited in the Telegraph and elsewhere, also insists that he possesses paranormal abilities to find water and metal using a dowsing rod, and that he has discovered “the Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks” in Sweden.

Peter Taylor, the Daily Express’s favourite climate change denier, has claimed that a Masonic conspiracy has sent a “kook, a ninja freak, some throwback from past lives” to kill him, and insisted that plutonium may “possess healing powers, borne of Plutonic dimension, a preparation for rebirth, an awakener to higher consciousness”.

Now our old friend Christopher Booker reminds us of his membership of this select club, with a remarkable article for the Spectator:

  “I spent a fascinating few days in a villa opposite Cap Ferrat, taking part in a seminar with a dozen very bright scientists, some world authorities in their field. Although most had never met before, they had two things in common. Each had come to question one of the most universally accepted scientific orthodoxies of our age: the Darwinian belief that life on earth evolved simply through the changes brought about by an infinite series of minute variations. The other was that, on arriving at these conclusions, they had come up against a wall of hostility from the scientific establishment.”

He goes on to list the tiredest old creationist canards, each of which has been answered a thousand times by evolutionary biologists. How can distinct species exist if evolution proceeds by gradualism? Where are the intermediate forms? How could natural selection “account for all those complex organs, such as the eye, which require so many interdependent changes to take place simultaneously?” How could it account for changes across “an improbably short time, such as those needed to transform land mammals into whales in barely 2 million years?” DNA and cellular reproduction are “so organisationally complex” that “they could not conceivably have evolved just through minute, random variations”.

He appears to be unaware that these objections have been repeatedly debunked. He also appears to be unaware of any developments in the science of evolution since the Origin of Species was published. He maintains that these objections expose evolutionary scientists as “simply ‘believers’ taking a leap of faith”, who treat any dissent as a “thought crime”. He compares them to the Inquisition and to Trofim Lysenko: the Soviet agronomist whose hypotheses were imposed by Stalin as the official scientific orthodoxy.

His view of evolutionary science, in other words, is in line with his view of climate science. Indeed, he makes the link explicit:

  “We have seen a remarkably similar response from the scientific establishment to anyone dissenting from that other dominating theory of our time, that rising CO2 levels caused by human activity are leading to runaway global warming.”

What he’s saying is that it is no longer acceptable to tell people they are wrong. If you knock down the claims of people who can marshal no sound science to support them, you place yourself in the same category as the Inquisition or Stalin’s thought police.

Sadly he doesn’t tell us who the “world authorities” who have destroyed the theory of natural selection are. In fact he cites no scientist, no paper, no publication of any kind, except Darwin and the Origin of Species. We must simply take his word for it that the entire canon of evolutionary biology, just like the entire canon of climate science, is not just wrong but a fiendish conspiracy against the public, that those who reject it are true scientific heroes, and those who defend it are witch-finders and despots.

Needless to say, some of Booker’s fans have swallowed all this and reproduced his article on their own sites. Piers Corbyn, also a well-known man-made climate change sceptic, added this comment to the Spectator thread:

  “Superb stuff Christopher. We seem to be having to fight attempts to impose a new age of religiosity where belief in the ‘Official’ view reigns supreme.”

So here’s a poser. Are people who entertain a range of strong beliefs for which there is no evidence naturally gullible? Or does the rejection of one scientific discipline make you more inclined to reject others?

To dismiss an entire canon of science on the basis of either no evidence or evidence that has already been debunked is to evince an astonishing level of self-belief. It suggests that, by instinct or by birth, you know more about this subject (even if you show no sign of ever having studied it) than the thousands of intelligent people who have spent their lives working on it. Once you have taken that leap of self-belief, once you have arrogated to yourself the authority otherwise vested in science, any faith is then possible. Your own views (and those of the small coterie who share them) become your sole reference points, and are therefore unchallengeable and immutable. You must believe yourself capable of anything. And, in a sense, you probably are.

Washington post.com Cancun talks start with a call to the gods
     
While I don’t endorse the rabid right wing or denialist positions, invoking some pagan goddess in an official UN conference of great importance and significance is highly offensive and inappropriate, to say the least.

 
I want one!!

Ros Burgess - 12 December 2010 01:37 PM

     
While I don’t endorse the rabid right wing or denialist positions, invoking some pagan goddess in an official UN conference of great importance and significance is highly offensive and inappropriate, to say the least.

Agreed! What an entirely silly thing to do, especially in this age of hypersensitive American right-wing conspiracy nutters! I was just banned from another Christian forum for pushing ‘humanism’. Every time I go there I get a big notice,

BANNED FOR FALSE TEACHING!

My crime? I questioned why they recommended the “Resisting the Green Dragon” DVD’s.

http://www.resistingthegreendragon.com/

It’s hilarious. I push humanism because I’m concerned about the science of global warming and how to love our neighbour practically in this era. Oh well. That’s American Christianity for you.

Global Warming warning ad .....

When it’s -11C outside and they are discussing Global Warming in Cancun !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-F8EO3qOVk

Mhmmm. And?

First came “global warming” scares - and now ( the ‘great warming guru’ ) Tim Flannery warns us ( or is that welcomes ) “global NUDGING” !!

.... Flannery, a former Australian of the Year and still on various government panels, predicted the inanimate Earth would soon come to life in the form of Gaia, an ancient Greek god. He’s flirted with Gaia-belief, but never quite to this extent….

Flannery’s exact words: “I think that, within this century, the concept of the strong Gaia will actually become physically manifest.”

Well, that’s something we can all look forward to. A living god, not only on this earth, but of it.

Flannery, a frequent ABC presence, continued: “I do think that the Gaia of the ancient Greeks, where they believed the earth was effectively one whole and perfect living creature, doesn’t exist yet, but it will exist in future.”  ......

