Bootstrap wrote:
People like John Cook are trying to dumb this down with simpler, black-and-white statements. That seems to be what popular culture prefers. Most people prefer a simple, vivid statement that requires no work to understand, so this often turns into a fight among Internet memes.
I don't know anything about John Cook, but I do react a bit to this idea that simple statements or generalizations are the result of "dumbing down" a subject. I find generalizations and simple statements to be very helpful in communication with people who don't have the time or the expertise to get into every detail. But it isn't a dumbing down process. It takes a lot of study and thinking to come up with good generalizations. You probably need to understand more about the subject to do that than to write the complex statements that fill this thread.
I remember about a decade ago when these things really started to hit the Mennonite circles and the grassroots of society. The debate then was whether or not global warming even exists. Back in the MD days, I remember sharing observations that I had made that made it evident that global warming did exist, but some people tried to insist that it didn't. Now that has shifted and I don't hear it anymore. Now the battle is centered on the cause of global warming. And most people recognize that human activity is at least partly to blame. The big question is, what percentage of it are we to blame for it? And what does stewardship ask us to do about it.
Again, my approach to the whole subject is somewhat different. I look at history and see the same processes at work a thousand years ago. The earth survived, and it appears that it was a natural process rather than a man-made one. Nature goes through cycles. We don't know enough about history to track it all, but we get enough glimpses to see that nature is pretty versatile. On top of this, I'm not surprised to see "the earth waxing old as a garment", since the Bible forecast that a long time ago. But that doesn't keep me from agreeing that we should do what we can.
But I know enough about computers and their problems to look at computer models with a bit of a cynical eye. And most of these scenarios we are talking about are based on computer models tied into statistics. But anyone acquainted with spreadsheet analysis knows who much that the programmer has to do with the outcome. It doesn't take much to tweak results.
Now the Lord may not return for another millennium or two. Or he may return today. But if He does wait a couple of thousand years, I predict that we are heading into another dark ages. If you look at history, you see those cycles going along with the natural cycles. I think we are pretty naive if we think that we can head off cycles that God seems to have reprogrammed into nature and human experience. We have gotten so used to being the masters of our destiny on earth that we think we can do anything.
Well I've got news for you. We can't. Read the last chapters of Job and you will get a glimpse of what God is thinking right now about discussions like this thread.
I had a call yesterday from a woman half a continent away. She has a baby with a serious heart condition. She was a backslidden Christian until a year or so ago, and she is horribly afraid that God is punishing her through her baby. I've talked with her several time over the past six months and tried to help her to find her rest in God. Yesterday, I think she finally got a bit closer to realizing that while God may be using her baby's condition to help her, he is not punishing her. She has been desperately trying to find a way to have her baby healed. But she is starting to see that she can find rest by accepting that God is a good God and what he allows is good for us, even if it seems hard.
I think we need to come to that kind of rest in this subject. Certainly that doesn't mean being careless or nonchalant. But I get the impression that Boot thinks that the whole fate of the world rests on his shoulders. And Robert seems to feel that he needs to somehow bring Boot around. And so they keep shooting past each other.
We won't solve this, because it isn't our problem to solve. Even if you got China and India on board, we wouldn't stop what seems to be a natural process. We might be able to moderate it a bit, but without killing two thirds of the world's population we won't even be able to do much of this. A good part of man's part in this is simply the overhead of life in general. If God tarries, this will pass too. Politicians will move on to the next great nonevent and people will start predicting an ice again when the world starts cooling on its own several centuries from now.
By then, I hope that we can all be discussing this in heaven and chuckling at our over reactions.
In the meantime, do your best to be a good stewart, avoid waste and over using natural resources. And tell people about Jesus, because that is more important than saving a doomed planet.
