Who are “climate skeptics”? Greg Garrard, Associate Professor of Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, thinks he knows. In fact, he believes “environmentalists” generally “know who climate skeptics are: oil company shills, religious fundamentalists and neoliberal cheerleaders.” With that courteous and respectful opening, Garrard issued a call for papers for the symposium “Who Do They Think They Are? Cultures of Climate Skepticism, Anti-Environmentalism, and … [Read more...]
“Climate Change”: A Leap of Faith?
Tonight at Duke University there will be a panel discussion titled “Climate Change Not a Leap of Faith.” Among the event hosts is the group Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, an offshoot of the Evangelical Environmental Network. They and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, the Nicholas School of the Environment, and the Kenan Institute for Ethics are bringing in the Nicholas Institute’s Amy Pickle, the Nicholas School’s Megan Mullin, the Kenan Institute’s David … [Read more...]
The Theologization of Global Warming Among American Evangelicals: Who Says Religion and Science Can’t Mix?
[Note: This essay was written in the summer of 2010 at the request of Dr. Patrick Michaels, intended for a book he was editing. His publisher declined to include it in the book because of its religious content. It was never published elsewhere until now. We hope it remains a helpful survey of the history of the debate over global warming among evangelicals up to that time.—ECB, March 11, 2016] Introduction In the last half decade there has been a blossoming of public concern about global … [Read more...]
Ocean Acidification—Well, Maybe Not So Much
As global temperature remains well below alarmists' predictions, environmentalists continue to promote devastation from "ocean acidification" as their next rationale for clamping down on CO2 emissions. But as a new article in the ICES Journal of Marine Science makes clear, the actual scientific evidence for such devastation is slim, and the primary reason why so much gets published about it seems to be not scientific but political/sociological. As Ben Webster summarized in The Times (London): … [Read more...]
Christianity, Veganism, and Animal Suffering
Last month, I discussed how Christianity cannot impose veganism on its adherents because doing so would violate the freedom we have in Christ as well as our lordship over creation. In other words, humans are superior to animals and thus eating animals is within the bounds of the created order. But I also noted that animal rights is not the only reason employed by anti-meat eaters to support their cause. One of the more emotionally compelling arguments is what can be called the argument from … [Read more...]
Does the Bible Require Common Ownership of Land?
Does the Bible validate private property in land, or does it require that land be communally owned? With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-professed socialist, doing surprisingly well in the Democratic Presidential primary campaign, such thoughts become increasingly common. Someone recently wrote: It seems to me that a theology that takes Creation as evidence of a Creator ... would recoil at privatizing Creation as a private income-generating asset. The way I come at environmental … [Read more...]
Thorns and Briers, or Peaceful Habitation?
A common theme of environmentalist thought—the Green vision of the ideal world—is of a small human population whose effect on earth’s ecosystems doesn’t differ significantly from that of other species. The stark contrast between that vision, with its particular understanding of what it means to be human, and the Biblical vision is apparent from the beginning of the Bible, where, having made Adam and Eve (unlike all other living things, earthly or heavenly) in His image, “God blessed them. And … [Read more...]
The Haunt of Jackals
Various passages of the Bible set forth the complete elimination of human habitation in a land as the epitome of God’s judgment. I have long found it remarkable that much of the environmental movement sees as ideal what Scripture depicts as hideous. One place that does so is Isaiah 34, in which God through the Prophet Isaiah foretells, in sometimes apocalyptic poetic language, His judgment on Edom and the other pagan nations that oppressed Israel and Judah: 1“Draw near, O nations, to hear, and … [Read more...]
Whither Global Food Shortage Predictions?
Less than two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which wants us to trust its prognostications about conditions a century from now enough to bet trillions on them, warned that global warming threatened global food supplies. But last week The New Indian Express reported, “International food prices dipped by 19 percent in the last year, the fourth consecutive annual fall .” Stop and think about that for a moment. In 2014 the IPCC’s Working Group II warned that … [Read more...]
Why Christians Don’t Impose Veganism
Veganism is the lifestyle philosophy of people that avoid eating, wearing, or using animal products or their by-products. They don’t eat meat or the products that derive from animals, even when the animal is not killed, such as milk. Now the rationales for adopting this lifestyle vary. Some do it for alleged health benefits, others for supposed environmental reasons, and other still on the basis of some ethical theory about not wanting animals to suffer (cf. Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation). Of … [Read more...]
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