Ever heard of “first world problems”? Like home Internet quitting for 15 minutes? Bad mobile signal? Online deliveries arriving late? Can’t fast-forward live TV? A closet full of clothes but “nothing to wear”? Sitting near an infant on a flight to Bali? Chipped nail polish?
My quick survey suggests that, at least for Christians in developing countries, climate change/global warming is a “first world problem.”
Sure, the politicians and bureaucrats in other countries care about climate change—because they expect a piece of the $100 billion-a-year pie of Western “reparations” the Paris agreement promises them.
But, billions of people in the developing world really don’t care about climate change. And they shouldn’t.
Why? Because they still lack purified drinking water, sewage sanitation, adequate nutrition, reliable electricity (or any at all), adequate health care, and more things that are far more important to survival than climate change—things we take for granted.
Climate change also seems to be an “evangelized world problem,” or a “liberal church problem.” People in areas where Christianity is still a small minority, or in churches that still consider telling the gospel their #1 priority, don’t care about climate change.
That thought grabbed me when I read an article by Simon Marijani, of Operation Mobilization. He wrote,
Recently, we in OM Zimbabwe were shocked to be told by one ecumenical body, with which we had partnered, that they were no longer doing evangelism but now focused on climate change issues! The reason for the shift was that a principal financial partner had reverted from supporting evangelism programs to supporting climate change programs, and the ecumenical body credulously followed.
That should break your heart. It breaks mine. But it exemplifies how concern about global warming is crowding out concern for people’s eternal souls among some Christian mission organizations.
We hope to stop that, both by showing that manmade climate change, though real, is not a big problem and may actually be beneficial while efforts to reduce it would do more harm than good, especially to the world’s poor, and by reminding Christians that the gospel comes first.
Want a clear picture of life for the billions who still live in poverty without, for example, reliable electricity or solid infrastructure for water, sanitation, and transportation? The people for whom climate change really shouldn’t be a big concern?
For the last 20 years, Gregory Rummo has gone on frequent missions to South America. A long-time friend who teaches chemistry at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Greg recently became a Contributing Writer for the Cornwall Alliance.
Recently he wrote at Townhall.com about his latest mission trip. What he said is worth quoting at length because he expressed vividly and poignantly one of the chief motivations behind the Cornwall Alliance: concern for the world’s poorest.
On [a] trip to Peru’s farm country in the Conchucos Valley behind the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains, I experienced stark reminders of what real poverty is. In short: Rural Peru is a country with little infrastructure, limited opportunities, no healthcare and no government safety net. …
[W]e passed through village after village. All were littered with the dusty debris from the detritus of daily life. There were people and farm animals running everywhere. Children were dressed in filthy clothing. Garbage was strewn in the streets ….
It was a ride back in time to the Middle Ages, where hundreds of years lay ahead for any real 21st-century development in this part of the world.
While a few of the villages had electricity, none had paved roads or potable water. … As scene after scene of life in the Third World rolled past us, my heart broke. … These poor people had little hope of ever lifting themselves out of real poverty.
… From my experiences comprising over 20 trips to Central and South America, it would be an educational experience for liberal politicians and their media sycophants to get out more. Perhaps if they spent some time in places where the socialistic form of government they find so endearing has failed the people so miserably, they would wake up. …
For those Western politicians, entertainers, and other elites who think climate change is the biggest threat facing mankind, Greg makes a sobering point: Over the last 100 years, climate-related deaths have decreased by 95 percent and “[p]lentiful energy, mostly from fossil fuels, has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty in just the past 25 years.” We can thank fossil fuels and capitalism for that and more.
Featured photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash.
louis wachsmuth says
In regards to the quote,” the socialistic form of government they find so endearing has failed the people so miserably…” why is it that referring to ‘socialism’ is always the evil villain that destroys society? In regards to third world poverty, why not mention the fact that too many humans living in an over-populated situation, is not healthy or good even if the people had first-world living standards? Would Cornwall please establish the tipping point of the maximum number of humans per square mile that can provide a decent lifestyle? In Hong Cong which is, or was the pearl of capitalism, living quarters for common people are as small as an American clothes closet. Seen the pictures? The streets are solid people. No place to for children to enjoy nature and the countryside. Is this the total destiny for the human race as the population forever grows? All of wild nature is destroyed for massive farms to grow palm oil, corn, and soy? Oceans stripped clean by factory harvesting ships to feed ten, twenty, or more billions of humans?
E. Calvin Beisner says
1. Socialism’s failures–and worse than failures, successes at doing great evils–are historically demonstrable. Look at the countries that tried socialism, and continued trying it for a long time, in the past century: Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union and its Communist bloc of East European countries; China; Vietnam; North Korea; Cuba; Venezuela even now. Poverty prevailed in all. Indeed their environmental records are dismal compared with those of more capitalist countries, as I’ve argued in my booklet “Is Capitalism Bad for the Environment?” (https://cornwallalliance.org/product/is-capitalism-bad-for-the-environment/).