“We’ll never be able to control the Earth, there’s no doubt about it,” he said, which kind of shoves to one side the earnest efforts of climate-change activists, including Flannery himself.

“We can’t control its systems. But we can nudge them, and we can foresee danger.”

Once we’ve got Global Nudging under way, it’s just a matter of time.

“Once that occurs, then the Gaia of the ancient Greeks really will exist,” exulted Flannery. “This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, a living organism, at some sort of level.”....

( He can even communicate with the beast, as he explained to Andrew Denton in 2008 ) :

“It’s life that makes the atmosphere what it is. That’s a very important aspect of Gaia, you know,” the bearded Gaia-whisperer said. “Gaia is life working as a whole to maintain the atmosphere as it is, so that life can go on. So Gaia, I think, is saying to us: ‘It’s time that you took control.”’ ...

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/do-not-feel-afraid-gaia-is-with-us/story-e6frezz0-1225980594646

And still some wonder why there are sceptics around - especially Christian ones ?

Hey Tim Flannery, all I have to say is “nudge, nudge, SAY NO MORE”  ;)

During the 10 year drought all sorts of climate change sceptics would say” It will rain again and all this talk of climate change will be forgotten.”  I wonder what they would say to the people of central Queensland now?

Kev, Kev, Kev,
(Wiggles index finger back and forth)
Are you really trying to assert that Flannery believes an actual god will manifest itself? Or is he talking in the shorthand of a scientific philosophy that you don’t quite grasp? I have found Gaia theory a quite interesting scientific concept, and one that has absolutely no conflict with Christian doctrine. There will of course be greenies pushing Gaia theory in anti-Christian ways, but that is not the same as showing Gaia theory itself to be wrong.

Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life. This set of theories holds that all organisms on an extraterrestrial life-giving planet regulate the biosphere to the benefit of the whole. Gaia concept draws a connection between the survivability of a species (hence its evolutionary course) and its usefulness to the survival of other species.

While there were a number of precursors to Gaia theory, the first scientific form of this idea was proposed as the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist, in 1970. The Gaia hypothesis deals with the concept of homeostasis, and claims the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act as a single, self-regulating system. This system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, and the atmosphere. While controversial at first, various forms of this idea have become accepted to some degree by many within the scientific community (See Amsterdam declaration on Global Change). These theories are also significant in green politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_philosophy

I don’t know if he’s on drugs or simply delusional - BUT he said it - but apparently his words are illusory.  Are you now suggesting that his words have no meaning at all ? And perhaps Star Trek and Dr Who are really just documentaries ?

It’s time to draw a line in the sand on this rubbish !

Come on… that’s like asking all Christians to turn around and JUST ADMIT that Jesus has 7 eyes and 7 horns, because Revelation SAYS SO! THE BIBLE SAID IT!

Hey Dave, don’t shoot the messenger. Your response is totally irrational - and the illustration about Jesus is absurd. Time for you to take a chill pill, I think. Let me just remind you that it is me who is rejecting Flannery’s imagined Gaia god. But perhaps, in order to keep ‘cred’ with your green-eyed mates, you feel that you have to agree with his crazy ideas - and this one certainly ranks right up there as the craziest.

Hmmmm, as Fagan sang in “Oliver”, it’s time to review the situation, I think you better think it out again.

Kevin,
Relax mate. You need to read about the Scientific Hypothesis that is the Gaia theory and stop flipping out over the name. It is about self-organising ecosystems altering the planet-wide biosphere even down to the atmospheric composition. Unless you’re a closet Creationist, I don’t know why you find it so threatening? I’ve forgotten; are you a Creationist? That’s the only thing I can think of that would have you weirding out on me like this.

Well, what do you mean by that term ?

  “Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being” or “Creationism is the belief that the universe and all that it contains was created by a god or gods at some point in the past”.

Yes, as a Christian I am a creationist. However, I am not of “the universe only came into being at 9am on October 23 in 4000 BC” kindergarten school of thought. It’s obvious that our Earth and the Universe are millions of our years old. So I see myself as a creationist who believes in an ‘old’ Earth.

I have had a look at the “scientific Hypothesis that is the Gaia theory” - but am in disagreement with it’s interpretations.  { As an aside, I was fascinated to read that it was Lovelock’s neighbour ( William Golding of “Lord of the Flies” fame ) who suggested the use of Gaia as a name to him. }

( from Wikopedia ) In James Lovelock’s 2006 book, “The Revenge of Gaia” :

He claims that Gaia’s self-regulation will likely prevent any extraordinary runaway effects that wipe out life itself, but that humans will survive and be “culled and, I hope, refined.”

According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed “the people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain”.

“By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris - as far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position.”
“If you take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 - between 110F and 120F. It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can’t grow — there will be almost no food grown in Europe.”

“We are about to take an evolutionary step and my hope is that the species will emerge stronger. It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God’s chosen race.”

Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage.

An interesting treatise - almost certain to appeal to the gloom and doom sayers among us - and, although raising some good questions to ponder, still finds sceptics willing to reject his underlying hypothesis which is seemingly based on the assumption that there is no Godly power at work in the scheme of things. That is what I find unacceptable - along with Tim Flannery’s flowery worship language of his green goddess.

Sure, but the Gaia theory has moved way beyond Lovelock. It’s about the interesting interaction between life and the planet it is on. It’s about how Earth has a rich diversity of mineral deposits that other planets don’t have, because life is even changing the chemistry of geological deposits. It’s about the interaction between types of life and the composition of the atmosphere. And it’s an important theory that branches across game theory, climatology, ecology, and systems theory.