2. Population density in the poorest parts of the world (sub-Saharan Africa) is considerably lower than in Europe, the United States, and other developed areas. High population density, therefore, doesn’t cause poverty. For thorough discussion of this, see my book “Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future” (https://cornwallalliance.org/product/prospects-for-growth-a-biblical-view-of-population-resources-and-the-future/).
3. No, we won’t establish a tipping point for maximum sustainable/healthy population density. We know that it’s higher than the density of many major urban centers around the world that have low rates of disease and premature death compared with many very low-density areas, but nobody knows exactly what the “tipping point” might be. The real burden of proof lies on those who argue that we must constrain population growth, not on those who decline to embrace that argument.
4. The world’s population is highly unlikely to keep growing forever. In all developed countries, total fertility rate (children born per women) fell below replacement rate any time from the 1970s to the early 2000s, and for reasons well understood by demographers. (Basic: a 6-year-old becomes a net earner on a farm, but in an urban setting, a child doesn’t become a net earner until past age 20–so parents in urban settings typically choose to have fewer children.) See my book “Prospects for Growth” for further discussion of that. Given current demographic trends and the absence of any reason to think they’ll change, global population is likely to peak around 2050 and begin declining soon thereafter, and within two or three centuries it could fall as low as 300 million (4% of the present). See http://www.hoover.org/research/demographics-and-culture-war.
5. Guess why people are destroying rainforests to grow palm oil? I’ll save you the trouble: It’s to provide biofuels to fight global warming. Fossil fuels and nuclear provide energy at far less loss to ecosystems than wind, solar, and biofuels.
6. Aquaculture is likely to replace more and more wild fish catch as it spreads, and the peak of world population, around the middle of this century, is more likely around 8 or 9 billion than 10, and nobody’s predicting 20 or more billions.
Chaamjamall says
Racism underlies climate change just as it had the Limits to Growth and the Population Bomb
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/14/racism/
E. Calvin Beisner says
Absolutely! And a point I make in my lecture “Godly Dominion vs. Environmentalism” (https://cornwallalliance.org/2017/02/godly-dominion-vs-environmentalism/), which is also available on DVD (https://cornwallalliance.org/product/godly-dominion-vs-environmentalism/).
Kevin Benn says
“… manmade climate change, though real, is not a big problem…”
In what way do you believe man changes the climate? If so, do you have any real-world evidence of how this takes place? I think the so-called climate debate needs to be very specific in terms of the scientific basis for our arguments.
E. Calvin Beisner says
Absolutely right about being specific.
To begin with, climate change—whether we have in mind only GAST or regional or local temperature, humidity, storminess, etc.—is and for thousands of years has been both natural and human induced.
1. Humans have influenced local and regional climates by clearing forests, redirecting rivers, building dams to impound water in reservoirs, planting crops, building settlements from tiny villages to megacities, moving water over great distances through aqueducts for irrigation and other uses, and other activities for thousands of years. It was deforestation, by people gathering wood mostly for use as fuel, on Mt. Kilimanjaro’s lower slopes that led to reduced rainfall (because forests affect cloud formation and precipitation) and hence to reduced permanent snow and ice cover, not any changes in local (global would have been irrelevant) temperature. “Urban heat island” (UHI, absorption of light energy from the sun and slow release of it as heat) effect causes settlements as small as a dozen or so dwellings to have higher temperatures than undeveloped areas surrounding them, and the amount of warming from UHI rises with the size of the settlement, so that large modern cities often have temperatures as much as 10–12˚F higher than their unsettled surroundings. (The fact that many temperature monitoring stations are in urban areas biases global average temperature upward, quite possibly by as much as 100%, as discussed at https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mckitrick-michaels-cr04.pdf, https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mm.reply.pdf, https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/m_m.jgrdec07.pdf, and https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/spp.publishedversion.pdf.)
2. Human influence on GAST, almost entirely through emission of carbon dioxide and other infrared-absorbing gases from burning fossil fuels, making concrete, raising livestock, and other activities, is likely to have been significant for perhaps the last 60 to 100 years. The magnitude of this influence is what’s quantified as ECS (and in the shorter term, TCS, transient climate sensitivity, or TCR, transient climate response), which I’ve addressed above.
That adding CO2 and other “greenhouse” (infrared-absorbing) gases to the atmosphere will make it warmer than it otherwise would be is almost certain as a matter of basic physics. The interesting question is “How much?” The best answer, driven by empirical observation rather than just computer models (which consistently predict 2 to 3 times the warming actually observed over the relevant period) is likely to be on the order of 0.5 (or possibly less) to 1.75 (and very unlikely more) degrees C per doubling of CO2 concentration.
Chaamjamall says
Replying to Kevin Benn
Re: “manmade climate change, though real, is not a big problem”
The warming and its climate effects may very well be real but no statistically valid evidence has been presented to establish the assumed causal link between emissions and warming.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/19/co2responsiveness/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/31/the-carbon-cycle-measurement-problem/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/06/tcre/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/14/climateaction/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/21/boondoggle/
More ….
https://tambonthongchai.com/
E. Calvin Beisner says
Thank you for these links. The articles are fascinating and challenge my long-held conclusion that emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel use are the primary reason for rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. I’ve asked some scholar friends to evaluate for me and hope to respond with further thoughts later.